Discouragement

I think going slower than expected is quite normal. Keep in mind, that whatever you hear around here warps your perspective, as especially efficient peeps are more likely to share their experience as they got confidence in publicly sharing their stats.

And the feeling of growing not fast enough is omni present really, so you shouldn’t think about it too much, as it can keep you from progressing. Maybe get rid off unnecessary distractions and just continue your journey slowly but steadily.

Also in terms of tools: I feel bunpro is more fruitful in learning japanese than wanikani is, after all here you only memorize kanji, which on its own does’nt get you anywhere.
Bunpro has grammar and vocab, so if you can afford 2 subscriptions and also need training in these areas I suggest giving it a go, proritizing it even.

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My new pace has been around 20 days a level. Ive been tryingg to do 20 lessons a day and clead out all reviews once a day tho there has been a few times where when the reviews started to approach 200 i had to stop early or occassions where i felt i just was not in any mindset to absorb stuff from new lessons…

Im terrible at focusing thats probably how the time is so high for such poor results… It sounds like im doing everything wrong

i appreciate the suggestions for other things i can do. tho right now im not in much of a position to buy new subscriptions for stuffs. Ill try to get to the free ones…

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In the end, what level you are isn’t that important. Realistically, you probably aren’t going to put "Wanikani level 60 finisher’ on a resume :slight_smile:. IMO what does matter - are you putting your 10 levels worth of kanji & vocab to any sort of use?

As you allude to, now might be a good time to bring in another aspect of Japanese study - EVEN if it further slows your WK progress! I’ve slowed quite a bit (~30 days per level now) since beginning to work on grammar & conversation, and personally it’s been a great tradeoff. I do feel that my 21 levels worth of WK so far have been a great boost to overall learning though, and will continue to trudge forward.

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I realized right now im kinda just cherry picking whatever i see to justify feeling bad and kinda glossing over any positive sentiments. Im going to go for a bit and reread this thread later when Im in a better emotional state.

Thank you for all of the support and advice everyone.

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Everyone started out terrible and even now there’s still so much to learn from our mistakes.

It’s a self guided journey with your own milestones and directions. Of course everyone will compare themselves with someone else, but you can only truly compare yourself with yourself. Always remember where you were and where you are now, then you can work towards the future.

Another thing I’d like to give people is try to be open minded and think positively. If it helps, breaking it down into smaller measurable goals is a good way to keep yourself in check and might help set realistic expectations for yourself.

More concretely if you’ve made it to level 10, then it shows you are committed. It also shows that you’ve already learned quite a few basic kanji. These are the building bocks and you’ll see them reappear over and over again. Whether you pick up a grammar textbook or a book to read.

I hope this has been helpful and good luck with your studies.

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On this note, let me say as emphatically as I can that nothing about your accuracy on WK is meant as a judgment. That said, 20 lessons a day is roughly the amount people take for maximum pace, but the way the levels work, you can’t move on until you’ve Guru’d 90% of the kanji for your current level. What that indicates is definitely that some wrong answers are slowing you down.

And again that’s totally fine, on the whole you have to get things wrong in Japanese over and over before you get them right. But I mention this because you may want to experiment with how you’re learning. I don’t mean “remember better” but are you reviewing those lessons at least once, or maybe even both times the same day you learn them, if possible (those being 4 and 8 hour intervals)? Some people find they really benefit from that. Or there’s the new recent lessons practice, maybe a little of that would help you. Messing with mnemonics or whatever it is that you need is worth thinking about too.

But what I really want to say, paradoxically, is that doing fewer lessons per day might actually see you level quicker, if reducing how much you do all at once helps you remember the ones you do. Some people here do smaller chunks of lessons (paging @fallynleaf lol) each day that give them very regular, predictable levels of, say, 14 days or so. And in doing so, you should theoretically free up more time (both fewer lessons per day and hopefully fewer repeat reviews) for doing grammar and the like.

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I have ADHD too, complete with focus issues. Sometimes I can get through 50+ reviews in one go no problem, sometimes I feel like I’m up to it but then only a few reviews in, I realize my brain is just. not doing this right now. If you’re not doing WK on mobile already, I recommend either downloading one of the apps (Tsurukame for iOS, I think Flaming Durtles is the go-to for Android?) or just using your browser and doing a few reviews whenever you have any downtime throughout the day. Also, make liberal use of the wrap-up feature. On native WK it’s 10 items, on Tsurukame the default is 5 but you can set it to anywhere from 3-10. It’s a lot easier to get through reviews in small chunks than in big batches!

