Hi! Sorry if this question feels a little copy-pasted from other posts on this subreddit, but I’m struggling to apply it to my own scenarios.
I’ve been learning Japanese for a while now, but my progress is pretty much non-existent due to consistency issues. I will have some periods of time where I am super motivated and will go through tons of flash cards in Anki or the like, but eventually I end up missing a day, which causes me to miss another day, etc… until I pretty much forget everything I tried to learn in that brief spark of motivation. I see a lot of posts talking about doing thinks you like to enjoy, listening/reading practice, etc… but even then, I’m not really sure how I can use those to drill in new vocabulary for me, and in regards to listening, I’m not sure if I’m at a proper level to keep up with Japanese speech, which sort of discourages me.
I do have an end goal; I’d like to be able to use Japanese social media, games, websites, etc… as well as speak to Japanese people in general (probably online too, I would like to visit Japan and use it there too but that’s probably a long ways away lol). I’m sure this probably helps, but getting myself up to go and do things like reviews and practicing I always find myself struggling to continue, which makes me a little disappointed because I *would* like to become fluent in the language, I just can’t seem to find the commitment. If anyone has *any* sort of help I would greatly appreciate it 🙂
5 comments
> will go through **tons** of flash cards in Anki
This might cause some tiredness/unwillingness to do or even think about doing the same the next day, and the next,… So I think you will have to find an amount that you are able and willing to do each day. So the trick is, I think, to do less than you could do in such a phase of gushing motivation, to always spare some of that motivation for the next day(s).
I’m consistent but slow :(. Been doing Wanikani for over a year, and I do my flash cards daily but I find my memory is pretty bad for how a kanji sounds so I’m only level 16. Maybe just something simple like Wanikani spoon feeding reviews would suit you better.
Set a limit to how many cards can be in the early stages of review so that you don’t overwhelm yourself and can accommodate when you have energy and when you don’t so that the sudden burst of energy still would never exceed your maximum and the lower days you know it’s fine to do the bare minimum. Some days it’s okay not to add in new cards and just exist. What’s important is just doing it.
Depending on your level, you could try reading content you mostly understand (graded content)…I tend to suggest otherwise, but I think if you can read a bit of content you mostly understand, it can work to give you a bit of motivation.
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“I see a lot of posts talking about doing thinks you like to enjoy, listening/reading practice, etc.”
Correct…..a lot of people usually strive to be able to listen/read content they enjoy as it usually gives them the motivation to move forward and just keep at it…but I would say it mostly depends on your level….when I was starting to learn, right after learning kana I was already reading content I enjoyed……..but it was not easy…….as basically over 99% of the words I did not know…..but I was ok with that…because my end goal was to understand content I enjoyed….no pain no gain sort of speak….
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“but even then, I’m not really sure how I can use those to drill in new vocabulary for me”
not sure I’m understanding this correctly, but you could (and again depends on your level), add every word (or at least enough for you to understand the overall picture) to anki you do not understand and just review those…
At the end of the day, anki is important…..but if you feel it’s not working well for you another thing you could do is read, read, read….without using anki,..,..and learn as you find the words repeated in context….this is usually more recommended to andvanced learners of the language….but since people can get through content a lot faster just looking up words they don’t know and moving along, it might work as motivation to get entirely through reading content you enjoy much faster since you are not using anki for that content…..maybe use prebuilt anki decks on the side to sort of memorize words a bit faster…..but as others have stated, in moderation…don’t try spending 3 hours doing anki….as that could just be boring…..and off putting…
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I dont know…just some ideas..hope it helps 🙂
* Keep a schedule on paper
* Make sure to study for X hours a day (I do 2 a day, it’s kinda bare minimum if you want to make progress)
* Adopt the stance that self-discipline is intrinsically valuable
* Don’t worry about it being “FUN”. Fun is nice, I like to have fun too. Fun should be considered a bonus when it comes around, but not a requirement.
* Get in a good habit, the first 10 days will be very very hard. The first 100 days will be a little hard. After that it’s autopilot.