I have been trying to learn Japanese for 6-8 months at this point. You’d expect at this point I’d know a decent amount of things. I’d have a decent vocabulary and know a bunch of kanji, but where am I? Nowhere, I know maybe 40-60 words? and like 5-6 kanji, and nothing with grammar. I haven’t lost interest in Japanese per say but, I’ve lost any reason to do it. I started out ok, Got hiragana down, I was having fun, really slowed down doing barely anything for a while (Tried learning katakana later on). then a while ago started doing some vocabulary while gaming. But I would just never fully commit. I recently tried to start kanji using WaniKani, but I just haven’t been enjoying it or having any luck with it. I have also lost any use for Japanese. I haven’t watched anime in I don’t even know how long. I don’t have access to any sort of Japanese books (Not just manga but literally anything). I have no one to speak this language to, I don’t have any plans of visiting Japan and I have no interests in jobs that would require it. I still think Japanese is cool, I want to get good at it. But I have absolutely no motivation. It just seems so overly hard, I need to learn 3000-4000+ kanji, then grammar and vocabulary, then I still need to re learn katakana, then there’s the need to read Japanese books (Witch I do not have access too) and consuming other sorts of media (Witch I haven’t been into for a long time, as I never had time to watch anything). Just why go through all this effort? I have been trying to teach myself Japanese but can’t get anywhere (I have been learning online for free with no piracy). I am unable to get into a class, or get a textbook or a tutor because, I don’t have the money, and I do not want my family to know I’m learning, and I can’t really hide it with these kind of ways of learning. It’s online for free, or nothing for me. I still want to learn kinda, but is there even any reason to? I’ll never get to use Japanese, it’ll be a useless skill.
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What will happen if I quit learning Japanese?
I will move to learning Russian, I have a friend who speaks it natively and I will be able to use it a lot more. It will be less work and more useful. I actually have reason to learn it.
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I don’t want to leave Japanese, but I just can’t get motivation, no matter what I try. It feels impossible to learn. I don’t want to give up because it’s hard but, it just feels like it’s too hard y’know?
What do I do? Do I quit and do Russian? Or keep trying and hope I get motivated?
Also if I do quit I may return in the future if I ever get back into anime or get access to Japanese books.
Thank you, and have a nice day.
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Update: I did decide to set Japanese aside for now. I hope to one day return but for now I’m done. Thank you for the help! Have a nice day!
13 comments
If you don’t have a reason to learn and don’t enjoy then don’t do it
You say 6-8 months which is basically nothing anyway but it sounds like in terms of hours you’ve put in barely any time. Any language you learn is going to be hard and if putting in the work doesn’t sound enjoyable or useful to you then don’t
if there’s no pressing need to learn Japanese (e.g. to get a job), just put it aside for now. you can come back to it later. take up Russian as you said and see how that goes. language learning is no joke and if you don’t have any motivation and won’t put in the time, it’s best to do something else.
Even people like me who are in Japan right now are having a hard time learning it. I can’t imagine it for someone who has no incentive in learning at all. Go with Russian.
People complain about it but you could try Duolingo. 75 days in and I know nearly 1000 words.
I’m taking a short break so I’ll see how retention is next month when I go back to it.
It doesn’t necessarily take money to learn Japanese. But it does take a lot of time. It doesn’t sound like you’ve put in much time. 6 kanji and 60 words is not much at all. That is about a week’s worth of studying, 1 hour per day. If you don’t have any reason for learning it, then the other 3000 kanji and 30,000 words will be a real slog.
If you have to ask, you might want to drop it
Jlabs beginner Japanese anki deck
Rrtk anki deck
Both done at the 3 month mark or longer depending how many new cards a day u have time for. This should get you going with no exterior effort besides the two decks.
Jlabs will teach you about 900 words and Tae Kim’s grammar. RRTK you will learn 2,000 kanji.
Japanese pod 101 for hiragana and katakana. The YouTube videos. Tokini Andy videos for grammar book lessons, genki etc
Read the graded readers from a previous post.
I havnt spent a penny on learning Japanese. There is plenty of free content out there.
Learning a language is a hobby. Why learn Japanese? Why learn any language? Why work out? Why play video games? If at the end of the day you are not enjoying the process or the results. Then drop it. Otherwise keep going, language learning is a marathon.
>I will move to learning Russian, I have a friend who speaks it natively and I will be able to use it a lot more. It will be less work and more useful. I actually have reason to learn it.
To be brutally honest with you: That’s not a motivation. I suppose your friend already can speak your native language to a high level, so until you reach a point where talking Russian would seem like a benefit you’d already have given up on it already. I learned Russian for the same reason and I ended up in this sub before even reaching A2 level. Bothering friends during language learning seems like a great thing to connect more, but in the end they will just have to support you all the time with no real benefit for your friendship after the initial “oh cool you learn my language” effect.
I can wholeheartedly recommend [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onZvbfZqwCk). You will never reach fluency in any language with a half-assed approach. So you either need actual motivation because of which you willingly sacrifice parts of your life, or language learning is just not something you should do at this moment, as even switching the language will most likely lead to another frustrating experience. And that’s perfectly fine, you can still do it any time. Until then, enjoy other hobbies and the teenage life.
Most important part of learning a language is having fun. If you don’t find the motivation or the enjoyment of learning Japanese, then it’s perfectly fine to take a break in your studies and come back to it later.
Also, please, don’t be disappointed in yourself. Japanese is a language that asks for a lot of study and sometimes it might be difficult to dive into it until you find the right pattern that clicks for you.
You can find grammar points from the main books uploaded to websites, you just have to look around for them. Or, just look around for PDFs of the books, they’re very easy to find on google. I would suggest just learning Russian as it sounds like you could gain a lot more from that. One thing that sticks about languages is that if you stop using the language, you get worse at it, so if you’re only putting in a couple of hours, then pausing for weeks at a time, you don’t really have any hope of retaining the language. Fyi I’ve heard Russian is also very hard, so you will need to put in much more work to see progress probably than you have with Japanese. Languages are kind of annoying because for a lot of people studying them doesn’t become fun until they can consume content they enjoy our maintain conversations with others, so the beginning 500 hours of so can be a slog you need to be willing to stick out
If you change your mind, feel free to PM me.
I’ve been doing it about the same length of time as you, and I feel like I’ve progressed about the same amount.
If you ever want to video chat, and struggle through together, let me know 🙂
If you don’t want to learn, then don’t do it. It seems like you’re looking for someone to give you am easy answer or the key to being motivated. But you have to find motivation yourself, and just be disciplined. It’s hard, but gets easier as you form habits. I make coffee every morning and go though my anki decks for 30 minutes. It’s a habit now and works really well. In a few months, you can learn hundreds, or thousands of words.
I don’t know what you expect. You barely put in any effort and abandon every attempt seemingly immediately. That’s not a moral judgement, it’s totally fine not to want to put in the effort it takes to actually learn a language. But you have to wake up to the reality that either you put in the effort, or you’re just not going to learn Japanese (or any other language, for that matter).
I have a lot of empathy with people struggling because of e.g. bad study habits, but if you know 6 kanji after half a year of “study”, then you didn’t really study.