I don’t really know what to do anymore

9 comments

1. First of all, why do you want to learn japanese? for me it sounds like you dont even enjoy anything about the language, as you tried many different apporaches and you enjoyed none of them.

   Secondly, just slow it down, get stuck on too many reviews? stop adding new vocabs until you are good enough to progress through youre already added vocabs, there is no point in rushing through everything just for the sake of seeing a number increase.

   Slow progress > no progress

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3. Anki and anime alone won’t cut it. There is a reason immersion-focused learning methods like AJATT and its various offshoots place so much emphasis on reading – once you get past the very basics, kanji and vocabulary straight up won’t stick unless you do a lot of it.

   If you’re serious about the whole immersion learning thing, getting to a point where you can start reading and creating your own cards instead of relying on premade decks should be your highest priority. The N5/N4 Tango decks will get you there, but so will introductory textbooks or online guides. Dedicated kanji study can be useful, but it’s not necessary.

4. To be fair I don’t like Anki and ditched it as soon as other apps started appearing.

   I had much the same problem though. Sometimes the problem is learning words with little to no context.

   Sometimes the problem is for one reason or another your brain just doesn’t want to remember the word rn.

   In any case, vocabulary learning is a process fraught with forgetting and relearning and forgetting again.

   You can try wanikani, kanji damage. Or remembering the kanji for kanji learning.

   Whichever you choose (the middle one being free) those 3 will teach you via the radical method. Making stories and mnemonics for each kanji until you outgrow the method and start picking up kanji without all that kerfuffle.

   > Oh, bonus question/problem, I can’t find content to immerse with, I scroll through my Japanese YouTube for hours and can’t find anything interesting to watch

   Try Netflix

   > and when it comes to anime, I just feel bad for not understanding the stuff, and wonder what is happening

   It’s because you don’t know the words and likely don’t have the best listening skills yet either. Netflix Anime and language reactor might help you. It will allow you to easily replay lines from shows, and has a built in hover dictionary. Stick to anime or J-dramas though as they’ll have matching Japanese subtitles.

5. Lot of people just power through the kanji, IMO you don’t need to do that.
   There’s ways of circumnavigating the issue until you’re ready to start learning them in earnest.
   A browser extension like Yomichan for example, just look up the words you can’t read.
   One method that I personally like is using material that has both text and audio so that when I come across a kanji I can’t read I just let the speaker read it out to me, with enough repetition I even start to recognize the kanji.
   A lot of graded readers have accompanying audio, or you can use a service like Satori-Reader or LingQ.
   However for this method to work you need to be able to read fast enough to follow along with the speaker or be able to slow down the audio to your level.
   IMO learning words is a lot more valuable than learning kanji as kanji is only really applicable when reading, granted reading is probably the single best way to improve your language skills, if you can listen to what you read you can get most of the benefits of reading with a lot less headache.
   And when it does come time to learn kanji, it’s way easier if you already know words that use those kanji as you get their onyomi and kunyomi essentially for free.
   It’s essentially putting yourself in the same position native speakers are when they first start learning kanji.
   The kanji might be completely new to them, but they already can associate them to words they know.
   That said I still think it’s worth getting a small foundation of kanji even if you’re not going to commit to learning the 2200-ish common use kanji right away.
   A hundred or so kanji will go a long way to help in your recognition and understanding of how Kanji work.
   I’ve been using Kanji Garden recently and what I like about it is that the review portion is multiple choice.
   It doesn’t translate to real word recognition as quickly as pure active recall through anki would, but you might prefer the more gradual approach.

   As for vocabulary, don’t underestimate the power of a story.
   The brain is far better at encoding information that follows logic than it is at encoding random information.
   If you’re trying to learn a Japanese word in the abstract there’s no (evident) logic to go off of, you just need to memorize that x=y because that’s the way it is.
   A really good way to develop your vocabulary early on is to leverage your brain’s ability to remember stories and then read those same stories over and over again.
   You might not remember that 公園（こうえん）means “park” in the abstract, but you can remember the story about the dog who went to the park, and when it comes up in the story, in that context you’re far more likely to recall the word.
   You will still need repetition for you to be able to recognize the word in a new context but it’s a good way to bootstrap your vocabulary if rote memorization through Anki isn’t doing it for you.

   And for your bonus question, try checking out the youtube shorts section.
   I’ve found the youtube algorithm is pretty bad at suggesting me new content in Japanese that isn’t straight up from channels I am already subscribed to.
   I’ve found the shorts section is a lot better for discovering new content, and also a good place to go when you don’t know what you want to watch.

6. I’m using a similar app called renshuu and it lets you cap out the max number of vocab to review that day. I usually set mine to 50 and find that I don’t feel quite so overwhelmed as when I was seeing hundreds for review. I also capped the max number of new words to learn daily to 10 (sometimes I lower it to 5 when I have a really busy week or if I’m still struggling a lot with previous words). Idk if Anki has this function but definitely try adjusting the settings to make it serve you!

7. This sounds like classic burnout to me. My advice would be to step away for a few days – maybe as long as a week – and then come back to it. The time away will let you come back to it fresh, and you’ll have a better idea of what you have truly learned and internalized to this point versus just memorized.

   Remember that while it’s possible to learn a ton of kanji really quickly, most people just don’t operate that way. Slow it down and I promise you’ll see an improvement not only in the quality of what you’re learning, but in your attitude toward it.

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9. Honestly, if you’re struggling with kanji in particular, the answer is pretty easy imo: use RTK or Wanikani

   Those 2 systems are notorious for helping learners to be really comfortable with the shapes of the characters. Plus, assuming you chose the right keyword to associate the kanji with, you will have a cue of what it means and its relation to the word you are learning

   I’ve used and finished RTK, and trust me: knowing the keyword (a good one) of a kanji can help immensely with remembering words using that kanji.