I took a break at 27 (due to a buildup of workload and other necessary items) and then had to reset to 25. I’ve just now finally reached Level 27 again. I’m inching along with the new lessons and am mostly focused on reviewing what I “learned” in the past. I’m no longer focused on speeding along. And I’m also trying to focus my attention on more communicative language rather than the rote learning this site provides.
10 levels each day? Yeesh! 
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Similar experience. I reached Level 16 - I’m in no hurry btw as I’m 64 and doing this to improve my reading and not to break any records getting to Level 60, or anywhere in between either. At Level 16 I noticed that I wasn’t enjoying it as much and that was largely to do with more errors and forgetting some fairly basic items. Leaches growing!
I have stopped all lessons for a couple of months now and I have made some good progress with the leaches. I set myself a target of less than 30 in Apprentice to see how the Guru and Master levels improved. The biggest increase has been in Master where I increased the leaches by over 50% - I assume these are leaches that I am moving across from Apprentice to Guru to Master so there is clear progress. Most importantly I feel I am enjoying it a lot more again now!
Here’s my figures - please let me have any feedback or suggestions!
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Congratulations on completing what you have so far. There’s this idea that you have to finish quickly, but sometimes it’s overwhelming and you burnout or only remember momentarily. It’s better to slow down then to take a break or end up giving up completely. I get worried that I’m not learning fast enough. In those times I remind myself that it can’t be helped and learning slower is better than not learning at all. I did end up taking a few breaks and it was hard for me to get back on track. Now I am on course and sometimes I have some mishaps, but I’m progressing. I try to keep my Apprentice items below 100 and my daily reviews below 100(although my daily reviews can be higher with new lessons). I don’t study anything new when they get higher. I try not to take on too many lessons a day. You just have to find the amount that works for you.
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I just wanted to add my +1 to this - around level 25 I found WaniKani more and more of a slog. As my semester ramped up again I had less and less motivation, made worse by decreasing accuracy discouraging me too. So, I stopped doing any new lessons for two months, but coming back every one or two days to do reviews.
It was exactly what I needed. It gave me time to lower my 500+ Guru pile, get through probably 800+ burns, and just generally feel consolidated and refreshed. After 80 days on level 25, I’m back to my 12 day-ish pace, which I intend to keep up until at least level 35 when I might do the same ‘break’ again.
Also, just a personal tip, but I found it was very refreshing to install a custom colour palette via the Breeze Dark userscript. It’s entirely psychological but it helped WaniKani feel kinda “new” again.
I will say that I feel the mnemonics are becoming increasingly less effective though. In my opinion the repeated use of ‘kayak’, ‘shougun’, ‘shins’ etc is a double-edged sword - on one hand, I can see it establishes consistency to use the same object/character as a trigger for the same sounds, but the more they’re used then the less unique (and therefore memorable) they become. That said, it might just be the novelty having completely worn off at this point.
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mid-20 is a pretty tough bracket. i made it to 31, then had a long break, then reset when i returned.
don’t make the same mistake. keep the reviews up. i’m currently working on reducing my daily load by only doing reviews, until all apprentice and guru are cleared out. i don’t like having more than 150 items per day.
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My two cents is that the best approach is to never skip reviews, and instead control your workload by regulating the amount of lessons you do. Also remember there is a lag effect - in other words when you reduce your lessons per day it will still take a while for your review count to react and start to decrease.
I went so far as to take only one set of lessons (5 items) per week at one time, but still kept up on my reviews. With a lesson load that low, you take off the pressure and actually look forward to the lessons and are even able to do them more thoroughly. You can verify the definitions in a dictionary, research more example sentences, look for related words, compare to other similar items, and try writing the items yourself. A much deeper level of lesson taking.
WK lessons should never feel like a chore. That’s a surefire recipe for laziness, disinterest, and burnout. I’ve seen it a gazillion times on the forum, so every time I started to feel things going in that direction for myself I reduced my intake of lessons.
Remember, our goal is to learn Japanese - not to finish Wani Kani as fast as possible. If you have a lifetime membership you can slow down. Take five years to finish Wani Kani. At level 27 where the OP is at, you can start trying to read at least. Try poking around at reviews for your favorite movies on the Japanese Amazon site, or try reading NHK news, or focus on grammar a bit. These things will not only really solidify the more basic Japanese you already know, but they will also introduce new vocabulary and kanji in context that you will have to look up. Then one day you’ll have the great feeling of getting a new lesson at a higher level in Wani Kani and saying to yourself “Hey, I know this already!”.
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Thanks Juichi and also all the comments that follow. Very helpful and gives me confidence that I am on the right track by regulating my lessons and even taking none at all for a sustained period.
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