To Lifetime or Not to Lifetime

Yeah that’s basically the question. Will I want to do that? Or will I have moved on by then.

If you need to ask that question, then it sounds like you might not be into WK for the long haul as it is, so in that case I’d recommend NOT getting the Lifetime.

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Well, I love Wanikani, but it takes up soo much time even now.

Having more time for other stuff actually is a reason FOR lifetime :smiley:

I think you should remove your “admin” tag as this site is maintained by @rfindley and not the Tofugu/Wanikani team.

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Thanks, I didn’t know that!

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The WKStats page is being developed and maintained by a WKer just like you and me (like inspectatoro said). You can get more information and ask questions about it here:

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You are welcome. I can’t seem to find the thread right now but I believe rfindley is working on the fix. I am not sure if a timeframe was given though. :man_shrugging:

And I was Leebo’ed by @NicoleIsEnough
:sob:

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It probably depends on how quickly you learn. I am slow because I cannot dedicate a lot of time to it as I work 60h weeks and got other stuff to do. So I got lifetime just now. It took me 2 months or so to complete levels 1 to 3. Most likely I will need 3 years or more to complete the levels so lifetime is cheaper for me.

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Depending on what people want to achieve, staying on after reaching level 60 is very plausible. But staying on only 6 months after finishing the lessons only gives you a single opportunity to burn those high level items. With 12 months post reaching level 60 you get two opportunities at burning them.

My guess is that upon reaching level 60 one may have burned about 40% of WK’s items. 6 months later that rises to 70-75%, and another 6 months gives 85-90%. Personally, at that point I’ll probably consider the rest to be leeches and can spend my time elsewhere to cement them. If others also want to shoot for ~90% burns they have to consider that there’s a year left to go after reaching 60.
Lifetime at the discounted price quickly becomes interesting at that point.

On the other hand if lessoning or mastering the level 60 items is sufficient for someone, they only need a few more weeks after reaching 60 to achieve that. So… it remains a tough choice :slight_smile:

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Yeah I haven’t checked that in a little while, and this post was two years ago. I need to go check out the stats site again :blush:

Well, to be honest, if you have “moved on by then”, then maybe long hauling the site isn’t for you. Wanikani is for people really wanting to learn and dedicating themselves. If you don’t feel that dedicated to Japanese or Kanji, then you might not want to pay for Wanikani since you won’t be motivated to keep up. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do Wanikani, but seeing as you are in the level 20s, you’ll have to make that decision as to whether you are going to keep going or quit as you’ll eventually have to pay SOMETHING to keep it going, whether that is another year or the lifetime. So, sit down, count the cost, decide your interest in it, and really think about what you want to do. It seems like you are a good bit in, you’re farther than me, so why not keep going? But, again, that is for you to decide and no one to pressure you.

It’s not broken, you’re just taking longer than usual to level up.

I chose Lifetime overly yearly because I don’t like the thought of recurring payments. Much rather incur a bigger loss to my wallet now than it slowly chipping away. And if I’m done with WaniKani and burnt through everything, I can just pass off my account to my little sister if she is ever interested in learning Japanese.

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Yeah, the free one is but the subscription fee to access the full thing is way too expensive. $10 a month is steep to me. NHK Easy News has a lifetime premium access for $15 with news articles updated daily, dozens of JLPT tests for you to do as well as music videos with lyrics and a corresponding breakdown of the lyrics in English.

Only advantages Satori Reader has over NHK Easy News are non robotic voice readers, automatic translation at the touch of any word (in NHK Easy News you have to touch and drag) as well as the ability to integrate WaniKani’s API into the software.

If you are going to finish WK then lifetime is the best option if you don’t have a lot of money since you will pay more with the monthly installments (we need to adjust for the interest rate but they are low now so it should not make much of a difference). That said, if the interest rate that you pay on your credit cards is very high… then the monthly option might be better.

To illustrate consider a simpler scenario. Option 1: You pay x today or a subscription that lasts two periods. Option 2: You pay z in each of the two periods. Option 1 is better if and only if x < z + z/(1+r), where r is the interest rate (from period 1 to period 2). So if r=0, option 1 is better when x < 2z. That is, for low interest rate, you will spend less with option 1. If r is very high, then option 1 is not the best choice.

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Do Lifetime. It gives you leeway in case things happen that prevent you from finishing in your estimated time. It’s a lot up front but costs less in the end.

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Reminded me of this:

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Cost based problems aside, longer subscriptions are also a better deal then people realize because you will forget some of the meanings and readings of kanji and vocabulary over time and you may want the ability to study them some more when it happens.

In addition, some very common words, especially verbs, can have many meanings (not talking about “suru” here, but more like “above”, “cut”, and “stand”) and one time through an SRS simply isn’t going to give you a good understanding of what those concepts can do. Just like with many grammar concepts, the more exposure and effort you put into those concepts, the better your results since you still have to do the translating and compiling and you can unburn or study a word or kanji here whenever you want.

Lest not forget pitch…but point being, it isn’t all about how many kanji or words you know, it’s also about how well you can use them too.

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My God, by moved on I mean moved on from Wanikani into more immersion.

I’m not quitting Japanese this time I. I quit once 10 years ago and it was a big mistake.

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I got the lvl 60 offer of lifetime for 60 dollars. I still have a lot to burn, but I kind of don’t need more SRS in my life at the moment. Still debating it, since it would be kind of a nice thing to “complete”, even though I’m reluctant to use WK SRS after being spoiled with anki customization… :stuck_out_tongue:

Just FYI, sharing an account is against the TOS :wink:.

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