I can’t believe it’s been 100 days since the almighty crabigator enlisted me on a journey to imagine the fabled こういち in all sorts of situations.
Jokes aside, I can definitely feel a general sort of exhaustion creeping up on me and would like to avoid burning out.
I have been going at a relatively fast pace, added KaniWani to the mix a few weeks ago as I felt my recall was lacking severely and also picked up Genki I for grammar around level 10 like the Tofugu guide suggested.
Now I usually spend about 3-4 hours a day actively learning/practicing/reviewing Japanese doing most of my reviews spread throughout the day and a big batch in the morning.
I slowed down the last week or so, limiting lessons to 30 a day and doing reviews only 3 times a day. What I expected was less that giving myself more of a break throughout the day would improve my reviews but I actually found it a lot harder to recall meanings/readings as the time between reviews has increased.
I am very wary of slowing down more than this as I feel it would further hinder my progress and it would be too easy to start coming up with excuses, but at the same time there is just so much japanese to learn it keeps piling up like a snowball.
I’d recommend slowing down in your case. That is a lot of time dedicated to Japanese and can definitely lead to burnout. When it comes down to it, consistency is what you need to reach long term goals in any part of life. I like to compare it to fitness myself. If you try to increase your weights too quickly, you can develop bad form and get injured which will put you much further behind than if you went at a steady pace.
As long as you stay committed to doing your reviews, I don’t think you’ll lose momentum. Even when I’m in a slow lesson period, I can’t resist doing a few.
I think it depends on your other studies. If you are ahead in kanji compared to your grammar/vocabulary level, maybe slow it down? If not I would continue in a pace that doesn’t make my kanji hinder my other studies.
I was doing WK basically the whole day before, but it lead to my burnout for almost 2 years (also the urge to be fast and efficient, so don’t be me).
After coming back I started doing 20 lessons a day and it’s been lovely. I also study vocab on Kitsun and grammar from textbooks (Genki, then Tobira) and Bunpro, so I do SRS in the morning-afternoon, sometimes skipping the evening and it feels great to not care about additional 10 hours and just care about my health more. Just my experience with this
I can’t speak about Japanese (I’m only level 3), but I did learn fluent French in my early 20s and all I can say is that learning a language never ends. I still learn words in English from time to time and I’ve been speaking it my whole life. I feel like ultimately it’s a sprint to get functional–so you can start to enjoy yourself in the language, and then pacing yourself becomes key. Try to remember why you want to learn Japanese, and try to do some stuff with what you’ve learned so far that’s fun. And if you’re in a position to practice conversations remember that you’re gonna sound a bit like a baby for awhile and that’s ok. Learning a language is a huge achievement and you should be proud!
Yeah, definitely slow down. I don’t believe that there’s any pressure on you to learn Japanese (I could be wrong) so just take it at a pace that’s comfortable and enjoyable for you.
