Scaling the 6218 review wall

[l_l]

Last year, I subscribed to Wanikani for a year, and then raced through all 60 levels at near maximum speed. When my subscription ended, I was at 0/0 with the following stats:

Apprentice: 137
Guru: 1143
Master: 1475
Enlightened: 3121
Burned 3021

I thought I was done with Wanikani forever when my subscription ended. However, I realized that I had forgotten a lot of what I learned, so four months later, I decided to subscribe again. I bought a lifetime subscription three weeks ago, but I haven’t done any reviews yet, and as you can see, I’ve accumulated quite the pile.

Reviews were paused during the four months my subscription lapsed, but in the three weeks since re-subscribing, 3548 reviews have piled up. Additionally, I was worried that I’ve forgotten even a lot of the things I burned last year, so I decided to resurrect every single burned item, except for radicals, 2670 in all. Ideally, I’d have just bumped them down to Enlightened, but there’s unfortunately no way to do that. The only way to resurrect a burned item brings it all the way down to Apprentice 1, so I’ll have to review all the old items 10 more times, even though I probably already know most of them very well. Oh well, 仕方がない.

Anyway, this means I now have a wall of 6218 reviews to get through, so I decided to start another study log here to document my progress and see how long it takes me to get back to the fabled 0/0.

For comparison, here are my current stats: (it appears that one of my old Enlightened items was removed)
Apprentice: 2821
Guru: 1143
Master: 1475
Enlightened: 3120
Burned 351

[Kazzeon]

l_l

[Burnannator]

Ohh my…Is it even possible to do it all in one day?

[l_l]

@Burnannator

Ohh my…Is it even possible to do it all in one day?

I never said I’d do it in one day. I expected it to take quite a while to get through, hence starting a thread to document my journey.

That being said, it looks like this is going to take a lot longer than even I thought. My first review session after coming back was like getting kicked in the face over and over:

Although ironically, I did still manage to burn an item!

[Belthazar]

Well, that’s impressive. I have 3873 reviews to do, and people keep telling me that’s a lot. I probably should start working at it someday. Plus the new lessons they’ve added.

[s1212z]

The level system based on lessons makes absolutely no sense to me when the heart of program is based on SRS progress. There is a ‘real score’ script hanging around somewhere, it may be a nice motivator as you chop down reviews and burn a bunch.

[DIO-Berry]

@l_l

Although ironically, I did still manage to burn an item!

How economical of you

[smellslikerain]

Sounds like an interesting predicament you got yourself in… like a shounen anime character who’s arc ended, but then the story got revived and now they’re on a similar, but completely new journey. I look forward to following along~

[Urahara]

Ô____õ
=____=
● _____●"
X____X

[Juichi]

I think this is the important point for people to know. After reaching level 60 you need to get more input or continuously review in order to maintain that level. This is even more important when you’ve been cramming. I’ve noticed in the past when I’ve crammed Japanese it will be gone more quickly if I don’t re-enforce it.
Best of luck on your journey. I know if will be rough, but you’ll get through.

[dojodog]

That’s an impressive pile of reviews. I’m not exactly sure what the difference is compared to what you are doing, but wouldn’t it be easier to just reset to level one and take them back (relearn them) as they come in the original order?

Either way, should be a lot easier the second time through.

[Rego]

I feel like the original images doesn’t do justice to the scale of what is before you.

Much better.

[Letho]

I recognize 3 kanji in there. Yay.

[l_l]

Wow, this is going to be a lot harder and more time consuming than I thought. It turns out I barely know anything from the top levels. My accuracy rate is an abysmal 42%, and it would be much lower still if it weren’t for all the old easy items I resurrected (although even on resurrected items, my accuracy was only 62%).

Summary for Wed May 12 2021:
Time spent: 36 minutes
Reviews completed: 62
Reviews remaining: 6160
Accuracy: 41.94% (26/62)
Accuracy on previously burned items: 62.07%

Current item counts:
Apprentice: 2831
Guru: 1147
Master: 1462
Enlightened: 3118
Burned 353

[Madeleine123]

Best of luck. What is the best way to avoid this memory fall off? Is wk a waste of time? OP obviously worked really hard to get to level 60, just to forget so much of it…

[DIO-Berry]

@Madeleine123

Is wk a waste of time?

The key to learning anything is that you have to practice and work with it. If you don’t use it, you lose it.

[trunklayer]

Heh, and I thought I had it bad when I had about 2600 reviews
Anyway, best of luck to you!
Crash those reviews with the l_l-Force!

NES "U-Force" Commercial

[whinette]

Welcome back. This is your Crabigator’s present for not being faithful.

[ArchieBoop]

While some forgetfulness is unavoidable because that’s how the human brain works, the whole point of SRS is to optimize its amounts to minimal levels. As long as you don’t rush, and you do your reviews regularly any type of spaced repetition system (whether it’s Wanikani or Anki or Memrise) is going to work.

[rwesterhof]

You unburned everything at the same time?
2800 apprentice items - hang on - I need to breathe a bit.
I have a feeling though you know what you’re doing, setting yourself this kind of a challenge. Sometimes we need a mountain to climb. Have at it!