Totally collapsed

I slowed down.

18 Likes

Yes, I had that multiple times. My usual thing was to not touch WK for months, but of course I returned to a pile of reviews which was painful to conquer. I reset for a few levels twice (those were the levels where I did not remember anything any more). During my latest “collapse” I managed to continue with reviews (without doing any lessons). That was much better because now I can continue where I left off.

10 Likes

Is there a way to review the same vocab every day like 30 and remove the other 2500 for a while :sweat_smile:

I think it just gets way more difficult as you learn more, so there are more kanji and vocabulary meanings to confuse and you make more mistakes, which is disheartening.

I’ve stopped doing new lessons for a few weeks while I consolidate what I know and get rid of leeches. Even though this doesn’t look like progress (no levelling up) I’m telling myself that I’m learning lots of the older information properly, so I really AM progressing. I’d love to get to 60 and beyond, but, for me, I’ve had to realise that it won’t happen at speed.

Good luck with getting your motivation back. Maybe be kind to yourself and look at a marathon, not a sprint.

20 Likes

It gets harder the further you progress, and now there are more and more similar looking Kanji. I wasn’t exactly on a 7 days pace, but I needed to drastically reduce the lesson to prevent burnout.
In the beginning I did always all lessons, after a while I capped it at 25, then 20, then 15, then 10 and currently I’m doing 8 lessons a day.
The next thing I’ll try, is to spread the lessons over the day, so the reviews won’t come all at the same time. For example first half of lessons in the morning and the other half after work.

3 Likes

Aside from slowing down, something that’s helped me a ton with vocabulary was to join the Absolute Beginner Book Club (and later the Beginner Book Club, both here on the forums).

That got me into actually reading, and countless manga volumes in, I’m always encountering kanji/vocabulary in manga that I learned (and may be struggling with!) in WaniKani.

It won’t solve all the issues, but it sure gives you something to do during the free time from slowing down WaniKani.

5 Likes

I’ve recently realised that it wouldn’t be feasible to continue at full speed anymore, especially now that I’ve started reaching those fast levels (mostly busy with other things, but living through a pandemic itself can also be tiring, and perhaps not the most conducive to learning in the first place…). What has been working for me is that I do fewer lessons while still maintaining the same old WK regime I have established for myself; I still have that sense of routine (which I think is important, because this way it’s less a matter of ‘I want to do it’ than ‘I’ve gotta do it’), and at the same time I have not been too overwhelmed by too many reviews.

Motivation-wise, relating what you’ve learned to the things you like (if possible) could help maybe? Seeing the words I’ve just learned in the lyrics of songs I like, for example, gives me quite a lot of morale boost every time.

2 Likes

Ye I don’t have the books that the book clubs are reading, otherwise I would participate.

1 Like

Many times. Well, at such times I usually let my reviews pile up - then in the past I used to do a reset, but now I’m slowly trying to claw myself back through them.
It’s best not to let them pile, but I’m such a clumsy cat… :cat2:

3 Likes

Yes, you can use the Ultimate Reorder script where you can sort your reviews by level. That’s what I did as well btw: I started with the lowest levels and would clear their reviews every day, slowly adding higher levels until I hit the point where I did not remember the kanji any more at all. That became my cut-off point for the reset.
But maybe you can even get along without reset - I don’t want to sell it as a wonder drug :wink:

3 Likes

It really helps me to remind myself that WaniKani isn’t a test—you’re not supposed to get everything right every time. Not remembering something is totally fine—if you don’t remember something, you’ll see it again soon and get another chance.

It’s hard to remember that when you’re getting words wrong left and right (I know from experience!) but the whole system that WaniKani is built around is designed for forgetful human brains :smiley:

5 Likes

Yup. My experience is here:

Basically, I got so overwhelmed that I just stopped WK completely for a couple of months. I managed to claw my way back but it was much harder.

This is what I’ve ended up doing. My actual level up is probably close to 7 days, but my average is 11 because those first 3 or 4 days are just clearing out vocab. Also, every five levels I’ll take some extra days to catch up and bring my apprentice count down.

This has been especially important since hitting the fast levels. Those can be brutal if you stick to the same pace.

2 Likes

In that case how about NHK easy news? It is beginner friendly and free. We have a corresponding thread here in the forums as well. It’s not exactly a book club but you can simply pick an article and ask questions in case something pops up. Or join the discussion on articles other people are reading.

Another option would be the free Tadoku readers. …and luckily we have a thread for those stories as well :slight_smile: Simply pick one of the stories and ask questions whenever they pop up. You can also ask people over there to join you reading.

In case you’re more into literature Aozora might be a good resource for reading. All the stories over there are free to read as well. We do have a thread that ranks the stories on Aozora by WK level so you can pick something that suits your level. Then, just start a new thread in the reading section and ask people for help or to join you reading :slight_smile:

And in case you happen to become interested in reading ôkina kani by Ôgawa Mimei feel free to join me reading that one. We already have a few threads on that story in the forums but I can’t see why we cannot start another one :sweat_smile:

7 Likes

One thing I’m trying to do is keep a close eye on the number of items in my review queue before doing lessons, so I can avoid becoming overwhelmed. Trying to learn too many new things at the same time doesn’t work, sometimes you have to slow down and take your time.

I don’t know about singling out one item of the lot to review it, but I do use the self-study quiz regularly to address my leeches. Most of them gets leveled after that, with some exceptional cases where I have work even harder to retain the correct reading (mostly due to lack of seeing the item in the wild).

I also use the Item Inspector a lot for reviewing my problem items on my own. Just reading through the list of my leeches with the extra info Item Inspector shows you in the pop-ups, helps me focus that extra amount needed for learning them, as WK alone isn’t quite doing the trick.

Good luck with your studies! You can make it!

340566c0228345ad7a30a18280f99a47

I have just take a look at it I think with ultimate reorder and self-study script I can set specific focus and review my failed items continuously.

1 Like

You can find lots to read on the internet. Of course, finding level suitable content is a small subset of the total but there are quite a few resources (most free) that are designed for that. Check out NHK Easy News. From what I understand a version of the national news site written so that younger children can read/understand. The articles are short. May or may not be interesting to you, but the purpose is to get practice so pick an article each day and work your way through it, taking your time to look-up what you need to. No idea if this is useful or not, but I like to go back to an article again in the future and re-read it and see what stuck.

I have no idea how people do the 0/0 challenge or 20 lessons a day. literal wizards (or im really dumb) so im slowing down too :slight_smile: It’s no race though! Or is it…

3 Likes

I guess it depends on the amount of free time you have.
Unemployed, self proclamed white hikikomori will have more capacity to push 20 lessons each day. Everyone needs to find a sweetspot when you fill that progress is rewording and at the same time you can handle it.
For me it’s 9 lessons each day, everyday OR All radicals in one day.

It’s is a race, but the only real contestant is you and no one else ^^

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.