Crazy pace?

[Scottd]

I made a post about srs speed as I am finding the number of reviews to be alot each session. Someone suggested turning off ghost reviews.

So I did and my reviews when up from 156 to 180 ( i review Bunpro twice a day). So I decided just to grind 180 reviews. As soon as I finished, another 40 reviews immediately popped up.

Bunpro is a little ambitious no? Is this a normal speed at which to practice? does anyone else have this issue?

EDIT: as a new user I am embarrassed to say my issue was mainly a user error. When beginning, I started two decks at one time, with one deck offering 8 new lessons at a time. I reset the deck I was not using and my reviews have begun to return to a manageable pace (under 100 per day). Thank you to everyone for the kind suggestions. I hope other newbies can learn from my struggle.

[Superpnut]

Was it as soon as you finished or because they were already in the queue to show up next hour? Because normally I only get new reviews every half hour. But yes I agree getting another 40 after doing 180 seems like a lot but it also depends on how many you add and how quickly. When you add new points they always come back really fast due to low SRS level.

[Scottd]

I completed the grind, returned to the dashboard and found another 40. It totally could have been in the que, as itt is 10:30am JST where I am, so perhaps i misunderstood the respawn rate of the reviews.

I was honestly hoping for like 30-40 reviews a day max. I thought reviews i got correct multiple times would be burned or something in wanikani.

I tried looking for a faq/instructional guide on bunpro but apparently im blind lol

[Tim]

How many lessons are you doing? I do two new grammar points a day and get 25ish reviews per day, passing at around a 90% rate and Ghosts set to the Minimal option. That feels fast to me, considering it would theoretically get me through the entirety of Bunpro in about 15 months if I kept it up (I intend to take breaks, though).

Slow down on the lessons and set ghosts to Minimal.

Oh, and the SRS schedule and chart are here: (Yes, items do eventually “burn” and go away)

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[Sidgr]

Sounds like you added ~40ish grammar points at once. I recommend not adding any more until you get it down to a reasonable level. Also you can go your settings and clear out the ghosts. That should also help.

[HotAirGun]

Yeah, it definitely looks like a crazy pace to me. It would be a good idea do not add new lessons to the review queue.

[MC_2018]

I’ve had similar happen to me. If I push off reviews for too long, and then try to do a lot of them, any cards that you messed up may appear again; additionally, I think that if you complete cards to new grammar points, it will add new cards with the same grammar point relatively quickly. Don’t try to rush and get them all done at once. Whenever the deck stacks up for me (100-150), I usually limit myself to 50-60 cards a day and get through it all within 4-6 days.

[faithadlaa]

This is what I was going to ask. I’m at a similar pace to Tim in both how many new grammar points I’m doing a day, and how many reviews I get. I also have my ghosts set to minimal. Usually I cram once or twice a day if I get the opportunity to, just with beginner/new grammar points in order to really hammer them into my memory. I agree with a couple others who have written - it would probably be best to strictly limit/completely stop adding new grammar for now. It is incredibly hard to retain so much information at once, and almost impossible to grasp any sort of nuance working at such a fast pace. It will do more harm than good in the long-term, even if it seems to be effective right now.

I would avoid turning off ghost reviews, also, as those are only made from your “weak” grammar points. They can be incredibly useful for identifying difficult grammar points for yourself if nothing else. They go away after only four consecutive correct reviews I believe.

Best of luck in getting those reviews down - I hope this was helpful!

[wct]

@faithadlaa

I would avoid turning off ghost reviews, also, as those are only made from your “weak” grammar points.

I would agree with this. But I guess it does depend on the person and their learning style.

Personally, I have ghost reviews set to full, so any time I get a non-ghost grammar point wrong, it spawns a ghost. But I don’t mind so many ghosts, because it just tells me, “Hey, you’re going too fast! Slooowww down, dude…”

And I try to keep my total number of ghosts fairly low. For example, I aim to have fewer than 20-ish ghosts. More ideally, 10 or less. When they get up into the 30s or 40s, I hold off on lessons until I get them down again.

Sure, ghosts can perhaps be annoying for some people, but personally, I’m in no rush, and I’d prefer to iron out my weak points in grammar early, rather than risk ‘half-learning’ some grammar and having weak foundations that trip me up later. Maybe I’m overly cautious, but that’s just me.

