Back to the drawing board

I just reset all my progress back to level 1 after years of absence.
I am feeling major regerts.
But I didn’t remember any kanji!
My Japanese has been dormant for years. I used to be N4. ^^;

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What a pity :frowning_face: hang in there though, what was so substantial that caused the sudden stop for you?

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Epictetus has some words for you:

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. ”

“First say to yourself what you would be;
and then do what you have to do.”

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Work was the big one, unfortunately. I did a lot of my Japanese study in the years before I had a steady job. In 2017 I studied in Tokyo for three months and that was the peak of my language ability. I went for the N4 soon after that.
About three years ago, I got my Illustration career going; that is, after countless years of trying to get into the business I finally got contracted by a publisher to illustrate a picture book. Problem was that you need a day job to afford to illustrate the book, so all the book stuff was done in my spare time and evenings. I was pretty much working nonstop day and night for months, and by the time I’d finished a year had gone by. Then various health things popped up and I’ve spent a good year and a half trying to address those.
Things just piled up, and unfortunately my Japanese took a very back seat. :frowning:

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Thanks a lot for sharing :innocent: I somehow always appreciate it when people confess their problems and woes to me, and that goes for you too even though we’re just learners using the same platform.

I am, too, having a really hard time in my life, so many changes needed to be made and for someone who only prefers stability like me, they were rough. My sleeping pattern has been disrupted terribly and I’m still struggling to sleep, I also gave up taking part in a competition in college in which i was a leader and was so eager to take part in. I really felt so helpless. But yeah, I’m discarding a lot of things to improve and prioritize my health, and I think it is totally okay to stop and start over.

Hopefully you will restart the journey with lots of joy and inspiration from WK community :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: and things will get better for me too

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It might all come back pretty quick. I thought I had forgotten all the characters after not studying Mandarin for 10 years but after getting going in WK I’m surprised to still remember more than a few hundred of them. Even the Mandarin pronunciation is coming back even though I haven’t heard any of the characters read in Mandarin.

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Thanks for listening and sharing. :slight_smile:
I hope this is a good fresh start for both of us!

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I sure hope that’s the case for me!
(only with Japanese, not Mandarin! XD)

Don’t worry. It is not possible to forget things, you just can’t recall it now. After doing the reviews for a while everything will come back easily.

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dont worry

just focus now to study it again, if you were a n4, this time will be much more smooth to get the kanji again.

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I really hope so!

I really hope so.
Most of my grammar and structure is intact (thankfully!) and so I do understand more than I can read or write. But it’s embarrassing how bad my kanji is! Breaking point came the other day when I realised I couldn’t even remember how to write the 気 of 元気.
-_-

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Please keep us updated, I am a bit curious about your progress because about two months ago I thought I am a hopeless case in terms of Kanji memorization skills. But things improved suddenly while spending more time on studying. I think you will do much better soon!

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Sure, I can update you if you like!
Thanks for being interested!

Have to say, the most frustrating thing having started from the beginning again so far is waiting between reviews on level 1. ^^;

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I just reset and it’s been really positive.
I did a solid 6 months of WK and got to level 23 but I was seriously neglecting grammar so I decided to put WK on hold and get stuck in to BunPro for a while. 6 months later I came back to 2000+ reviews and it just meant the SRS was busted, I couldn’t clear the pile so anything I got right or wrong was just getting lost in the pile again and there were no useful intervals between anything, so I just reset the lot.
It has been really encouraging to see how much easier it has all been on the early levels. I’ve been doing other studies and trying to cement the knowledge I had since I dropped WK and now it’s really showing that it has worked, things I remember being seriously annoying I’m now getting right first time and recalling them really fast too, so I’m really interested to see where the cemented knowledge starts to top out and where WK gets tough again. Reviews are so much easier to keep up with when you don’t get things wrong all the time so I’m going full speed at the moment but I’m planning on just taking things at a slower pace once it starts getting tough again.
My only regret was not buying the lifetime subscription last Christmas!

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That’s encouraging; thanks for sharing. I hope it’s the same for me!

Thankfully that’s one good thing in all this; I bought a Lifetime subscription when they first introduced them waaaaaay back! So at least I don’t have to worry about the money side of things. ^^;

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An update :slight_smile:
A week later and I am now Level 2. Woo!
So far it hasn’t been too harsh. I have just started getting my first vocab bits and pieces and thankfully they come to mind before I read the hiragana. I just wish I could recall them when I go to write them!

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i just reset from 40 to 1! i was getting frustrated instead of enjoying it. second run lucky, heh?

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OHHHH wow
I thought it was rough resetting from 14!!! XD
let’s spur each other on!
We can do it!

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of course we can!
and also, you really need a PFP.

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