What time do you spend daily on WK to finish a level in 7 days?

WaniKani
#5

I have been finishing on average on 7-8 days, but this speed is mainly because of former knowledge. Now in death levels, there are a lot of kanji I’m not familiar with, so I’ll probably go slower this time, but I hope to keep my streak.

I used to read them in earlier levels, but some sentences are just so weird or contains some kanji/vocabs I don’t know so I skipped it all throughout. (I don’t really know it this is a good thing or not) I just make it up by reading manga in book clubs, and by using iKnow.

I do my WK review in 3 batches during busy days – during breakfast, lunch and dinner times. I time my lessons as much as possible by 7-9 am, so that most of reviews will appear during awake time. During idle days, I do all my reviews as soon as they show up, except when I’m sleeping. I personally find it enjoyable, despite the influx of reviews sometimes (I sometimes wake up with 150 reviews on my plate, and I’ll just sigh, skip my breakfast all together, and tap away in my phone). My personal goal is to be able to read smoothly as how I can read English with ease.

I don’t use reorder script, since it feels like cheating (in my own opinion). I like to level up mainly because I’ll learn new vocab and not because I’d like to race (and since I pay monthly, its more efficient). Personally, going the slower way feels like detrimental to my way of thinking as well. How people learn and retain knowledge is different, so I don’t think you need to be pressured with us doing level-ups in a week. :grin:

3 Likes
#6

I used to spend about 1-2 hours a day when I was still levelling up.
Here’s the schedule I used then:

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#8

Don’t.
Leveling up in 7, though theoretically something that everyone can do, is not something everyone should do. Relax, go at a pace that feels most comfortable for you. This is your learning journey, not anyone else’s. And to answer your question, there are many others who take WK slowly, so you’re not alone.

9 Likes
#9

It’s not really a lot of work. You’ll have on average 100-150 reviews everyday, which you can get done in a bout 30 minutes without rushing it. It takes longer on lessons, so about another 30 minutes to an hour for 20 lessons everyday, which is all you have to learn, on average, every day.

I don’t actually do lessons everyday, because I will learn all Radicals and Kanji as soon as they are available, which is usually over 40. And I can easily learn 40 Vocab words by reordering them, when I’m out of time or need to learn more than usual, and just bundling up the easiest ones (common readings that you can guess on your own, single Kanji Vocab, known words, etc.). Sometimes it takes a minute or two to get the Force Reorder button to give me a combination I’m satisfied with. I do 10 words per session.

But yes, without Reordering, I don’t really see how it would all be possible. In fact, I run with about 12-15 scripts at the same time. I only turn off reordering when I want WK Vocab order, but that’s rare. Without a script to correct typos, It also would have been impossible. I’m often rushing reviews and mistakes then to happen more frequently then.

I’m always behind on about 60 Vocab from previous levels, but I also do KaniWani and Kamesame simultaneously to WK, so I’m always reviewing stuff I’ve learned a level ago, about another 30 minutes every day (they are much faster to review), for 250+ items.

I do not read the sentences, specially when there’s tons of other Kanji I’m unfamiliar with, but I might put some words on Tatoeba or Jisho to get the gist of it, synonyms are complicated without context.

It’s also not really necessary, to me, to ever do WK more than twice every day, and you can even get by doing it once when you’re in between levels. I don’t feel forced to level up in exactly my 7 days and 16 hours average. If I level up in 8 days, I’m fine with it, and that often means I won’t be here for the first 4 hours review, or will ever wake up in the middle of the night.

It feels incredibly satisfying, for my goals, to learn 20 or so Kanji every week and truly retain 90%+ of their reading, and nearly 100% of their meanings. It would probably feel rewarding doing it a bit slower than that, though.

1 Like
#10

If you go fast and do everything at once, then it will come back for you pretty fast. Better to spread it out when you feel the pace is getting too fast.

The only time I leveled in less than 7 days was on level 6. Looking on wkstats my average level up time is around 9-10 days.

#11

Powerpuncher mentioned @jprspereira method, so I’m going to go ahead and link his entire guide here. For this topic I would particularly look at sections 4-6. Powerpunchers method absolutely works, but reading the guide will give you a better understanding of how the leveling up process works so you can find a schedule that works for you.

I used to level up in 7 days, now I do 8 days so that I don’t have to flip around when I do lessons half way through the level. Like many others have said, it’s completely doable, but I wouldn’t say it is easy. I personally make use of a bunch of scripts to help make the process smoother, so if you can’t do that then it will be that much more difficult. You also mentioned that because of your job you sometimes go up to 2 days between reviews. That’s the major reason you aren’t going to make 7 day levels. The people on WK who are doing that are on WK everyday and probably for at least 3 different sessions each day.

For me personally, I spend 45 minutes to an hour in the morning on reviews, then do a set of lessons in the late afternoon before dinner that probably takes me around 30 minutes. I finish off the day with another set of reviews before I go to bed. That set is usually smaller so it’s probably around 20-40 minutes depending on the day.

I do not try to decipher the example sentences usually. There are often times going to be things in those sentences that you have never learned, and spending extra time trying to read them is probably not really helping you learn the kanji better. Reading the English translation does sometimes give me context that helps solidify the meaning for me.

I do find going at 8 days pace enjoyable. The challenge is fun and having the strict schedules helps me stay committed. That said, burnout is real and I have definitely skipped a set of lessons or taken full days off at times to avoid burnout.

And there are definitely people on WK who are going slow, though I have no idea what the ratio of fast levelers to slow levelers is. My guess is that the slow goers are just less vocal on the forums generally.

The goal is to learn Kanji (and ultimately Japanese), not level quickly. As long as people are learning and having a good time I don’t think how fast you level should matter.

