Have you self-studied with neurodivergence (ADHD)?

9 comments

1. I’m also diagnosed with ADHD, currently unmedicated by choice. I personally preferred MNN over Genki and was able to finish MNN 1 through self study. I used the app Renshuu instead of Anki. The biggest thing that helped me was to find a study buddy who was willing to study 5-6 times a week. I also started a social media account posting my progress and made a chart with a box for each chapter to color in.

   If you think a more colorful modern book will help, then try Tobira Beginner. But if your main problem is ADHD then finding a study buddy or a tutor will probably be the most helpful. You may have heard of body doubling or shadowing for ADHD. It’s effective for other tasks as well as for studying for those of us who have ADHD. So I strongly recommend a study buddy! Good luck!

2. The important thing is to create a habit. Pick something you do every day or most days and associate studying japanese with that.

   For example whenever you eat breakfast study japanese. Or whenever you get home from work. Or every time you do laundry. Something like that. Pick one and be consistent.

   If you work at being consistent, soon you’ll build a habit and it won’t take effort to get started each time because it’ll be automatic.

   Also, for ADHD, drugs help.

3. You are most certainly not the first person to come with something along the lines of “how to make my learning habits stick with ADHD”, simply search “ADHD” in the sub.

4. Yes.

   I gave up on textbooks long, long ago; it’s all Anki stuff (which doesn’t feel great but at least it’s effective to do a little bit per day and then not bother) and native media. I legitimately like kids cartoons, so Digimon was a perfect on-ramp, and then I did a fair bit of easy-ish reading in paper. (Manga and a 宮沢賢治 anthology.)

   I’ve never seen a textbook that didn’t hurt.

   So through sheer laziness I’ve gotten to a point where I can read and generally hear (though fast multi-speaker conversations still kick my butt) and sorta write. I haven’t found a way to feel a sense of accomplishment from practicing speaking yet, though some degree of social anxiety may be more to blame than the reward-circuitry glitches of ADHD.

   I think the best thing you can do is limit the amount of time you *study* per day while allowing yourself an unlimited time budget to goof off with. Because study burns us out; while goofing off is a much more reliable source of motivation.

5. I have diagnosed ADHD. I’ve been studying for 4 years, approximately 3 of them were without medication due to complications with side effects (the past year I have been on a very low dose of Elvanse). The one thing I have managed to never let go is Anki. For 4 years I have not missed a single day of Anki reps, even during those times I have gone a month or more without doing any other studying or reading.

6. I’ve been diagnosed with adhd recently.
   Never wanted to get tested for it because my mom always looked at it as “me just being a boy”

   When I first started studying the language I was terrible at it. I never did well and I never wanted to learn the vocab. Some of the other students would look in my direction and ask themselves “what’s wrong with that guy?”

   I had my major to focus on so I stopped Japanese for a while to graduate. Went to China and loved it, thought “why not used my remaining loans to go to Japan ?”

   I went one of the more difficult universities as I told my professor I wanted to get as fluent as possible. She sent me to Gifu.

   There, I found that 90% of the students were from higher level universities from their respective countries and already had n2/n1.
   I was horrible and couldn’t understand the most basic concepts. If any of you love cringe compilations or like to laugh at people sucking at something overall, you would’ve loved to have been there. I was baaadd. I also wasn’t given much sympathy and didn’t really have a good mentor or guide.

   Eventually I realized that I was gonna learn this language no matter what it took. I got really angry and said I’m gonna learn no matter what anyone says (ssj 1 vegeta intensifies). People downplayed me and told me to manage my expectations because I just didn’t have the stuff to learn Japanese.

   But I buckled down and told myself, I gotta learn this. No matter what

   Guess what happened ? I surpassed everyone who had n2/n1 and told me to manage my expectations in a span of 3 years and even went beyond what I thought I could do. My Japanese is getting very close to my English ability.

   They said I couldn’t get n2 in 2 years since coming to Japan. Did it. Then they said I definitely wouldn’t get n1. Did it. Now every other person I encounter in Japan wants my advice on how to get better at Japanese. They simply see me talk or bust out a book and easily read it.

   How? Get over yourself and find a good reason to learn the language and go for it. Stop saying you have adhd at the header of your comment and make something of yourself. You’re just gonna have to do it. People can’t believe when I tell them how bad I was when they meet me in real life. They can’t fathom it and think I’m some genius or joking. Im nowhere near a genius and not joking

   Enter the flow state. You just might have to if you have ADHD as bad as I do

   https://youtu.be/5vxNcWmH8c4

7. I am an adult with ADHD, and in my case I basically had to come to terms with the fact that self-study doesn’t really work for me if it’s something I want to commit to learning for more than 1-3 months. Study buddies are good – the more external sources of accountability, the better. You could also look for local meetups or other Japanese language groups. In my case, I made the choice to start paying for lessons (NY Japan Society). They’re expensive, I attend online classes twice a week for two hours; and as soon as they post the upcoming class schedule, I register before I can start second guessing it or wondering if I could use a break, etc.

