Hello all,
I realize now that for the past 10-15 levels, I’ve been rushing through my reviews and memorizing the kanji by look instead of by radical and mnemonic. This turned out to not be very sustainable. After a decent break from lessons (my apprentice count was around 160 and I couldn’t keep up with the 300+daily influx of reviews), I thought I’d use the time to let the SRS do it’s thing and gradually reduce daily lessons. Well I didn’t keep up with it and now I’m buried under over 700 reviews. Worst of all, I’m averaging around 69 - 72% when I do a sizeable review. Should I rewind to level 10 and take my time back through and lose months of progress? Or should I keep tackling the SRS? I just haven’t been doing well on the reviews at all and this frustration is making wanna give up on WK as a whole. I need this to be more manageable again…
69 - 72% is still pretty good! I’d keep going, using what you learnt to steadily improve and build on what you know already. Maybe just each time you encounter one you struggle with go back and look at the radicals. Some words you will just know and getting that instant recognition is that aim so your method isn’t bad, just a bit different.
well done for sticking with it for so long - you can do it!!
Are you swamped with leeches? I mean do you have a number of troublesome items that keep coming back and clog your review pile? You may consider doing extra studying especially for leeches to get them out of the way. I don’t know if you can afford this with a 700 reviews pile though.
I’d say this depends on how you memorize things. If you keep on going through your review pile, do you think that words will eventually stick after all the repetition? In which case I think continuing with the SRS will be better. (70% also really isn’t that bad, I think you should still be able to progress.) Or do you think you are overwhelmed/too frustrated with the sheer quantity of reviews and unable to remember the kanji? In which case it might be better to reset.
Personally, my brain is pretty good at memorizing things if it gets hammered in enough, so I would choose to continue with the SRS, but I really think it depends on the way that you learn.
I had a similar issue when getting to lvl 50+. Too many similar kanji. It’s often the case I can guess the on’yomi correctly based on radicals but I don’t remember the meaning.
So to fix this I started writing down the kanji I often confuse, because when writing kanji you have to pay attention to the radicals. And after a few weeks I’ve become much better.
I’d recommend to slowly dig yourself out of the reviews pile (700 isn’t that much) and move forward. Start paying attention to the radicals and write down the kanji that cause the most trouble.
700 reviews seems daunting but it’s really not that many. If you have 300-some reviews a day that’s only a few days worth, whereas rewinding back to level 10 would set you back like 4-5 months.
Just set yourself to get down to 0 goals within the next few days. Grind it out. Then get back to being consistent with it and manage your apprentice count to whatever you can manage.
This seems more like the problem is that you weren’t consistent with your reviews. I might not seem like it, but I’m an old-timer on this site. I have reset several times, including just recently, as I didn’t keep up with reviews. I graduated from college last summer, and finally have the free time to dedicate to studying material which isn’t for any classes, i.e. school, and it is way easier now that I keep up with reviews multiple times a day, daily.
T.L.D.R.: I think the problem is only that the op didn’t keep up with reviews, not that they didn’t use mnemonics and radicals.
I had similar experience before not 700 review though… what i did was to reread the the mnemonics (i still do it now sometimes) what it does. The next time you will review the item you will at least remember the radicals or guess right.
I don’t mean to reread all of them at once. I usually do it for 3~5 items depending on review count
Thanks everyone. What you all said truly helped me get things straight in my mind. I’m finding out that grinding it out will take longer because I’m going to read every single thing I get wrong and really burn the radical pieces into my brain. I’m going to dig myself out of this and come back stronger and ready to hit level thirty and onwards again.
Something that helped me with recognising the radicals in kanji was a userscript called Jitai. it helped me pay attention a bit more and I realised that even some subtle font changes threw me off with memorising the whole kanji, and needed me to pay attention to the radicals more. I quickly found it easier to recognise kanji in a variety of places outside WaniKani too. My review average dropped a bit at first and the sessions were slower as i got used to it, but it has helped me in the long run.
