Hi everyone, unfortunately I had to reset my progress because I was away for far too long. But I came back with the mentality to stick around and work on my grammar.
I need some advice from people, how should I approach learning grammar? as in, how many grammar points per day, I’m fairly fluent with N5 grammar at this point, and I’m using WK daily alongside reading manga in JP so I have some further knowledge from there. My goal is to attempt N3 this year, so In good faith I want to know what would be the most recommended approach, cheers and thanks everyone!
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I would suggest setting the SRS Level of every N5 grammar point (maybe even N4) manually, since you already know them to some extent. If you think you will be able to set a lot to a higher SRS level, I think you could add 10 per day. But if you would put a lot into the beginner category, you should go slower.
While manually setting the SRS level, make sure to space them out a bit, like, if you have a bunch you would set as adept, make sure to put them into different adept categories, so they won’t hit you the same day again.
Keep watch how the SRS categories and your forecast fill-up and think about increasing or decreasing the daily amount accordingly.
Consider multiple sessions a day if you notice the beginner level filling up too much, since the time when the review comes up again is only a few hours.
Anyone knows what setting for grammar would be best for JLPT? I usually just use reading with reveal and grade, but that might not be enough for passing the test.
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Hi, thank you! I will tweak around with the N5 content and mark it manually, as for N4 I’m probably more fluent in its vocab and kanjis than the actual grammar, so I’ll approach it from there.
Also, is 10 a recommended amount for grammar? I was under the impression doing ~3-5 is the recommended amount
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I think the recommended amount for grammar is one every other day.
But since you already know most of the grammar AND set them to a higher SRS level you can add more. How much more really depends on how high you can set them and how many daily reviews you are willing to have.
I didn’t realize you also want to add vocab, if you want to power through all N5 to N3 vocab, too, I don’t think there is anything saving you from review hell.
Deactivate ghosts and make use of setting SRS level a lot. Maybe take a look into the new feature of changing the SRS timing to see if another one fits your needs better.
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I was in a similar situation when I reset. I was done with N4, starting with N3, before I had to take a break for years. I was unsure how to get back into it. So I reset everything and did 10 grammar points for N5 daily and N5 vocabulary (I think 5?). I just wanted to make sure I really really really knew what I was doing. After getting N5 grammar right 3 times in a row without hesitation, I marked it as mastered. You can tell when you totally know something or you still feel a tiny bit insecure. If you are sure, mark it as mastered.
I did the same with vocabulary. It takes some time, but I went through them all individually in the deck and if I immediately could tell them, I marked them as mastered right away and never even had them in the reviews. If I was a tiny bit “hmm”, I looked at the sentences. If I felt they would help me, I added them. But as soon as I felt comfortable enough and could tell them if someone woke me up at 3 am and asked that word, I marked it as mastered. It has helped me so much.
I noticed that my N4 was a bit wonkier, so this is where I really started to study again, with adding 3 grammar points a day. As my life is a bit hectic currently, I went down to 1 grammar point to make some steps forward. I still add 11 vocabulary a day (the remaining ones from N5, N4 and another deck). If I can recall a vocabulary so well, I set it manually to mastered. It seems like extra work, but I wanted to make sure the basics sit really really really well.
So far I am really happy and I feel like I don’t miss out on much. So far my reviews haven’t been crushing me, as I weed out the ones I already know well along. Sometimes I get 100 reviews (I usually do reviews twice a day). Just yesterday I had 98, but at the end I could mark 28 as mastered, as I was absolutely sure about them. So they are not coming back. I am really happy with that and it motivates me a lot to see how much I actually still remember.
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Is that the recommended amount? I suppose it makes sense but the default setting is 4 so I have been going with that. I don’t add new ones every day necessarily but when I do I add 4 at once. I think the goal is more to expose yourself to the grammar point and get the basic idea of it so that when you see it in an article or something you get the gist of what is being conveyed. As opposed
to doing 1 and going in depth on it for two days. I might be wrong, it seems like there is a lot of variety in how people use this app, its what works for each person I suppose.
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One grammar point every other day is what I have read on here quite a lot and the reason seems to be, so you have time to really get the nuances, practice the grammar by writing sentences and seeing the grammar point out in the wild. This seems to be even more important with later grammar points, since nuances get more and more tricky.
But I also like you’re approach a lot and it’s probably what I’ll do with vocab, when I start adding them again. Add like 40 vocab at once and repeat them over the next few days without adding new ones. This feels more naturally to me, since that’s how I learned in school.
If you have learned a language in school, you’ll probably remember that you usually learned just one grammar point at a time (or a few that work well together) and used it quite a while before learning a new one.
But not everybody got time for that, some have their JLPT tests looming on the horizon and they have to quickly get better. I think the 4 grammar points a day setting is meant for those people, which is probably the majority on here.
That being said, learning styles and learning pace hugely varies between people and finding something that works well for you is a huge part of language learning.
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yeah, I think it boils down to learning preferences, I do believe 4 a day is quite a lot however,
because I myself like to understand nuances, for example I’ll take the て form, I was scared of learning it because I would consider it fairly “ambiguous” in it’s usages.
When I first learnt it I skimmed a lot of the details and didn’t really understand it’s usage, but now I do, like てある、ている、てしまう、ておく and etc. I actually really recommend Tofugu’s explanations on those. Cleared a lot of misunderstanding for me.
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Yeah that makes sense. I have also used Tofugu a lot as well. I did 4 a day when I was doing N4 and I found that ok, but now I am into N3 it seems like I am entering into some more complex grammar and it may be best to take my time with it.
It has to be a balance between making progress but also giving yourself enough time to take everything in. If you stay in one place too long then your grammar points will get to a higher revision level and you won’t see them anymore (or much less frequently) in the future.
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I don’t think there’s a one size all answer that fits everyones’ needs, but I’d recommend gradual progression with what you’re comfortable with.
Try monitoring your SRS levels and review volumes per day to maintain a consistent range. For example, I don’t like to exceed 100 reviews per day, so if my volume graph starts to trend toward that threshold I hold off on adding new concepts until I catch up and bring more lower ranked items up and clear out ghosts.
But this is subjective and depends on the person. If you’re comfortable doing 200 reviews a day then by all means go for it, but you don’t need to feel pressured to always be adding every day if you start getting overwhelmed.
Little by little you’ll chip away at the mountain, and as long as you’re consistent and just keep at it you’ll clear through it before you know it 
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I did the same thing as you, actually. Learnt all of N5, N4 and half of N3 and then went away for 2 years. Then came back, reset everything and went over the whole list and put everything on mastered that I honestly knew I had mastered. Then I just put lessons into my list with an amount I felt comfortable with every week.
Did N3 (only level I tried) and passed it after studying for 2 months. Mind you; I was in Japan for 8 months in that 2 years. Also did the Anki 2k deck in those months. Also watching anime and trying not to read the subs. I scored an 50/60 on listening on N3. I found listening to be easier because of the active listening. Hope you pass!