I was doing 3 grammar points a day in Bunpro now following the Genki 1 track, and I added up all the JLPT levels minus the grammar points I already have in my review pool, and found out if I do my 3 grammar points a day, I would have N1 floating around my review pool in 270 days.
With that context out of the way, I got really excited learning that this was shorter than I expected, I reminded myself that that’s unrealistic as I do take some breaks to first make sure stuff I learn syncs in a bit better before learning more, but it got me wondering, with all of that grammar, I’m not sure what else I could start early so I don’t have a lot to do later.
Right now, I’m pretty much only aware of studying grammar and vocab and Kanji from Genki + Bunpro, and Wanikani, and just picking up extra vocab as I go. I might not be starting anything too soon, but I feel like I want to improve my learning soon, and was wondering what I should focus on next, my goal is to read manga and some anime, and hopefully by the time I have the opportunity to go to Japan in person, be actually able to test my skills and get the humbling I much need, but the casual speech has also been a problem. Also listening isn’t too great for me, but that’s all I’m aware of and I was wondering what else I could focus on in addition to what I’m doing now across the language, so I know there’s more to do whenever the time is ready.
I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea (and is dependent on your personal finances), but I like to schedule a session with a private tutor on Italki. Sometimes I just schedule a 1on1 60 minute chat session, sometimes I like to do group classes. Like there’s one group class scheduled every week or so where you solve riddles by asking yes or no questions to the teacher. Just a fun way to practice speaking and making sentences on the fly.
It was really scary the first few times I did it though lol. Even after my 6th or 7th lesson, I was still sweating and flustered. Maybe that goes away eventually
If my math is correct, you’re currently halfway through N5 grammar. I don’t know your current vocab knowledge level, but I’ll make an assumption: at your current pace, your vocab will very soon fall behind your grammar. Studying grammar points using sentences in which you can’t understand a single word would probably not be very productive or fun, so I’d suggest you go hard on the vocab study front right now if you want to keep up.
For me personally, starting N2 grammar felt like a mind-bendingly sharp difficulty spike because there were so many words I didn’t know, so I had to slow down from 3 grammar points per day to just 1 in order to catch up.
You can start doing some simple reading and/or listening. My personal recommendations are the Free Tadoku books and the Comprehensible Japanese YouTube channel.
