What is your way of Studying with wanikani?

I started out burning through all lessons as soon as they came up and leveling up every 8-9 days. It got to be burnout and WK reviews were crowding out any other Japanese study. Now I only do lessons if it won’t put the Apprentice queue over 100. More relaxed and spending more time on grammar, reading, and listening outside WK.

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At the moment I already know ~80% of the items, so I just want to get through them as fast as possible. I use the self-study add-on to “pre-learn” the unknown kanji of next level(s):

When the next level comes up I am not slowed down by a few odd kanji. I don’t want to be stuck at 89% kanji completion for a few days because of a single kanji I know I can handle eventually.

I probably hit new territory soon so my strategy might change, but the userscript is also valuable to review for example all kanji of a single level in a few minutes.

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Hello!!

Well, I use a bunch of scripts to optmize the process (reorder lesson/review, ultimate timeline and wk overwrite)

I usually take all the radical lessons day-1 (counting from level up) + half of the kanjis. Day-2 I study rest of the kanji + some vocabs. Day-3 I finish the remaining lessons. If I feel that Im becoming a bit overwhelmed with reviews I put a day or two before starting the kanjis. You should try to find a pacing that seems right to you. I try to level AT LEAST 3 lvls a month. Its not so fast as some people and not so slow that could bore me to hell.

Oh, I also try to do my reviews at least 3 times a day and usually dont go to sleep before doing all my reviews. Sometimes, when I have to sleep outside because Im in a date or something, I will do them the next day, but as soon as I can.

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I normally do the same thing, like whenever i have lessons i finish all them up, and do reviews once per day, and always use “ignore” button when I fail something (because I want to learn new kanji’s as fast as I can, so even if I don’t get 100% everything, I’ll still be getting new lessons and learning more).

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I try my hardest to keep up with my lessons and reviews daily, which is pretty easy for me because I’ve got access to a computer at work. But I definitely feel that writing practice, especially consistent writing practice, had helped me really burn kanji and vocab into my memory. It’s a manual way for me to keep track of trouble words. It really keeps me honest!

Here’s my notebook:

170809-105213

170809-105137

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Vocab

  • Always drill EN->JP properly (at level+1) in Anki, before doing JP->EN vocab in WaniKani. (So that I remember the vocab reading properly.)
  • Do core 10k breakdown at the same time.
  • Don’t do all vocab lessons in one day in WaniKani. Spread the fun, so that I would never have free days with no review.
  • Always use a dictionary (by hyperlink in Anki).
    • Progressive dictionary for usage
    • JE dictionary for a quick English transliteration
    • JJ dictionary for explanation of the meaning; and for thesaurus/synonym
    • Aozora bunko for more examples

Kanji

  • Drill all in 3-7 days before leveling up in Anki. Split Kanji lessons between days. Usually 10 kanji/day
  • When leveled up, do all Kanji lessons at once in WaniKani
  • Catch up Kanji handwriting in AnkiDroid after finished all vocab of the level; that is, I have already remembered On and Kun readings well.
    • Extra large handwriting on a tablet. Attention to proportions and stroke details.

Radicals

  • Do all radicals at once in WaniKani
  • Never drill these stuff

Suggested alternatives to Anki

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For wanikani I do the same thing every day.

– Wake up early and first thing I do is my reviews. I only do reviews once a day, so every morning it tends to be somewhere between 80-150.
– After I finish that I do my lessons. I do only 20 a day, with max 5 kanji per day. I use a reorder script to make this easier. I found that 5 kanji per day is a good amount for me to learn. Any more and I forget them the next day way more. I also write each kanji about ten times as I learn them. I tend to remember them more when I write them down.
– I usually review the new 5 kanji I learned at some point during the day, usually have my book on me that I write them down in to do this.

Doing this I average a level about every 11-12 days, and find I don’t ever get too overwhelmed.

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I love the note book great idea :slight_smile:

what a great break down thank you so much :slight_smile:

After I get my small break at the hospital I do my reviews (usually about 50-100). I then do 20-25 new lessons a day and a write all new vocabs and kanji down in this little notebook that I have. I then do reviews just before bed!

