Since I am constantly doing my lessons whenever they appear, I have created quite a few leeches on which I don’t spend a lot of time. I was thinking on taking a break regarding lessons and just do reviews for a while to get my apprentice items down, with a final goal of reaching 0 apprentice items before going on with my lessons. I tried this a few times before, but the tantalizing ability to learn new kanji is always too great and I end up doing my lessons anyway. I was wondering, is it even a good idea to get my apprentice items to 0 first? Or should I just leave those stubborn leeches for a while and go on with lessons at 10 apprentice levels? Does anyone have experience with this?
No, it’s not worth it. There will almost always be something dropping back to Apprentice, so this will more than likely be a waste of time.
However, the rest of your idea is good if you’re being overwhelmed by apprentice items and/or leeches. Stopping lessons for a while to just do reviews (and optionally use a leech training script) can be really beneficial.
Instead of aiming for zero, aim for a consistent threshold to keep them at - say 100 or so. Stop lessons until your apprentice items go below 100. Then do lessons until you’re back up to 100. Rinse and repeat. This is a good way to set your pacing and will let you know when there are a lot of problem items (as your apprentice items will start to creep above your threshold). And if there are problem items, you can use the leech and self-study scripts floating around. Happy studying!
One thing to keep in mind is that apprentice has 4 SRS levels, and when you get an item wrong it gets knocked back 2 levels, so you really have to be perfect to get zero.
i’m having a break right now. not because i felt overwhelmed though, but because i wasn’t satisfied with my recall outside of WK. i’ll restart lessons when i feel ready. over half of it is done, and there’s no hurry to speed up now. will probably move to 40 quickly then.
