I’ve been self-studying Japanese since September 2023 pretty intensely, averaging 3 to 4 hours a day, mainly a course on the Busuu language learning app and of course WaniKani. I’m probably A2 / N5 level according to the language app by now (which I take with a HUGE grain of salt because that’s probably just marketing tactics).
Anyway, as I learn more grammar points, vocabulary, and kanji, it’s getting more difficult to remember what I previously learned in my studies. So I was wondering if I should try assigning myself some homework based on what I learned previously, maybe even quiz myself every so often. I don’t get any of those things when self-studying.
WaniKani already has reviews based on the SRS so that’s good. I’m already being quizzed and tested periodically. Lately, I got myself an iTalki tutor and she did give me homework. That’s also good.
For the language app though, I definitely feel that some things, I’ve forgotten. What do you think about giving oneself homework for each lesson? Like for example, in one lesson, you learn a specific grammar point, you assign yourself homework such as generate 2 or 3 sentences of your own using that grammar point that is due in a couple of days.
It will of course significantly slow down my burning through the lessons, learning as quickly as possible. It has already slowed down lately because things are getting more challenging. I used to average 3 or 4 lessons in Busuu per day, now it’s down to maybe 2 and if I’m extremely super lucky, maybe 3 lessons.
In general, homework is something that people famously don’t want to do, so framing it that way sounds like a quick way to discourage yourself from doing it.
But, even more than that, for language, the thing that will ultimately end up reinforcing material you learn (whether you first learn it on an app, in flashcards, or wherever), is just seeing it somewhere in the wild and going “oh! i remember learning about this yeah!”, and doing that repeatedly over time in more contexts.
They are just about start a new book (manga), reading a few pages as a group per week, and it’s a great way to break into reading with some guidance from more experienced readers!
I know nothing about Busuu - I would have thought a language app should build on previous learning not teach it and then ignore it…
Anyway, the best way of remembering things in language is to use them.
You can do this by:
writing sentences
speaking sentences
recognising them while reading
hearing them in audio
Do whichever you feel happiest doing, but it’s quite easy to produce odd sounding Japanese with the first two so it’s best to have someone to go over them with you.
You’ll need to do all of them eventually though, or at least 2-4, depending on why you’re learning Japanese, and IMO the latter two are the most important early on.
That’s absolutely normal and not necessarily a cause for concern. SRS apps like Anki don’t actually aim for 100% retention because it’s just too inefficient. If you’re willing to drop the expected retention to something like 90% you can decrease the average number of reviews tremendously, which in turn frees time to learn more stuff. It’s vastly better to know 10k words with a 90% retention rate than 5k with perfect retention for instance.
In other words don’t look at SRS stats as the objective but as a crutch, a stepping stone to greater things.
I’d advise starting reading actual Japanese for instance using graded readers. It’s going to be very frustrating at first but it’ll pay off tremendously. And in a sense it is a sort of “test”, every sentence is going to be an unexpected puzzle that will force you to remember kanji, vocab and grammar in order to solve it.
Thank you everyone Having thought about it some more and reading all the replies, I think I will continue what I am doing. Aaaaaand although there were some exceptions, on average, I hardly ever wanted to do any kind of homework ~ahaha So yeah, never mind that idea.
As suggested, I will do more reading. I am actually getting into a new routine of daily reading now. I’ve been reading Japanese Short Stories for Beginners, but just now I got the first volume of よつばと！ in my mail from Japan. Manga in full Japanese! Can’t wait to read it.
Having thought about it some more and reading all the replies, I think I will continue what I am doing. Aaaaaand although there were some exceptions, on average, I hardly ever wanted to do any kind of homework ~ahaha 
So yeah, never mind that idea.