Hi, I’ve been studying on and off for a long time. I recently was doing flashcards and now resetted to get back on track. I’m currently working through beginner N5 [Mainly vocabulary and Kanji]. I wanted to know if there is a structure or schedule anyone uses to learn N5 + the lessons. How do you know when to move on from one lesson to another. I use the sentences from the sentence pack for speaking by repeating. Writing is mainly from the flashcards. I wait until I reach 50% mastery before adding more and I learn using the Normal settings on renshuu. I don’t really do the focused reviews. Is that something that I should be doing? I am uncertain if I am learning efficiently.
I started with N5 3 months ago. I plan on reaching N1 in the next 3 years. Half a year is dedicated to one level + the last 6 months to repeat and "master" it all.
I split the content in three categories: Kanji, Vocabulary and Grammar. For the packages there are renshuu packages for all N-Levels so you can just use them.
As a dictionary (besides the renshuu one) I use Takoboto and everytime an unknown word bothers me I look it up and add it to my list aside from the N-level vocabulary.
Usually I start with Kanji. Once I get a good grasp of them, I add vocabulary learning to it. Since vocabulary has the most amount of quantity I learn them constantly parallel to Kanji and grammar. When I feel safe with all Kanjis of a level I switch from vocabulary + Kanji to vocabulary + grammar (which I did after some weeks). I try to learn daily since my goal is somewhat difficult but the amount depends.
The revision part usually happens in the learning quizzes too. I do vocabulary quizzes with 30 questions. 10 of those are new words. But if I feel like I forgot some old words I do focused reviews. In this regard they are essential for keeping the knowledge you gain. You can choose what exactly you want to review: words with lowest mastery, words you learned in the past days, words you got wrong etc. So yes, you should definitely do them. Along with the grammar lessons I do quizzes of 15-20 questions to test what I learned.
Learn to play around with your pace and the settings. Do more or less and observe your learning quality. Avoid being rigid and strict with your rules. Learning shouldn't be restrictive but liberating. At the beginning I did 45 questions. After some time I noticed that it bored me. So now I do 30 each quiz and do 2-3 quizzes daily which is even more than I did before. I also did pitch questions and writing (by hand) questions. Pitch questions were annoying and writing questions unnecessary because I already write in the grammar lessons (and writing is more for learning than actually using Kanji).
Listen to music, watch movies and animes and read manga or newspaper for passive learning. You'll notice that it feels very rewarding to realize that you are making progress, to be able to finally read that Kanji you couldn't or understand something you couldn't before.
If you want a general plan or inspiration ask ChatGpt. It helped me a lot. I use it also to ask very specific questions like the difference between 出る (as でる) and 出す (as だす) or the difference between すべて and ぜんぶ.
The amount of time that you have is what really should determine if you need to move on to the next lesson. After you're done with all your reviews for the day, if you can do more, then study the next topic. Conversely, don't study the next lesson if you barely have any time left after your daily reviews. If you're holding yourself back until you reach a certain proficiency levels, then you're simply going slower than you could otherwise. In language learning, there is absolutely no point in trying to achieve some level in a skill before trying another skill (or topic). You are perfectly capable of learning multiple things at the same time, and renshuu is here to make sure that you review it all.
