Like the title says, i’m interested in coming back to japanese after about a half year hiatus due to burnout. I’ve tried to do this before, but it usually ends up with me doing one session and then not finding the motivation to do it again the next day. Is there a way to efficiently study again so it’s not too much for me? Thanks.
6 comments
Easy.
Set yourself a goal (or don’t) and just start. Repeat every day.
Motivation != success
DISCIPLINE == success
There are plenty of ways to get disciplined, so I’ll leave that research to you (I guarantee there’s a whole subreddit, maybe r/selfimprovement idk). Idk how disciplined you are in other aspects of life, so alots dependent on that and your personality, etc.
But also make sure not to bite off more than you can chew. Burnout sounds like you did too much at a time and straight-up gave up, so avoid that and know your limits.
Finding something you enjoy doing and doing it in Japanese instead will help a lot. Being disciplined is obviously an easy answer but more often then not what leads to de-motivation and burn out is doing things that aren’t in line with your interests. So you feel there’s a need to “grind” to get where you want to be and burn out by pushing too hard.
The solution is to have something you do everyday in terms of study, but pursue something you are actually interested in but do it in Japanese. In that 6 month hiatus without any studying if you just interacted with the language without trying to learn you would’ve at least retained what you learned and probably learn a lot more through osmosis.
tell yourself to study for X hours a day and see how long you can keep it up
X can be 2 perhaps?
Decide when in the day you will study, and what current activities you will be replacing. For example, flashcards during breaks instead of social media, grammar videos during meals, podcasts while driving, Japanese tv instead of English, etc. If a long session seems too much, try a few minutes multiple times throughout the day.
Once you’ve decided on a good pace, stick to it 5-6 days a week. Estimate when you will reach a level you’re excited about reaching and keep that goal in mind (but be flexible with it too).
I’ve been burn out a lot too, especially during corona (my mistake was having no consistency but also doing too much in a single day),,,
,,, but then I made anki… made vocab deck, kanji writing deck-
AND NOW duuuuude, I am so addicted to learning Japanese.
And mostly I blame it all the dopamine I get from being able to read some random Japanese texts with kanji (like recent popular song ロリ神レクイエム)
And writing kanji- GUYS, IT’S WAY TOO SWEET!! I would study it more a day (I have it rn on 3 new kanjis a day) – but I am afraid if it will be more I will not enjoy this “sweet(お菓子)” as much as right now.
In short. I am treating Japanese like a treat. Treats are unhealthy if you eat them too much a day – but they are a nice award,,, so let yourself to take small amount of these candies.
(I am very sorry for sounding high, or if this text is hard to read. English is not my first language – and also it’s pretty difficult to explain my joy in a proper structure 😅)