WaniKani SRS
How long does it take to burn a kanji on WaniKani?
The full SRS path from a fresh lesson to a burned item is 6 months and 22 days on the default schedule, or roughly 2 days shorter on the accelerated levels 1 and 2. The math below is exact, the timeline assumes every review is answered correctly the day it lands.
| Stage | Wait | Cumulative |
|---|---|---|
| Apprentice I | 4h | 4h |
| Apprentice II | 8h | 12h |
| Apprentice III | 23h | 1 day 11h |
| Apprentice IV | 1 day 23h | 3 days 10h |
| Guru I | 7 days | 10 days 10h |
| Guru II | 14 days | 24 days 10h |
| Master | 1 month | 1 month 24 days |
| Enlightened | 4 months | 5 months 24 days |
| Burned | - | 5 months 24 days |
The SRS in plain English
WaniKani uses a spaced-repetition system that grows the gap between reviews each time you answer correctly. A fresh lesson lands at Apprentice I and rolls forward through Apprentice II, III, IV, Guru I and II, Master, Enlightened, and finally Burned. Each tier has a fixed wait time. Get one wrong and you drop back; get it right and you climb.
The first four tiers, Apprentice I through IV, are the grind: short waits (hours, not days) so you see items often. Past Guru the waits grow exponentially. The Enlightened wait alone is 120 days, which is why burning never feels close until it suddenly is.
Want to see your real burn pace?
Wanilog tracks your actual burn velocity from the assignments WaniKani exposes - burns this week, burns this month, the date of your most recent one. It works for free with any WaniKani API v2 key.
FAQ
How long does it take to burn a kanji on WaniKani?
Roughly 6 months and 22 days from the moment you start the lesson, assuming every review is answered correctly on the day it becomes available. On levels 1 and 2 the Apprentice waits are halved, shaving about 2 days off the total.
Why does the last wait take 4 months?
The Enlightened-to-Burned interval is 120 days by design. The SRS theory behind WaniKani is that a 4-month gap proves the item is in long-term memory rather than recent recall, and the math only works if that gap is long enough to forget the easy stuff.
What happens if I get a review wrong?
The item drops back one or two stages (depending on whether you got both meaning and reading wrong) and you wait the SRS interval at that stage before reviewing again. A single slip at Enlightened costs you weeks; that is why burning is hard.
Can I burn faster than 6 months and 22 days?
No. The intervals are server-side. The fastest path through the SRS is the one shown in the table above, and even that requires you to answer correctly on the day every review becomes available. Real burn times are usually longer.
What is "resurrecting" a burned kanji?
WaniKani lets you bring a burned item back into the SRS queue starting at Apprentice I if you want a refresher. It is a manual choice, not automatic, and the kanji counts as burned again only after it climbs back to stage 9.