Don’t really know if I’m just sharing or looking for some motivation! It took me 2 years to get to Level 60 and then I discovered that all the earlier items I burned, I no longer remembered. I wanted to reset then but didn’t. Then I finally got a teacher so thought, now is the time to start from Level 1 and go through the kanji and vocab once more, learn and crucially put it to practice. Now, I’m lacking the motivation!! So much Japanese study available, perhaps too much! I realise I need that passion and drive back - so my teacher isn’t dragging me through, but I’m flying through!
Does anyone happen to have a similar experience or could offer a bit of advice? A thousand thank yous in advance!
Well, I too stopped doing the reviews once I’ve reached level 60…
My main source for learning and remembering kanji – is now reading.
WaniKani has done a great job to help me get to this point, I don’t think I’d have been able to do it without it. But now that I am here, I think my study time is better spent on actual Japanese reading and listening.
Even the congratulatory letter I received from WK when I reached level 60 suggested moving on to other forms of studying…
Then again, different things work differently for different people, so starting WK again might not be a bad idea at all…
In any case, whichever way you choose, best of luck with your studies!
Thank you so much for your reply trunklayer. I had forgotten about what the congratulatory email advised about moving on to different forms of study. I’ve definitely done that and, like you say, actual Japanese reading and listening does seem to be a good use of my time, so hopefully WK can be a supplement without leaning too heavily on it. It’s nice to hear someone else in the same position - discovering that once you hit level 60, it’s easy to stop reviewing things (until you burn every single item).
I’ll see how I get on Thanks for your encouragement and well wishes!
I’m at Lvl 59 now and planning to say goodbye to WK once I’ve reached Lvl 60. I already read and listen nearly every day and hope to keep doing so. I have, however, thought I might start a handwriting practice once I graduate - muscle memory is a great way to “fix” things in the memory. I tried to establish one while doing WK, but it was just one too many things to manage so I’ve postponed it till WK is out of the way.
I do have a similar experience but I don’t think you’re gonna like hearing that
After reaching level 60, I also neglected my reviews and let them pile up. First did a small reset to level 50 or so, climbed back up to 60 and then the same thing happened. When I went back to WaniKani again, I had essentially everything in my review queue that wasn’t burned (3000 items or something like that?), so I decided to reset to level 30 and.. that’s where I’ve been for the past years
I’m not ever going to climb back up
Like others here have said, at some point you’ll move on from WaniKani and using the language outside of this spaced repetition system has more benefits. I’m still enjoying the WaniKani community and it can be very motivating to share, for example, your reading experiences with others in the reading challenge threads or the readathons that happen every three months where people try to read as much as possible in a single day
That’s a great idea. In the beginning, I was talking a lot of notes, drawing the kanji I was learning from WK so maybe when that stopped, I started to forget the readings and words! Thanks for your comment!
Love these - thank you. Receiving pings when someone replies to my post is really helping to keep my motivation going, so I will definitely use those threads you’ve shared! I used to listen to far more Japanese TV and music, so perfect time to increase that again and keep up with everyone.
it’s nice to know it’s a somewhat common occurrence. Makes sense I suppose after the build up and anticipation to 60. In the height of my climb, I remembered everything and created such clever ways to remember readings I thought I’d never forget . Now I have a teacher, if I get engaged in the community posts more and partake in challenges, I thing it will work. My goal is to one day take at least the first 3 JLPTs with ease
I’ll stick with it to relearn the readings and kanji, primarily because I can use more vocab in practice. Plus, the WK community is super motivating [thank you all!!]. All this amazing advice has ultimately helped validate the other stuff outside of WK that I’m doing/trying to do!
I had the same experience. I reached level 60 some years ago (7 years?) and lost motivation due to burning out with all the intensive study that getting to level 60 quickly took. Just recently I decided to get back into WK and reset to level one. I definitely won’t be doing a speed run this time, and I hope that although I have forgotten so many things that I had “burned”, they will come back to me more easily the second time around.
As others have said, using WK or other SRS method alone will never truly burn things into your long term memory. Encountering them in the wild through reading or listening is the only real way especially if you encounter them frequently, because our brains are constantly trying to take useless information out of our easily accessible memory. But if you read or hear words on a regular basis, your brain will decide (on its own) that these words are actually important.
So this time around, I’m going to make more of an effort to read Japanese every day, and listen as much as I can as well. My own Japanese is good enough that I passed the N3 in the middle of my WK speed run (and I credit WK tremendously for helping me with the kanji portion of that test), but I know that I’m still weak at reading and understanding spoken Japanese.
I found a good Japanese learning podcast recently that I’d recommend for people at around my level called “Japanese with Shun”. It’s a guy who speaks in Japanese for about 10 minutes, and then at the end he gives some of the vocabulary he used with an English translation. Very useful for someone like me even though he labels the level N5-N4. I’m a believer that it’s better to read or listen to things at or below your level than to try to read or listen to things too far above your level.
Thanks for your reply Sezme! Great to hear your experience and the similarities to mine. I think I am on the right track in pushing harder (thanks to everyone’s motivation) with listening/reading/speaking. WK is helping re-intro the kanji, as I find that even listening and understanding (even in JP lessons) I like to see, or picture, the kanji in my head. And of course, having a big pool of vocab to use is pretty essential.
That’s very impressive passing N3 during your WK speed run. That would be a huge goal for me wow.
I’ve actually heard of Japanese with Shun! Came across him when searching for JP language youtube channels, but so much choice meant I didn’t end up choosing any channel in particular! So now you have vouched for his channel, I’ll definitely subscribe!
Also, super tip about never overshooting proficiency level!
It’s very easy to make Anki Wanikani flashcards using Claude ai. I made 6 decks, each covering 10 levels in 2 days (I have Claude pro so more credits). This allow me to have second SRS to reinforce my wanikani learning. There are a few decks out there but I found that I could use ai to make better cards - matching radical, kanji vocab colours for instance.
Thanks for your encouragement and well wishes!
it’s nice to know it’s a somewhat common occurrence. Makes sense I suppose after the build up and anticipation to 60. In the height of my climb, I remembered everything and created such clever ways to remember readings I thought I’d never forget 
. Now I have a teacher, if I get engaged in the community posts more and partake in challenges, I thing it will work. My goal is to one day take at least the first 3 JLPTs with ease