And if you’re not feeling up to lessons, it is absolutely okay to not do any. I generally aim for 20 a day as well, but sometimes I only manage 10 or even none at all. What’s most important is not to burn yourself out.

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Don’t give up, Magikarpador. You are enough and your best is enough. (There are always people better and richer and more accomplished and etc etc etc… it’s not something to worry about in life, unless you want to drive yourself mad.)
I was dallying with duolingo the other day and it said - see what you can learn in 15 minutes: what could you learn in 15 minutes on social media?! - that is, whatever you’re doing, you’re learning a lot more than most people are. I have never spoken a japanese sentence and may never visit Japan - but I recognise words in the wild and I’m getting fun out of what I’m doing, and that’s ok.
Hang in there and enjoy the journey. good luck!

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Here’s one detail that most of us tend to gloss over but it’s an important one:

Most of us are actually pretty decent students. And pretty lousy teachers. And when you’re teaching yourself a skill, you’re taking on both roles, and when it becomes difficult, your self-esteem gets taken down a few rungs and you start doubting that you’re an able student.

Nah. You’re probably a decent student. Just a lousy teacher. :slight_smile: Ironically, the skill that you improve the most in, regardless of what you’re actually trying to learn, is how to teach. And by proxy of becoming a better teacher, you become better in the skills you’re trying to teach yourself.

Most of us aren’t blessed enough to be good students AND good teachers, so we have to plod along. The skill set will come in time, with practice, so gradually that you won’t even notice it.

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I’m only on the tail-end of level 4 so I’m not sure if I can offer much input. However, one thing has already been made abundantly clear to me. WaniKani would be excessively difficult for me personally if I didn’t already know vocab and word constructions.

Maybe it’s just the way WK is set up (although I had a similar experience with other Kanji resources) but it just doesn’t jive for me when it comes to learning the vocab (hence why if it does show me a new word, I add it to my other resources that drill it into me more frequently and aggressively). When I have vocab drilled into me with better resources and classes, it is much easier to pair the kanji together and their readings, drastically reducing the difficulty.

Because of this, I do want to at least bring this point up even given my limited exposure to WaniKani. I don’t see that you mentioned if you only do WaniKani or not - but if you do, I think I’d recommend using another resource as well for actually learning the spoken language without any writing at all.

Tangent aside, I’m personally of the opinion that speed doesn’t matter. Like another person mentioned, if you work at it consistently then you’re guaranteed to make progress. If you feel like you’re not making progress then I recommend making a “benchmark” of sorts. Choose a show or book and try to watch / read, disregarding how much you understand. Then once you finish it, watch / read it again exactly 3 months later - you’ll be floored at how much more you understand, do that over and over and I bet it’ll really be motivating.

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my max is 1h a day with wk and bunpro, more than that is overwhelming for me. :sweat_smile:

then a 20min anime episode with JP subtitles to end my daily studies :smiley:

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Just FYI, since I’ve seen you use this abbreviation a few times, it’s generally regarded an ethnic slur.

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changed to JP

thanks.

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I’m gonna suggest something different, how much time have you spent looking into the ways people learn language? Are you sure WaniKani is for you? There are more efficient ways to learn language out there, I’m not saying you should swap because they’re better, but maybe there are methods that are genuinely just better suited and more motivating / fun to you, and will allow you to progress faster.

my personal opinion this is the rollercoaster of learning Japanese… WK can be extremely frustrating especially when you don’t hear as much out of the slow pokes out there vs the people that finish in 1-2 years…

… personally I go through times I just wanna quit but I’m too stupid to know when to stop… 3.5 years haven’t missed a day of studying … my stats and level up timing if it helps motivate you some… I have never reset (my slow pace is due to bad SRS timings resulting in a leachy WK hell) I’m using bunpro and kitsun and italki instructors…

this pacing IMO is horrible but it’s working to manage the leechy death recycle from WK…so will take me another 2-2.5 years or so to finish … (unless I finally give in and go reorder - which might happen soon)

I’d recommend looking for posts from the slow pokes (we may be slow, but the tortoise won the race) … even if it takes you 5 years…that’s still progress and beats resetting, restarting, quitting and starting from scratch…even if you do 1 lesson a day it is still forward progress.

