So I usually practice Wanikani everyday, and try to reach 0 reviews left by the end of the day if I can.
Although lately, that has not has been easy as I get around 100 additional reviews everyday (which may suggest I’m going too fast for me). And I feel like I’m starting to get fatigued with Wanikani, which has slowed down my rate of reviewing and I’m currently hovering at 400+ reviews. It feels like I’m not making progress as fast as I’d like.
So, would it be a good idea to take a week or so off, and then come back?
I’d stop with lessons, not actually a week off. By stopping with lessons, it gives you an opportunity to catch up with reviews and lower the amount of reviews in the future. If you take 1 week off, you might feel better but it won’t solve your problem. If anything, you’ll come back to an even bigger pile of reviews and forget some content due to lack of reviewing.
My final advice is to stop with lessons for a week and do only reviews
I think in the long run that might not be a very good idea, as the SRS of the items will no longer match your memory of those items.
I’d suggest you pause doing lessons for a while, and just work through the pile bit by bit until you get a comfortable amount of items per day.
How high is your amount of apprentice items? How many leeches do you have? Those numbers are usually a good indication of how busy you will be.
I personally just started a similar break, mostly also because I have around 200 apprentice items and 650 leeches, which gave me around 300 reviews a day. I’ve been doing this for a few days now, and my amount of reviews a day has already lowered to 150-200 a day.
When I reached lvl 21 I took a break for a week on new lessons and just did my reviews. I also made a list of my leech items and praticed with them. That really helped lower my apprentice items and the total daily reviews.
I would say, just take a little break from new lessons and keep doing your reviews for a while. 400 sounds like a lot !
Remember you’re not progressing as fast as you’d like if you’re burning out and forgetting things either. Not to mention how easily breaks turn into giving things up for even longer periods of time! Ease up on new material and let it all settle in you’ll be happier for it.
184 apprentice items is a big deal. I’d try not taking new lessons until it’s under 100.
For what it’s worth I’m a level behind you and having a similar sentiment. Trying to find the best balance of progression speed while maintaining my sanity, particularly while supplementing this with grammar and other vocabulary review, listening practice, etc… it gets to be a lot!
For me, level 30 was also the point where I realized I had to slow down. I think many people break at this point, so no worries, as long as you slow down
I had a break from lessons at level 27 and won’t take on any new lessons if my apprentice pile is larger that 125. It’s made things a lot easy and that appears to be about my level.
As others have suggested, pause on lessons, clear reviews and set yourself dome rules that make it manageable for you.
FWIW I’m planning another break from lessons when I go to japan in August. I’ll keep up with reviews though. What’s written above about diminishing returns is on point. I’m continually surprising myself about how well I can read from a reading and understanding kanji point of view; now is the time to crack on with the grammar so I can lock in what I know with a bit of reading and writing.
This is advice I’ve had in the back of my mind for a while, too. Knowing all the kanji through level 17 I’m constantly surprised at how much I can read. Level 27 will probably be where I put new kanji on the back burner and start learning to write the kanji I know, which is something else I’ve been wanting to do.
I’ve taken a lesson break (for a month or so) three times now. It’s good to do! Starting lessons up with only 20 apprentice and 200-300 guru/master items is really refreshing.
I can say the fatigue hit me hard in the last week. I started this past Sunday morning with 279 Lessons and 348 Reviews, because I just wasn’t keeping up and feeling motivation slipping. I had to take a step back, and be honest with myself about trying to maintain the pace I was going at (7-9 days per level), and realize that clearly, it wasn’t doing me any good. I’ve managed to clear out that review pile and am slowly chipping away at those lessons.
I suggest the self-study script if you can. Instead of piling on new stuff, I’ve been drilling a lot of the stuff that I kept stumbling on, as that was a major source of my frustration (and why my review pile wasn’t shrinking) of repeatedly getting things wrong (to transmit vs to be transmitted, and similar mistakes)
I also suggest a reorder script (used carefully). That way you can still do lessons for new radicals/kanji without feel like you need to tear through the huge block of vocab to get to it. You can then chip away at the new vocabulary as you have time and energy to work on those. I also tackle a one session of kanji (5 new ones) every hour, instead of trying to do all the new ones that unlock in one go.
As nice is it is to see progress quickly, it’s the journey, not the destination that matters!
I think I’ll also take a small lesson break once I’ve done all the items for lvl 30. I think I’ve earned it at the halfway goal! Also I feel like I’m dropping some random kanji to apprentice all the time, even though I would know them inside a vocab word. Then I can also focus a bit more on reading and finishing my N3 grammar points in Bunpro. Not to mention I should talk to more people
Gotta focus!