At my current pace, I should be reaching level 40 just before the end of this year! I’m pretty excited about that but at the same time I’m really feeling the pain right now. Lately I’ve been making a lot of errors during reviews. Part of it is probably because I started a new job and it’s taking a lot of my mental space, but another part of it feels like simple exhaustion. Also, apart from WaniKani, my Japanese studies have basically come to a halt.
I wanted to power through until level 60, but I also want to make time to improve in other areas of Japanese. I was thinking once I reach level 40, I can take a break from new kanji and instead focus on scoring well on my reviews for a while. I’d like to get back to studying more grammar and reading—or just to be more balanced in general.
Any advice from those on the other side of level 40? Thanks in advance!
Assuming you already have at least basic knowledge in grammar, I’d say you’re already at the stage where you can read native content to some extent without having to look up too much kanji, though you’ll probably have to look up many words (no way around it, I think). It’s probably worth a shot.
Not over level 40, but definitely in a similar place to you. I really like the TangoRisto app for reading because 1) it’s mobile, 2) it has a built in dictionary to look up words/kanji, 3) updates every day, 4) it pulls stories from NHK and NHK Easy. It’s a little nicer than going directly to NHK because it’s more mobile friendly and the built-in furigana/dictionary system makes it more accessible on the go.