I already knew about the first one, thanks to @trunklayer, but the second one is new to me. I’ll definitely have a look (I mean a ear 
), thanks a lot for the recommendation! 
Apparently, it’s probably WaniKani that helps me most with this. Both learning vocabularies in advance and guessing by Kanji. Though I always also have listening and some reading.
What’s in the zip? Supposedly a lot of JSON files on the top level.
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@polv @araigoshi That worked, thanks a lot for your help! 
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Another small milestone!
I just enlightened my very first items! 
My first burns will then be on 22nd May! 
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Congratulations! 
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Thanks a lot! 
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greetings! congrats on clearing n4 grammar and getting your first enlightened items! I have a few suggestions for reading
first, two free options:
NHK Easier: NHK news stories made easier by the ability to hover over words to get their definition.
Tadoku Books:: Graded readers on a variety of topics.
beyond that, I recommend the Absolute Beginner’s Book Club. currently in the middle of a book, but perhaps by the time it finishes you’ll feel confident enough to jump in? or you could jump in now and just catch up on your own time. I’m not the boss of you lol
I read Happiness vol 1 with the help of previous book club discussion threads. I recommend that manga if you like horror/drama
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Thanks a lot! I already knew about Tadoku, but the Easier version of NHK is new, and it looks very interesting!
As for grammar, I’m not quite finished yet with N4, but I plan to do so tomorrow
Thanks for dropping these recommendations in!
(Also, your pfp is soooo insanely cool!)
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That’s interesting – I knew about NHK Easy, didn’t know they also had Easier, thank you for sharing!
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Genuine question, do you feel like you retain the grammar you’ve studied or is it more like familiarizing yourself vs internalizing?
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This is not that easy to answer, actually. The short answer is that I feel like I retain the grammar points.
Now the more extensive answer:
When I learn a grammar point, I most likely tend to mess it up in the first few reviews, esecially if it’s a more complex structure (like なくてはいけない or なくてはならない are), but after some reviews, I start to remember it and get it right almost all the time. So when I initially learn it, it’s more like familiarizing, but over time, I start to internalize it. This internalization progress usually begins to kick in after 3 to 5 reviews for more complex or troubled grammar and 0 to 2 for the rest.
So ultimately, yes, I am able to retain, recall and recognize them, but often after failing some reviews. After I got the grammar point to Adept, I stop messing them up so often in 95% of the grammar points (which means at most 1 time wrong in 10 reviews), and for the rest… well, it takes a bit longer, but I eventually remember them, too
So, in conclusion, my learning process is heavily connected with repeated revision, which makes the SRS a pretty important part of my study routine. I don’t think that I would be able to do grammar that fast without the SRS. But again, most of the time, some time passes before I begin to internalize the grammar points after initially studying them. I think this is what you could call “passive learning”, although it’s more like “passive mastering”.
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If you’re that ahead with grammar (and at WK level 10ish your kanji knowledge should be covered), you may try to take on the JLPT N5 this summer as a challenge.
Would prove to be an interesting experiment too if you can pass it by mostly relying on SRS based material.
I don’t want to instigate, just saying that for me it kind of gave a clear goal to work towards, thus a strong motivation. (though, the other half of the population loathes taking any kind of test as far as I can tell)
Personally, I’m planning to apply for the N2 this summer, even though I do not feel that on-par with the level yet 
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I personally would love to take the N5, but unfortunately, due to the situation of my family, I can’t. However, I could try to do a test from the past year(s) if I can find one 
It would indeed be a very interesting challenge, as it’s been 54 days since I started Japanese, and if I could already pass the N5, that would blow my mind. According to wkstats, I already know all but 4 JLPT N5 kanji (I actually already know all of them bc I picked up three of them while learning grammar and I learned the last one by myself bc it was only one missing ).
I think the only thing that I would need now to pass the JLPT N5 is the vocab knowledge, as my vocab knowledge is pretty much just the vocab that WaniKani has tought me so far 
But I believe that that will change soon, since I’ll start to get into reading after I finished N4 tomorrow.
But I think it is a good idea to do one of the older JLPT tests (that is, if I can find one) to see whether I could pass it or not
Also, I wish you the best for the N2 in summer!
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I think things like this will become clearer the more you read.
That’s sucks and sorry to hear that! 
You can find Listening for N5 easily on YouTube, but for the other sections it might be a little harder. Sample exercises can be found here and there, but there are mock test prep books as well. I wouldn’t worry about N5, though. I don’t think it’s worth it even as a personal milestone. If you stay committed as you are now, you will quickly surpass N5 anyway. What I would recommend however is doing exercises from workbooks as a way to test your knowledge.
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Understood 
AFAIK you can do a whole mock test on the official JLPT page
https://www.jlpt.jp/e/samples/forlearners.html
Just beware that it only tells you whether you answered correctly or incorrectly, no other explanations given.
Edit:
Also some older exams here
https://www.jlpt.jp/e/samples/sampleindex.html
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Aren’t these just sample questions though? Like here for instance: n5
For each section you have a couple of sample questions available.
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I’ve started with N5, it seemed quite daunting to me at the time to be honest 
Although then I have mostly used ‘traditional’ learning resources, compared to that the SRS methods are like learning on steroids.
But yeah, the N4 and N3 are I would say some orders of magnitude more difficult than the N5.
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