Good luck and keep fighting! 頑張るよ！

4 Likes
#12

this feels relevant, but I’m still fairly new and have yet to dive into all the mechanics about WK (those graphs up there look cool!) but I’ve found the higher the level, the longer it takes to level up. This isn’t necessarily because the level is any harder, but you have all the stuff from previous levels trying to get to Enlightened state, so the reviews take longer and longer. I also have decided I just don’t really care about how long it takes me to level up (indeed, it comes as a pleasant surprise when I do hit a new level since I’m not really tracking that), focusing instead on trying to get improvements in my review percentage each time I introduce new words

1 Like
#13

I find it’s less a matter of time and more a matter of how quickly I can absorb the kanji readings / meanings. I don’t generally have a problem doing all my reviews so if I can ace them consistently it’s easy to finish in ~7-8 days. The other thing is keeping your vocab lessons manageable, I messed up this time and had 60+ vocab to learn before the level 10 radicals and kanji, now I have a huge review deck that I don’t know very well :frowning:

#14

I lvl up about every twenty days, which I have no problem with at all. TBH I think I spend too much time allready on WK! The srs is addictive and it defo saps time from other areas of my study where my time could probably be used more constructively. I’m not saying WK isnt great, it is. But I feel I already have a load of words, even at my paltry lvl, that I struggle to incorporate into my speaking, dont really understand the usage of and/or can’t recall without the kanji prompt or when modified via grammar.

It all depends on what your goals are and how much time you have, but I certainly wouldn’t worry about not levelling up in 7 days. Kyoto wasnt built in a day!

2 Likes
#15

What script do you use to show how long you needed for every level?

#16

Regarding my wife, I spend 14h a week, but I also do something on the computer…

Regarding my wife, 70% of my time, which means 70*24h/100=16.8h per day

#17

Levelling up quickly, for me, feels like a lot of work, though I still do it. About 300 reviews each day, as fast as they come, 15-30 lessons a day, and no scripts, I guess 2-3 hours total. Most of my levels nowadays last about 7 days. That said, I take lesson breaks when needed. At ca lvl 10-25 I used about 14 days per lvl, 10 lessons a day.
I think you should find a pace that you are comfortable with, and you might find that changing as you go :blush:

#18

It’s called https://www.wkstats.com

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#19

Actually, that’s the old version. :slight_smile:

https://www.wkstats.com:10001 uses API v2 instead of v1, and also deals better with things like resets of levels, which the old version struggles to comprehend properly.

6 Likes
#20

If it’s during a period that I’m able to keep up with all of my reviews, then I usually finish in 7 days.
I guess I spend maybe about 3 hours total daily, between 2:00 and 12:00, but after work I do everything that had piled up since I had gone to bed and then I do the lessons and reviews as they come along. I don’t use any scripts, by the way. Also I take longer of days that I level up and get a huge lesson drop, or even just on days with unusual high review drops. I might spend up to 5 hours now that I think about it. I’m totally fine with WaniKani being my only hobby but other people might want to have lives.
But I’m on day 8 of my current level and I’ve been on top of it the entire time.

#21

wayyyyy too long

#22

Oh wow, I’ve always used the old site then. Thanks for letting me now :smiley:

2 Likes
#23

That is a great habit to keep, and I hope you don’t discard it for the sake of speed. While I completely understand how its gaming quality makes you want to complete it as soon as possible, remember why you’re here. Unless you have some incredible reason to absolutely need to have memorized all of the jouyou kanji in a year, take your time!

Remember that you’re here to learn, and deep learning takes a long time. Yes, you can finish within a year or so, but if that means you’ll be sacrificing quality, then don’t do it. You need to give yourself plenty of time for all the kanji and vocabulary to sink in. You’re doing splendidly already! You’re here and giving it your all, it sounds like, and that’s all that’s needed.

Also, three years sounds like a good amount of time to complete this in! I’ve been here technically since 2013, but I really started around 2017. I’ve had a lot of free time in the past few months, though, so I’ve been able to dedicate a lot of time here to leveling up.

I hope things go smoothly for the rest of your journey!

2 Likes
#24

A lot has already been said here, but I wanted to add something about leeches. I read another one of the “Here’s how I made it to 60” guides (all the guide type posts are excellent).

When we talk about the science behind performance (I’m in the military, so I hear it way too much), we often forget the mental aspect of things and underestimate it’s affects on performance. You can level really fast following the SRS system, but there are always a few items that don’t stick well (aka leeches-- see this guide). Fast forward 5-6 levels of going breakneck speed, and even if you’re disciplined at doing them daily and on time, the items you just can’t seem to remember stack up. It’s a real punch in the gut to do an entire review full of leeches. You feel like you haven’t learned anything and then you crash, your motivation dies or insecurity builds, you dip out, and in 4 months you come back, remember nothing, and reset-- having wasted the time you spent before AND the time lost recovering from mental fatigue. Happens all the time to anyone that does anything consistently that’s hard (like running).

Bottom line: Set a limit that feels a little slow, but when you have a bad mental day, you can still do it. Leeches take priority over new items, because they’ll eat you alive.

4 Likes
#26

Yup! I have done the level-up-every-8-days thing, and it was stressful, time-consuming and ultimately the stuff just didn’t sink in. I’m now doing level ups in 2 1/2 to 3 weeks and I feel much better that the items have actually been learned.

I would humbly suggest, if at all possible, doing fewer lessons every day, and doing your reviews at the set times they appear (i.e. 4 hours after lessons, then 8 hours after that) - daily consistency
on fewer items will see you progress at a faster, and less stressful, rate than a more haphazard approach with more items.

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