This is a bit embarrassing, but I’m asking for advice.
I used to mostly do Wanikani at work during bits of free time, but due to Silver Week, I was home for 5 days straight which completely threw off my routine and ruined my flow, and now when I look at my reviews I’m just hit with a huge mental barrier of “uhhhhhhh i don’t know” when I look at the words.
To make matters worse, Fire Emblem Fortune’s Weave came out and I’ve been spending more of my free time looking up things related to gameplay strategies for it on youtube and not japanese grammar explanation videos like I should be to study for N2.
In other words, I got thrown off track and my hyperfixiation on improving my japanese has been replaced with a hyperfixation on the game. Ideally, I’d like to balance both and not give up one for the other. I NEED to study and improve my Japanese for employment purposes. Any advice for getting myself re-obsessed with Wanikani and getting back on the horse after a 5 day break is greatly appreciated
If you have a big pile of reviews and can’t make yourself start tackling them, I recommend doing a reset. Not necessarily to level 1, but to the level at which you’d be able to just do your reviews normally.
It might seem like a waste, but I once spent pretty much a whole year on level 37, trying to force myself to start doing an ever-growing pile of reviews, then finally realized I can’t and had to do a reset anyway. Which was very frustrating but had I not done it – I’d still be on level 37…
Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying you absolutely have to do a reset. If you can start doing reviews right away without it – great! But if you can’t do it without a reset – do it with a reset!
As for how to combine WK with new passions – I think the best way would be to have a minimal daily routine – x amount of reviews, which you would do every day. It can be quite a small amount, but you have to do it every day without excuses. Then, on days you feel you can do more – you can do more as a bonus, but the minimal routine has to be done.
Also, don’t feel guilty to yourself and your reviews about it. We all stumble from time to time. The important thing – is to keep standing up and going forward again.
It took me 8 years to reach level 60. But i got there and so can you. Hopefully, it won’t take you nearly that long
Also, you are level 43. I assume you’ve already been reading at least simple materials for quite a while now… in that case, perhaps, it would make sense to move beyond WaniKani and concentrate on reading actual Japanese. The point of WK is to get you to the point where you can read without having to look up every single word. If that point happens before level 60 – then you don’t have to reach level 60.
There’s not much you can do when the hyperfixation hits I’m afraid, but what I would do is try to scale things down. Set a minimum amount of things you want to accomplish each day.
If you have signed up for N2, think of wanting to pass the test (and not waste the fee maybe) as motivation to resume studying little by little. Interleave things with the game!
Instead of thinking “Ugh I have to study N2 grammar but I could be playing Fire Emblem instead”, try to make one the reward for the other: watch 1 N2 grammar video (or 10 minutes if they are hours long, whatever), or do one exercise, or do one listening practice test, or do 10 wanikani reviews, and then you get to play Fire Emblem for twenty minutes or so. Rinse and repeat.
Basically, apply the pomodoro technique.
And slowly scale things up/down to accomodate and get back into things.
Maybe you could also try looking up strategy guides/gameplays in Japanese, if it’s already something you are doing in english anyway. Not as “study time”, but just as a curiosity.
You need to learn to let your thoughts go. Be here in the moment and don’t think about what else you could be doing. Meditation can help with this.
Also don’t feed your obsessions. Take a break from Wanikani, from your game and if you’re willing to accept you don’t have to think about them you’ll forget about both within a week.
It’s not such a big deal if you pass N2 a year later than you had planned. Don’t be the slave of your obsessions.
Are you “hyperfixating” because the game is amazing or because you feel pressure in others area of your life and you’re in avoidance mode ?
In my personal experience hyperfixating on A (let’s say Japanese Wardogs twitch streams) instead of doing productive endeavor B (my jpbd reviews) is usually caused because C (still waiting to know if my colleague is going to leave the team, putting us in hell) is causing me tons of anxiety and I don’t have the energy/capacity to do B.
Being able to reflect on what you’re going through is a first step to find a better strategy.
You mention needing to study for employment purposes. Does you current job need you to learn Japanese? If so, perhaps you can study Japanese while on your job.
For reviews, what I did is I would use “wrap up” upon starting reviews, so I would only have 10. If I felt like I could keep going, I’d do it again, and repeat until I was done (even if the reviews are not also done). Of course, that was me getting a block looking at the number of reviews, not me starting reviews and then getting a block, so I’m not sure if it’ll help, but immediately just breaking it into a much smaller chunk might take some of the pressure off.
For the rest… Hmmm it would be best if you could relate it to FW some way. Perhaps make note of grammar points you come across that you’re unfamiliar with/shaky on while playing and look them up later? Of course, they’re not necessarily gonna be N2, but while you’re there it should be easier to move on to the N2 video(s) you should be watching.
I am only studying jp for fun atm. I had to fight the urge to play games which was my main hobby for years. I decided to only do my daily gaming in the morning then I spend the day with Japanese. Then I saw that I was more motivated to study in the early morning so I switched and started finishing my WK reviews in the morning and do my gaming dailies in the afternoon. More games coming out that am dying to play and I want to spend my time on utube to watch “how tos” and what not but I remind myself that if I do that instead of jp studies then I wont get to play the games I enjoy in my target language lol. ATM this is my motivation. and to be able to play games on one screen and listen to jp anime without needing to pause to read subtitles.
