Still very new to this site and i feel kinda lost. it's giving me a lot of new terms but not helping me strengthen my connection with my struggle areas. what do?
SRS is baked into the core of renshuu - specifically, the mastery schedules. These are based on SRS, with the added dimension of "study vectors" - it maintains different levels of mastery on the different aspects of vocabulary/kanji/etc, instead of treating the entire term like a single A/B flashcard.
If you are coming in with some knowledge, it will take a bit of time for the site to push terms you previously knew further away. I would highly recommend taking advantage of the intro page before quizzing when it introduces new terms. If you see one that you already know, mark it (bottom of the page) at a rough level of understanding, and it'll prevent you from having to push through the lower levels present in any SRS system.
If you feel like you are getting too much review on a single term, you can go to the settings for your schedule (from the schedule's main page) and turn down the number of study vectors.
The "auto-review" is actually not that used. All this means is that it'll take words you are weak at (based on the same mastery levels) outside of the schedule, and pull it into the schedule's reviewing.
by mastery schedules i'm guessing you're not talking about the schedules the site gave me on the "getting started" page? any recommendations? [self learner btw if you needed to know]
Yes, those are the ones! The first two levels of the "Learning on my own" set you up with lessons based on what is learned in some of the popular textbooks, so they are a good start.
The majority of people that use the site go for the JLPT proficiency test, although I would not focus on that if you are just studying on your own.
Actually, users have made hundreds of lessons that can be found under Learn > Study Center (or, you can just add them to your schedule from the schedule's home page -> adjust materials). Unfortunately, discovery of lessons is not great on the site yet, so we are working on some changes in the next update (probably April or May) that will help bring out the best user-made lessons that you do not have to search for them yourself.
If you're interested at all in getting a used textbook for really in-depth explanations, the Genki series is excellent. The site has kanji and vocabulary lessons to support those materials, so a lot of users will work through the books's explanations while using renshuu to keep all that Japanese in their head.
