Should I stop learning japanese if I don’t enjoy it anymore or still push it to a level where I can sit comfortably with it?

Hey everyone,

Basically the title, but let me give you some input.

I started learning japanese 7-8 years ago and while I made quite some progress early on, I staggered quite a lot during my (successful) university phase due to time issues.

Now having a "normal" dayli life/job/rythm I recently thought of picking it up again and aim a little bit lower at first to refresh many concepts, vocabs and Kanji.

But honestly it feels like a chore nowadays. Everyday I really have to force myself through it. When getting home from work, it's not something I look forward to like some of my other hobbies and this is something which concerns me a little. Because as a hobby it should be like that in my opinion. I should be able to sit down for studying because I enjoy it and not have to force myself to do it.

Back then I was hell bent on being able to read light novels and that gave me a huge motivation boost, but nowadays the flame of motivation got quite small. While it would be really really ncie to being able to read them, I don't feel the burning desire anymore nowadays. Maybe not having a defined goal is also part for the lack of motivation. I do happen to like and learn more about the culutre and the coutry over the years, but I don't know if that is enough of a motivation for me.

On the other hand I also invested a lot of time over the years. I estimate my peak around ~ 1500 Kanji and solid N3 Grammar, but never really got my "free reading" going and was stuck at the textbook phase. Thinking about losing evrything after investing many hours over the years kinda feels really bad.

I have the feeling (maybe illusion?) that if I get over the barrier of being able to read rather freely, my japanese will just progress naturally like it did with english back in my youth (german ist my native language). At the same time I feel that if I stop now, I probably will forget 90%+ over time and everything was for nothing.

Any advice from your side? Should I try to force myself over the textbook->reading "barrier" and see how it is on the other side?
Thank you in advance and I appreciate any kind of opinion!

by blackbird9114

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