I would invest more time in it but unfortunately its not conducive to my timetable D:

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Worth noting for everyone who feels they need to do all of the reviews immediately: I calculated it out a while back, and on average, WK will only let you do about 22-25 lessons per day with even the fastest level-up time. There’s little point to going much faster than that, at least as long as you use the reorder script to hit radicals and kanji on day 1. This is something like what my week looks like:

Day 1: Level up, New Radicals. Maybe Do New Kanji, too
Day 2: Do New Kanji if I didn’t yesterday. Otherwise, do 25-35 Vocab
Day 3: 25-35 Vocab
Day 4: Burn Radicals, Learn New Kanji.
Day 5: 25-35 Vocab
Day 6: 25-35 Vocab
Day 7: 25-35 Vocab
Day 8: Repeat

I usually choose the actual amount of vocab to be split evenly among the 4-5 Vocab days, so if I have 100 new lessons, I’ll do around 20-25. If I have 150, I’ll do 30-35ish. I make it a goal to finish out all of the open lessons before leveling up.

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I also spend a good amount of time with the lessons, since I do relatively few at a time. I probably spend around 30-60 minutes a day doing them.

Doing all of this, my accuracy is:
accuracy

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This might be me showing my noobie but could u please tell me what the reorder script is :slight_smile: i see everyone talking about it but i have no idea what it is feels like i might be missing something amazing

thanks :slight_smile:

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Thanks for this info. I need to spend some time analyzing this flow, to see how it works in practice. Listening and writing are the two things I feel most lacking currently.

I would also like to ensure I ultimately grasp higher order language structures, such as:

  1. Antonym and synonyms.
  2. Relative rankings. For example, knowing that in English, grain < pebble < rock < boulder

Maybe these kinds of things will come with time, but I’m the kind of person more comfortable explicitly knowing and verifying. I feel uncertain if I cannot effectively enumerate what I understand and do not understand.

Perfect, I did not know about this yet, I’ve avoided user scripts so far. I relish a chance to practice listening, I’ll have to give it a whirl. Whether I like it or not, I’m a heavy auditory learner. Personal story divergence…

I was working once, coding away, when one of my co-workers came up to me to discuss something. I gave him my attention for a moment, turned back to finish up my typing, while he proceeded to explain a scenario and asked his questions. I was split brain at the time. When I then turned to him, and give him my full focus, he asked me what I was doing. I didn’t know what he meant. He said, are you repeating what back I just said? I hadn’t realized, but I unconsciously queued up his few sentences in my mind, and started to sub-verbally speak them back to myself. I agreed with him, yeah I guess I was, that’s how I re-analyze things to squeeze out full comprehension and extract precise logical structure.

That was one of the most epiphanous days in my adult life, unfortunate it wasn’t sooner. I’m forever grateful for having worked with that guy, he was exceedingly observant and communicative.

I already use Kaniwani. It would be great when it can integrate listening.

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This? Wanikani Reorder Ultimate [old version, not working]

I don’t currently use it myself.

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Great thanks you :slight_smile:

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Well, seems I’m one of the few slow learners :sweat_smile: @level 5

I do ten new lessons every day, but only if they don’t get my apprentice items over 100. Most of the time my apprentice items are around 60-80. If there are some items I have trouble remembering correct and get them wrong all the time I even stop doing new lessons until I get those items in my head.

Yes, this takes time but if I do more than ten lessons every day I have trouble remembering all items correctly. There are some exceptions - if I get easy items I will do 15 lessons that day. (e.g. last time there were the items for sunlight, moonlight, lightyear… they were easy to me because they are so logical :wink: )

I think I need about three weeks to complete one level? But as I’m in no rush I don’t really care.

Most days I’m doing reviews three times a day (morning, lunchbreak and evening). On very busy days I’ll do them at least in the morning and evening.

In addition I use Kaniwani once a day/every two days. That really helps me remembering the vocabulary!

I try to squeeze in some writing practice but I don’t have much time at the moment. I hope this will get better at the beginning of October, so that I can start over with my Genki studies :relaxed:

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@ryan-gustafson got it. I also use the timeline script and the override script(only for when I vocalize the right answer, but have stupid fingers :-p)

What’s the timeline script? Shows when reviews are coming up?

I’m very hesitant to use an override, kinda like I’d rather not take a prescription for opiates from the doctor. If it ever comes to the point I want to toss my computer out the window, I may reconsider. :slight_smile:

It’s better not to, probably, lol. yeah, the timeline script is just like it sounds :slight_smile: It has potential for abuse, too, if you’re not careful though… don’t look at the kanji in detail in it before reviews (you can click to see specific items, I usually just use the color coded bars) or use it to review. I just use it to know when the new kanji or radicals are coming so I can get them right away :slight_smile: