Wanikani for olds

I love this thread! I’m also older and don’t get through my lessons as quickly as I want to because of work. It’s nice to hear from people in similar situations. <3

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I hear you! I am constantly falling behind because of work/life but I keep plugging away. I like to tell myself that those of us not speeding through may learn it better even if it’s slower, but who knows?

頑張って!

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I’m here with y’all! 39, and sometimes I have kids and life and work and, frankly, this hobby is not as important as any of those things. And it’s really, really scary to come back to even a 400 item review backlog, let along the 1000+ ones I’m hearing about. Seeing a huge review number after several days of being busy with other stuff is so discouraging and is almost certainly the thing that’s most likely to make me quit.

Not giving up yet, though. Gonna get there one day.

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well, every kanji is a kanji and all kanji count. (although some are more valuable than others). it’s a joy to learn, but also, and I wonder if this applies to you all: it’s a whole new system of thinking. my brain works differently with kanji than it does with letters, or kana. maybe it’s my imagination, but the picture to 山 is stronger than it is to just mountain.
aaa I’m rambling (the privilege of older people…).

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I would love to hear about what your times in Japan were like!

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Congratulations on your perseverance MaryH. :smiley: The pandemic can wreak havoc with my ability to concentrate. Family stress takes a lot of energy and focus. Japanese is a difficult language for sure. Keep it slow and enjoyable !! I am pretty cruel to myself and send individual kanji / vocab backward (resurrect) if it comes up for a burn attempt and I don’t know it. Kind of like a mini-reset !! Good luck with WK.

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is this a mockup JLPT exam? where is it from?

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One of the reading aggregators, as well as some videos and such, and a dictionary. But, also has a bunch of mock JLPTs.

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what would you like to know?

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thanks

I have actually used it months ago, but ‘easy’ it doesn’t have anything :sweat_smile:

sometimes sentences would appear in my notifications, I could translate 10% of them. I got frustrated and deleted the app.

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I’m in a similar boat (am only slightly younger), and I’m trying to fit in and prioritize grammar studies while doing this app… Things have certainly slowed down for me in the last few months…

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Anything! I would like to hear about what’s particularly memorable and treasured, especially. :two_hearts:

(Additionally though, since you mentioned being fat visiting Japan, I actually wanted to know about how that was…basically…how bad was it? I’d really been looking forward to visiting Japan one day, with my wife, until one fine day this past year I read several personal accounts that killed that dream dead. We’re both fat, and I at least am super fragile about it – wife has enough travel-related stress that adding to it with anything like difficulties getting around or using amenities would bring it from highly stressful experience to completely unbearable in short order. And I want to know how crappy people are about it too. Not just rudeness, but weird looks, staring, kids commenting, sudden quiet, these kinds of things. Basically if I have to hear someone say something I’m going to be crying in public and I would rather stay in The Good Ol’ U. S. of A.™ than hear insults and submit my wife and myself to public humiliation. Life is too short. My hope is that things are better now than whenever those people were blogging, but perhaps there are places that are less rough on tourists than other places too? It’d be nice to be able to see Osaka…or take a train around and see various areas during a visit… if we’re stuck in a certain area of Tokyo that’d be…well…)

I can relate. Am 55, married, kid in college and full time job plus side hustle. I’ve gotten so buried twice I reset once back to zero and a second time from Level 26 down to 10 (climbing out from under nearly 2,000 reviews wasn’t happening). I’m back to Level 20 now and pushing forward, and being more successfully insistent on making time for WK. Success to all!

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dear Slooshy,
I would like to answer your post. And I would like to take a bit of time to answer it, there’s a lot of different aspects to it. So, I’ll gather my thoughts and will come back to it soon. We might even make a new, positive, thread about it. Talk to you soon.

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I started to study Japanese almost two years ago and I’m still learning N5 stuff. I get discouraged so many times I’ve lost count. But I’m feeling much better about it later. I’m taking a more mindful approach to it. I don’t set study goals anymore, I simply keep track of my daily progress. The only “plan” I made is that I will study a little Japanese every day. Some days that means studying for only 5 minutes. But it’s working, I’m finally enjoying my journey!

