How long is too long to stop studying?

8 comments

1. Two questions. 1, what MOS/Rate are you enlisting as? 2, did you try interpreter?

   You can learn more languages after boot camp, and it can help you out on qualifications, evaluations, and occasionally, bonus pay.

2. Ahh, 10 weeks is honestly nothing as long as you’ve laid a good foundation. I’m sure many people here, including myself, have gone on hiatuses, some for much longer than 10 weeks, and end up just fine.

   For me it always ends up working like this: I miss studying for an extended period of time. I’m ashamed and hard on myself about it. I get back to it, and am imbued with a sense of dread and despair at the progress I feel like I’ve lost, on top of hundreds of due vocab reviews.

   Fear not, every time I’ve taken a break, some much longer than 10 weeks, I always return to 90%+ of my last point within a week or two, depending on how long the break was, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer. Just give it the time and patience.

   I got back to the grind 3 weeks ago after a little over a year not having studied (had probably 4-500 hours under my belt at that point. It’s been 3 weeks since then and in some ways I feel I still have a bit to go to return to my previous functionality, in some ways I’ve already exceeded where I was at before, but it’s incredibly hard to judge.

3. 10 weeks go by relatively fast, rest assured that anything you forget will be picked back up relatively fast with enough SRS. If we were talking about 6 months, that’d be another story.

4. Guard, reserves or Active Duty? MOS/Rating/AFSC?

   You won’t lose anything. You just won’t make any new progress. You will be too focused in Basic Training and the following AIT/Tech School, and it’s probably for the better.

   It’s going to be challenging balancing Japanese study against your job training, post basic training but ensure that you do. You should be able to put at least 2 – 3 study hours in every day once you get out of Basic/Boot Camp.

   Keep your head down and when you get to your first duty station (or if you you’re guard/reserve, when you return to your home station) immediately seek out the possibility of taking the DLPT.

   The DLPT is no push over. DLPT 5 will adapt and get harder the more you answer correctly. You’ll eventually see a wall of Kanji if you do good enough on the test. Either way, take the DLPT as soon as you are eligible to and get it on your service record, even if you score a 1/1. You can get free college credits and potential TDY opportunities to use your language.

   I scored a 3 in listening and a 2+ in reading. I will likely retake it again this year and aim for a 3/3 and go on to do the actual interview.

   I think Japanese will go on to be a higher priority language for the DoD due to the strategic shift of future contingency operations, the push towards Asia will demand Japanese language skills in the coming years. Study when you finish Basic.

5. Even if you forget things, you’ll still make it way easier to learn them next time around.

6. 10 weeks? You’ll be fine. You may slip a bit but you’ll get it back quickly when you start studying again.

   If you want to minimize the slip, load up an Anki deck on your phone with some current material as the boot camp approaches, and do 10-20 minutes/day of reviews (or however much you can sneak in while on the john or whatever).

   But if you don’t manage that, honestly, don’t worry about it. In the long run it won’t matter that much.

7. I’ve stopped Japanese for 5 years, when I came back to it I could still read novels like I was able to 5 years ago. If you just memorise stuff you might forget it, but once it’s assimilated as a language in your brain it stays forever. That’s how I feel anyway.

8. I took an 18 year break after 3 years of studying, and was mostly back up to speed after about a month of studying, minus some vocab that took a bit longer to trickle back in

   Take the breaks you need and don’t stress