Is there a way to set reviews to come up once per day instead of spread out all throughout the day? I don’t see a point in having a new review pop up at 10PM at night. I’d much rather have my reviews for the whole day be accessible from the start of the day. My schedule is quite busy with university on top of my self study so I do not also manager to get my reviews completed early in the day so if I study at night one day then the morning or early afternoon the next day most of my reviews aren’t even available yet. I don’t really understand this per hour system are people really studying at several different hours throughout the day
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I am. I’d rather do a handful reviews now and then than being overwhelmed by hundreds reviews at once in the morning. It would be extremely disheartening. I do around 300 reviews a day, but it doesn’t feel like it because I just do some as they pop up throughout the day. Of course you don’t have to do them immediately, you can wait until the morning and do that all at once if so you wish, I don’t quite see the issue.
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There is no absolute need to do reviews the moment they pop up. If you only want to do reviews once a day, you can simply ignore them until then. Newer items will be reviewed more often than old ones. The newer items will pop up in intervals less than a day for the first few srs stages, but over time the intervals become a number of days. This means that if you do your reviews at the same time every day, that time will also be when most new reviews become available.
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It’s more a problem when I do my reviews at night time one day and then morning the next, I normally do about 100 reviews per day but in those cases it can drop as low as 20
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I also usually do mine at least once a day, but it can vary on days that I’m off work. I feel the struggle of finding the time.
For me, I can usually get my reviews done in the morning before I get ready for work or on the bus there, that way I have something productive to do.
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At lower intervals it lets you have reviews on the same day which can be beneficial (you can forget a lot in 24h…).
I’ve been doing Japanese intensively for the past 6months so I do spread my reviews in several sessions through the day, otherwise I’d have to deal with like 400+ reviews at once across bunpro, anki and wanikani which would be overwhelming.
Ah yeah I see the issue, but if you just tend to move your review session through the day eventually it should even out (some reviews dropping in the morning, some in the evening). I see how it could be annoying though.
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I usually study Japanese in the following order, Vocabulary, Kanji, Grammar, Reading, Listening and then lastly revision which includes Anki Flashcard and Bunpro. So if I have class usually I try to get through my vocab flashcards while walking to university, I try to get through everything as early in the day as possible so I can focus on my actual university work but somedays I don’t get a chance until I get home which can be quite late as on Wednesdays I’ve have class from morning until about 2:30 after which I’ve started participating in the Basketball Circle and that goes until 8:30 at night and then after that we usually get dinner. I try to do my studies between all that but usually I’m not done until I can get home and just focus.
yes, I usually do a session in the morning and a session in the evening.
If your reviews aren’t available yet then it isn’t time for you to review them.
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Some advice from a former university student (I minored in Japanese, as it happens!): use micro-breaks throughout your day to chip away. Like during a lull between classes or taking breaks while you’re studying.
I know it sounds trite/obvious but it’s something that I regret not doing more. When you add new items, it really is good to see them 2–3 times the day that you add them. When I was a student, I was too concerned about soaking in knowledge and I didn’t spend enough time actually using it. Bunpro isn’t perfect but the cloze structure is really helpful for building muscle memory.
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Bunpro I generally do one main session and then will check in and clear out 1 or 2 or 3 reviews as they pop up during the day, if I feel like it. Some days I don’t review at all. Vocab is generally two sessions but, again, not even every day. Main thing is getting in more actual reading and listening (although if you are still hacking away at N5-N4 then it probably is best to stay pretty tightly on top of your SRS pile - it is much easier to clear an SRS pile when you’re a bit further a long as most of the pile is stuff you already know fairly well).
As mentioned above, probably best to just do one session a day. No need to worry about doing things exactly as they come up. The Bunpro SRS is pretty basic and not very exact so it isn’t like you will forget Japanese if you don’t do things the second they appear.
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I’m currently studying for the N2 and living in Japan so forgetting Japanese isn’t really a concern 笑笑笑笑笑
I have just over 2 months left before the test and I’ve basically just started on the N2 so I’ve got a lot more to do than just grammar, my main resource is the Nihongo Soumatome textbook series which can be completed in 8 weeks if you do 2 pages from all 5 textbooks textbook everyday, which can take a lot of time but it’s easy to stick with when you have a set amount to do each day. If I have plans later in a day I want to get all my study out of the way early in the morning, while if I have university classes I don’t usually finish everything until late at night
When did you get to Japan?
