I’m at the stage with Japanese now that I’m decently proficient but paradoxically it also kind of feels like progress has slowed to a crawl. I’m slowly chugging away at WaniKani and at level 45 I can read the majority of what I encounter. My grammar’s largely fine, though I still struggle to logically parse sentences sometimes because my brain is completely uncreative when it comes to connecting things a lot of the time. I read a decent amount, I have a long language exchange session with a native every couple of weeks, and I watch any Japanese YouTube videos (mostly horror) that interest me, and I’ve started putting a lot of the unknown vocab I encounter into the Houhou dictionary to SRS it, but it still doesn’t feel like my overall proficiency is really improving. Being able to speak natural Japanese instead of the 片言 I’m currently capable of seems like an impossible world away and incredibly difficult to study for. I’ve found studying sentences doesn’t help because it’s really hard to memorise entire sentences perfectly and there’s usually multiple ways to say the same thing that I end up confusing the SRS entry with.
When I look up sites about language learning plateaus they generally say the same things, read, speak, listen, and I’m doing all those things but I only have so much time in the day. It doesn’t help that I end up forgetting a lot of kanji, vocab, and even sometimes phrases, because I almost never see or hear it used and then when it pops up again once in a blue moon I can’t remember it after not seeing it for so long.
I guess I’m wondering if anyone else has any tips for getting past the hump and making decent progress again from when they’ve hit this kind of plateau. Is full immersion basically my only realistic option now?
Pretty much. You’re at the point where learning about Japanese is only giving you incremental gains and now you have to start using those things in actual practice.
I graduated to light novels around level 50ish and I’ve been reading one for about 2-3 months now and only just hit chapter 4.
It’s a grind, so find content that interests you for what it is intrinsically and not just because it’s in Japanese. That makes it much easier.
This is the only place you mention actively using the language, and once every couple weeks is extremely infrequent.
Taking content in and understanding it, vs. creating it, are two very different things. And I would say the more you output in a language the more it will stick and be promoted to more active memory.
Why not try an app like HelloTalk or something where you can share short social media style posts on a regular basis? You’ll be using the language far more often, and getting feedback and correction from native speakers.
That’s a good comment about using the language to output more, I guess to be effective for language learning for me personally, I’d need to be using it constantly, like every day multiple times a day so I’m getting constant reinforcement. Otherwise, the corrections would either be forgotten or I’d have to SRS the entire sentence which is highly ineffective for me. Which at that point is essentially a kind of language immersion like @alo recommended.
I’m not really a social media person so any tips on what to write about? My life is completely unexciting and uninteresting with absolutely nothing of interest happening on a day-to-day basis, and I don’t really have anything of interest to say about anything. Could I just write random sentences on there and see if I get corrections?
Could be as simple as a single sentence or two, its nice and easy to sprinkle in when you have time, and isn’t as big a deal of like scheduling time with a tutor.
You could talk about the weather, or how long you’ve been studying Japanese, or your favorite foods, really anything. Can just download the app and see what people are saying or doing, including those in Japan who are trying their hand at English. Worth a shot.
I don’t see a problem here. Why do you feel like you need to get better? What’s your goal? You put in so much effort to get good, and now you can enjoy the fruits of your hard work. You have access to content. Is that not what you wanted? Do you feel that your language skills are not enough for something you want to do? If that is the case, the only possible advice is to do what you want to get better at, and thus get better at it.
I was posting on HelloTalk daily before we went into lockdown 1 (we’re now just coming out of lockdown 3…) and then started to find it very difficult because my life was so monotonous!
Over the last year I’ve mostly focused on trying to use words that I’m struggling to remember. Sometimes I’ll put that word into youtube to find a video related to it, and then write about that. Other times I’ve used HelloTalk to ask natives about the nuances between two words that have similar english definitions. Other times I’ll write about something unrelated and just try to slip a word in to see if I’m using it correctly.
Some of the japanese people I follow on HelloTalk have a theme that they write about (in English) - like Japanese sweets or plants. Obviously I enjoy reading those as it means I get to learn something and it gives them something to write about without having to write about their daily life.
I suppose at a basic level it’s frustrating to put in effort and get increasingly diminishing returns. But also while I’m okay, I’d much rather be good, otherwise what’s the whole point been all these years if I just stop now and settle for being mediocre? It would be nice to get translation work at some point, and while I could probably translate most things to a decent level if I have access to a dictionary, I’d stand no chance at passing an interview in Japanese.
You might be surprised. Having a sufficient portfolio (e.g. volunteer translations) and demonstrable skills can be enough to land something, and employers will often have some kind of skills test to see how good you actually are. A university degree is all well and good, but it’s not like you come out of a degree in Japanese necessarily fluent in Japanese. There are tons of stories of people majoring in a language in university and finding that their three/four years of classroom language learning in uni didn’t really equip them for normal everyday language use, and it’s not until they’re actually out in the real world that they start approaching anything close to fluency.
Aye, I feel you on that. That basically sums up the intermediate plateau for pretty much any learned skill. You’ve now learned enough to appreciate how truly hard it’s going to be to reach your goal. And it’s also the time to evaluate how badly you really want to get to that goal in the first place.
Unfortunately, the only cure is time. The best you can do is try to enjoy things as they are while you keep chipping away at it.
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