Some advice please. I want to quit

9 comments

1. Hi. I have been learning Japanese since 2017. In all this time, Ive learnt aprox 100 kanjis or so, and I think Im able to pass the N5 but that is it.
   I’ve found out that studying for 2,3 hrs a week is enough for me to not burn out. And there have been times where I have been too depressed or tired to study anything.

   My recommendation for you is to keep studying if you enjoy it. If you don’t, or you feel like with just the basics you are ok,then that’s also fine. From my perspective I find it nice when somebody makes the effort to integrate to a country and it’s culture, but I would totally understand if you are not speaking perfectly if you only have 8 months left in the country.
   Be kind to yourself and take the path that brings you the most joy.

2. Mate, don’t overcomplicate this. Quit and don’t look back. There’s nothing stopping you from coming back to it later if you ever regain the interest, but this stuff isn’t worth ruining your free time over.

3. If you have no interest in Japanese media, culture, if you pretty much only speak English in your daily life (even in Japan), and on top of that you’re leaving Japan in less than a year from now, why bother? As things stand, this is what will happen if you carry on pushing yourself to study Japanese one hour every day for the next 9 months: you’re going to spend each day secretly resenting the language, not only because you have no real reason to be learning it, but also because you won’t have time to do things you actually enjoy; you’re not going to learn much, and a few years from now you’ll barely remember what you learned in your last year in Japan, and you’re going to think “man, why did I waste over 200 hours on *that* when I knew it wasn’t worth it?”

   My advice: do what you *really* feel like doing. Don’t study it just because you feel a sense of duty, or because you think “it’s what you’re supposed to do”.

4. I have burned out from studying Japanese but this was before I moved to Japan to marry my wife and have a kid here. After living here for 3 years my Japanese studying was limited to my off time at work and a bit every morning. I would go to bed quite early and wake up at 5 so I would have enough time. (This is not healthy for many people but I am quite an active morning person)

   **My advice to you**

   If you know the basics of Japanese and you can do your daily life without too many trouble, than there is not really much of a reason to keep studying. The thing with Japanese or any language for that fact, once you stop hearing, seeing and speaking it, progress goes down massively. So unless you are planning on also studying Japanese when you leave Japan, stop it already and enjoy your time.

   **My story**

   So I came to Japan 3 years ago, burned out from studying before that. 2 months ago I quit my job because I kept getting panic attacks and was too burned out. I never really stopped improving my Japanese, even when I was too busy, I would take as many chances as possible to actually use my Japanese. By example, my entire pc is in Japanese, I need information? I would look it up in Japanese.

   Now I’m not planning on moving out of Japan anytime soon, and because I became a stay at home dad (because of my health) I need to know Japanese because if something happens to my kid, I need to be able to communicate with other people. I really need Japanese in a somewhat high level to be able to live here comfortably as my wife is the Japanese person but also the person who is working full time.

   I often took a long break from studying, but I never gave up completely as the knowing the language is necessary for me and my family. In your situation, is the only reason you want to know Japanese because you are living in Japan right now?

   **Your choices:**

   1. Keep studying Japanese and try to use more Japanese, if you can not find joy in doing so, think about the fact that you’ll be leaving in 8 months and how good it would feel to leave Japan with such a great skill as being fluent in Japanese. This could also work well if you want to find a new job. Granted, Japanese may not be the most useful skill outside of Japan, but it shows that you are dedicated to learning new skills even though they are difficult.
   2. Quit and don’t look back, if you would actually stop studying for an extended period of time, chances are that you will lose a lot of knowledge which doesn’t just come back to you by reviewing everything briefly. (been there, done that)

   In the end the choice is up to you, I hope this message helped you in some way. 😉

5. This post shows really well how living in Japan is not the golden ticket to magically become good at the language.

   For me it sounds like you have zero interest in Japanese, so just let it be is the advice I would give you and do whatever makes you happy instead.

   If you *do* actually want to make progess in Japanese and are intrinsctly interessted sacrifices have to be made and with this I mean, quit some of your other hobbys (at least for some years), surround yourself more with Japanese people, try meeting the English only speaking friends less frequently, if possible avoid them completely, if mangas or anime aren’t your thing, consume any sort of media you like consming in English but do it in *Japanese* instead, so this can be movies, netflix shows, books, whatever, doesn’t have to be manga or anime. At the end **you get what you put in**, no foreigner has ever become decent at Japanese inside an English foreigner bubble. I am not being harsh btw, this is just reallity, but for me it really sounds like you don’t actually want to study Japanese but rather feel like you should learn Japanese, and if you were staying in Japan long term, then I would understand this sense of duty but you’re leaving soon anyways so just forget about it if you’re not interessted.

6. asking reddit for permission to quit lmao

7. >I haven’t even progressed that far because my whole life still exists in English, even though we live in Japan, and I’m just learning because I feel like I should. But like I said there’s no practical need for me. My kids go to English speaking school, I work for an English speaking company, my wife works for and English speaking company. And we leave Japan in 8 months.

   Most Japanese people only learn English for careers and college etc, not because they care deeply about the culture of England or America etc. You have no incentive to learn which on top of your other very weighty responsibilities is going to make learning Japanese to a high level an absolute pain.

   ​

   > I speak and read enough to navigate my life here quite comfortably.

   Then it has not been a waste! You have achieved something, functional Japanese to navigate daily life is a lot better than some and you should be proud of getting to that level.

   ​

   >I haven’t learned anything on guitar for over a year, I barely play any of the other games that I like to play. I know I’m whining, but man.

   You are not ‘whining’, you have a family and work, so spending time on things you love is incredibly important for your wellbeing. Put your energies into those pursuits and close the chapter on your language learning until such a time that you want to come back.

8. In order to learn a language you need to want to learn the language. It’s completely okay to not want to continue. The worst thing you could do is force yourself to progress, causing burnout.

   You can come back to learning Japanese later, or never. It’s not something you NEED to do, but something you WANT to do.

   Spend that hour of free time on other activities you like, take a break, quit. Your choice.

9. In your case it seems easy. Are you living in Japan? Learn Japanese. Are you not living in Japan? Don’t.