Everytime I try to go at full speed, I end up burning out and messing up on reviews because of pressure to get it done no matter the time of day. Usually to the point of getting things wrong that I definitely know but was too tired to do or made a typo because I was going to fast.
The other reason is because I feel like I’ve spent way too much of my life trying to learn Japanese and I don’t want to go slow.
Buuuuut I’m done speeding now. It’s exhausting and it can be nice to go slow and actually retain what I’m learning.
unfortunately i’ve been getting only about a level every 2 weeks but my memory isnt so good and it drags it out longer. But I know that means if I don’t get a lifetime sub (and I probably won’t) every delayed level up means more cash out of my pocket to maintain a subscription
I had this same mindset, but be careful about underselling yourself! I was certain that I wouldn’t be able to handle 30+ new WK items a day PLUS grammar studies PLUS weekly Japanese lessons PLUS my own Anki PLUS, PLUS, PLUS… etc.
But, after a little while it became surprisingly doable. After building it up bit by bit. As you said, you know yourself the best, but I’ve read those same studies about saturation points and I felt the same as you.
Just keep in mind that you can always test your limits. The worst case scenario is that you pause new lessons for a week while you dig yourself out of the review hole you put yourself into. It’s not so bad really and personally I’m really digging leveling up every 20 days or so (as opposed to every 60 )
I had the motivation, the means, and the opportunity, so yeah I went as fast as I could. 2-60 in under a year. : )
Also, you know those fetch-quests or go collect 100 of these stupid things and get a stupid achievement in video games? Yeah, I love those. Seeing bars/points/levels/whatever just incrementally go up is like crack. It’s tiny, easily-attainable self-achievements.
Wanikani gave me that same rush, without the guilt (of it being completely pointless in the grand scheme of things) that goes along with video game achievements. It was a win-win for me!
Thanks for the motivation boost!
Seeing that there are more people with >14 days on average makes me feel less dumb.
(Not excluding my resets I would be at >61!)
I translate a lot, so the more kanji and vocab I know, the less I have to Alt Tab Photoshop to painstakingly search the kanji by radicals in Jisho and all.
It’s fine to take your time and all and find your pace, but if you take japanese learning seriously, there’s still definitely a point in progressing steadily and relatively rapidly.
Pretty much impossible for me to rush as I work full time so I can’t dedicate as much time to learning Japanese as I’d like. I’m happy with the pace I have at the moment which I think is about 8-ish days per level so far, I don’t think I would want to go much faster than that as I would just get overwhelmed.
Not too bothered about going fast or slow. So long as I’m always learning new things I am happy.
While I already failed to set a pace that allows me to complete WK in a year - I, too, am trying to make the most out of a year’s subscription.
I’m trying to get the kanji out of the way to have at least that hurdle dealt with in my Japanese journey. Kanji are a path to reading, which is a path to better grammar exposure.
As someone else said; it’s work. Necessary work to master Japanese, but if I wallow in kanji-learning for years, I’ll loose motivation. Going faster means I actively see my knowledge and recognition grow. Very motivating!
But on the whole: who cares what others do? ^-^ They’re not you - you’re not them. You know what works for you, and what you want.
I was like you before, just spend my time here lazily, doing my reviews at ease, whenever I felt comfortable, for sometimg like 2 years or so, but recently I felt like I’m not making progress.
I read some topics about people who rushed it to level 60 in one year and stuff like that and it gave me boost, I wanted to progress!
I was tired of being stuck, feeling stuck, so I begane to rush it.
Now I do all my reviews and lessons for the day, for the past two weeks, and it feels great, much better than before, my memory of the words is better and I feel more confidence.
Since nobody really expressed this, the levels are generally just under 7 days at top speed, on account of having to guru the radicals in order to unlock the second batch of kanji for a level. Only from around level 45 do they run out of enough radicals, so you only get one set of kanji to guru before moving to the next level, so those lwvels take about 3,5 days at top speed.
i’m going at close to max speed (as close as i can manage - can’t play with my phone at work), and i’m working full-time, too. i’m also 43 years old and nobody ever praised me for my exceptional memory (why did i just come here to the kitchen?).
it’s a simple matter of priority, not of ability or time.
What am I doing everyday?
-All WK reviews in the morning and the evening + lessons if available (up to 30 items)
-All KW reviews in the morning an in the evening + lessons if available
-Chat with one language exchange parnter (in worst Japanese ever)
-Give an answer of 2 or 3 sentences in a fine Japanese to another language exhange partner + corrections and some sentences in German (= language exchange)
-If time: read a little bit
Time effort per day: about 3 to 4 hours
Why am I struggling so hard?
I know myself pretty well and I exactly know, that one period of motivation lasts about 1 year. IF I am able to leran Japanese in one year, so that I can understand anime, I won. If not, I won’t make it.
On the other side it is totally motivating to see progress. And in distances of one week, I can really see changes in my knowledge and abilities.
So you see, for me it’s not possible to make it at a slow pace. At least that is what I am believing.
That’s not what I said. I also couldn’t agree more about the fact of learning Japanese for a long while, and enjoying the good things that come with it. I was merely stating that spending too much time on WK was not in my plans, and the faster I’m done with it, the faster I’ll be able to read Manga. I can’t justify spending money on a lifetime plan, for example. I can spend that money towards building a nice Manga collection. I’m sorry if my original post sounded a bit patronizing and pretentious, because that was not my intention.
Exactly my feelings. I also have to put my memory to good practical use, not just memorizing random stuff for fun. This way, I get to learn a new language that few outside Japan can crack it. I don’t want to be one of those guys that gives up, and two or thee years from now looks at it with disappointment thinking, what I would know by know if I’d stuck with it…
I go a level a week simply because Kanji is my main stop in reading. If I learn 30 kanji a week then soon enough I can read books that don’t have furigana without spending a few minutes on Jisho everytime I come across a Kanji I haven’t seen yet, as well as games. I played Stardew Valley a lot in Japanese but eventually fell off a little because of the thought “well if I play I’m just going to spend my time on Jisho rather than enjoying the game”.
I made a goal that when I made it to level 10 I could buy myself a japanese 2DS XL. I want the animal crossing one and I’m paranoid about it going away before I can make it haha
I went full speed simply because the amount of work that WaniKani threw at me on a weekly basis was manageable. The 3,5 day lvls towards the end was intense but still worked out fine. The earlier I could leave WaniKani and fully learn from reading things in context, the better.
By going fast, it took me 1,5 years to get to the point where I’m able to improve my reading ability effectively by reading manga, playing video games, reading news papers, watching things with Japanese subtitles etc. and personally it’s a lot more enjoyable than studying kanji and vocab in isolation.
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