Feeling the burn

I’m feeling burned out…@Level 24 after 11 months.
just saying

I’m on the similar level as you but took much more time. :slight_smile: Lately I just can’t get myself to do more than like 30 reviews in one session, and rarely do more than 1 session a day. Now I have like 300 in the queue. Real world work make me kind of tired to fight with reviews, I guess.

Can’t you take just one week of, kick in the vacation feature?

You’re going too fast. Keep up with your reviews, but slow down with the lessons.

Spend the extra time absorbing Japanese in some other way, or just get some rest. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, yadda, yadda.

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Yeah, I was starting to burn out around your level. Shortly after, I changed how I did lessons so that I’d level up in about 15 days instead of 8 days. Since then it’s been a lot less overwhelming and I’ve been enjoying WaniKani again.

This was more of an empathy grab more than anything :slight_smile:
I’m averaging 13 days per level right now and i actually don’t care too much about the speed either.
I know i’m learning but i don’t want to get too complacent either.
It’s just that i have so many leeches it’s getting me down. Visually or by similar definition :frowning:
I’ve done 2 vacation breaks already but maybe i need another one.
I do 3 “big” reviews every day. First thing in the morning, one in the afternoon, and then one in evening/night but i feel like if I miss more than one of those it starts to pile up.
Anyway, I have a good vision of why I started this so it’ll take more than this to derail me.
I am amazed at how much I can read too but sometimes it reminds me of how much I CANT read too! Especially the names of citys, towns, prefectures, etc…

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The pain you feel is good. It means that you deeply care! Maybe try to limit the amount of lessons, so reviews don’t all pile up at the same time? Share your pain, share your joy, make friends, communicate in japanese. Keep going!

Name readings are very very difficult even for Japanese! I once quizzed a japanese friend, pointing on places on the japanese map, and asking what that place is called. She admitted that she only knows how to read the names because she worked as a travel agent before.

As long as you know in your heart why you do it, it doesn’t matter when you reach your goal, it just matters that you do reach it! Learning Japanese is a way of life. Like Aikido, Shodo and all that good stuff.

We hear ya!

Seriously. Just slow down. Relax. There is a thread buried somewhere in these forums about a group called “Team Taking-it Slow” of which I am a card carrying member.

I’m currently taking ten new items in lessons a day, unless kanji are involved, in which case I stop at five. For the month of December, I’m going to cut down to just five lessons a day to clean out the queues. I might even do zero a day. Come early 2018, my workload will be much less.

If you go slower, it may not feel like you’re making as much progress, but even at a slow rate you will have learned a lot over the course of a year. Use the extra time to burn those leeches into your memory. Put them on your screensaver, or write them out by hand, or get a neck tattoo with your number one leech. You won’t forget it then!

I think it also important to not just study Wani Kani, nor even make it the majority of your study. You’re at level 23, so have you tried NHK easy news yet? Have you poked around Yostubato? Have you spent any time at https://babadum.com ? Have you picked apart any long sentences in Japanese? Listened to JPOD101? Shitakiri suzume on Spotify?

I think it’s much better to do slow, varied, consistent study over time than trying to finish Wani Kani at a fast pace. I think exposure to a language over time is the best way to learn. Unfortunately, exposure to a language over time takes a bit of…you guesed it…time! :wink:

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That’s a cool site!

@anon40139579 Are you taking lessons in a balanced way, with a similar number of lessons of each type each day? Keeping the lessons even throughout the week can help give you a balanced workload. Also, avoiding doing too many kanji lessons at once is a good way to avoid burnout, since they can be very stressful.

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For some reason, level 20-30 was crazy difficult and i felt a bit overwhelmed by it too. Level 30+ is surprisingly cruisy…

I want to add that watching Terrace House on Netflix (japanese realitiy TV-Show) with japanese subtitles might also be a good way of getting more immersion/practice.

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I remember reading 青森 somewhere and I was like “What? A blue forest? What does that have to do with anything?”

history was not made by quitters

just saying

I leveled up today! :grinning: but i have 55 lessons! :tired_face:
Is there a way to re-order the lessons so I only do just the kanji or radicals??
This is where i get overwhelmed lately since I do all of the lessons and then bomb for awhile.
Plus those leeches!

Why yes, yes there is

(use wisely, this can lead to a huge pile up of vocab and can hurt you in the long run)

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Well, I know how weak this probably sounds from your end, but, if you keep at it, it will get better eventually. And even if you need to take a break for a bit to recharge that is fine too. I am not going nearly as fast as the other speed demons on this site, and there have been three+ times in this first year that I have struggled to get anywhere in wanikani for like 30+ days each because life was too busy right then. And I remember, during those times, I thought about giving up or thought maybe it was too hard. But then, luckily I would manage to start up again and get somewhere and not feel so burned. So I guess what I am saying is don’t give up. Take a break and try again later if you need to. You can learn japanese in breaks too (TV shows, easy reading, etc.) Good luck. Keep fighting.

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Take a break.

I’ve just kicked back on a number of occasions and just done other things to learn Japanese, and I’ve never regretted doing so. OK, so I now have 1200 reviews but you can always do reviews later

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Haha that is the absolute worst…sitting down for like 8 hours and just doing millions and millions of reviews. And yeah, I agree. Breaks and varied sources to learn from are the way to go. That and cake of course.

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UPDATE! - I quit! j/k
After going on vacation mode during Thanksgiving (about 10 days), I’m back!
I’m still on level 25 and it’s taking me about 50 days to complete :slight_smile:
but I feel better about getting back into the routine and I’ve changed a few things to keep me going.

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