One month ago now, I’m here on exchange for a year
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Are you already comfortably N2 and now revising/preparing or are you below N2 and just trying to get to the point where you could maybe get a passing mark on the test? Also, is it important for you to pass the test in the summer for some reason?
I am asking just because I have an opinion but I don’t want to thrust it upon you if it is totally irrelevant.
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I was originally planning to go for N3 in July but I realized there would be a lot more benefits to passing N2 while I’m living here than N3 so I’m basically trying to get through all the N2 content as quickly as possible
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Im curious was extra perceived value you have in the N2 over N3? A passed N3 is much better than a failed N2.
There’s no real benefit in acquiring N5-N3, Japan only really cares about N2 and N1, if I pass N2, I can take classes taught in Japanese during my second semester and will also help a lot if I decide to look for a part time job. I’m better off studying harder and taking a risk rather than trying to guarantee a N3 pass for no real benefit
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if I pass N2, I can take classes taught in Japanese during my second semester
This is probably the most important part. I was originally going to try and dissuade you from spending too much time during your year in Japan on studying for tests but knowing this my opinion is different. If you want to go from N3ish to N2ish in 2 months then you will have to grind for hours a day. It is worth a shot if you have the time to spare. In terms of hours studied/actively engaging with the language, the gap between N3 and N2 is about 600 hours (this is based on the least conservative estimates and anecdotal evidence). Assuming you already have a couple of hundred of those hours in the bag then you are looking at 6+ hours a day. Let’s discount an hour or so a day since you only need to scrape a pass on the test and you get the magical “in Japan” mulitplier just because. Maybe you need 5 hours a day of actively engaged study and reading etc. Relating to the topic of this thread, I would do two Bunpro sessions a day, as such. Also do the new grammar points before reviews as to give them your full attention. It is possible to do this many hours and people do do it but it is the exception and not the rule. Don’t overwork yourself. I genuinely wish you luck.
In general I would advise people to not grind for the JLPT during their year/semester of study in Japan but rather just focus on daily life and casual conversation, all the social aspects of the language and culture that aren’t accesible outside of Japan. This is both from a language acquisition and also just general life advice perspective (and all good advice about life comes from strangers on the internet…, naturally). The year will be gone before you know it so if you don’t manage to pass in the summer then I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
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I’m here until around late Feb or early March next year so if I take the test in July I still have plenty of time to enjoy japan afterwards, while I have been considering trying for N1 in December if I do manage to pass N2 in July that one isn’t as much pressure as I don’t really need N1 for anything and also December is quite late for having any benefit on my life in Japan. My overall goal for Japanese this year is fluency more than anything, while you could say that N1 is the highest goal to aim for in Japanese, the JLPT as a whole does not actually test your fluency and is only a comprehension test. If I manage to acquire the N2 in July the main aspect that will push my Japanese to the next level will be taking university classes actually taught in Japanese, which I know is gonna be difficult but it’s the best way forward to my goal of fluency. I’ve been studying Japanese for almost 5 years but if I’ve never really tried this hard before, my motivation has been up and down, especially throughout the pandemic. I failed the N4 all the way back in December 2019 and I haven’t taken the test since, in the last few years I’ve focused more on actually conversation than study but moving here has given me the motivation to actually sit down for hours and cram flash cards, drill kanji and so on. While I’m at a fairly high conversational level, my vocab is kinda lacking, I’ve managed to get around it in conversation by using what I do know to express what I want to say, you really don’t need that much to get to a conversational level. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do so I’m studying roughly 60 new words a day and probably reviewing close to 200, at least I have lots of opportunities to practice.
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My overall goal for Japanese this year is fluency more than anything, while you could say that N1 is the highest goal to aim for in Japanese, the JLPT as a whole does not actually test your fluency and is only a comprehension test.
Completely agreed - I have very little interest in the JLPT myself because of this. Although, by the way, I believe the hardest Japanese test (for foreigners) is actually the J-Test. N1 is about 700/1000 (N2 is 600) and the highest level is above 930. C2 by the CEFR scale is estimated to be above 900. There is a lot to learn after N1 (in fact, assuming you want to get to full fluency, C2+ level, then the majority comes after N1). The fact that some beginners think that N1 is about as high as you can go (and I have even heard people say “N1 is hard for natives”) is one of the greatest swindles in the Japanese learning community.
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