My situation is different from yours, I’m 31 and I’m single. But I’m unemployed, still figuring myself out in many ways and I moved back to live with my mom when the pandemic started. So every.single.time that I was studying I used to hear this mean voice in my head telling me that I should be outside finding a job and become a responsible adult. Even at 6 in the morning. :roll_eyes:

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there’s so much to say about this topic, I didn’t know where to begin.
this will be a long post, stay with me.
I went to Japan in summer 2015 for the first time. I was newly divorced and wanted desperately to go to Asia, but also wanted somewhere safe, and less intimidating. So, Japan being not intimidating at all (haha) I planned a three week journey in Japan. Alone, and on a budget. Allthough I went to many countries in South East Asia, I never went alone, always with a friend.
I dind’t study any Japanese except hiragana and katakana before the trip, but carefully calculated (f.e. hyperdia made clear a jp railpass was making travel more expensive instead of less, I booked hotels, and made screenshots of maps a lot) and never ever thought about the fact that I am fat.
My itinerary was three weeks : flight to Osaka, one week Osaka (trips to Kyoto, Nara and Koyasan stayed in an appartment), train to Takayama, bus to Matsumoto, train to Tokyo, flight home.
I will never forget, eeehhhh so many things, but the moment I arrived at Namba statio and had to find my train, and it was incredibly hot, I was tired, and sweaty and you know, I stook out like a sore thumb, with my red face, my suitcase, totally flustered, standing in the wrong place (if you know you know), the heat the crowd. And you know: I might as well have been invisible, nobody paid any attention. Except the stationmaster when I asked for help and he was kind, courteous and nice.
(first tip: enjoy nobody wanting to sit next to you, soon you will appreciate the space, don’t overthink)
In Osaka I rented a studio for a week and this was great: you can get used to Japan at your own pace, try out foods from the suoermarket, be at home. I would defo recommend renting your own place, it gave rest and self confidence. It’s much more private than a hotel.
From Osaka I enjoyed day trips, met wonderful people (who took me to restaurant btw) and mastered the trains!
Did children look at me? They certainly did, they probably also whispered and laughed. It didn’t offend me.
One thing I didn’t do this first week, was eat in restaurants on my own. Just didn’t have the guts, also on your own it’s less fun. I made up for that, don’t worry.
Tip: if you can avoid traveling in summer, do. If not, come prepared. This really means planning your wardrobe, deodorants, bra’s, backpack, shoes, the lot. That might be a whole different post.
We’re only one week into traveling…and this is already long post.
You know, you will never blend in, not even if you’re fluent in Japanese. But I fell in love with Japan from that very first moment in Osaka, so I just smiled and said konnichiwa all day.
Do you still want to hear more, please let me know.

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I’m 64 and live in Oz, I have attempted WaniKani 3-4 times. get to the low 20s then crash and restart. I work full time and run a small business so time is precious. i am going extra slowly this time. my nephew lives in Gifu and I usually go and visit most years - covid has interrupted this but as soon as possible I will be there again. I love the country, the people and the culture.

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And you still don’t use vacation mode to avoid that? :sweat_smile:

Good luck on your journey :four_leaf_clover: There is no need to try to sprint through language learning

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Nah I just don’t believe in vacation mode. Personal preference. I’m going camping for a week at the end of the month and I won’t use it then.

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I’m pretty much in a similar boat, I’m in my 30s and have a lot of free time but having too much reviews is really sapping my enthusiasm so what ended up working for me is trying to get my apprentice list of items below 50 items at all time, only doing new lessons when I have less than 50 apprentice items.

This way I have around 55-70 review available daily and I only do 55 reviews a day, not taking new lessons until my apprentice list item count is lower than 50.

Doing it that way i’m progressing at a very slow pace but I noticed it’s way easier for me to remember stuff, since I started doing that I have very few leeches. the trick is to not abuse “undo”-like plugins because I fell into that trap at some point and had to resurrect quite a few of burned items. the only other downside is that I might forget some burned items sometimes but usually I just have to review my burned items a bit and I remember them.

Good luck, I’m sure with perseverance we will get there in the end.

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