SRS system should be more flexible

I think this story captures the essence of WK, just not enough burning turtles.

Also, getting to the fast levels while going max speed
 I still have nightmares to this day


Why was this flagged?

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Yeah, I don’t get it either.

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You have to give yourself time to forget to know if you truly remember.

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If you want to study more, you could use the self-study script? It won’t count in your SRS, but you can make sure stuff is well and truly in your short-term memory and keep yourself busy for another few minutes if you want.

After you’ve done that, though, I really recommend leaving stuff alone and letting your brain rest.

I remember when I started I was worried I wouldn’t be able to build up enough of a habit if reviews ended so quickly with little to do afterwards. “How am I going to remember to come back?” It was just over too soon. I can assure you that this problem is far more rare as you start hitting level ten and beyond—lessons come and go but reviews are just about eternal.

Try to remember that you can always practice what you’ve just learned in a different way. You could practice writing the kanji you just learned, for instance, write short sentences with them, or build mnemonics for the ones you feel like you might forget soon. You could check out bunpro or kaniwani. Or you could set a timer on your phone to remind you when your next reviews are coming in, so you have a prompt to log back in when there is more to do and you don’t have to worry about it in the interim. These activities are totally up to you.

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I would change WK to directly give you most of level 1 on day one instead of tinkering with the SRS intervals, one level at once shouldn’t kill you, and it is a bit odd to wait for your first kanji.

But in the end the first three levels are free and learning kanji needs a bit of endurance, the “WK is slow problem” solves itself after a while.

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From personal experience, level 1 is really boring, but it already picks up by level 2. Just the fact you start learning actual words makes it a lot more interesting. At that point, you can also start KaniWani and/or KameSame if you want to strenghten recalling abilities or want to kill your free time.

Being able to start on level 2 would be so nice. It’s also not a terribly big workload to do at once. 110-ish lessons to start with. It’s like a levelup lesson batch (level 10 part 1 had like 120 lessons), but instead of getting two sets of vocab, you get two sets of radicals.

dunno. i wrote a warning and used a spoiler, and yet people reported it, hehe.
that’s why peanut bags have “contains peanuts” written on it.

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@OmukaiAndi it certainly was one odd and colorful story, but I didn’t mind


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Let’s trust it was flagged by accident

That can happen

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I remember the day I was bombed with 100+ lessons/reviews
 enjoy the calm before the storm while you can! It doesn’t get any easier, but more doable.

These threads often turn into a pile on, but believe me, you’re not a bad person for asking. A LOT of people feel that way at the beginning; it’s totally normal.

The problem is, when you do a lesson, you aren’t just doing the one lesson. You’re committing yourself to eight reviews over the next 6 months for each one you do. When those start coming due, you’ll have new lessons and those associated reviews as well. If you do too many now, the work you’ve committed to is unsustainable. That’s not intuitively obvious now when you have no older items to review in the waiting periods, but it’s true nonetheless. Search the forum for people in double-digit levels saying it’s too slow - you won’t find very many, if any at all.

I know you’re excited now, but the answer isn’t to do more lessons. Take this time to survey some of the other resources out there. For becoming proficient in the language, you’re going to need more than WK’s kanji anyway; you’re going to need grammar and vocabulary. Might as well check out BunPro for grammar - BunPro has a free trial period and you can take on as many lessons there as you can handle. For vocabulary, try a N5 vocab deck on Kitsun.io, memrise, or something like that. Try learning to write the ones you’re given, even though WK doesn’t ask for that. Try to read a manga. Some of those things might satisfy your excitement, and you might even continue them when the WaniKani pace picks up.

I used to think it should be more visible in the FAQ, or even a required click-through before you start to explain this, but now I think that wouldn’t even help. It’s one of those things you just can’t tell someone. They won’t believe it and will take on too much anyway unless there is a hard limit on the lessons.

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Here goes another one


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I would say it’s difficult to have perspective when you’re just starting.

I’ll share some experience. Before doing WK, I’d gone the route of studying kanji on my own using Anki and a deck of all 2136 standard use kanji. With that application, you can do as many new cards per day as you like. Starting out, it feels really easy, so you might find yourself taking on quite a bit of new material.

But
 it was easy to fall into the trap of taking on too much at once, and didn’t really realize it until its too late.

I really think its best to just stick with the schedule that WK uses.

Of course, WK is but one small portion of the Japanese learning experience. So if you have spare time - fill it with something else. Do a custom Anki deck of common words not found in WK. Study grammar. Practice listening and speaking.

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