Anything more than 6 days means you’re a pleb and should give up learning japanese. /s
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Beginner here. Level 6. It’s taking me about 3 weeks per level. 50 years old and full time job and a couple of kids etc. I grind the reviews during the day most days during boring conference calls and in the evening. I do maybe 10-15 lessons a day as they come up. I couple this with Rocket Japanese, Genki I, and Duo Lingo. Not sure if am on an efficient path. 9-10 days seems awesome. If i could understand hito, bito, nin, and jin I might be on level 10 by now!
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Do what feels comfortable. It’s not a race, contrary to popular belief. And lets not forget that Kanji is a tiny part of learning Japanese. There are tons more things to do in Japanese besides Kanji.
I find that some learners have it stuck in their heads that they have to memorize 2000 Kanji before they can start really learning Japanese. I find this sort of insane. Reading Japanese material will reinforce your kanji knowledge as your learning. It will help loads more than rote memorization or mnemonics ever could.
I just want to stress that learning Japanese should be a positive experience. If it ever affects you negatively you should probably change tactics. Learning a language is a long journey without end. Treat it like one.
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I’m at like 2-4 weeks per level.
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I’m using Bookwalker which is a online retailer ok books / ebooks, one of the biggest retailers.
Link to the book https://bookwalker.jp/dea471b7c1-8cdc-439e-b60d-e6c2762c0319/
They have a custom web DRM reader , but you can still select the text and using Rikai-chan to get meaning. They also have an mobile app, which is quite old but does work.
There are also other sites, as 小説家になろう, where light novels are free and content is real text in the web page, so you can use Rikai chan easily.
Link to Mushoku tensei 無職転生 - 異世界行ったら本気だす - - 第五十二話「米」
I read this book entirely in english but it was fun reading 6 chapters of it in japanese, but the number of new words per sentence was quite high ^^
You can also buy the kindle version on the japanese version of Amazon
And I got tips at how to conveniently look at words definitions with a kindle so maybe I’ll give it a try.
I move up two levels every month. My lessons are 10 per day prioritizing radicals and do a 4 kanji-6 vocab mix, this becomes 10 vocab once all the kanji is in the review queue. When I tried doing all the lessons right away, my level up time was around 20-25 days so I actually became faster by pacing my lessons each day.
I say experiment and see what you are comfortable with. Each one of us has a different situation and a different learning speed. Pick the one that is right for you once you feel that it is. Best of luck!
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Sorry in advance for the vague answer here. The pace at which you’re comfortable is the most decent pace for you. Some go at max speed and are ok with it, others might take a month. Learning and studying anything isn’t a race or a competition. If 10 days is working for you, awesome! If you feel you could go faster, give it a try. if you want to slow it down, also fine! Just be aware, as well, that you haven’t yet hit the SRS going at full speed. That’s months away when you start getting your level 1 burn reviews.
I think my average is 11-12 days - I do 14 lessons most days, sometimes I skip a day if I feel I have too many Apprentice reviews, if I miss my lesson window (8, 9 or 10am), or if I simply need a bit of a break.
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What do you suggest reading? I haven’t really gotten into Japanese literature. I don’t really know what to start with but I’m not sure if mangas are going to be a little too difficult. My grammar is pretty good and I have been working a lot on it.
I’d say you’re doing great! I’m currently a college student and I am not working that often. I usually do WaniKani a couple times a day and everytime I learn something new I try my hardest to build strong connections to it. I’m putting more effort in this than usual because I am trying to learn it fast as it will help me expand my vocabulary. I’d say keep it up! Unless you are in the mood to finish it faster. The longer your spend on it, the stronger the connection becomes in your brain. I just don’t want to go too far that it will be hard recalling stuff or I might get confused between somethings.
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I have been getting so many good suggestions including yours! I’m going to try out a couple different methods people have been telling me and see how it feels like. I’m not quite sure that I wanna go as fast as I can or a decent pace yet. Thanks!
Honestly, give Satori Reader a try: https://www.satorireader.com/
It’s got a lot of varied stuff and really good tools to help you out. It can also use your WK API key to only use Kanji that you’ve learned.
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My opinion is that 9-10 days is a really healthy dose. I can go faster for one or two levels and then I need a slower one. But some people prefer to go really fast. Others go at a steady pace of 14 days, which is absolutey ok, too. 14 days times 60 levels is 2 years and a few months. That’s still a good time for 2000 Kanji and 6000 vocabulary items.
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So there was a good basic manga series called Yotsuba which I found pretty readable. There are apps out there that have some basic short stories and stuff too.
I’m very into current events so I also enjoyed reading NHK Easy which is the Japanese NHK network’s basic news content. They write the stories using basic grammar and lots of kanji that you’ll learn from WK. Some apps will also colorize kanji based on JLPT or WK level if you provide the API key. I was amazed at how useful even esoteric kanji and vocab like “tax evasion” and “weather agency” were. It’s like that thing where you learn a new word in English and all of the sudden you start seeing it everywhere.
Well, French is very similar to English compared to Japanese, so it’s not like that’s exactly apples to apples… but you can’t really do that in this case anyway. 
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Actually there is so many words having the same etymologies between english and french, I’m still amazed how our elders can’t deal at all with english here in France.
It’s so easy to get in, giving it some time per week, reading some books gradually and that’s it ><
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I recently got “Learn Japanese with Stories” by Clay and Yumi Boutwell. There are several books in the series that go from easy to harder. They have Japanese folktales in both Japanese and English. Each page has notes about the vocabulary and grammar for each part of the story. The idea is that you read the Japanese first then the English to see how you did. The notes are really good and the stories are short, so it doesn’t strain your attention.
Thank you so much!!! I feel like it would really help!
I’ll make sure to search it up. It seems pretty interesting and I want to challenge my self and see how far I could understand in one of the stories.
Some people prefer to self-learn. I do both, I think it is also good to get someone else’s opinion or a native speaker’s opinion.
Wow - thank you so much for such a great answer with so much information!! 
I guess I need to learn about Rikai chan!
I also have to stop freaking out when I see a whole page of kanji and remember I know some of them, and I just need to take it one… at… a… time !! 
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