Today (Not really, Aug 30, but I had to get this post approved by mods so it took a while), was my 2nd year anniversary of learning Japanese!
I wanted to share with you all my emotions and experiences so far because it’s really like an entire other half of the world has been unlocked for me.
The wildest part is that I grew up in Hong Kong and was taught Chinese at school for 10+ years- yet still can’t read/write the most basic things, like a restaurant menu. Yet within 2 years of self-studying Japanese, I’ve become way more literate than I ever have been in Chinese. I can literally read more Kanji in Japanese than I can in Chinese now! I really think it’s undeniable how important the METHOD of learning is, and I even wrote an [article on SCMP](https://www.scmp.com/comment/letters/article/3189471/traditional-teaching-methods-leave-hong-kong-language-learners-lost) to talk about how language learning in Hong Kong is completely outdated!
# WHAT I did and HOW I did it:
I documented my entire journey from beginning to now on my [YouTube channel.](https://www.youtube.com/c/jouzujuls) And most recently I’ve made [**a quick 9 minute video**](https://youtu.be/t3g6X1RMUyg) of everything I’ve felt and changed between 2021-2022 in regards to Japanese learning. ([https://youtu.be/t3g6X1RMUyg](https://youtu.be/t3g6X1RMUyg)) (Approved by mods)
For a summary of my achievements in the past 2 years:
* JLPT N1 passed (mock)
* [Made a whole video in Japanese](https://youtu.be/3tWvfG-0op0)
* Can do daily conversation
* Can watch anime without subs
* Work for a Japanese company
* Basically completely switched over to doing everything in Japanese
All of these achievements are something I never even dreamed of being able to do (except the anime one). When I first started, I literally just wanted to watch Anime and VTubers- that was it. Eventually, more and more things were added to my goals and I started slowly working towards them.
# Some Thoughts:
AFTER the entire first year passed was really when Japanese started clicking for me and everything started to just logically make sense without me having to think that hard. When I said that it’s like an entire other half of the world opened up to me, it’s stuff like the simple fact that even the most basic expressions are said completely differently in Japanese than in English.
However, the most important thing I’ve learned is that *motivation is kinda garbage*. My “motivation” goes up and down, and at first, I was highly inconsistent, but about 2 months in, I actually thinking about HOW to do my Anki every day- and eventually, now I’m on a 385 day streak!
It’s very easy to say “*motivation sucks, make it a habit*” without saying **HOW** to make a habit, so I want to elaborate here that it’s actually REALLY easy. Simply do LOW numbers every single day. Like if you committed to learning at least ONE new word every day on Anki or something, you’d eventually build habit of opening Anki every day- THEN increase the word count.
Sorry this post is a bit all over the place, I hope you got something out of reading this post and[I hope you enjoy the video too!](https://youtu.be/t3g6X1RMUyg)
3 comments
How much time on average would you say you spend each day on Japanese? And how much did you spend on Anki, Reading, Listening respectively? Did you have specific Daily Goals you set for yourself?
Took a look at your video. You don’t need all those reading strategies for the N1 reading section, just work on your reading speed. Spending so much time on strategies to pass a test is counterproductive to actually helping you learn the language.
First, congrats to your results so far. I remember making a comment on your previous post about your cadence but I’m sure you’ll improve quickly.
That being said, I had a look at the SCMP article and I am a bit conflicted. On one hand I do agree that language education has moved slow in HK, but on the other hand there isn’t any peer-reviewed comparative study to show that teaching “immersive material” (for lack of a better word) is a better use of classroom time for 30 students of varying language ability than teaching through textbooks. As someone who briefly studied language education in my undergrad, Krashen’s *comprehensible input* is not a foreign theory and has been implemented by competent teachers through strategies such as [scaffolding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructional_scaffolding).
While I lament the fact that traditional language education has failed you when your self-researched methods haven’t, the school education system here isn’t ready to allow students to spend 12+ hours on self-study methods every day. (The only system I know of that allows such a thing apart from home-schooling is [the ACE system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerated_Christian_Education) which has its own problems). Consider the simple example of dyslexic students. We know that a lot of their problems could be solved if every character had a 10x font size, but it’s impractical for publishers and teachers to redesign textbooks to suit these students.