The title says it all. I’m trying to do a PhD in STEM and my days are filled with many hard classes, teaching, research, and a part-time job. Currently, all the Japanese I do is Anki reviews + 10 new cards a day. Very little free time as most of it gets poured into the field I’m pursuing (this is required if I want to go to a good graduate university in the field), or decompressing from the long day.
I’ve seen a lot of anecdotes about people working full time and making progress, but it seems like at least they get 1-2 hours a day into Japanese. Seems like these people make progress after a few years. The super-fast learners put all their time into Japanese, so it seems natural they get amazing in a short period of time.
My situation seems slightly different than both of these as my studies and success in this career path require my full dedication. However, I still have an interest in learning Japanese.
Has anyone been in the same situation and made progress after many years? My life will likely be like this for the next 10 or more years so I’d like to know if people have made good progress over a long period of time, but not being able to put much time in each day.
Also even if you haven’t been in the same situation, I really appreciate any advice you may have.
6 comments
No advice, just sympathy. I’m a SAHM of two boys. The oldest has outgrown naps and I no longer have the free time to learn like I used to. I have to squeeze in studying anywhere I can, and I don’t always retain everything since I usually get interrupted. Some days are better than others, and I’ve started teaching them along with me, so that helps on occasion.As for me, I like to decompress with a good anime a lot of the time. I watch subbed, and it helps with immersion. I find that I know more than I thought! Keep your head up. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a little bit every single day adds up, even when you feel like it doesn’t.
Hello fellow learner! I’m currently a Doctor of Technology Student so I fully understand the struggles. Balancing school, a full time job and the rest if life has forced me to put learning Japanese on the back burner. I tend to do some when I can, but to avoid burn out it is no longer consistent. Not much help as far as advice goes, but I can sympathize with what you are going through. If I had to give some advice is to make sure you take time to do things you enjoy each day outside of learning, including hobby learning. It’ll make going back to it the next day easier and refreshed, which includes studying Japanese.
On an unrelated note, I have a small discord server set up for doctoral students. It’s basically a place to vent, discuss, cry and laugh about what we are all going through. PM me if you wanna join.
Best of luck in your professional and educational career!
I’m currently pursuing a PhD in STEM. First two years were fairly busy, but after finishing the required coursework I realized that I have a lot of free time and flexibility. That’s why I started learning Japanese, which I postponed for many years. I do around 4 hours a day on average consisting of 2 hours of Anki and 2 hours of immersion.
I’m in the final year of my PhD in physics and recently passed N1 with a good score after studying for ~5 years. The caveat? When I started my PhD I was already at a level where I was fairly comfortable consuming media, and mainly used formal study to make progress faster.
At the start of my PhD, I would wake up every morning and do 30 mins of Anki followed by 30-40 mins of textbook stuff, and I would read for 1 hour every evening. The rest of my “free time” was spent listening to podcasts and watching TV shows, but I had to make a habit out of it and find ways to integrate it into my life.
So yes, it’s possible to make significant progress, but you have to be consistent and strategic about the methods you use to learn Japanese.
Best of luck with Japanese and your PhD!
I have a full time job + other responsibilities and I put in several hours a day on average. After work for 9 hours I come home and clean and do SRS in between breaks. Two-three hours on the back end of work and the front end before heading back in, with 5 hours or so of sleep a day. I work nights.
I’m doing a M.Sc in ML/ Computer Vision currently. I started seriously learning Japanese when I was working as an engineer before going back to school full time. At the time, I was just grinding through Kanji/Vocab and was also doing an MBA part-time. I probably learned 5-25 new cards per day depending on whether or not I was taking evening classes at the time. Wasn’t doing any grammar back then and always started the day with Anki. I was doing about 0.5 – 1.5 hours of Anki a day.
Now things are a little more busy consistently. I know about 1000 Kanji and notice that it’s much easier for me to learn new ones through osmosis while reading materials, so I’m spending a little less time on cards. Through Anki, I’m only learning one new Kanji and about 5 vocab a day right now (again, I get through my cards first thing every morning). I spend about an hour each night either reading sections of Tae Kim’s grammar guide or beginner reading materials. I spend about 45-mins on cards in the morning and another 45-mins of reading in the evening.
I think the thing to keep in mind as a person who is busy with life is that learning Japanese is a really, really, really long journey. It took me about 16 months of grinding Kanji/vocab before I knew enough rudiments to properly start learning grammar and reading beginner materials without getting too frustrated to push through. The learning curve is *sharp*. The important thing is that you never take a day off. It’s okay if you need to stop adding new cards and just do reviews for a period of time, but never stop practicing. Once you break the habit it’s hard to get going again.
Impatience is the main thing that will kill your learning. Just keep going, try not to think about how slow the progress seems, and eventually you’ll get over that awful wall.