My progression has been too slow but I’m lazy.
Every month or so.
Passed the JLPT N4 at around level 16. Flew through the kanji section with ease.
Fun fact, I’ve never tried any JLPT in my life lol. I registed last July N4 test but I didn’t go to the test because of the pandemic.
I registed both N3 and N2 this December and I’ll see how far can I go at the end of this November. I still aiming at N2 though. N3 is not really helpful career wise.
I purchased JLPT N4 and N5 sameple test and they are too easy for me now. So I think I should be almost ready for N3 now but not N2.
what did you start reading with? I’m pretty early but plan to really start reading at lvl 20 or so
It’s really difficult to answer. I tried to read here and there since level 5 but fail everytime. However, it was around level 15, which I realize that I can’t solely rely on WaniKani. If I want to be able to read anything, even a children story.
Oh you ask “what” I thought you mean “when” lol. I started reading from a set of E-Book from this shop
I think they are amazing.
So I tried to expand my vocab pool by Anki but it was so boring for me. Then I found kitsun and I like it. So I spend another month memorizing basics vocabs. Now I can read Shonen manga and children stories. Easy Japanese news articles are a piece of cake for me now.
Grammar is another major part. I’m using Bunpro as a tool to learn grammar.
If you are interested you can read my study log post https://community.wanikani.com/t/pizhs-study-log/51820/11 However, I don’t want you to take me as your benchmark because I spend days and nights studying Japanese 6-8 hours a day. Since I’ve nothing better to do in this lock down situation lol. It’s a silly and stupid study routine.
As for me, I settled on a 20 new lessons per day (or more just to at least reach the kanji/radicals) with 8 days and some hours per level.
I am in awe of those getting through levels 1 and 2 in 3-5 days! Level 1 took me nine days, level 2 took me 7, and I’m 9 days into level 3 right now. But I can only do my lessons and reviews first thing in the morning and in the evening, I can’t check in every few hours. Enjoying the heck out of it, I must say.
To expand a bit on what Pizh brought up I got a lot of mileage from looking at the graded readers listed at Browse Popular Books | Natively
Pretty much anything at <= difficulty 10 on that site is written in an overly simplistic manner that assumes the reader won’t know the vocab or has incredibly weak grammar. Most of what I’ve read in the 11-20 category requires familiarity with grammar at <= N4. Depending on where you are outside of WK it’s definite work and not a walk in the park, though. For nontrivial stuff I always have jisho and bunpro open on the side to look things up and I take it bit by bit.
I should probably also mention, Bunpro is fantastic practice. Every point gets 10 example sentences with roughly 1.2k being limited to N5 grammar + vocab and what seems like a similar restriction on the N4 section (roughly 1.8k sentences). All of them are translated and most of them have audio (they just hired a new recording/content guy too!)
I never responded to the main topic here, so in my case it’s been 20-25 lessons a day (max 10 kanji/day) with 88 days total. I should hit level 14 tomorrow. Similarly I’ve been using Bunpro for 83 days straight doing 3-5 “lessons” a day with some gaps and I’m about 3 days from finishing the N4 lessons (not necessarily understanding them well, lol). Finally, I’ve been using Kitsun for 79 days averaging 22 items a day across the Katakana word deck as well as the JLPT N5/N4/N3 decks (prioritizing by WK known kanji + min 5 items/day on the N5 deck). It’s also where I handle my reading/mining most of the time. I spend around 2-3 hours of direct study a day with the intention of probably cutting everything in half around level 25 or 30. However, it really should be noted that I had studied (and quit) Japanese a few years back so it’s probably much easier for me to handle this pace than a true beginner.
My pace has been sporadic Leveling up in under 10 days = burnout for me, so my current pace is 12 days per level. With the leftover time, I’ve been focusing on grammar and learning to learn outside of WK. I find the grammar sticks much better when I encounter it in native material, so my exposure to Japanese has increase despite cutting back on WK(and noticably more enjoyable).
