Just finished N3 a few days ago. It was definitely easier than N4 for me, but I paced myself better and took my time, learning new items only on the low review days and keeping my already 160 days long full review streak. Halfway through N4 I had to reset Bunpro to zero once, due to the long break I’ve took, which caused me to forget even some basic stuff. I won’t need to do something like that for N3. I’ve finished N3 in around 130 days (you can go much faster, but it is dangerous), while N4 took much longer if you count that I’ve did it 1.5x times.
Still, I don’t have any confidence in using (not reading) this grammar yet, but maybe it will come after I have moved most of it to the expert SRS level.
One thing I’ve noticed is that the example sentences became much, much more nebulous than on the previous levels. There is a 50/50 chance that I will even understand what the sentence means, despite me answering the grammar correctly and generally having no problem at all with watching ~mid difficulty level anime with Japanese subs. I am afraid that Bunpro team was a little too liberal with the vocabulary and sentence structure on the N3 level, as without the context even not so difficult sentences become puzzling.
I also plan to start N2 in around 1 week and to finish it before this summer.
