Hi everyone, I am loving wanikani so far but I need some help with what to do between reviews? I have a lot of free time and endless motivation but I just don’t know how to best use my time after I am done with wanikani. (I am doing reviews as soon as I am able throughout the day.)
I learned 1000 vocab in genki and have read some Tae Kim for grammar, that’s where I am at.
Please help me focus this motivation to the right thing. Thank you!
Keep leveling up and at some point you’ll have so much to do on Wanikani, that you’re struggling to do anything else 
I do on average around 200~ reviews a day in WK, so yes, it’s just the beginning that is slow.
Once you get to level 10+ you should see what’s closer to a full workload.
How long does that take you? I know it will depend on the person but just so I have an idea.
Keep studying grammar. Completely finishing Genki I & II only gets you to N4 level, not enough to read native material. By the time you reach WK level 20-30, you want to easily be able to recognize the potential, passive, conditional, causative, causative-passive, volitional, imperative, in the affirmative and negative, in plain and polite forms. Make sure you’re keeping up with particles and set phrases as well. Otherwise, you will reach a level where you know enough kanji to read much native material, but you will lack the grammar knowledge to understand it.
I can’t speak for gira, but whenever i have about 90~100 reviews it takes me about 10 minutes if i’m comfortable with most of the material.
Ok I will get to work finishing Genki as soon as I can then. Do you know what is the next step after Genki?
There are two volumes of Genki, and you can choose several resources after that. The next book in the Japan Times series is “An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese.” Many people also recommend “Tobira Gateway to Advanced Japanese.” You can also start reading easier material (like NHK Easy) and looking up grammar points you don’t know as you go along. Imabi.net is the most comprehensive online resource for Japanese grammar and you can usually find a very detailed article on the usage and nuance of new grammar points you come across.
This is so common we have countless of memes about it
I think OP deserves credit for asking for resources to keep him busy between reviews rather than complaining about the system and demanding that it be sped up. This differs from the usual meme post.
Like I said, it varies person by person and depending on how comfortable you are with the topics being reviewed. I usually do two review sessions per day (morning and night) plus lessons which take around 20 minutes for me when I’m learning 20 kanji/vocab. You could try out Bunpro as a grammar SRS to solidify Genki concepts if you’re looking for more SRS systems.
Thank you so much this is a gold mine for me!
Yeah, you can easily test that with Japanese text and browser extentions. That makes all the Kanji and basic vocab a nonissue. But it doesn’t make the sentences automatically easy or understandable
Ok thank you! I am still learning how the reviews work, for me its like every 1-2 hours there is a few new reviews with maybe 2 huge reviews a day.
It wasn’t meant in a mean way.
Nobody can tell you what to do without knowing your level, motivation, free time, preferred study methods, end goal etc. There is no shoe that fits all.
We have a guide with lots of useful resources that you can check out to find resources that might help you to reach your goals.
Hello @icewanikani! Welcome to the community! (:
Please see this thread for additional Japanese-learning resources to use in your spare time:
I do them in batches of 20 every hour, spending 3-5 minutes per session. So around 30-50 minutes total for a 200 item stack.
Some people do complete 100 reviews in 10-15 minutes, some people take 30-40 minutes for the same.
Assuming the 100 review items lead to 200 questions (reading + meaning), completing a question in an average of 8 seconds mean you do the full set in ~27 minutes.
There’s an even bigger difference with lessons. Some people are known to do a set of 5 lessons in roughly 5 seconds (i.e. they don’t read the lessons at all, do only reviews). Others can spend 30 mins on the 5 lessons, dissecting the example sentences, looking up visually similar items, practicing the stroke order, etc.
So… tough to predict what you should be expecting, but you do have some control over how much time you spend on WK, depending on what study method works for you.
"I have a lot of free time and endless motivation but I just don’t know how to best use my time after I am done with wanikani. (I am doing reviews as soon as I am able throughout the day.)
I learned 1000 vocab in genki and have read some Tae Kim for grammar, that’s where I am at.
Please help me focus this motivation to the right thing. Thank you!"
Start reading some native material. The sooner you start reading/listening, the better.