Reviews are overwhelming

WaniKani Tips & Tricks
#36

Hey, @stuntman64!
I know I’m still way at the beginning and cannot say much about the way WK works. But I do understand the feeling of frustration when it comes to language learning. Sometimes it feels like we reach a plateau that’s very hard to get out of.

As many have mentioned, it does help to review and consolidate what you’ve learned. If your accuracy has dropped to 50-60%, then it might be a good option to review those items differently. Personally, what has been really helpful is KaniWani and KameSame. Everyday, I do my WK reviews and right after go to KW and KS. It’s like a triple review and it doesn’t take time more than 20 minutes to get all these three done.

My accuracy had dropped, but after doing this consistently, it has picked up. Take your time and focus on really learning those items that don’t let you move forward. After a while you’ll have everything under control :blush:

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#37

when my review goes bad and i feel i should have known that item, i react immediately. instead of pushing through, i plan the next review session and close the wanikani tab.

we’re not 100% at our best 100% of the time. if we’re sloppy or impatient or get angry and make matters worse, we need to stop, take a step back and think about it holistically. what’s wrong? am i preoccupied? tired? hungry? do i need something to drink, some fresh air, a nap?

maybe it’s just me, but i do have phases where i stare at the screen in disbelief, then i analyze my emotions. if i’m just confused, i force a reshuffle. if i’m annoyed, i reschedule.

6 Likes
#38

Using cell phone for reviews is a bit of a pain in the お尻 because of the typos :angrymami:

7 Likes
#39

尻痛
けっつう
pita

created ad hoc on wk just now

1 Like
#40

Sometimes but other times I actually prefer the cell phone because the auto complete gets smarter so when you have a long definition, it is faster with the cell phone than with a computer.

#41

Just to echo what others have said, I would first try to get your leeches under control before proceeding with any more lessons. To do this, you could simply look through your apprentice items and read through the readings, meanings, and mnemonics as needed. You could also use the Self-Study script to review certain items based on things like item type and SRS level. Once you get rid of many of your leeches, your apprentice count will drop dramatically and your reviews will begin to lessen.

Did you say that you do any studies outside of WK? Grammar studies or beginner reading? I find that those tend to go hand-in-hand with WK because you’ll encounter a ton of beginner words there and see how they’re used in context. That will in turn reinforce your knowledge of them and ensure you’re more likely to get them correct in WK reviews because of general comprehension.

It may be a little while before your review numbers drop due to how long it can take to get items to Guru and beyond, but if you address those failing items, you will get there eventually.

#42

how is that possible

I use gesture typing on the phone and it’s still much slower than a real keyboard, plus it gives the tendons in my hand carpal tunnel if I do it too much :frowning:

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#43

This is only for some words with long meanings. Say you have 気に入る, after one types “to be pleased with it” many times, the autocomplete “learns” and already gives you “to be pleased with” after you typed the first few letters. Also, probably helped that I was using my cell at that time, to only do WaniKani reviews.

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#44

I only do wanikani in vertical mode on my phone, and I am TERRIBLE at typing in vertical mode. My typos are INTENSE
Luckily I use a wanikani app with the ignore feature.

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#45

There are people who don’t turn autocomplete off?

6 Likes
#46

I’m in between Textfugu and Genki series. Ugggh. Maybe Christmas will change that.

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#47

If you have reviews, don’t do any new lessons. Instead, just pick a fixed number of reviews that you want to do every day and do just that amount. Once you work through all the reviews, then do some new lessons.

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#48

I’m curious as to how many lessons a day you’re doing (or did?)… I’m at the same level you are but I’ve been going really slow on lessons for the last 2 levels or so because I have less time to devote to WK… But before that I rarely did more than 5 lessons a day, as it would be difficult for me to retain more than that…

#49

Um, you say you only have 50~60% accuracy, and that’s worrying. I rush through lessons and blast through reviews like a madwoman, and yet, at my worst, I’ve done 75% or so. I rarely dip below 80%. With 50%, you’re bound to have that size of review queue because of the sheer amount of things that will be in Apprentice.

Are you studying some japanese on the side? Like, not necessarily going deep into grammar, but exposing yourself to the language and its phonology? Do you have a firm understanding of kana? Because without those things, Wanikani is not going to make a lot of sense.

You could also have memory issues, but if you did, I figure you’d know it by now? I once knew a guy who did, and just about any test on any subject was hard for him.

#50

I like to use my cellphone for on-the-go reviews (I take the bus, so I do it on the way to and from work, as well as on my breaks.)

However, I will usually do large amounts of reviews (50-100) on the computer, since I can type faster.

When I was a higher level, I stopped doing reviews for a couple months and ended up with ~400 reviews. I did the same thing a lot of people are saying here.
Stop doing lessons and focus on your reviews.

Set a limit for youself to prevent overworking, either number, time, or both (I used to set a 30 minute limit/50 review, whichever came first).
And if you notice yourself making easy mistakes, stop and try again later when you can focus. (Doesnt matter if you made it through 5 or 500 reviews, your brain has days when it is simply too tired to study)
Depending on your situation, sometimes a reset can help solidify the problem kanji. I found I was struggling with early level kanji in the wild, so I reset and it did help the first time, because I needed it. I recently reset a second time just to reduce reviews and regret it, because I know most the items and so the levels just drag on and on.

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#51

I have 1028 reviews right now and it is a monstrous weight on my shoulders for continuing my studies. I don’t even want to think about doing more lessons until i get this down to 0. I am lacking motivation big time, and every time I start trying to cut it down I can’t get passed 20, and that’s how I got here to begin with. It started at 700 in August, back when I took a few weeks off.

Ugh.

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#52

good reason to bite the bullet and do em all at once.
better pain at the end than endless pain.

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#53

If you stop caring about accuracy, you can probably do over 150 in an hour. Set aside an hour everyday and just power through them as quickly as possible. You should be able to hit zero in about a week.

That’s my experience, anyway.

#54

So, does critical items section slow me down? I have over 140 citrical items. Would leech training help this issue? How can I get that working?

#55

Try this script:
https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/35031-wanikani-leech-trainer

Yes, critical items are pointing out poor accuracy. Believe me, this will slow you down massively until you learn to improve accuracy. A good chunk of WK is learning how to learn.

I’ve pointed a few people in the direction of this podcast… it may help you envision how to make the mnemonics work for you for better retention:

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