Hi all,
I have returned after more than a year .. maybe even two years? I don’t remember… I have tons of reviews. But there is a question that I am wondering about. I have quite some burned items. These are considered to be known, but I wonder, should I resurrect them? And how would I know which ones I should resurrect? I will never be confronted with burned items after all…
What is the key advice here? Just start reviewing again as usual?
Thanks
There’s many ways to approach this. Personally I liked my approach (after a comeback of 6 months) to refresh my memory first before tackling the reviews. You can do this with scripts like the Self Study Quiz.
Then set the review order at ‘lowest levels first’ to clear the review queue. And after you cleared the queue you can continue as previously with random review order.
It does take a little bit to set up if you are not used to scripts, but they are super useful imho
Setting the review queue order
Coming back to WaniKani about 6 months ago, after more than 2 (possibly 3) years of absence, I had a similar issue.
What I found was that most kanji and radicals I have learned by that point (around lvl 12-13 at the time i think) would show up in later levels, and in general anything that was burned only took a small refresher to learn again.
So my advice is: for now, focus on clearing the thousands of reviews you have piled up. don’t do any new lessons, since you will basically be re-learning most of the lower level items anyway.
Once you are done with, if you feel it is necessary, there is an “extra study” widget that lets you go over burned items. It will remember the ones you did until it counts down to zero so you don’t have to worry about repeats.
What I did was just used the Extra Study for burned items. I don’t think it resets until you’ve gone through them though. I can’t use the userscripts and stuff, sadly, but the one in thread looks pretty useful for that.
Basically the advice i have is basically review them as chance arises and mark ones you need refreshers. And add them to anki or if a userscript does the job use that.
This is good to take note of. I hadn’t considered that complication 
I left before I had the chance to burn anything (end of Level 3) but I sure did leave myself with a review backlog
Ripping off that band-aid wasn’t fun, but I pushed to do them all in one go. You’d be surprised what you can retain in the long-term, though. I still got 85% accuracy despite dropping for 7-8 months.
(Now I intend to keep my study streak going unless any serious IRL circumstance prevents me from accessing the site Don’t want to find myself in that situation again)
I too have returned after a year or so off. I had about 350 reviews, and am down to about 250! It’s a hard slog!
i was wishing that this script have this setting.. i didn’t know_ (┐「ε:)_ thanks
I don’t know how many years I was away (3? 4?), but I think I am the only person who saw the thousands of reviews in the pile, all the burned kanji that now needed reviving, and decided to rage quit and start from level 1 again.
No regrets from me, my next 58 levels are going to be a lot more casual than the first time around.
You’re certainly not the first. Here’s my series of resets from many years ago:
From 22 to 20 to 19 to 15 to 5 to 2 (I almost reset to 1 instead of 2 but decided against it at the last moment)
You’ll notice I’m level 33 now. Those resets were almost 5 years ago. You can always come back, and you will be surprised how much better you can be the second time around.
I also came back after a 2 year hiatus and decided to restart at level 3. It’s helped jog my memory of most of the kanji, and review vocab I had forgotten I even learned.
Thanks for the advice. I also feel a bit of doubt to restart, and I fear I will be forced to wait a lot for new reviews when I reset. Also, mnemonics don’t work for me because they often just don’t make sense. i.e. I just got 考 in a review and I said きょう but it was こう and the mnemonic says something about a beggar thinking of こういち … but こういち is not even written with 考! But if you know the word 考察 for instance, you can link it to the reading, because then you know it via the word!
I just don’t see the point of these weird mnemonics and these fake radicals with abstract meanings I guess…
I was feeling like I made the wrong choice, so I appreciate your validation 
I did have a stab at unburning kanji but I quickly realised it was going to take forever. I really think there should be an option to globally resurrect burned kanji after a user set frequency. Hey ho.
I had reached level 40 before dropping out, so when I came crawling back after 3 years of zero study I just couldn’t face the pain of failing hundreds of reviews. Resetting to level 1 was the right decision for me, especially since a lot has changed since I went away - kanji level changes, new vocabulary, new radicals, new key meanings, etc. For the most part I’m fine with the changes, though I can see the point of those who dislike the non-standard radicals and not following N5-1 level content. I’m back to level 12 now and it has been easier and a bit faster this time, though I’m still seeing some of the same leaches
You might find reading this thread helpful: What's the best way to approach coming back after a very long break?
Hey there,
I also have returned after a long break. I have been to JP 8 years ago and was studying quite okayishly, and after that time, I stopped doing so. My lifetime Wanikani subscription got a bit lonely during this time.
So, maybe we and other returners and maybe some veterans could try to motivate each other to practice again? Even if its only for 5 minutes during a day. The frequency is more important than the whole amount of minutes.
I have resetted some levels, from 13 or so to lvl 4 and now slowly returning. The pile was a bit overwhelming.
