how do I motivate myself to learn more vocabulary?

14 comments

1. So there are alot of books that contain short stories in Japanese and English. What I like to do is find a story I like and reread it until I can understand the vocab and grammar without having to look at the English translation. Maybe not the best method for everyone, but its what I like to do

2. best motivation is if you need the words that you learn for real life, work, love, daily life, learn words just to learn them without real purpose is tough

3. Shouldn’t the interest of wanting to speak Japanese is enough Motivation ? I don’t know what you mean.

4. If there is any book that you want to read in the original language, that will motivate you to expand your vocabulary.

5. You should seek things related to what you like, then, when learning the vocabulary, it won’t be boring or so easy to forget. I’m from Brazil, i learned english by music, debates, movies, manga, light novels and books all things i liked. Then, whenever a new word or phrase related to one of many things i liked appeared, i’d search the meaning and it’d be meaningful because i was double enjoying it.

6. Try to translate all things around you.
   Ex. The door, the chair, the plate. Food you’re eating. And many more.

   Hope this helps

7. Read something difficult and DON’T use dictionaries. You’ll begin to hate life after a while and will feel the absolute necessity to learn more words and phrases.

8. I’ve found that i have to take a break from time to time.

   There are learning plateaus from time to time where new information needs time to sink in. If you’re learning Japanese for fun, I recommend just reviewing and working with what you already know for a bit and then focus on new material when you’re ready for it.

   Learning comes from association. The more unique ways you use what you’re learning the better. Quality over quantity. Have fun with what you already know for a bit – play with it.

   Have fun!

9. It might not be so much of a question of motivation, and more so a question of boredom. Try something new and see what happens. Learning through manga, anime, light novels, novels etc. not only challenges your Japanese as a whole it can give rise to new vocab. Sitting there and learning Japanese by flicking through flashcards and questioning your life choices isn’t fun at all. If you’re looking for a place to start something new there is always Tadoku graded readers that have pictures to help you learn new vocab as you read.
   Tadoku graded readers: [https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/o7x7ha/2021_updated_free_tadoku_graded_reader_pdfs_1796/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/o7x7ha/2021_updated_free_tadoku_graded_reader_pdfs_1796/)

   Furthermore, learning through manga, anime, light novels is also fun. If you’re short on resources there is [https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/](https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/) which has loads of resources for basically anything. There is also websites like [https://jpdb.io/](https://jpdb.io/) that rank manga and anime from 1 to 10 in difficulty.

   If thats not your cup of tea there is always websites like this [https://www.lexisrex.com/Japanese/Beginner-Word-Sets/Set-1](https://www.lexisrex.com/Japanese/Beginner-Word-Sets/Set-1) that you find randomly that have heaps of vocab sets with fun things like crosswords and memory games.

   Learning the kanji first (if you haven’t already) is also a controversial but in my opinion good choice. It not only makes the words make more sense, its also fun to learn them and makes it easier to remember vocab. In MY opinion its worth it.

   Making Japanese fun inadvertently makes it a lot easier to learn. Don’t forget to take breaks in your learning to let words sink in though.

10. There’s nothing more motivating than having someone speak to you and you have no fucking clue what they are saying, even with context.

    Great way to light a fire under your ass to learn some vocab. I prefer this method, because you typically learn what you need and not some esoteric word like “loquacious”. Nobody says that shit. If you get the core anki decks they’ll have mostly common words so it’ll be minimally wasteful on precious brain real estate.

11. I use Jalup to listen to Japanese stories at my level. I listen to them on repeat, 200+ times per story while walking or drinking coffee. I’ve personally found that to be a great way to reinforce vocab, while picking up more.

12. I actually downloaded this app called yomiwa the other day. It translates Japanese word by word and has an option to put furigana over the kanji. It’s also a browser that’s set to yahoo.jp so you can skim the news articles and pick things up from there

13. If you have no reason think about where you are at this moment. Why did you want to learn Japanese in the first place? What about Japanese got you to learn whatever vocabulary you managed? Stick to what you enjoy. Push yourself certainly, but when you get low in motivation go and learn the things that got you fascinated. For me it’s music. I listened to a song, heard words I didn’t know, while I was listening I put them in my list. I translate in my head for those songs that don’t have English translations. I picked up a great deal of vocab this way not as “studying” but just because I was curious. If you MUST learn, (for your career, school, etc) then you have to just do it. If you WANT to learn, stick to the things that got you here as a base to start getting motivation back.

14. Im playing a lot of popular Japanese games to keep learning it.