Bunpro N5 / N4 pace for the JLPT

Japanese
#1

I posted this first on a different thread. Hi. Hope it’s not a bother to ask here, since I’m in a similar situation and I’d rather no create a new thread for it. Sorry if there’s anything worded weirdly, English isn’t my first language and I haven’t had my coffee yet.

I finished the N5 Grammar deck just yesterday. I haven’t mastered everything, far from it, but since I plan on taking the N4 exam in December, I want to start drilling the N4 Grammar deck. The thing is, I plan on learning three new items a day, I did six items a day for the N5. Is this a good pace or should I add a few more items?

My main concern is the vocabulary. I have an easier time learning vocabulary than learning grammar, but even though I learn twenty new items a day (and having taken a few vacation mode days) I am only 400 out of 1100 items into the N5 Vocab deck.

My question then is, given my situation -that is taking the N4 exam in December- should I start learning the N4 Vocab right away? Should I instead reduce the learning pace for the N5 to ten items a day and add ten N4 items so there’s a balance?

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#2

Mind you, I already (extremely messily) did N5 and N4 once before, so take this with a grain of salt.

I am on my second effective rerun this time, and what I’ve done so far has worked quite well for me:

I started with N5 grammar and vocab at the same time, where I did 5 grammar points every day and 20 vocabs every day. Once I was finished with the grammar, I focussed solely on the N5 vocab, and I did 30 vocabs every day, since learning a vocab involves way less effort than a grammar point. By doing this, I’m giving myself the time to properly reinforce the N5 grammar that I’ve learned so far through SRS, which I think is quite important since a lot of grammar is based on having a good understanding of the N5 grammar.

I recently finally finished the N5 vocab as well, and have now added the N4 grammar and vocab deck as well. The previous N5 pace was fine since I didn’t have any older reviews coming up, but part of my daily reviews are all of the material that I’ve learned previously, so I’ve reduced my learning to 5 N4 grammar points and 10 N4 grammar points.

If I have the correct date, the JLPT is on December 7th, which is in 128 days.
If you were to do my method, you would need 700/30=24 days to get all the remaining N5 vocab.
Then, to get all the N4 grammar points you need 178/5 = 36 days after that, and simultaneously starting N4 vocab on my pace would mean 1100/10 = 110 days, for a total of 110+24=134 days, so that’s just about too slow.

However, since you want to go for 3 N4 grammar points a day, you could also choose 15 N4 vocabs per day, so that would mean 1100/15=74 days, so with the 24 days that would be 24+74=98 days, giving you 30 more days to reinforce everything.

So basically:

  • Finish your N5 vocab at either A: 30 items per day (24 days) or B: 25 items per day (28 days)
  • Start N4 grammar and N4 at the same time after finishing N5 vocab. (Part of my first burn-out with grammar was keeping on going with N4 and even N3 without having a good base, so I HIGHLY recommend solidifying that grammar through reviews, while using that time to learn more grammar as well.)
  • Do 3 N4 grammar points per day (done after 60 days, giving you 44(A) or 40(B) days to master that grammar)
  • Do 15 N4 vocabs per day (done after 74 days, giving you 30(A) or 26(B) days to master the vocab)

However, I don’t know how much time you have per day, so be sure to adapt anything if it feels unmanageable.

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#3

Hi, thank you so much for your answer.

I have done a few N4 grammar points (3 yesterday, 6 today). I still have a bunch of reviews, especially for N5 grammar points.
Your method would work for me, I believe. I think I could finish off N5 easily following that, I’d be done by late August. The reason I wanted to do 3 N4 grammar points was so I didn’t overwhelm myself with grammar reviews. If I can keep the same pace for the N4 decks (6 grammar + 20 vocab) I would be done in late September (grammar, if we take out the 9 grammar points I have already studied) and mid October (vocab), which doesn’t sound as bad. Then I guess I can drill N4 level JLPTests for a month and a half while doing my reviews, should be enough time I believe?

On top of Bunpro I’m also doing the 2k/6k Anki deck, there’s some overlap with the Bunpro N5 Vocab deck, so it’s not a lot of work for now. I do 20 new cards and for the last few days I have had 70 to 100 reviews a day (I do have some trouble remembering vocab and/or kanji on Anki). Other than that, i’m doing Kanji Study on my phone, which doesn’t take either much effort or time, helps me reinforce some vocabulary through etymology (which seems to be what works the best for me), I mainly use it to learn the stroke order.

I’m pretty much free for the entirety of August, so I could push myself starting tomorrow. September to December I’ll be attending a single uni class twice a week (about 3h/week + whatever time I need to study that class and writing my final dissertation and maybe do some part-time work).

Thank you so much for your comment and taking the time. I guess I was doubting myself for a while! ^^"

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#4

For me at the very least, pacing is determined by reviews, so I can’t keep going on with the pacing that I did for N5. This is because N5 as a total added about 150-200 reviews per day as an additional burden. (Simply multiply the daily reviews by the amount of stages you need to go through per item to get your number).

You can definitely give it a go at that pace, but keep in mind that a crash and burn is often slow, and requires a restart. I don’t think it will hurt to slow yourself down to a smaller amount of lessons if that still gives you enough time to do them.

Ok that changes things, and sounds like N5 vocab might be a bit beyond what you require. Maybe in that case, you could start N4 grammar and vocab right now, but then I would doubly recommend to just take it slow :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Keep in mind that those reviews will still be there during uni, so don’t make the mistake of doing a bunch of lessons and then losing motivation :wink:

Your pace is more than enough, and if the pace is fine for you, definitely go for it :blush:

#5

I’m going to chime in and say that I do recommend learning the N5 vocabulary before moving on to N4. N4 is going to expect you to already know everything that came before it, and won’t exclusively have N4 vocab. If you are missing hundreds of words, you can still have comprehension problems just because you don’t know the N5 vocab it expects you to know.

If the review rate is too hard to keep up for N4, you could work on finishing N5 and getting some extra resources for practicing N4 as well. I also highly HIGHLY recommend reading as much as you can. You can get reading practices for both levels and it will expose you to vocabulary in context and help you learn new vocabulary in the process. I used to keep a list of all the vocabulary I came across that I didn’t know and study those as well.

JLPTsensei suggests you need 1500 words for N4, which is a little less than the 2,200 or so here. I think it is definitely within the realm of possibility to make it entirely through that many even just doing 10 new words a day. 20 gives you more vocab and more time to get it in your memory, but might be a little overwhelming. That said, I do 20 vocab a day personally, so it is doable.