I’m using wkstats.com with my studies, and I’m starting to consistently get around 12.5 days from my last few levels. Is this normal? I feel kind of stupid looking at some people’s charts on here that are like 7 days a level or something.
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There’s obviously going to be some selection bias in the charts that get shared. People tend to share charts to show very fast leveling, or very slow leveling. People who are average don’t have a particular reason to want to share them. I’m not sure any users can say definitively what the average actually is (except staff could probably figure it out).
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Fair enough. That does actually make me feel better. I should probably mention I’m not using any mnemonics to learn. I’m just learning from seeing (don’t remember what the term for it is), so that will probably take longer as well.
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Twoish months for me 
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Behold and be impressed! =D
Just one kanji away from level 13, and it won’t come up again for two days… (I’ve already peeked at the level 13 radicals while waiting.)
Edit: I mostly don’t use the mnemonics, either. Unless I’m really struggling to remember a meaning or pronunciation. And then, half the time I make my own mnemonic.
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Data point: I get about 10-14 days when I’m doing them pretty regularly, not excessively procrastinating, but also not rushing to do them As Fast As Possible. It’s going to depend on your accuracy though, too many failures at the wrong moment can push your level-up date.
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It varies a lot. Some people take a month or longer. And what is a “good” pace varies by person so it’s best not to compare yourself to other people.
My level up chart varies from 5 days, 11 hours (level 43) to 26 days, 14 hours (level 29). I guess I feel most comfortable at about 8 to 9 days. If I take 14 days or longer, I just find WaniKani to be more stressful but for some people that’s what is comfortable for them.
Edit: a note about me leveling up in 5 days–as far as I know, that is actually impossible for the majority of the WaniKani levels. For some reason you can level up faster in some 天国 levels. I don’t know why and I don’t have more info but I just want to mention it because I don’t want people to think they need to level up in 5 days.
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I am on 19 - 20 days/level, so you’re looking quite speedy to me!
Don’t worry about anyone else’s routine - find a routine and workload that works for you within your overall commitments and lifestyle and you’ll be fine.
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In the end it’s all about how much time you’re willing to dedicate anyways.
I’m currently doing 10 lessons per day, which means for the lower levels I’m going at 15-16 days/level.
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I believe it’s because the radicals for those levels don’t keep enough kanji locked to keep you from 90%-ing a level in 4 days iirc.
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Same here. I’m not really a fan of using the mnemonics. And props to you to keeping at!
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I have managed 8.5 days in average but it takes 1 hour before work, 20 minutes before lunch and 1 hour before bed, every single day.
I’m not using any script, just the default WaniKani experience.
However, I’m traveling for work now, and I already sense this level will have an impact of 1-2 days, as I have been unable to do the lessons the 3 times I’m used to (just one time per day)
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This is roughly my schedule as well, minus the 20 mins before lunch. I’ve not missed a day in the past 45 days or so, so we’ll see if I start to get lower in the level up times. Thanks for the input!
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You are already doing great! Those 20 minutes are good to give you an extra review or lesson block during the day, it goes by a lot faster than the other 2 time slots and facilitates both big reviews.
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Why do you feel mnemonics are not working for you?
I selected WaniKani because I learned Hiragana and Katakana very quickly with mnemonics (around 2 weeks of airplane flying time), and WK was the closest thing with a comprehensive SRS system behind it. It is an extremely successful system for me (compared to everything else out there).
Mnemonics are at the core of the WK experience, if you don’t like them you may be sabotaging yourself? Not saying that’s wrong but maybe you would like to rethink how to better take advantage of the memorization and association system in place (you are paying for it).
I don’t use them either. I don’t have a reason, I guess they just don’t resonate with my brain? Besides the SRS system, breaking down the radicals really helped me, even if some of the names are specifically for the mnemonics. Maybe WaniKani isn’t the only thing to do this but I’m sticking with WaniKani even without the mnemonics because it’s working for me ^o^
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Here’s my level up chart. The first two blacked out levels were two freebies I gave myself to not count towards my average/median, the rest were all times where I went onto vacation mode and then subsequently had to recover.
I find it really hard for anyone without abundant free time to maintain any kind of “fast” pace to get those full 3 review sessions in (without using/abusing the reorder script) and still keep up with the full speed review groupings. I was a Middle School band director in the states for my first year of WaniKani (levels 1-25), then moved to Japan (hence the blacked out level), and once I got back into the routine I was finally able to get a bit of a better handle on level up speed consistency (36-52).
Once I passed my JLPT (the last blacked out level you see), I lost a lot of study motivation, so I’ve slowed down quite a bit since then 
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I’ve been dawdling on finishing my last free lessons, but now that I’ve checked my stats I gotta hustle. This post has inspired me to maybe not be so slow.
… at least my accuracy is good…
I don’t think there is a “normal” level. It depends on how much free time one has, how fast they can remember things and how much will one has.
I am a slow learner. My memory is a bit lazy and it takes time to sink things in. At fist I was a bit annoyed by that but I made peace with it. And also, I find it hard to do Japanese in weekends bc I want to play rpg games so I learned to make peace with that too…
In the end, I think you have to make the learning process comfortable for you. This is not school, were you had to learn many things in a short period of time.
I suppose many of those who learn Japanese do it as a hobby. If you do it bc of that, don’t forget what a hobby is: something to make you feel good, relaxed and a break from the real world. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself or you’ll burn out.
Just take things in your way, enjoy the learning process, be proud of yourself because you are doing the amazing process called learning. It’s going to be a piece of cake to learn Japanese but only if you do it your way! In the end, all that matters is to enjoy it!
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