When you're done It should automatically suggest "Japanese Basics", which is a pair of vocabulary and grammar schedules. Although you can always add it manually if you'd like.
You can find all of the recommended Schedules from "Manage your schedules to change what you are studying, freeze schedules, and more!" (bottom of your Schedule list on your Dashboard) > "All schedules".
Depends on what you wanna study I guess. If you're a complete beginner I'd suggest only adding "Japanese Basics" (Japanische Grundkenntnisse). After you finish both the grammar and vocabulary schedules you can start "Beginner", which also has N5 Kanji. Although you could start N5 Kanji early if want to.
You shouldn't have to add them manually though. When you're done with one level it should give you the next. It doesn't do it automatically, but it should give you a prompt to add whatever's next.
Do you know how JLPT levels work? "Beginner" is N5, "Pre-intermediate" is N4, "Intermediate" is N3, "Pre-advanced" is N2, and "Advanced" is N1. Basically you should just add whatever's at your current level.
Level 800 took me a little over one year. Although I've been studying for many years before joining Renshuu :D
A crazy amount of repetitive practice and activities here.
Mainly you practice with things called "schedules". They contain lists of stuff to study. You can make lists as well, and both lists and schedules can be customized to your liking. There are minimum limits to how much is practiced each time you test yourself, but there is no limit to how much you can repeatedly drill on the same material (and easily burn yourself out). So, it's so much unlike Duolingo (and a lot of other copycat apps), you get to practice without being locked to some sort of weird progression scheme. Renshuu doesn't restrict people by how much comprehension they have. You can basically pick up off what you already know, and start learning whereever and whatever you haven't learned yet.
My recommendation is that even if you started from 0, to start learning, go over to the "Resources" menu, and then click "Japanese Lessons" in the drop down menu (or click here). This contains lessons up to JLPT level 3. So, start from the beginning if you like, or if you know enough, pick whichever lesson you want to learn. At the end of the lesson is a quiz. This is basically the quiz that you will be practicing through your schedules.
The lessons are just there for reference though. If you know some material, the bulk of your study on Renshuu is about making and using schedules, doing quizzes through each of them. All of it is on the home page. A lot of the material through N1 and beyond are already in Renshuu. In fact, there's even a dictionary containing vocab, grammar, and kanji so you can look things up and check off what you want to learn.
When you've made some schedules, some of them will have a "Study" button. Others will have a "Focused Review". The Study button starts the test on things Renshuu wants you to practice. Depending on how much you have to study, the amount of material adjusts each time, that you might end up repeating some terms over time.
Forcused Review is easy. You can do it any time. It might even count the "Study" enabled terms when they show up. You can even use that to do a quiz when you don't want to strictly practice these Study terms. If you want to do a Focused Review on a schedule that has the Study button on it, you can find that option in the three dot button.
You can also do other things like play shiritori, do crosswords, and counter punch. This is stuff where you get to apply your Japanese knowledge with things you learned.
