Will I lose my progress if I stop studying Japanese for some years?

16 comments

1. What kind of answer are you expecting…

2. You will likely lose a lot but not everything and it should come back quickly when you restart. I stopped after HS for nearly 10 years and I stopped again peak during Covid.

3. Most of it, yes. But picking it back up would be much easier.

4. Years of study don’t matter, what’s important is how well you know the language. The better your knowledge is, the longer it takes to lose it.

5. Idk what you’re going to be studying, and I am by no means fluent or even close, but what I will say is you’ll have more free time than you think at uni.
   Part of the uni experience is often considered to be literally going out multiple times a week and getting absolutely trashed. Societies are a pretty big thing, as are sports and some of these will have meets multiple times a week. You will likely have time to study a reasonable amount most days if that’s what you want to do.
   Some unis also offer language classes you can either take as a credit bearing module or as an additional course on top of your programme. Some unis also have language learning societies, some language specific some not.
   I would say don’t just assume you won’t have time, bc you probably will. I can’t think of any specific course where you would GENUINELY struggle to find time to continue your learning except maybe something like medicine.
   If you do find yourself struggling to actively study and learn new things, depending on your level you could do things like watch/listen to japanese media, start writing a diary/journal in japanese, speak/think to yourself in japanese (may be weird if you don’t already talk/think to yourself). Using duolingo alone for 5 mins a day will not be very effective, especially if you’re already at a reasonable standard (especially since they basically got rid of kanji).
   I hope this is somewhat helpful and enjoy uni!

6. at this point just quit altogether. why waste more time?

   > 5min a day on Duolingo

   haha

7. You will forget a lot about it, not a good idea to stop

8. i took 20 years off after college, then restarted. everything but some vocab came back within a month of study. yes it’ll take work to relearn it, no it won’t disappear completely.

9. I think just remembering the Kanji would suffice. The vocabulary and grammar should be easy to relearn, though Kanji is kind of hard since there’s so many readings that you’ll forget. So hopefully you got an anki deck for kanji later, otherwise you may have to relearn most things.

10. I came back from a ~3 year break.

    It wasn’t as bad as I expected. I thought I would’ve had to go far back into my DuoLingo tree and restart, but doing old levels kept feeling too easy and I continued on from where I was.

    As for Wanikani, I stopped at level 30, and I did feel like I had to reset back to level 10. However, so far, I feel like I can recall about half of the “new” Kanji it’s been teaching me between 10 and 26 so far. However, that other half still feels as if I haven’t learned it before.

    I still felt like I needed to rewatch a good chunk of Cure Dolly’s videos though.

    I’d say try to get all your dailies done on DuoLingo every day if you’re serious about not having to totally re-cram.

11. I think it depends on what Level your japanese ist when you stop studying and if you still use japanese, or Not.
    If you are on a lower Level and you also dont use japanese at All, then your progress will decline a lot and maybe you have to restart completely (but knowledge gain will be fast when you start again).
    If you just stop studying, because you are fine with your japanese Level, but you still use your japanese on the regular, then i dont think you Lose progress, but obv you wont gain progress or its just very slow

12. You could do Anki just for repitition instead of learning new words?

13. In my opinion many people misunderstand it quite a bit. What you lose is your recalling ability, but not the knowledge itself. The simplest example can be how we don’t remember something that happened long time ago, but if we start to think about that period, or if we meet our old friend and talk about that, suddenly it all pop ups.

    A bit of maintenance might help you, but it’s not a requirement. After several years it will become rusty, but after very short reviews not only you will recover your ability, it’s going to be even stronger than before.

14. Hey, I’m a uni student as well as a part time worker. I still manage to squeeze in some time for my hobbies AND Japanese. I’m able to dedicate one or two hours a day with some luck. Time management is key to doing this.
    I hope you succeed!

    Ps: to answer your question, yes you will lose progress, or rather, it’ll become buried and will resurface once you pick it up again.

15. You would remember a little, but if you completely stop for four years, you’ll forget a lot. You’ll be able to relearn it faster the second time though.

    Studying for 5 minutes a day would definitely be a good idea, it’s a steady exposure to the language, and surely you’ll be able to find 5 minutes a day at the very least.

16. Obviously yes