There is no way to speed up or skip content on WaniKani.

Not even if you email us and promise you know 10,000+ kanji so you don’t need to start at level 1.

There are a few reasons for this, though they may not be satisfactory to a master of kanji, such as yourself.

The WaniKani system is built upon mnemonics that use a lot of made up radicals that you almost definitely haven’t learned. This information is used all throughout WaniKani’s sixty levels. To use WaniKani effectively, you need to learn these, which means starting at the beginning.

Another issue comes from how difficult it would be to create a testing/skipping protocol that’s good. We could make a so-so one, but in general we err on the side of “making sure you truly know things before moving on.”

Finally, if you’re a master of kanji, we recommend you just go out there and read a lot of Japanese. That’s your next step and you’ll do just fine without WaniKani! Especially if you know 10,000 kanji, like geez, who are you?

If you know some kanji (say, 100-200), then the first five levels or so should catch you up. That’s about a month of time. In the grand scheme of learning the kanji, that’s a drop in the bucket. Plus, we teach vocabulary too. Most likely, you’ll be learning new information despite having a few hundred kanji under your belt. The first three levels are free, so worst case scenario is that you’ll get to review and reinforce your kanji knowledge without having to pay a cent.

Not sure how to level up? Read all about it here.