I usually finish levels within 9-10 days. I sometimes think about reviewing in between waiting times. I know that ruins the purpose of spaced repetition so I don’t do it. I want to finish wanikani as fast as I can but I want to finish it with the words being fresh in my mind. I still don’t know if I wanna go fast or slow which means that the words would be remembered better in my mind. I don’t care how many times I get something wrong, everytime I get it wrong I improve and it sticks better in my memory. What should I do?
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It’s a good question that I’m sure has cropped up many times on these forums. The trouble is, everyone is different and has a different level of exposure to Japanese.
There are natural advantages - how well our brains retain information.
Situational advantages - how much free time we have, how stressed we are, our diets, levels of sleep and exercise, etc.
So the only thing you can really do is go at a pace that suits you. Try and figure out how well you are retaining information and go from there. If you find that your guru pile retains the same words for months and months it would be a good idea to slow the pace down a little bit to focus on killing those leeches. From what I hear there are many people who burn out and basically quit altogether, so it’s best to abandon the idea of “speed” as much as you can.
There are so many helpful people on these forums I’m sure others will offer better advice than I can give. Just want to wish you luck and to say also, really give it your all. Japanese is really difficult and requires exceptional levels of patience for a long time. But nearly everyone can do it as long as the will and the effort is there.
Also, have fun 
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Personally I average at 9 days per level. 
However, I know people in some of my groups on here that average 7 days per level or 14 days per level. Everyone works at their own pace.
I honestly prefer 9 days because it lets me space out learning the lessons and lets me retain more knowledge with less mistakes.
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I honestly think that I’m going at a pretty good pace. My guru pile is shortening over time and I genuinely think that I am improving and remembering it better. However the kanji is getting harder but I feel like I’m doing a good job so far. I am going to continue at around 8-9 days pace. Thanks for clearing some things up!
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I’ll probably stick to a pace around ~9 days per level. I’m not sure how much harder the kanji is going to get
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But do not hesitate to read as much as you can even now at your level
I’m not a common case because I already learnt previously around 400 kanjis outside of Wanikani. I read a lot with Rikai-chan and used a lot my dictionary but never focused on properly learning kanjis, so I’m familiar with many kanjis but do not properly master them.
I do reviews and lessons as soon as they are ready to get back to my level, so I’m passing levels every 7 days. The more I go through levels, the more I properly learn readings, even from kanji I knew long ago, so that’s very satisfying I restarted using WK on the end of July and I was level 3
Aside from Wanikani I’m currently reading a web novel called 四つ子ぐらし as it as Furigana and is “quite” easy to read, it depends on the scenes ^^ Though I’m hiding the furigana most of the time to not disturbe me and train better, as I can already read most of the content.
Reading aside will also acquaintain you with other kanjis sooner because you’ll never find a book that got only the kanjis you already know nor is too easy for you, so it will ease your learning once you re-learn them on WK
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n days per level, where 1 < n < 9000
Joking aside, go whatever speed works for you without burnout, and don’t worry about everyone else.
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Well I’ll see, from what people have been saying, I should go on my own pace and just fit it into my schedule. I’m going to go a couple more levels and see if it gets a lot harder and if my pace is fine.
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My time has settled around 9-12 days per level. That is the pace that works for me right now. I spend a day on the Radicals, the next day Kanji, and then vocab. I tend to go about 10-20 each day until the next level starts.
For first 25 levels or so I was smashing through things, doing 20-40 lessons a day, averaging around 8-9 days per level, with delays usually caused by getting kanji wrong.
Recently however I’ve found myself getting burnt out from constantly having to do huge numbers of reviews all day, so have slowed down to doing only 10 lessons a day, resulting in a level up time of around 2 weeks, which has stretched up to a whole month when I’ve skipped several days of lessons in order to unwind or to try and force my Guru count down.
The challenge I’m finding at my point is that the kanji are just getting more and more obscure, the mnemonics are pretty questionable, it just seems like I’ll need to rote memorize these items into submission. To challenge myself I tried to do my last level as fast as I possibly could, and sure enough I got it within 8-9 days, but then I was so mentally exhausted as well as disturbed from my Guru items being +100 I simply stopped any lessons for several days in order to cool down.
Ultimately, as others have said, it’s all about what works for you. I find it helps having paid for a Lifetime subscription, as I don’t feel the pressure of “having to go fast” in order to “save money”
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That’s what I would recommend. Consider this, I’m at about the same pace you are with 10-11 days per level, 20 lessons per day, and keeping Apprentice count around 100.
I average about 150 reviews per day at this pace:
If you go faster, that’s going to significantly increase your daily review count. Ask yourself if you can keep up that pace for months.
You’ll finish faster but it’s up to you whether it’s worth it.
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Ok, now I have a rough idea of how it might looks like in the future if I speed up. I’m looking at around 300 more reviews per week. I’m going to wait some time and see how it would look for me. Thanks for showing me you reviews!
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I used to have a bad habit of doing all the lessons at once but I think I am going at a reasonable pace as of now.
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You’d be looking at 300+ reviews per DAY. 
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That’s what I am a little nervous, I’m unsure how hard it is going to take. I realized it is better to take your time and learn the words
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Yeah, it is going to be tough. If I have a lot of time on my hands I might honestly do it.
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I did this until my life got a little busier AND the WK workload started becoming overwhelming. So, I took a break, and reset back a couple levels, and it then took me a couple/few months to catch back up to where I was and feel relatively comfortable.
My goal is now about 14-25 days per level from here on out, and slower if necessary.
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I’d say go as fast as you can, but 1) do not adjust your sleep schedule to optimize level progression and 2) make sure that you are READING a lot of other Japanese stuff.
I recently reset my account from Level 35; I was making good progress for about 18 months and then stalled out. As I reached the higher levels, I came to understand that, while I was memorizing a lot of good stuff, I was:
- Beginning to actually “forget”/mix up more basic kanji as similar kanji entered my lexicon in later levels
- Not actually getting a lot better at reading because I wasn’t using the kanji/vocab (reading helps you contextualize kanji and vocab; mnemonics only get you so far)
- Staying up late/doing reviews during work and stuff in order to blow through levels and it just made it more stressful
This time through I’m going with the flow a bit more and imagine that my average level completion speed is going to be closer to 10 days now, whereas before I was pretty close to the fastest possible speed (8.5 days or something). I’ll also be trying to read more so that I can get more consistent growth in my skills and solidify the levels beyond just getting the high WaniKani scores.
That said, plowing through the first 20 levels or so was really helpful for me just to expand my vocab a bit. Gives you more options for reading and builds some confidence as you just explore Japanese beyond this program.
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I agree. That’s exactly why I bought lifetime. I don’t have to worry about speeding it up and can go on my own schedule, regardless of how fast or slow that may be.
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Your current pace sounds like it is working for you. If you think about speeding up, bear in mind that when you get to the harder levels, your Enlightened => Burn reviews will start coming in at the pace that you added them to the heap. You will not be able to change this. The ones that you miss will go to your Guru pile. If you end up having hundreds of reviews per day and a growing Guru pile, it can get intense. I just reset from 21 to 11 because I was failing so many reviews, and find that I need time for other things more than I did when I was at those earlier levels. I tried just parking at one level for a few weeks to try to lower the Guru count, but I decided that going back through the material in a structured way would be more helpful for me than randomly failing over and over. But that is my personal learning style, your mileage may vary. I’m not in a hurry, so am glad that I reset. I’m able to get back to including grammar and reading. I figured knowing the kanji was pointless if I’m not able to actually read anything 
Anyhow, like others have said, be sure not to lose enjoyment in the interest of rushing.
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