Hi everyone, this is probably a stupid idea, but bear with me please:
I recently changed my lesson order with the goal of leveling up as fast as possible - so that means doing all radicals first (to unlock all the kanji faster), then doing the kanji lessons quickly to get them into the SRS faster → level up quicker.
It has really improved my pace since I’ve done it, but now I find that I have another problem - I level up before completing all the vocabulary lessons from the previous level. I see how this can become a major problem later on if I don’t catch up and end up with hundreds of vocabulary words unlearned from previous levels, but also, getting through levels faster means learning more kanji quicker.
I figured I’d ask here if anyone else is/has been doing it like this - radicals first, then kanji, then vocabulary, as opposed to the default lesson ordering. If so, I’d appreciate it if you could share your experience - has this approach caused you any major problems? How do you deal with the vocabulary backlog?
My rule for tackling vocab is this: When I reach a new level, I must have all vocab lessons from 2 levels below completed before I start lessons at the new level. For example, when I reach level 9, I must ensure that all level 7 and lower vocab lessons are finished before I start any level 9 lessons.
Now I want to discuss some of the different approaches to progressing on WaniKani:
Speed running. Do all items at each level as soon as possible. The average WK level has 9 radicals, 35 kanji and 110 vocab items. That’s about 154 items per level. However, the lower levels often have between 180-200 vocab items. You can finish most levels within 7-8 days. So that means you would have to finish between 22 and 28 lessons a day to stick to this strategy. Let’s call that an average of 25 lessons a day. That comes to about 225 daily reviews. Personally, this number is too high for me. I like to limit my daily reviews to 150 per day max. Additionally, 25 new lessons is a very high cognitive burden for me, so I do between 15 and 20 lessons per day. So strategy 1 is out of the question for me. It can be useful for people i) who can dedicate a lot of time to WaniKani every day. ii) who already know some Kanji and a decent amount of vocab in Japanese.
Focus on Kanji only. Speed run through the levels (7-8 days per level) and only do vocab if you don’t have any radicals or kanji left to do. You can breeze through to level 60 in less than a year with this strategy (since the latter levels can be done in as little as 3.5 days). The downside is, by the time you reach level 60, you have a ton of vocab left to do. You also will likely not know a ton of readings for many kanji, because they are often only taught in the vocab items. I only recommend this strategy for someone who has already finished WaniKani, and is going through a reset and wants to level up quickly for fun.
Hybrid strategy. This involves going at a slower, more sustainable pace which is decided by the number of reviews you are willing to do per day. Then divide that number by 9, to get the number of daily lessons. Finally divide the number of items on your current level by the number of daily lessons, to see how long it will take you to level up.
Example: If you want to stay at or below 150 daily reviews, your number of daily lessons should be around 16. So for a level that has 200 items, it will take you 200/16, or about 12-13 days to level up
i have it set up this way on my phone app, but not on big-screen WK. Since as long as I get the kanji at a reasonable pace, it’s really only the radicals that I’m thinking about in terms of leveling up, since they gate the second group of kanji.
i don’t fully recommend it: new kanji are the toughest part of WK for me. i’m finding that in order to get the mnemonic to really stick, i can’t be slacking the way i can with the jukugo vocab. if i’m gobbling up all ~20-30 kanji that i can in one sitting, and ONLY them, those first couple reviews are gonna be rough.
also, idk about you, but my goal is to learn to read. you read words, not just kanji. so usually i make sure to do my vocab lessons in a reasonably timely fashion, because they’re more rewarding for me.
I’ve been doing this too and I too have run into the same problems. When I leveled to level 7 three days ago I found out my level 5 vocab is mostly untouched. That’s when I realized I’m shooting myself into my own foot my approach might have some tiny flaw. Anyway, I can’t give you any recipe, but since I’m in similar position, I’ll share my thoughts and conclusions.
Increasing lessons per day a lot won’t work for me, the review load down the road would be too overwhelming and might cause me to quit. So that’s a no go. (Though I’ll cautiously add one 5-lessons batch and see how that goes.)
Ignoring vocabulary backlog wouldn’t work for me either, because I’ve already realized the vocabulary lessons are what actually cement my knowledge of kanji!
There doesn’t seem to be any other choice for me than to slow down the leveling up. However I like having my options open, so I’ll mostly keep the optimized order of lessons to unlock next level sooner rather than later (all radicals on the first day → first group of kanjis in the next two days → radical-locked group of kanji maybe split into two days). There won’t be usually enough of these mandatory lessons to fill my daily goal, so I’ll be tackling the vocabulary continuously too.
I LOVE this aproach and I’ll follow it. Based on my own experience this is the optimal threshold to watch. It gives nice early, but not too early balancing warning.
I tried speedrunning the levels by doing all the radicals when unlocking a new level. I tried to keep my apprentice items around 100, but still ended up with about 100 lessons when I woke up, then another 100+ to do throughout the day. Got to level 17/18 then reset to level 1, I just couldn’t keep up. I suppose it depends how much time you can dedicate
I used to speed run my stuff, but then I ran into issues with too high of a queue and I was at 400, 500 reviews a day which was unsustainable and now I have to slowly burn down my apprentice queue to 60/70 so I can have sustainable review cards before I accelerate again.
I was doing 25 cards a day but with abysmal success rate so of course it ballooned to 250.
I’ve detailed my experience so far in the level up thread, and I do radicals and kanji first, 20 a day. My target is to finish each level in roughly 8 or 9 days - which isn’t quite speedrunning, since that would try to hit the ~7 days for each level precisely, but this lets me buffer it out and do roughly 6 or 7 kanji per day on average at my current levels and gives me enough time to clear the last levels vocab while I’m waiting for the remaining kanji to unlock. I’ll occasionally take a level much slower (10-11 days) to clear up the vocab if it blows up, and remember, you will always be struck by life priorities when you don’t want to.
Trying to speedrun is fine, but it will make it quite stressful, and even then it’s a long run for an year before you are done, so it’s better to find your comfortable pace over burning yourself out. Burn kanji, not your mind!
I reset after reaching about level 43-ish, thinking about trying to speed-run kanji+radicals only, since I’m using other ways to study vocab. It should be possible, right? There’s no vocab lock at some point?
Anyway, I can’t give you any recipe, but since I’m in similar position, I’ll share my thoughts and conclusions.