… best of luck!!!

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Hey Magikarpador… I don’t think you’re being slow. It takes me several hours to get through my stack of reviews every day (if I manage to finish), and I’m pretty darn smart! Your pace sounds like mine BUT, I’m underemployed, so I have more time to devote to studying Japanese than most people.

My pace has NOT increased as I leveled up, either. It slowed because I know more things to confuse other stuff with!

Anyway, compare yourself to yourself. Look back at the old level lists and see which ones you still remember and feel happy.

You don’t have time for comparing apples to oranges or depression. As with exercise, the gains are glacially slow, but real. 頑張る (persevere)

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I literally just gave a presentation related to this today, so I figured I’d join in:

  1. You don’t need to be fast, unless you’re telling me you’re in a situation where you desperately have to learn Japanese as quickly as you can. It’s OK to struggle. It’s normal to struggle. Did you know that I can think of at least two world-famous polyglots who were stuck on languages for years (seriously, we’re talking about 5 years, 10 years, or even more) in school? One of them – Alexander Arguelles – happens to understand between 30 and 50 languages (albeit some of them are archaic forms of modern languages, like Old French), and the other one – Benny Lewis – is comfortably conversational in about 10. They weren’t doing great with languages all their lives. I’ve studied six languages at this point (not all to fluency though), but I used to have a lot of trouble with French.

  2. Sometimes – probably even most of the time – the problem isn’t that you’re ‘no good’ or ‘incompetent’, but rather that you just haven’t found what works for you. ‘You’ are not characterised by your current proficiency, because that’s definitely going to change. You are who you are, and language learning is just one part of your life. As Lýdia Machová notes, the only thing she found all polyglots have in common is that they’ve found a way to enjoy language learning. Everyone’s methods are unique, and perhaps all you need is to find something that helps you to keep going and feeling fulfilled by your journey, even if you’re not always going to have an easy time.

Here’s the video I got these ideas from:

Don’t give up, and believe in yourself. As much as I know comparisons can be a motivating factor, they can also be really depressing at times. You don’t know what everyone else has had to do to get to where they are, and we don’t know what you’ve been through. Be proud of your own efforts, and just keep stepping forward. That’s all you need to do. :slight_smile:

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The fact that you are even trying is amazing. Japanese is super freaking daunting, as is the amount of reviews that stack up on here…

I have ADHD as well and figured out that the only way I can get stuff to actually stick in my brain is by doing small amounts at a time, but every day. So I never have more than 15 things in my apprentice box, that way I can focus on just a few sets of lessons at a time AND I don’t get overwhelmed with reviews, especially if I have a lot going on and miss a day. Don’t let your RSD get you down!!

I have been trying to learn Japanese since the late '90s, and I still can barely string together a spoken sentence. That sounds discouraging, but honestly over the last year or so, I really committed to doing something in Japanese daily, whether it’s five minutes of WK or two hours of watching videos, listening to stories, reading manga, or doing online courses. I also do a study session weekly with my partner where we tackle one grammar point from Genki. It’s taken us years, but we are actually almost through the first book! Both of us did take Japanese in school, but I’m 40 and they are 34, so it’s been a long time :wink:

ANYWAY, since I’ve committed myself to daily practice, I have seen HUGE HUGE improvements in my understanding of Japanese!! I can read so much better than ever before, and the best part is, I can enjoy watching old seasons of Pretty Cure on Japanese Netflix with a VPN and Language Learning with Netflix subtitles and actually understand most of what’s going on!! I freaking love Pretty Cure, so having the bonus of it being interesting to me really, really helps. I tried watching Terrace House because people always recommend that, but I found it really tedious so it wasn’t useful to me.

I’m rambling (did I mention I have ADHD too?) but the tl;dr is go at your own pace, every little bit helps, and do stuff that you think is interesting as well as all the drills. Good luck!!

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Having a sibling with a late ADHD diagnosis recently I am starting to notice how many people here have ADHD. Is this a because people with ADHD like learning Japanese? :thinking:

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Or maybe we’re just allergic to textbooks and like SRS lol. Gamification ftw!

I’m also bad with regular flash cards and kinda need the input to better remember what I’m trying to learn, though idk if that’s an ADHD thing in general or more a me thing. I see a lot of people on here recommending Anki and acting like it’s helpful for literally everyone and literally everyone should be using it, but I… can’t… I tried. Did not work. One bit.

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