What's your process?

[nerdymartian]

I am setting a pace that’s on the slow side: just about to start learning level 5 radicals after 16 days on level 4. So far I have been strictly limiting myself to 10 kanji/vocab or 20 radicals per day. I do 5 lessons early in the morning (so I can review twice more the same day after 4 hours followed by another 8 hours later) and then another 5 lessons in the early evening (first review 4 hours later in the evening).

I pre-study each set of 5 lessons. So after my 5 lessons in the morning I’ll look over the next set of 5 lessons which I’ll take the quiz for in the early evening. And after the evening lessons I’ll look over the next morning lessons. The quizzes are very easy that way. There’s not much chance I’ll forget them soon after I take the quiz, because I’ve already had about 8 or more hours to look at the lessons and digest them before I take the quiz.

Then I drill.

I like seanblue’s modification to rfindley’s great Self-Study Quiz Edition. You can find it in this thread:

[Userscript] Self-Study Quiz

To anyone interested, I threw together a modified version of the self study script that allows for studying more than level at once. Additionally, you can specify a “time until review” for each SRS level so that you don’t accidentally study too close to a review. Detailed explanation and variable settings toward the top of the file. I will not actively support this version of the script, but I figured I’d share. // ==UserScript== // @name Wanikani Self-Study Quiz Edition // @namespace …

It allows me to drill newer items without interfering too much with the SRS.

I also am careful to always recite reading first, followed by meaning, even when a review is asking for the meaning, as suggested by rfindley. Drills go very fast, and I feel pretty solid about them afterwards. Also I mentally mark the mistakes I encounter in drilling so I won’t make them when I do the actual reviews. The fewer mistakes in reviews, the fewer apprentice items I’ll have in the queue.

Of course I’m only at level 5, so take this for what it’s worth.

[anon52074655]

I can’t imagine doing WK without a solid background in vocab and some grammar. That way most of the kanji and words that come up are at least part recognisable - it’s a further hook that helps.

For me - a new kanji or new reading that I’ve never come across before and that I know I won’t remember from the mnemonic or visually usually means me looking on jisho or somewhere to find a word I do know with the kanji in it. Hopefully with a combination of the above and a few failures on WK I get it.

Using the leech website is handy for the stubborn ones and I do make lists in Google Keep of similar kanji I often mistake for each other. I also review every mistake I make on WK by copying the errors to Google Keep and looking over again. Further to this reading is key although that’s difficult if starting kanji, vocab and grammar all at the same time.