Quick quide to fast unlocks [Use at your own risk, skipping items is generally not a good thing in the long run]

[kozumikkucrepeon]

*sighs

What I wouldn’t give to be on the receiving end of sass from @Leebo. It must be even more incredible than petting a unicorn…

[amagi]

Hi Zioming!

So I wonder if by cheating you mean looking up the words as you do the reviews. I think a faster way, and forgive me if this is what you meant, would be to use the ignore user script.

WaniKani Override

I think that most people after being on WaniKani for a while start downloading userscripts because it is annoying to get something wrong that you knew, but misspelled or to see, 八日, but answer はちがつ. Even though you know the difference you just misread it.

I agree with your guide though. I think it’s smart to give yourself a pass until the items are guru level. Apprentice level you are still “learning”.

I was getting, 元, the vocab, wrong for a while. I couldn’t remember anything but げん. But I would override the wrong answer and the click the eye to reveal the answer, もと. I don’t feel that this is totally cheating because after I check the answer and it is ignored, it is cycled back into the reviews and I will have to answer it right later that session, albeit only a minute later but still.

[zioming]

“So I wonder if by cheating you mean looking up the words as you do the reviews. I think a faster way, and forgive me if this is what you meant, would be to use the ignore user script.”

Pretty much.

I didn’t know about scripts, but I did misspell things plenty of times before

[Saida]

@oryantge

was getting, 元, the vocab, wrong for a while. I couldn’t remember anything but げん. But I would override the wrong answer and the click the eye to reveal the answer, もと. I don’t feel that this is totally cheating because after I check the answer and it is ignored, it is cycled back into the reviews and I will have to answer it right later that session, albeit only a minute later but still.

Do you then get it correct at the next review stage? Or did you still only remember げん?

[amagi]

I got it NOW! The first kun’yomi reading that actually gave me a little trouble (this time through the first four levels).

[Pep95]

SRS is mostly about retention though. Since you don’t take the first few smaller SRS steps, you’ll start your SRS with steps of one week, which is too big for human retention. Those items are almost guaranteed to fall back down to Apprentice anyway.
If that works for you that’s fine, but it might be inadvisable to put down as a general guide.

[zioming]

@oryantge

I don’t feel that this is totally cheating …

I love paradox games for allowing you to use the console commands. I can always help someone fall of a staircase, if it happens to give me personal union with Spain

[rever4217]

This “quide” had me going “bruh” the whole time.

[zioming]

Pretty much, if you don’t remember them after the 5 tries, you fall back to the beginning after the first wrong answer anyway.

[Pep95]

A good piece of advice that has helped me a lot is that your Apprentice count dictates how busy you’re gonna be doing reviews. At how many Apprentice items do you stop adding lessons?

For me, 100 was best, but maybe you have a higher bar?

[Politeod]

@zioming

It slows down the learning speed, so it’s only useful if you’re already managing the current load and want to increase it, which is often the case on the first few levels.

But if you can’t even remember your current items (since you have to cheat to get them right) then you surely aren’t ready for more?

[zioming]

I didn’t really use this method, I just came up with it, currently I’m at 134, 208, 242, 387, 226 with doing reviews in series of about 50, and the backlog of 150, I didn’t have time to get rid of it this week.

[zioming]

@Politeod

But if you can’t even remember your current items (since you have to cheat to get them right) then you surely aren’t ready for more?

It’s about cases like when you push all the items to Master, but had a couple lagging items that held you back, so you only get 50 items a day.

[Pep95]

Are these your Apprentice guru master etc? You have already burned stuff?

[amagi]

@zioming

Unlocking items works as follows. When you look at your dashboard, under the progress bar for your level, you’ll find lists of Radicals, Kanji and Verbs associated with that level. Under each Radical and each Kanji you’ll find and empty bar, 1 to 4 dots or a full bar, representing your current progress with that specific item on a scale from got it right 0 to 5 times on the first try in a review. Once you get an item to 5 times it counts as learned and unlocks another item. Radicals unlock Kanji, and Kanji unlock Vocabulary items (which don’t unlock anything, but are great for learning the actual uses of each Kanji) and more importantly Radicals for the next level.

Definitely look up userscripts they have saved my life. The override script is so necessary.

I want to clarify the above paragraph:

The Level progress section actually only includes Radicals and Kanji, because those are the only items necessary for level up, as you said. The five bars represent, Apprentice 1, Apprentice 2, Apprentice 3, Apprentice 4, and Guru 1. It doesn’t matter if you get it right the first time doing the reviews. it just matters that you progress through the levels to guru.

You will notice an item is guru because a green guru will pop up when you complete the apprentice 4 review, and the 5 dots will be a solid green bar in the progress section. If you get it right, you go up a level. Get it wrong, down a level. There is no problem with getting it right three times, wrong once, and then right two times. This will still get the item to guru 1. Completing the item in four correct reviews is faster though, as you said.

Once you have gotten 90 percent of the kanji in a level to guru you will level up. For instance for level 7 you only need 30 of the 33 kanji to be guru level, in order to level up. And you can’t be unleveled if you fail those kanji from down to apprentice after leveling up.

[zioming]

I think I’ve started a year ago, I got to lvl 3 in December, I remember I bought the lifelong access pack exactly on the day of my birthday

I have been taking my time with it, so I’m only on lvl 7 now

[zioming]

Let me correct that.

[zioming]

@oryantge

The Level progress section actually only includes Radicals and Kanji, because those are the only items necessary for level up, as you said. The five bars represent, Apprentice 1, Apprentice 2, Apprentice 3, Apprentice 4, and Guru 1. It doesn’t matter if you get it right the first time doing the reviews. it just matter that you progress through the levels to guru. You will notice an item is guru because a green guru will pop up when you complete the apprentice 4 review, and the 5 dots will be a solid green bar in the progress section. If you get it right if go up a level. Get it wrong down a level. There is no problem with getting it right three times, wrong once, and then right two times. This will still get the item to guru 1. Completing the item in four correct reviews is faster though, as you said. Once you have gotten 90 percent of the kanji in a level to guru you will level up. For instance for level 7 you only need 30 of the 33 kanji to be guru level, in order to level up, and you can’t be unleveled if you fail those kanji from down to apprentice after leveling up.

Wait, so does that mean that you only get to Apprentice by getting it wrong after getting it to Guru? Otherwise what’s the difference between Unlocked and Apprentice (or is there none)?

[amagi]

Unlocked puts it in your lessons.

Complete the lesson to get it to Apprentice 1.

Complete the review four times to Guru 1

Unlock, Lesson, Apprentice 1 or A1.
A1, correct review, A2
A2, correct review, A3
A3, correct review, A4
A4, correct review, Guru 1.

If you get a Guru 1 review wrong it will drop down two levels to Apprentice 3. Apprentice level items will only drop down one level.

[Pep95]

Have you just recently picked it up again at full speed? Or do you spend 2 months on average per level?