So, I’m not that far into it, but am I the only one who studies like 10 words until I get them all right at least 10 times in a row? Plz help. I don’t know if that’s normal, but I’m worried that if I move on, I’m going to forget them and like- not remember anything about them. ;( halp
Thank you to everyone who comments on my questions, they help me out a lot, and I apologize if my future questions become annoying with how many there are. These answers are really helping me figure out my schedule, how often to study, and how much I should be studying. I am really excited to learn and study, so thank you!<3
First of all: Everyone needs to find their own pacing that works for them, so do not feel pressured to change your approach if it works for you! :)
When I was building up my foundation of vocab, I picked one day in the week (for me it was Saturday) and learned 10-20 new terms on that one day. I then used the following week to solidify my understanding/knowledge before adding the next batch of 10-20 the week after. Learning 10 or 20 I depended on how many daily reviews I was encountering on average during that week. If it was too many, I rather learned 10, or sometimes even 0, as a) I rather try to get all reviews done renshuu throws at me on one day than get overwhelmed with too much and me breaking out of the SRS cycle and b) if my average was too high it was a good indicator that I did not yet really understood/got a good number of the terms I learned thus far, so this allowed me to have another week of better learning the added terms.
That said, I was not studying 10 terms a week in the end throughout, because whenever I was doing textbook studying I threw all of the above out of the window and crammed all terms of the next lesson (which could be ~100) within 4 days (Monday through Thursday), so that I have a more or less stable foundation to tackle that chapter on Saturday and Sunday. (during those sprints, having had 500 reviews per day was not seldom, now I am back on a (for me) more comfortable level of ~120 reviews a day]
On a final note: do not be afraid to forget things. There are a lot of terms that I learned and have trouble recalling but this mostly ended up affecting items that I ultimately do not really need (example: I learned 蚕 [silkworm] to help me better memorizing the associated Kanji, but right now was the first time since I learned it that I wanted to use it [and I had to look it up! ] - and I never encountered it in the wild up until now either...). There will be things that are difficult to remember, but when you start using your Japanese to - for example - read articles you will over time solidify your memory of those terms that are actually used a lot and those you forget/remember less will end up being those that are not that important to know to you anyways
I'll echo that you have to find a routine that works for you. If it works for you, and you're comfortable with it, stick with it.
And while I still remember it, I'll also echo that forgetting things is normal.
How often do I study ?
Daily.
How much?
It changes all the time. Across all my schedule somewhere around 100-150 questions per day (but some of those questions only take a second, while others may take a few minutes)
I adjust the number of new terms up and down based on whether the work load on the schedule feels manageable or not. Lately, on schedules I'm keeping up with I usually do about 1 new term per day. On schedules I'm falling behind on, or need a breather on, I usually do 1 new term per week.
Wanting to be perfect is normal, but an obsession with perfect scores is going to be counterproductive. Your goal is to learn Japanese, not ace the quizzes. Give yourself permission to make mistakes: they are essential to learning. As much as we might like to, there is no avoiding them.
I study every day, for anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. Learning Japanese is a big job and takes a serious time commitment. My reference for how much time to devote to study is the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC), where courses are taught seven hours per day, five days a week, plus up to eight hours per day of homework.
Obviously, few people have the time, the resources, and the powers of concentration needed for that level of commitment. So for us it takes longer.
I'd like to echo what ボールおじちゃんさん said. Japanese is a huge time commitment, and learning how to study the language is as much of a process as learning Japanese itself. I've been studying for 2-years now, though I'm roughly at an N5 level of comprehension. The reason for that being that I've taken a lot of time to figure out what study methods work best for me, explore tools, think about what my goals are, and implement all those ideas into a cohesive study routine that works well with my lifestyle.
Language learning is a marathon, one you'll probably be doing for the rest of your life if your goal is to become fluent in Japanese. Just remember to breathe and take your time. Do what works best for you.
Thank you guys so much for the answers and suggestions, they really helped me out. I guess I’ve been so focused on being fluent that I forgot to take my time and actually think about what I should do. I really want to learn and speak Japanese as fast as I can, but now I know that this takes time. Thank you to everyone who commented on it and have a wonderfully beautiful day<3
I was thinking myself recenlty that what I do is not enough and my study time has shortened drastically. Then I think "oh yes I still watch videos and I do exercise less but I do some research on grammar exercises and bla bla bla..." Do I justify myself? Well, I have my own reason why I should be studying aggressively but sometimes I just can't...
Commitment is something you do in that wavy line with ups and downs, you do this "crawl" type of swimming. You just don't allow yourself to relax, don't you?
No, you breath. Just make only one habbit - effectiveness
If you scared that you'll forget, again, you are already loosing this battle by just thinking like so. Do you do something to prevent this? Yes, by refreshing your memory and letting your brain do the work for you. Actually sometimes after some aggressive study, you can leave it be and then come back to it after one week and trust me, you will remember something.
I refresh my memory with 50 to 100 words a day, I TRY TO, I only learn new words only if I have 47 out of 50 correct and now tell me - will I succeed? Nah, if I have a time limit. I'm N5 in 6+ month and comparing to "others" I am slow. Do you have your own time limit? I do, I have another 6 months for N4 at least and I also do other things like work and hobbies. So how much do you allow yourself to study in a day? Do you really enjoy learning? Do you breath, sleep and eat surrounded by Japanese language? Do you have a talent and skills to be multilingual?
Ask yourself those questions and you will find your own answer but there is no answer, some will say that you need to be born talented and some will say that with enough passion - you can become one.
Studying daily for half an hour is a good start for any language or music instrument. The main idea being to keep at iy everyday.
There is an activity map that you can display in your stats which could help you see how much you have done one a ggiven day.
There is also the ootion to focus review terms you missed in the last 30 days which I think is a great feature though I did not use it much the last month or so.
The advice given above are gold and I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the very positive and helpful community here.
Taking a yearly or monthly subscription is also helping the site and some kind of motivation as you paid for it.
(during those sprints, having had 500 reviews per day was not seldom, now I am back on a (for me) more comfortable level of ~120 reviews a day]
] - and I never encountered it in the wild up until now either...). There will be things that are difficult to remember, but when you start using your Japanese to - for example - read articles you will over time solidify your memory of those terms that are actually used a lot and those you forget/remember less will end up being those that are not that important to know to you anyways 
