Feel like I’m learning too slow…

10 comments

1. How often are you going outside your comfort zone and using Japanese in a natural setting? For me, I found that once I started actually having natural conversations with people in Japanese in real-time, my deficiencies were thrown into sharp relief, but I also started internalizing and remembering things better. Actually applying the things you’ve learned is so much more useful than just running drills or practicing with flashcards. I actually was just reading the Hávamál the other day and the 26^th stuck out to me:

   > The unwise man thinks he knows all, while he sits in a sheltered nook; but he knows not one thing, nor shall he answer,
   if men shall put him to proof.

2. How often do you review the content you have already learned and when have you last tested yourself to see how much you have retained apart from Anki?

   Sometimes it’s a good idea to stop learning new information for a few days and just review old grammar points, vocab, kanji etc. to also avoid anki reviews piling up as well as to make sure you don’t forget old material.

   My suggestion would be to do a few JLPT exam papers and test yourself to see how well you do.

   If you notice any particular grammar points etc. That you get wrong or any listening sections on the JLPT prep exams you get wrong then you can start looking into why you are getting these wrong.

   For WaniKani , it’s possible that your mnemonics that you’re using wasn’t effective when you initially learned the words. Thinking up your own stories instead of trying to brute force their mnemonics into your head would work better.

3. You might be so lost in the forest that you can’t appreciate how far you’ve gone. While it’s a discouraging to find yourself up against various barriers in metrics like wanikani, those are artificial metrics and may not do a good job measuring whatever progress you’ve actually been making.

   I often feel like I’ve learned “nothing” because the material I try to consume or conversations I try to hold seem to result in the same “failure rate” (in terms of difficulty of comprehension or expressing myself), but then I revisit some material that 8 months ago was difficult and it seems a lot easier.

4. Language learning is cumulative in a very imperceptible way but can often feel slow. It is very normal to get discouraged.

   The thing to think about is that language is a skill. Everyone agrees that comprehensible input is important. Work with textbooks, Wani Kani, and Anki single word flashcards are not high on input.

   I suggest you try to balance out you learning by adding in more reading, listening, and shadowing. More “doing” than learning. Try to come up with techniques that work better for you. Everyone is different. An example activity would be 45 minutes a day of reading while listening to things at your level, or breaking down things above your level, first, and then read-listen to the same thing, repeatedly. Even if you have to cut back on textbook work. Try to be using the language more often than you are “studying” it.

5. Read more. What’s what did it for me. Flashcards rarely stick until I see them in a sentence with context. Playing games in Japanese is also super powerful

6. You can’t take in that much information continuously for such a long period of time and expect continued learning gains.
   Rest, sleep, processing time, breaks, etc. All play a huge role in learning.
   You are likely trying too hard, pushing too much, and too in your head.

   Try calming techniques and meditation. Slow your mind. Take time to not learn. Rest.

7. More immersion. More reading and listening. Preferably listen to things you have a script to read. I’m using lingq but there are other sites out there too. Good luck.

8. watch everything cure dolly on youtube has to offer, her perspective of the language ties in everything you’ve probably learned so far in a way that makes sense rather than how textbooks present it

   after everything makes sense you’ll be able to apply it much easier

   also, try expressing yourself in japanese more often. it’s very difficult at first but gets better as you go on – when thinking things to yourself try to answer in japanese and so on, that helped me a lot

9. I learned the other way, grammar first, vocabulary second.

   I can create my own sentences but my vocabulary is lacking.

   What I’ve realized is the gargantuan level of effort it takes to learn a new language.

   It’s almost like losing weight or building up muscle.

   You won’t notice a loss or gain for days or even a few weeks.

   It’s only after you’ve been doing it for a long time that you start seeing results and things start to click.

   This is a marathon and a few sprints won’t make any discernable difference. Keep going and just don’t stop

10. >But I cant confidently apply any basic N5 grammar when speaking

    Use your housemate. I would put together like 100 sentences with the words and grammar you know and get them checked. Then use those for speaking practice with him.

    > I catch only the odd word at my workplace in the staffroom.

    You are gonna need to listen more to improve listening, but you can’t just listen to anything, it will need to be ~95% comprehensible. So you have to go back to n4 or even n5 and build it up from there. Youtube has so much content in that range.

    Or you heavily rely on subtitles with yomichan, but anime twice a week seems kinda little for this mass input approach.

    >wanikani accuracy rate

    Honestly if you already do an n3 textbook and use anki, maybe just quit wanikani? It doesn’t seem to work out for you. I just learn kanji via words like many here.

    Since you are in Japan now is there a language exchange/meetup near you? maybe worth a shot.