Up until around level ~20 it would take me around 8 days per level, but then things got a little harder and now it’s more towards 10 days per level, although the current one isn’t going so bad so far .
I started exactly mid January 2021 so a little under 7 months to get to level 27. Since I’m due for a level up soon, let’s say level 28 in 7 months. Not exactly top speed, but I’m currently juggling between WaniKani, Tobira, my ever growing Anki decks and reading a novel .
People really underestimate the amount of time you can gain by doing wanikani during short breaks. 5 minutes can easily get you through at least 15 items, which is 15 less items from your daily big review if there’s even enough left for one.
It takes me between 7 and 8 days to finish a level. I started Wanikani after passing N2 and I lived one year in Japan so I already knew a lot of grammar and vocabulary (not so many kanji though haha)
I wouldn’t level up in 7 days without knowing any kanji beforehand though, and I’m planning on slowing down as soon as I reach my current kanji knowledge ^^
I’m currently averaging 8-9 days, but I take it more as 11 because I include the day I started and levelled it as well, if that makes sense. I blazed through the first few levels, then kind of settled into a stride, and I’ve managed to keep to it so far. I credit most of it to the fact that I’ve been watching anime and reading manga for the better part of a decade, so I’ve picked up a lot of random vocab, which means I’m not learning totally from scratch. I’m only learning grammar very loosely from JPOD101, so I expect the difficulty level to shoot up massively past around level 10 as I start to hit totally unfamiliar territory.
I was hitting around 10-15 days per level during the first 8-9 levels, then it went downhill because I was burning myself by going at a pace I thought I had to because some people consider it a race.
Now I do my reviews everyday and 0-15 lessons a day. I don’t even mind skipping a day when I’m busy. Sometimes it takes me well over a month for clearing a level. Still progressing slowly yet steadily while some people who were telling me that I was slow already quit at some point because they burned themselves. The important part is to go at a pace you are comfortable going at and understanding that it does not have to be constant if it doesn’t suit you.
It is completely ok to not do any lesson one day and stick to your reviews. There’s some days I feel like doing 20 lessons because I don’t have much reviews, then I can be 3 days without doing a lesson because some huge chunk of reviews to burn just popped up. When I’ll have burned the stuff I learned at a fast pace early on I’ll end up with less and less reviews which will leave me more time for lessons so it’ll balance itself.
It’s completely ok to go fast, it’s completely ok to go slow, it’s not ok to not listen to yourself however.
I’ve been trying to figure out what works best for me and have landed at a 3 week level up schedule that feels manageable as well as quick enough that I’ll still feel like I’m making steady progress.
I was a little crazy and made a chart that I printed out so I can check off each of the day once I’ve done my lessons and keep track of my progress.
So the schedule roughly goes:
Day 1: All of the radicals + 3 Vocab
Days 2-14: 3 Kanji + 3 Vocab
Days 15-21: 10 Vocab
Obviously not all levels have the same amount of kanji or vocab so the distribution is different. I went through each level and adjusted it accordingly. I’ve already been through the earlier levels and their distribution is a little crazier than the rest of the levels but I went ahead and matched them to this schedule anyways.
I know many of you are one like a 8-10 day schedule so this isn’t going to be helpful for your speedsters. But for anyone else that’s not in a rush but wants a little bit of structure, maybe this would be fun to try out??
Best of luck everyone!
Median of about 9 days 5 hours, my average is messed up a bit since I took a break to focus on university stuff at level 34/35!
First, let me say, don’t try to push yourself and meet others’ pace. Go at what makes you comfortable so you don’t risk burning yourself out. That said, to answer your question, my level ups have been about 9 days and a few hours. Volunteering slowed me down the past month and for some reason, I couldn’t get the mnemonics to stick for level 23, but now I’m back on pace. Someone mentioned in another topic that a good goal to maintain is keeping your Apprentice reviews under 100 cards, which I’ve also been finding helpful.