So, I guess it’s not only me, but recently whenever I level up there are many open items to learn from previous level.
Usually it was just a couple, but now it’s around 100 words and maybe 5 kanjis.
Do you recommend me to organize my lessons to kill those remaining items from previous level? or just go with the flow, let Wanikani organize my lessons however the algorithm think’s is best.
I go very slow (5 lessons a day) so i guess if i don’t pick them manually this will become a hell of open items in the near future
I go on a similar speed as you (3 to 6 items a day), and I noticed I learn Kanji the easiest when I also got their corresponding vocabulary. I have been handpicking my lessons for quite a while now, always picking 3 Radicals/Kanji and then additional vocabulary to fill it up.
On level up I always make sure I have all the items from the previous level in my reviews. I don’t know if this is for everyone though. I usually do not look at how many of them are still to be guru’d, only slowing down when I feel like the load is too much, but this is not level-up dependent. It does occasionally happen I unlock vocabulary from the previous level later, these I then add first before continuing.
If you do not want to handpick you can also order items are added in Settings → App → Interleave Advanced Lessons to off. I haven’t tried it but from the description it looks like it then will add it by level opposed to combining it.
So WaniKani levels you up when you complete 90% of the kanji of the current level. I believe it does this so that you can keep learning new kanji while you wait for the last 10% to guru. However, this usually means you end up with a TON of vocab piling up from previous levels.
What I personally do is always use advanced selection, select one kanji, and 2+ vocab. This usually means I get through about half the vocab for that level before hitting that level up window. However, I’m a completionist so I don’t learn the final kanji needed to level up until I’ve completed all the vocab available.
To answer your question, it’s really just personal preference. If you just want to learn kanji and don’t care about vocab, then just blaze through and select only the kanji. I personally feel that vocab helps reinforce the kanji and also teach you new pronunciations for that kanji. That being said I believe WaniKani will give you items in this order: Radicals → Kanji → Vocab; they will also sort by level (lowest first). I’ve only used the Advanced selection ever since it was released so they may have changed the recommended lessons.
i’m also going somewhat slowly, at ~3 weeks per level
i don’t know your current speed, but if you’re okay with taking your time, i would recommended doing more vocab than kanji per session, or even do only vocab until you’re caught up
what i do is one radical (because there aren’t many at my level, but they gate everything else so need to be done asap), two kanji, and five or six vocab
after you’re caught up, maybe something like one radical, one kanji, three vocab could work for you
Personally, I’ve noticed this but don’t overthink it. I’m a simple person in some ways and IMHO ten minutes stressing about the perfect order or old lessons still having vocab is ten minutes of reviews, reading or walking the dog that you’re missing out on. I just power through now and only worry about keeping the total number of upcoming reviews manageable. I aim for around 100 a day give or take but in all honestly happily let it get to 100-150 if that happens. (Almost) Every failed review is one step closer to it clicking in my mind.
regarding failed reviews
according to wksts i have like 80% of accuracy level (both reading and meaning)
some kanjis/vocabs goes out fast to burn, while some others stay for ages (now i’m struggling with all combinations of going out, taking out, carrying out, which i constantly mess up)
there are just some vocabs that love to stay in my learning deck
Same. I also, at least at my current level, have a fair bit of latent vocab knowledge from time in Japan many years ago as well as off and on study / immersion over the years. Sometimes I level up and dread new words and some of them are super easy as I know them already from other sources. I burn through them fast because in all honesty I already knew them.
Same as you though, some just ping pong for me back and fort between apprentice / guru. It used to annoy me when an item I would know 8/10 times failed - now I just go with it. Eventually it will stick or I will just learn it by brute failure - same as most people learning their native language.
There are other strategies but I use Advanced selection - normally to do a mix of Kanji and Vocab lessons, but when I am approaching the end of the new Kanji on my current level, I keep one more than is needed for levelling up as pending, and I only pick Vocab lessons until they’re all done. That way I only get new Vocab associated with the final Kanjis appearing in the lesson queue, and the Vocab backlog stays small.
I’m probably an outlier here, but what I do is I clear all the radicals and a few kanji, then do the previous level’s vocab all at once. It’s a great way to really hammer in the different readings for kanji you already learned, but it’s probably too tiring for most people. If you stay on top of your reviews and learn the level’s kanji gradually, you unlock new vocab gradually too, and by doing those immediately after the review sessions that unlock them, you don’t end up with a gigantic previous level vocab pile when you level up.
I like doing what I refer to as ‘productive friction’. Getting a review bomb of 300+ items per day for several days because I keep doing grammar in massive chunks forces me to do more at once, but I encounter the same kanji over and over and over during a single review session as a result, which I find makes it a lot easier for me to learn than spreading it out which I tried on early levels and didn’t really enjoy.
I just got to level 9 but have 205 outstanding vocab from levels 7 and 8. I didn’t mean this to happen and it’s very out of character for me, but I got a taste of (almost) speedrunning a level and did that two levels in a row which was a big oops.
I KNOW I benefit from doing the vocab at the same time but I don’t want to suddenly spend ages on a level so I am trying to gradually catch up when I have a nice quiet day.
And I definitely cherry-pick vocab visually or using the new Wanilog tool.