   Of course, that may not be in your budget or most people’s budget. My overall point is, make it so the stakes are higher than whether or not you personally learn Japanese – you’re going to lose money, you’re going to leave your study buddy hanging, you’ll disappoint your teacher. Also find a way to make it something that is scheduled regularly and that you don’t have completely freedom to change that schedule however you want.

8. > For my peers with ADHD, this is familiar to the “do something during a week all the hours and then leave it behind” pattern.

   Yes. Consider this though. If you have a pot of boiling water, and remove the pan from the heating element, it stays hot for a little while… right? So it’s OK to set your language learning for a bit, as long as you don’t let that “pan” cool all the way down.

   But absolutely ADHD is like that with many a thing. I have a LOT of hobbies that kind of cycle like this.

   Japanese isn’t one of them… and I wonder if that’s because I made it impossible to completely dodge Japanese in my life… or if it’s because Japanese was my first kind of obsessive special-interest hobby.

   Either way, I did set down Japanese for a 7 year span. But my life at the time was an absolute wreck. So it couldn’t have been helped.

   > Normally I’m excusing myself with “I have lots of things to do” when in reality I just don’t want to.

   That means it’s not providing dopamine.

   When I started out teaching myself Japanese my primary focus was it being enjoyable. I also didn’t have a community to go to about it, nor did methodology guides exist, and I had no money for textbooks (and thought they were boring) so I managed to avoid discouragement by turning it into schoolwork kind of study time.

   …. in fact the whole reason I got INTO Japanese was I wasn’t railroaded like my school’s language classes were. 🙂 I looked up what I wanted when I wanted. +++

   If I go back to my teenage years my toolbox included:

   * Barron’s Pocket Grammar Guide

   Which I read… but not a lot of it stuck.

   * A phrase book

   Which I read… but none of it stuck.

   * A picture dictionary

   Actually gained quite a bit of words from it 10/10

   * Random house bilingual dictionary

   This was kind of my bread and butter. I looked up a TON of words for things around me, or things I wanted to say…. write rather… I tried to take school notes in Japanese.

   * Various internet grammar guides

   Those helped a little more… but I still didn’t retain a ton.

   Then the apps started to appear.

   * My Japanese Coach for Nintendo DS

   THIS is where things really started to pick up. The gamey nature of it allowed me to pick up a TON of words, and some super simple sentence structure… that they only really get to towards the end.

   * Anki

   …….. I hate flashcards…. but for a while this was what was available… I ditched it ASAP. It did not spark joy for me. And I noticed I was memorizing cards/answers by the first couple of letters on the cards and not actually learning the material.

   * iKnow

   This was my FAVORITE app. It taught me kana, and I did a good portion of the core 2000 deck on here before it became a pay to use app.

   * Duolingo

   A lot of people hate this app, but it’s my favorite because it focuses on sentences, which is both helpful for…. learning how to read and make sentences…. but also makes it easier for me to pick up words. I also really like the games, it’s engaging for me and I do learn from them. But I did have to stop looking at the word bank, and I had to readjust my priorities. At one point my priority was a complete gold gilded tree…. and I got it… but didn’t learn anything from that pass through. So I had to reset my tree and go through it again.

   * Memrise

   It’s a lot like My Japanese Coach was, in regards to some of it’s activities. And though I’ve come back to it often something about it just doesn’t keep me there for long.

   …. it might be because it’s a little too flashcard-y still.

   …. now I pick through media with just a digital dictionary. Funny how if you get far enough you go right back to basics.

   But for new languages I now just hop straight to Duolingo, because I know part of the key to success is keeping it enjoyable. Once it becomes work… well… then I stop doing it. And even with Japanese I’ve come too close to that on occasion.

9. Some general tips to boost concentration and focus. Not sure if they would help with ADHD but some people find them effective and they transformed my life. So I hope you will find some ideas below that help you too.

   – Some Korean friends showed me most helpful rules. Aim to sit for say 45 hyper focused on task, then 5 minutes break, repeat. To start, maybe you can only do say 10/2 minutes cycles, but aim to increase over the month.

   – Koreans also recommended no food or sugary drinks at study desk.

   – Block specific study time(s) every day to develop a daily habit.

   – A serious university library can be a great environment to concentrate. Peer pressure and modeled behaviour. Even your local library could be great. (With earplugs, I also liked busy cafes for a change.)

   – Uncluttered work space.

   – Remove all electronic distractions (turn off internet, phone, etc.)

   – Block outside sound with earplugs. Block outside visuals (e.g. with a baseball cap)

   – Try to get some exercise daily, even just a brisk walk around. Eat well with low sugar. Sleep on consistent schedule.