Pushing through a slump

6 comments

1. Although I’m not at N3 or even N4 yet, I had a little slump last week. I took a break for a few days and reevaluated why I was learning in the first place. I reminded myself that every journey is different, and that progress will come over time. I think I got frustrated with not feeling like I was learning much, when in reality the progress is there, even if it’s hard to see right now. I didn’t switch up my learning or try something new, I just took a break. Just as we need to take breaks from studying in school, or breaks from hobbies or our jobs, we need breaks from language learning as well. A few days is not going to destroy all your progress, just don’t let a few days turn into a few weeks and then a few months lol. I’ve had that problem with other things in the past, but made sure to keep on keeping on. Just remember why you want to learn and go from there. Sometimes you just need a little break to find that motivation again.

2. I tend to be a serial quitter when it comes to language learning, but I do find it helpful when I stop thinking about the “love of the process”.

   When I assumed “love of the process“ was the indispensable prerequisite for taking actions, I never took any actions unless occasionally I felt like I was “properly” motivated. Natural sparks of motivation just doesn’t visit me very often or consistently.

   Then I tried the following: 1) dissect your goal to the smallest actionable piece 2) focus on doing that small piece no matter what. For most of the time I did not feel motivated in particular, but I was able to take actions. Think about any of your habits, such as teeth-brushing and butt-wiping, did you do it because you had to feel motivated first? Or did you just do it?

   Many may argue that tooth-brushing is one simple motion and you cannot apply that philosophy to the grander scheme of things. Well for example, my work takes over half of my waking hours and involves many moving parts, how did I managed to get out of bed and do my work then? As a person with little to none will power, I was able to brush my teeth and go to work, whether I had or lacked motivation. I’ve been hitting a wall at work and I’m in a slump, but I can still work. If the lack of motivation and a temporary slump status wasn’t enough to stop most of us from working, it’s probably not enough to stop us from reading for 10 mins or doing 5 flash cards.
   I made a policy that “If I can work today, I can _____ (fill in an activity).” When I don’t feel motivated, I encourage myself with “Just do it”, not “Just try to get motivated” or ”as long as I love it”

   Once your brain acknowledges that you are indeed *able* to do a certain activity, good and ready to go (as opposed to you cannot unless a set of prerequisites was met), you’ll be surprised that it will find ways to make it happen. life finds a way. People way busier than us somehow find time to smoke, drink jungle juice then puke, watch porn or reality TV shows, get in futile arguments, gossiping, etc. and every time I do something similar in that nature, I take it as a sign that I have float time in my schedule that could have been better re-allocated to other uses, and look at my next day with hope.

   Below are somethings worth considering.

   1. Dedicate a few days to memorization (get more vocabs, then you’ll have a better experience reading)
   2. Study in front of your kids sometimes.
   3. Set a “fun day” consuming media/music in your TL. Take breaks sometimes and it’s fine.
   4. Get solid sleep.

3. If you feel you are no longer enjoying what you are reading…maybe it’s time to change it up a bit…is what you’re reading something you genuinely like to read? or is it just reading for the sake of learning?

4. I read some of your other comments.

   Kiki’s Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便) was also one of my first books I read, and looking back on it, it was kind of tough book to read as a first novel. Its colloquial phrasing and the lack of kanji made things harder to look up. Even armed with a vocab list, I still wasn’t able to look up some words, and had to ask my father, like かたっぽう (katappou) is actually a colloquial spelling of かたほう 【片方】(katahou). There are a bunch of words that are written in a similar manner.

   At the time, I found things like the キノの旅 (Kino no Tabi) novel and Otsuichi mystery/horror stories much easier to read because the sentences were more straightforwardly written, despite the heavier use of kanji.

   For some reason, I just kept zoning out while reading Kiki’s even though I did like the book, and the Miyazaki anime-adaptation of the book is one of my favorite Studio Ghibli films.

   So I guess I’m saying is that if you’re having a reading slump while reading that book — I totally understand. I felt the same way.

   If you don’t know already, you can download a vocab list for the book, which does help a lot. Pre-learning the words made reading the book a much easier experience. The Wanikani Book Club has an excel sheet and an Anki deck for the book. Look under the “resources” section of [this post here ](https://community.wanikani.com/t/%E9%AD%94%E5%A5%B3%E3%81%AE%E5%AE%85%E6%80%A5%E4%BE%BF%E3%83%BBkikis-delivery-service-repeat-club/42761)to download it (FYI, the Anki deck is hidden under the “deck” section).

   One reason to persevere reading the book is that you’ll probably be able to understand most of the Kiki movie afterward, which is a really nice bonus. A lot of the dialogue is taken straight from the book.

   Also check out the other books (and manga) in the [various Wanikani book clubs](https://community.wanikani.com/t/master-list-of-book-clubs/35283) (which are divided by difficulty levels). Maybe Kiki isn’t to your liking and you can try something else.

5. I would just take a few days’ break from reading and watch some cheerful Japanese YouTubers who like teaching language. Onomappu is a great one.

6. I had a rough month a few months ago at a similar level. I mostly made sure to keep up with SRS (Never missing More than 1 day in a Row), I think I personally might have quit if not for that. I got back into reading by starting múltiple books at once (one which was hard for me and 3 Easy Inés), I found that switching up my reading material a bit Made It much More bearable