I’m level 8 but I took a year off to learn Italian and now I’m super behind coming back and can’t get out of the trenches. I’ve also forgotten some of the old kanji I’ve burned. Should I delete everything and start over from level 1 again? Would that just be easier than doing burned reviews?
I got to Japan for the first time 6 months from now! So I’m trying to get back on track!
Hey welcome back =)
it honestly depends what you want, however if you are serious about learning Japanese, I would say PERSONALLY just go for it and reset. Learning is a journey there are no shortcuts and why not get back to where you used to be and reach even higher? Starting over is an easy solution since you will level up fast depending if you remember the stuff and hopefully you’ll be back to level 8 in no time!
I also came back from a long hiatus… I deleted my account and created a new one (had really embarassing community posts from when I was younger) so you’re not alone if you do choose to reset =)
Eitherway I hope you can start showing the crabigator who the boss is when it comes to kanji hehe
I’ve never regretted resetting. I’m taking a break from wanikani and when I restart I will probably reset several levels. The most important thing in my opinion is your mindset when you do your reviews. So do whatever would help you be motivated and not discouraged.
I personally took both a year ish break and and a half a year ish break (aka I gave up) and didn’t reset when coming back. I think the first one was when I was level 12.
I was happy with my decision. I was pretty motivated coming back and I was able to use that motivation to plow through my reviews and work hard to remember the stuff I forgot rather than sitting around waiting for new lessons. I’d say the biggest question is just how much work are you willing to put in? Not resetting is going to be faster, but take more work at the start. It you’re willing to go through your reviews, suck, and try to relearn stuff without feeling sorry for yourself and giving up the I think just continuing as is is a good option.
I have 856 burned items that I feel would be hard to just do reviews and not the SRS. A lot of them are like in my bones so luckily I remember a lot. But after combing through some of them last night there were plenty that have escaped me. I guess I could always try flash cards but it almost feels like starting over would be faster!?
What? SRS refers to the reviews. I’m not sure what this means.
Anything that is important in the first 8 levels that you have forgotten will inevitably come up later in your studies and you can learn it then. Learning Japanese isn’t some railroaded rpg. You can learn things in a pretty much whatever order you want. Knowledge that is a necessity at the start is bound to appear a lot by definition.
Resetting is definitely not faster, but if you still don’t believe me then I guess I won’t argue it any further. Every user would agree resetting is the easiest path and if you think that it’s also the fastest then there is literally no demerit and this whole thread has run its course.
You can reset levels? I thought you had to reset the whole thing!
Well granted WaniKani has had some major updates since last time I was on. SRS is the regular reviews but now you can just review your burned items, I’m under the impression that’s not SRS and you can just access those like flash cards.
As someone who has done both resetting (on several occasions) and digging through huge piles of reviews, I can say that the best option is the one that would let you start moving again. If you can resume your studying without reset – great! But if you can’t – it’s better to reset to level 1 and start moving right now than sit and contemplate the ever-gowing pile of reviews trying to muster the willpower to start tackling them (which was the mistake I’ve done).
Also, you don’t have to reset all the way to level 1 – if you feel comfortable about beginner-level items, you can reset to the level starting from which you don’t feel comfortable.
In any case, whether you do a reset or not, I hope you’d be able to get back into studying every day! Best of luck with your studies! 
I see. You can review those burned items in your free time if you want by all means. The general idea that anything thats important will be naturally learned though repeated exposure still applies, so even if there was some burned items that you had forgotten and didn’t review, it wouldn’t be detrimental or anything.