For those self-studying... How do you keep yourself going?

Since I started dating my (now ex) boyfriend in April this year I’ve been struggling to keep on top of my studies to be honest. Before that my mind was focused and I lived and breathed my Japanese studies when I wasn’t in work. When I started dating my ex my priorities shifted and Japanese was pushed aside in place of healthy eating, exercise and re-planing my future. When my ex broke up with me those things lost priority but my motivation for Japanese hasn’t come back. Now I’m struggling to find time to get anything done outside of work beyond sleeping and eating. YouTube, social media and Pokemon Go probably have a lot to do with that but to be honest I’m not finding much fulfillment in anything outside of teaching my English classes right now. But when my motivation finally does come back I’ll let you know how I did :wink:
Hope you manage to keep moving forward with your studies. Doesn’t matter how fast or slow you go it’s more important that you just don’t stop completely. 3 reviewed items a day is better than 400 followed by three weeks of none (my current situation :sweat_smile:)

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Aw… Thanks for the support, and thank you also for sharing your story. With those reviews, I’m an anxious mess when it comes to that. When I see something just stockpile up constantly, I develop this anxiety that just makes it seem more dreadful to even tread near… Like a pile of unread notifications and highlights. It’s something I need to get better at too.

I wish you the best with your studies as well. Do take your time and not chastise and put yourself down. Those kinds of things are never easy to deal with… A shift back to previous or different routines is never instantaneous either. Those subconscious habits are gradual, after all…

I hope the other responses in this thread or the other WKers around can help inspire some sparks to ignite! And if you do revisit your studies, be understanding with yourself and look on the positive steps forward. :slight_smile:

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I made the mistake of either not having enough goals or setting them too low. I’ve wanted the Japanese animal crossing 3ds for a long time so I made it my goal that if I could make it to level 10, I could buy one. I worked really hard for it! But after I got to level 10, my study habits dropped off completely and I became discouraged by how hard using the 3ds was for me.

I’d still like to set more goals for every 10 levels so I have something to motivate me but I don’t have very many ideas yet.

What about small checkpoints? Levels 10-20 kind of ramp up the amount of new kanji you learn.

Maybe one at Level 12, one at Level 15, and a big kahuna at Level 20? They don’t need to be necessarily materialistic, it could be like going out to eat somewhere nice (and Japanese? :muscle:) or visiting some place too.

Also, keep trying with the 3DS! There’s always stuff like Google Translate that can come in clutch for unrecognizable kanji. Then you can further research it on something like Jisho.

I just always have my goal in mind. There’s a stack of games waiting for me, not to mention all the literary adventures out there. That, and studying itself is quite fun, although sometimes it does get frustrating

Well said.
If you aren’t enjoying Japanese or can’t find “motivation”, then you’re doing it wrong.

Just as Orphen said, make your life Japanese and make sure you learn by having fun.
I highly recommend New? Start Here - Japanese Level Up
Its a more concise and coherent version of khatsumoto’s “AllJapaneseAllTheTime”

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I have had many ups and downs with self-studying. Life bogs me down sometimes, and when things get crazy it can be hard not to push studying aside when there’s little accountability to keep going. What’s worked for me is an echo of so many things already listed…

  • Setting daily, weekly, monthly goals that are measurable and achievable.

  • I keep a study journal in a Google doc to keep track of what I do each day, also logging any roadblocks I encounter. If I miss a goal, I try not to beat myself up, but do come up with a plan to catch up.

  • Once a week, I evaluate what’s going well, what I’m struggling with, and decide whether to adjust my goals for the upcoming week. This isn’t a huge, drawn-out process, just a couple of minutes each Sunday afternoon.

  • Find ways to test myself regularly. I signed up for the JLPT N4 in December, so I’m taking a practice test once per month between now and then, and using those results to refocus my learning.

  • Reward myself for hitting milestones. I am buying myself Studio Ghibli movies every time I finish one of the practice tests, which has the added benefit of giving me more Japanese input as well. So last month, I bought Kiki’s Delivery Service for completing a practice test, and also got the book in Japanese as a reward for hitting 4000 burned items.

  • Since I’m planning a trip to Japan next year with my husband, I also intermix language learning with cultural studies and specifically learning more about the places we are going to visit.

I mostly try to set aside an hour or two each evening since that works well with my schedule, plus on my lunch breaks I usually watch YouTube videos or listen to podcasts. Sometimes these are language-learning specific, sometimes more cultural. I try to do a little bit of reading each evening before bed (though that’s been the one that I’ve been struggling to keep up with).

Having a tangible goal of passing my JLPT has been more motivating to me than my original (non-specific) goal of being able to understand and speak enough to get around when we’re in Japan.

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I think you should set a concrete goal for yourself. A certain proficiency is one way to go about it, but I’d suggest a real world application. Like set a goal to be able to read a certain work in Japanese, or, if you have the means, set a goal to vacation in Japan and apply your studies.

You said that the pressure of school helped you out, so why not hold yourself to take a JLPT test? You’ll have the pressure to study and also have a useful certification when you pass. Obviously the burden would be on you to study consistently, but the idea of having a “final exam” in a year or whatever could help.

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Thanks for such a lovely reply. After reading some of the other posts I think I’ve realised my problem is a lack of a clear goal. When I was studying Japanese before I was working towards a future in Japan and so my studies got me ever closer to that goal. But when I met my ex that changed and then since the break up my future has felt much more uncertain and I’ve not had a clear goal in my life beyond getting my work done eating and sleeping. So I think for now I need to work on finding that sense of purpose again and then I can take another look at where I stand.
Thanks again for your reply.

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I have realised that my previous goal of “wanting to be better” was way too vague. I made a concrete, reachable goals, with several steps. My major goals atm are:

  • learn all jouyou kanji by heart (subcategories WK60, RTK 1 reviews, handwriting
  • read books more efficiently (comprehension & speed)
  • be able to talk about my major/future work in Japanese (Computer Science, Cognitive Science, Human Bahavior, Design -related vocab)

Of course, now that I have my goals in place, I stopped using any non-Japanese media. I have tv on at home, listen to podcasts while commuting, read news articles etc, all in Japanese. While browsing Japanese pages, I try to limit my Yomichan-usage as much as possible, same when reading books.

Of course, I also do regular study sessions. At the moment I have the luxury of time, but when real life became a hassle, I actively reserved a slot from my calendar for study. (The same way I learned to self-excersise by actually reserving slots for that in my calendar.) I also started bullet journaling and keeping all kinds of trackers from my daily habits and it has been a great source of dicipline and motivation to see the trackers full of colors for a job well done.

My advice is to figure out main goals and divide them into smaller subgoals/trackers and place some deadlines for those. Any job is easier and gives more satisfaction that way, since you can say more often that you accomplished something by reaching a subgoal etc.

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Well i keep going because i pay money and there is nothing else to do in my life lol

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