This morning, I felt mentally sluggish with a strange resistance while doing reviews just like the last few mornings. However, unlike the last few mornings, this time my accuracy didn’t suffer for it. In fact, I did unusually well at the start, completing 20 items before my first mistake.
I ended up making it through my usual goal of 100 this morning, though it took a lot longer than usual, 22 minutes compared to the usual 15-20. However, I did at least get 88% accuracy overall (and it was really effectively 89%, since one was just a missing synonym.)
On my afternoon post-work session, it was completely different. I was answering the questions instantly and going through reviews quickly, just like normal, and made it through 100 reviews in 18 minutes (plus one minute for lessons). Unfortunately, my accuracy did suffer a bit (78%).
By sheer coincidence, my review count hit exactly 2000 and my guru count hit 1000 as well.
Wed Jul 06 2022:
Time spent: 41m L1
Reviews completed: 200
Reviews remaining: 2000
Reviews in next week: 2443 (+443)
Reviews in next month: 3147 (+704)
Accuracy: 83.00% (166/200)
Fun fact: I’ve currently done a total 39604 WK reviews since starting this challenge in May 2021. And that’s despite the fact that my post-reset review count peaked a little over 5300.
Unlike the previous mornings, I didn’t feel any mental sluggishness after getting up this morning. I made it through 100 reviews in only 18 minutes with 92% accuracy!
Unfortunately, the afternoon session didn’t go so well. I also missed 黙 when it came up (due to not being able to remember the difference with 然 and guessing wrong on which one it was), so that was another setback towards leveling.
Thu Jul 07 2022:
Time spent: 24m
Reviews completed: 128
Reviews remaining: 1981
Reviews in next week: 2393 (+412)
Reviews in next month: 3125 (+732)
Accuracy: 89.84% (115/128)
After my alarm went off, I was sleepy enough that stayed in bed for another 19 minutes and didn’t start WK until 6:48. Fortunately, it didn’t harm my Wanikani prospects I actually did much better than usual, with no hint of groginess (perhaps staying longer in bed to wait for that to wear off is part of the trick?). In fact, I amazingly got through 100 reviews in just 16 minutes at 90% accuracy in the morning. The afternoon was almost as good - 85% in 17 minutes.
This morning, 黙 came up again (and of course I got it this time). It’s times like this which make me suspect that Wanikani is secretly making recently missed items come up a lot more quickly than chance, although I know that isn’t actually the case. In the afternoon, I also got 幽, which puts me in spitting distance of leveling up for the first time. For the first time (or at least in two days when 幽 is ready for review again), I no longer need to get anything right multiple times to level up. I now have enough (three) at Apprentice 4 to level up if I get them all, which makes my odds a lot higher than they were.
Fri Jul 08 2022:
Time spent: 33m
Reviews completed: 200
Reviews remaining: 1884
Reviews in next week: 2354 (+470)
Reviews in next month: 3093 (+739)
Accuracy: 87.50% (175/200)
Sat Jul 09 2022:
Time spent: 8m
Reviews completed: 39
Reviews remaining: 1899
Reviews in next week: 2350 (+451)
Reviews in next month: 3100 (+750)
Accuracy: 84.62% (33/39)
Sun Jul 10 2022:
Time spent: 21m
Reviews completed: 100
Reviews remaining: 1877
Reviews in next week: 2333 (+456)
Reviews in next month: 3084 (+751)
Accuracy: 84.00% (84/100)
I think this experiment of yours puts you at the forefront of SRS utility discussions. When you ding 60 (again), we can hardly wait to see what kind of Japanese grandmaster you will have become!
What I’ve concluded from my years of Japanese study is that SRS is helpful, but it’s not the only thing. What SRS does is help you learn words so you’ll recognize them when you encounter them in the wild. But you still need to do immersion to learn things properly.
You know, in a way I’m reproducing what you have done, but in reverse. Instead of letting my reviews pile up over time, I am doing way too many new lessons per day (60+ vocabulary sentences per day in Anki), so my review pile is ballooning week-over-week. I’ve also set my max interval to 10 weeks, so every 10 weeks I have to rehash my cumulative vocab. I have a theory that this artificially heavy workload may actually be beneficial.
Terrible accuracy today, though to be fair, I did rush a lot. On the bright side, the “shelf” and “hole” kanji came up in quick succession this afternoon, so I’m now very close to leveling. Only two kanji to go, and in two days, I’ll have three at Apprentice 4 to choose from.
Wed Jul 13 2022:
Time spent: 30m
Reviews completed: 162
Reviews remaining: 1853
Reviews in next week: 2270 (+417)
Reviews in next month: 3089 (+819)
Accuracy: 77.78% (126/162)
My attempts at WK continue to disappoint. I’m beginning to suspect that the problem is that I’ve already burned/enlightened/etc. the easy items and all that is left are the hard ones.
Fri Jul 15 2022:
Time spent: 24m
Reviews completed: 108
Reviews remaining: 1900
Reviews in next week: 2280 (+380)
Reviews in next month: 3085 (+805)
Accuracy: 79.63% (86/108)