Things feel more difficult recently

I just recently passed level 6 but I feel like all the stuff I have learned previously is just falling of out my brain even to the point of the stuff I thought I knew well when I look at the kanji I just can’t remember it sometimes, Kind of just wanted to vent my frustration at myself really and see if anyone else has or has had the same issues while learning.

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I would say that’s fairly normal if all you’re doing is WK with no real additional practice. The optimal SRS timings for every person are slightly different and since WK has fixed intervals they’re bound to be a little past the point of being able to remember everything for all users (and similarly, they’ll be slightly shorter than they need to be for some users).

Thankfully, there is a fairly easy fix for this. Namely, add a little bit of additional self study. For example, if you do kaniwani simultaneously, which forces you to recall the vocab from English as opposed to only recognizing it, you’ll get that additional practice which will help cement the meanings and readings better in your mind and combat the longer than optimal (for you) timings.

I have quite a lot of experience with SRS systems from learning other languages and my optimal timings are a bit shorter than WK too, which means I would be in the same boat as you if I weren’t also doing KW simultaneously.

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Frustration is part of the process

some days you feel like an elephant remembering everything, some days you feel like

For me it even got more difficult on lvl 12 and then 21, and now on lvl 60 that’s how I realize how much I still have to learn.

It’s not gonna be like those modern videogames that you do everything on first try, it is more like the retro games you have to do in many attempts until you master it.

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I personlly don’t have such issues. Maybe your pace is too fast? If you feel like you’re going too fast or can’t remember the stuff from previous levels, I think you should talk the time to spend some more time on one level before moving on to the next, making sure you know everything you learned before. After all, Kanji is a marathon, not a sprint (absolutely didn’t copy this quote :wink:).

@MikeyDC65 already mentioned it, but KaniWani is a great way to both practice the Kanji (and vocab) even more and being able to produce Japanese from English more easily. One thing I’d like to add is that the Self-Study Quiz is also a very helpful and handy tool to practice Guru+ (and Apprentice times, too, of couse :wink:) items at any time, if you’re OK with using userscripts.

I wish you good luck for your future studies :smiley: :heart:

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It does get better to manage and you’ll see that past items get easier over time. So don’t beat yourself too much. The nature of the beast is that you stare into the void of incoming reviews, so you don’t appreciate what you’ve learned so far.

I wish you good luck on your studies.

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People who beat the lost levels first try: :dotted_line_face:

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Thanks for the words of encouragement everyone kaniwani looks like it will be very useful I didn’t know about it but after having done a few reviews on it now I can see this will be part of my daily routine :slight_smile:

Do any of you have experience with using the Genki books I was trying to read though it but something about it is just so off putting for me to learn anything from it.

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There are actually ways to study the Genki material online for free without even using the books (or in combination with the books) - while this link is specifically aimed at the Genki 2 book, those resources and similar are also available for the Genki 1 book (scroll down within the first post to the ‘resources’ section):

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If you’re feeling somewhat overwhelmed with wanikani at this stage and too much text like Genki is off putting, I would recommend Lingodeer as a more cheerful laidback easing yourself into grammar with short to the point explanations, when you need them.
It goes well with wanikani, and I personally found it quite refreshing when I started 7 years ago.

Some people love rote memorization, but at the end of the day context is king.
Human Japanese is also a very slow introduction to grammar, but it has a lot of text, but the writer talks with you and not at you, it’s for self learner not for learning in class, so if it’s a teaching style issue, you might want to check it out as well.

Thanks for the link to the Genki stuff Servette it looks like it will be quite useful.

I actually forgot i had bought Human japanese on ipad many years ago and never used it so after taking a look at it last night it also seems like an interesting resource to use thanks for reminding me about that 2tea :slight_smile:

I can say i’m feeling much more confident today about my studies so yea thanks to you all for the replies.

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I’m sure you’re a regular person like anyone else with other responsibilities in their life outside of WaniKani, so this causes all of us to not always keep up the pace that the SRS timings would want us to keep.

This is normal, and this will cause our learning process to not be the best, most efficient. And it has definitely caused frustrations of my own. I would recommend you take Mikey’s advice and use that KaniWani website, and also - I am not sure how many lessons you are doing a day, but everyone is different and I feel like 15 lessons a day is the max I can do where I can recall over 90% the next day. This might be more or less for you, so just play around with it the next time you unlock a level or if you have lessons right now!

Just trust the process and you’ll come out alright! This is just speculation, though. I am nowhere near the end of my journey and I only just got to level 8 two days ago, but WaniKani has a great community behind it, I’ve come to find out!

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