The unofficial SLOTH club

I was watching Seven again last week and was reminded of the seven deadly sins. Would you like to know what the punishment for sloth was?

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I am also slow, but really enjoying it. Discovering that there was 112 vocabs to learn at level four was a real shock, but I too am doing my best to learn 50 things a week and staying the course. Doing wanikani reviews twice a day was such an easy habit to form and it’s so rewarding when I have a good day and get 95+% accuracy on a set.

Here’s to taking our time! :beers:

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Well, if you feel comfortable living in Japan without knowing the language, congrats, you don’t need it :slight_smile:

I’m in a similar situation in Scandinavia. Have no motivativation to learn the local language whatsoever. 99% of the people here speak English fluently. Note, I’ve learnt enough vocabulary to do my shopping and I’ve even got a B2/B1 for listening/reading but when it comes to speaking I’m at a kindergartener’s level :sweat_smile:

But my passion is Japanese language, so I find a few hours every day to do some kanji reviews, grammar studies, listenting practice etc. There’s too little time to do everything that could’ve been good.

So, why study kanji then @marcusp?

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This thread is perfect for me Xd i‘m so slow, it almost hurt :joy: i started fast with the first levels and got slower and slower.
My slowest level was around 200 days I think :thinking: and right now I‘m at 79 days for my actual level :joy: but I finally lerned and unlocked all kanji for this level, so I might level up in a few days. But then I have 100new vocab lessons again and it will take me ages to finish level 8 :joy:

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I started WK in March of 2014! (I reached level 2 just 894 days afterward.)

Once I got started, I keep my average level-up pace at around 24 days. I find that’s the right amount for good retention for me. I’m in my 40s and have a busy life, so I have a good sense of what it takes to make something stick. I’m also planning to run through the entire program again as soon as I’m done. Since I spend a lot of time in Japan, my goal is simply to be able to read fluently. I don’t live in the “expat bubble”—I rarely spend time with foreigners outside language school—so it makes me very uncomfortable to be unable to read. Anyway, lifelong learning keeps my brain healthy, too.

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Here is my inspiration. @quadban senpai. My journey of 2315 days (dedicated to all slow-goers out there)

I also always remember insights from many senpai here. Including @plantron senpai on how to zero “gigantic” reviews in x (replace x with n weeks or months). I can’t point directly to the exact link but that tip’s in my heart anyway. Shouganai ne.

It’s also a relief to always remember @MissMisc senpai about not to worry when we get red. Missky always makes me feel better.

It’s 大丈夫 to feel embarassed as long as you don’t quit. Where I live, being shy is better than loud and proud and snobbish.

がんばろう!

PS. For any other regular, I moved this to Campfire, because I saw some good posts but deleted because it’s public. I hope we won’t delete good posts again. Feel free to move it back to WaniKani sub again later if you want.

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Hello everyone, I think I belong to this club. I started in September 2018 but my pace dropped with time. Currently, I’m trying to do an average of 50 lessons per week. I’m also doing like 5 Bunpro lessons per week too.Sometimes, I like to watch some anime. I’m currently watching Shirokuma café with japanese and english subtitles. It’s nice when I can understand the meaning of something being said or something written. :smiley:
Good luck everyone!

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Also, do “most people” really go fast, or is it just that people who go fast tend to talk about their speed more than those of us who go slowly?

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To be honest i am not sure! Most people who are active on the forums sure seem to go much faster than me…but its hard to know for sure

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I’m kinda in the same boat tbh. I started WK nearly 2 years ago, and it’s a bit sad to come across other peoples’ posts of them speeding through levels in 7 days or so, because I keep thinking I could be like that yet I’m still on level 13. I even managed to get to a point where I was going through levels that quick, but thanks to a host of RL issues, I’ve had to pause my learning and at one point after slacking off for like 2 months, and trying for almost 4 to recover from the review pile, I had to drop down several levels and relearn the things while making my way back up. Thankfully that did the trick and while I’m taking 2 weeks (on average) to beat a level, I’m actually levelling up and continuing to learn, instead of sitting there without motivation.

The thing I’m realizing though is that it’s more akin to a marathon than a sprint, and so long as I’m showing up, then I’m making progress. I’m almost back at level 14 (where I was before the reset) but am taking it easy and being strict with capping my apprentice items at around 100 so that I definitely can do my reviews every day, regardless of what happens IRL, and if I miss a day that’s not something I can’t recover from. It’s definitely going to take me a long time to get to the point where i can read native material fine, but that’s okay. One of my favorite quotes is by Earl Nightingale: “Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”. I really believe that. And the great thing is that with WK I feel like I’m actually learning and the things I learn are sticking. When I started I didn’t think I’d be able to learn Japanese, and was so overwhelmed at there not even being anything close to resembling Latin letters. I thought Kanji was this impenetrable wall. Now however, I can actually read (and/or listen to) some things, which is always surprising when it happens outside of WK, and my vocab is slowly, but steadily growing. Ironically, I just learned the word steadily today - 着々:D. So you’re not alone, but so long as you show up daily and keep putting in the effort, you’ll definitely get there :D.

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I like how everyone says they’re moving slow, but are still doing 50 lessons a week. Meanwhile I’m over here barely able to 20 lessons a week. :sweat_smile:

I should save up that sweet $300, cause I know I’m gonna be here awhile! At the very least I haven’t burnt out yet. :innocent:

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I’ve been at it for five years and I’m on level 15. And I feel like I’m always doing reviews throughout the day. I wish I could level up faster but I’m enjoying myself and love learning Japanese so I can’t complain.

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A slow one is I. I’m coming up on my second year anniversary at level seventeen.

I’m just happy with what I’ve learned so far.

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Started mid-February, well into level 8 now, compared with most people who post on this board that probably counts as rather slow. My pace is determined by my doing exactly 10 new lessons a day, every day, so I can keep up with the reviews. I had this lightbulb moment a month or so ago when, after literally years of doing a lot of studying with SRS (Anki, mainly) I finally realized that a SRS makes no sense at all when you don’t get through your reviews when they come up. So I’ll rather go slow and systematic rather than rush and then be overwhelmed. I am also studying vocab and grammar with an Anki deck of my own, plus I care for doing my KameSame reviews as they come up, so that really limits me. And with three kids and wife who also works there really isn’t a lot of time in the day for learning Japanese. So I try to make this hour or so per day count. :wink:

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And I am a big fan of sloths. Always been. :innocent:

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Sorry, I deleted the post in question. Can you please delete the post I am replying to?

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Resetting seems to mess with your stats!

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Same lately. I always tried to stay at about 125-150 reviews per day. All of sudden it jumped to like 450 listed per day because all the old items coming back all at once and… well I’m still doing 125-150 a day so my review count looks ridiculous and I cannot move on to the next level without doing 400 a day for a few days or something.

Oh well. I’m sticking with what I can do. Not a race.

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