feel overwhelmed learning Japanese

9 comments

1. comfort comes with experience. find a person or place where you can talk or write and get feedback. practice. just reading grammar books and memorizing vocab won’t acclimate you to communication, you have to stumble thru communicating badly to get to doing it better. reading and listening to native content can help as well.

2. Think in Japanese. For example, if you want to practice past-tense (-ta/da/shita), say to yourself what you just did.

   **OP takes a drink of water**
   みずのんだ./みずのみました.

   Your goal is to get as comfortable with Japanese as you are with your native language (as close as possible), so drilling simple forms about everyday, common activities as you do the. is the best way to do that.

   For example, I’m actually waiting for a train to go home from work, so I think to myself “今ホームで電車に待っている.”

3. A lot of people think that the only reason why children tend to learn languages is that their brains are just sponges and that’s the end of it. In reality though what children mainly have is a ton of time and, perhaps just as important, absolutely no qualms about messing up when they go to say something. They just do it and if they mess up then they don’t really care. When they find out that they didn’t do it quite right they kind of curiously start to try to do it the right way, but they don’t beat themselves up or anything like that.

   So my recommendation would be to just breathe deep, try not to beat yourself up when you make a mistake, and then find as many ways to speak in Japanese as you possibly can. I know you know this, but you are trying to cram in like a decade of language learning into your head at a much faster rate than a Japanese person would and you’re trying to do this when you come from a language that is more or less the polar opposite. LOL what you’re doing is very hard and challenging and if you start expecting perfection or even a certain level of competency based on the work that you’ve put into it then you’re probably going to drive yourself crazy. 😅 Full disclosure, I haven’t been learning Japanese all that long but what I can say is that I seem to be moving an awful lot slower absorbing things like vocabulary and such than most of the people around me. It is frustrating and I’m not going to pretend like it’s not frustrating for me, but then I see a page of words or hear some conversation and catch what they’re saying and the excitement is real…

   One last thing that I would maybe say is that taking care of yourself is important when you are trying to absorb information and process things that are complex. In particular, not getting enough sleep on a regular basis can really hamper your ability to do a good job on things like language learning. So just make sure you’re taking good care of yourself and try to just stop and breathe and remind yourself why you are putting it in the effort, then just start back up again. 😺 You’ve got this thing!

4. Best way is to immerse yourself as much as possible. Then it becomes second nature.

5. Have you also considered seeing if music would help you remember things easier? For te-form, my Sensei taught us a song though the song “Oh My Clementine”

   いちり　って
   みにび　んで
   き　いて
   ぎ　いで
   します　して
   きます　きて
   いきます　いって
   For those last three masu verbs you need to say all 4 hiragana in the word “ikimasu”

6. My suggestion is watching more Japanese dramas or anime, such as サザエさん, is a really good anime for Japanese beginners cuz they use very simple languages and easy to listen and learn. From my experience, once you watch or listen enough Japanese drama or videos, you could know how to use the particles (even grammars) without thinking. I hope that helps, and good luck on your study!!!!

7. honestly? take your time. my biggest mistake was rushing through beginner shit straight into intermediate because i thought i had to rush when in reality i had all the time in the world. who cares if it took you an entire year to learn both kana? you got there in the end! pace yourself or you’ll burn yourself out.

   if you’re struggling with motivation and confidence too, try looking back on everything you’ve accomplished learning japanese. it’s probably more than you think 🙂

8. Just chill. There’s like _a lot_ to take in for Japanese. The fact you’re starting this in highschool gives you a leg up on a lot of us here (I tried in highschool, and a bunch of other times, but really only in earnest a couple years ago and I’m far away from my highschool years at this point).

   Take your time, take it easy, and you’ll get there. You’re doing alright.

9. One thing I always tell myself when studying anything, if you don’t understand just keep going because you will understand it later. Honestly its not you being not able to keep up it’s your brain trying to learn something completely foreign. You will be amazed with how much you will learn over time. I had the same struggles as you, to get comfortable just know that you have to make mistakes to learn. Another thing is repetition is key.

   Last thing I would add is maybe you’re not understanding the te/ta form because of how you are being taught. I dealt with this a lot in college class the teacher was japanese and she explained stuff like its easy for us to understand (which its not) so I would say maybe if there is something you don’t get (te/ta form) do some searching online or youtube.

   Also don’t overthink it.

   Good luck and keep at it!