And as faithadlaa said, once you get a ghost from SRS level 3 to level 4, it is ‘slain’. So it’s not like a permanent thing. In fact, it’s a little bit like the new Extra Study modes that were added to WaniKani recently, except it’s more ‘enforced’ where WK’s is 100% user’s-choice (I still like the ghost system, though).

(And you can get badges for slaying lots of ghosts, too. I’ve got the “Excorcist 1408” badge for slaying more than 1408 ghosts right now! Not sure what 1408 is in reference to, but whatever! )

[Devenu]

To add with my own personal experience as well as a suggestion, the amount of reviews really snowballs even if you work at a snail’s pace. It really pays to be patient.

I review everyday. On Monday - Friday I add about 1-2 new grammar points on average (except for N5 and N4 which I did huge batches of because I already knew them). If I notice my daily reviews going over 50 I stop studying new points until the daily number starts dropping again.

Despite only doing 1-2 new points a day I’m finding myself averaging about 100 reviews daily. To date, I’ve added about 789 grammar points so far. Spreading out all of those reviews at different intervals, and considering my review accuracy is about 66-75% and a mistake pushes it to the next study session, reviews really start adding up quickly.

[Scottd]

this is the strategy im looking for. I think i screwed up by ripping through lessons unknowingly that the reviews multiply the lessons learned. Perhaps I can just do an amount of reviews im comfortable with than exit the review page. It will hold my place?

[Jeppebloch]

Yeah you don’t need to finish all the reviews in you queue at once.

[Scottd]

yep thats it for sure -i’ve added way too may new points and now my reviews have climbed super high. So the only way to get them down is to increase accuracy? At this point reviews show up less? i’d love to have only 50 reviews a day. I am currently at 200 + after logging in - seeing so many reviews completely ruins the experience lol

[Scottd]

seeing the high number in the que completely demotivates me. I loose all interest assuming i have to tackle so many. Glad to hear your insight so that I can apply it to my practice.

[Devenu]

@Scottd

So the only way to get them down is to increase accuracy? At this point reviews show up less?

As long as you continue to plow through those reviews they will go down eventually. I had the same problem when I started. This can occur especially if I skipped a day or two. This is Bunpro’s Spaced Repetition System (SRS). If you continuously just go through the reviews daily (even if you don’t finish all of them in a day) then they will start to spread out over time and be more manageable.

Alternatively, you can reset everything and start from the beginning working one thing at a time. You can also just keep working at doing the reviews as well. As long as you’re not adding new grammar points and just reviewing it will alleviate itself over time.

[faithadlaa]

Adding on to this, I’d highly recommend utilizing the cram feature for your weaker points! I know you’re already feeling very overwhelmed with the amount of reviews, but it might be something for a day you’re feeling up to it. You can even use the cram feature to set to only studying ghosts or weaker grammar points which is super helpful for just drilling the ones that give you trouble. I highly recommend to give it a go when you’re feeling up to it to build on that foundation!

[Scottd]

this is a great idea and moving forward I will begin trying this as well! thank you kindly for your suggestion!

[Suugakusan]

I will say that I did something similar when I was eager to finish the N4 grammar. I rushed through 50-some new grammar points in 2-3 days to finish the JLPT level and spent hours every day for the next week grinding reviews. It was worth it, but I probably won’t be doing that for N3 any time soon!

[Scottd]

I really wish I had the same drive to grind through N4 so I can start N3 - as I would really love to write the JLPT N3 this summer. I think there are 4 months so Im not sure I have enough study time. Alot of people recommend 6 months for N3?

Currently im at 65 grammar points for N4? My kanji is also not up to par for writing the N3 at this time, maybe in 4 months it will be lol

[Suugakusan]

Well, remember that you don’t actually need to learn to write any kanji for the JLPT exams. All you need is to be able to recognize the word, which many people–including myself–can do quite well without memorizing kanji readngs.

I learned around 1.5k kanji at first, and it really slowed me down. It doesn’t help me learn words, and all I use Japanese writing for is showing off to my Japanese and Chinese friends (which is valuable to me, I guess).

Anyway, I would say you shouldn’t worry about kanji for the JLPT and spend all that time learning words instead.