Overcoming learning anxiety

[Magmabolt]

That excerpt is something I wish I had been told, thank you I hope your comment helps the original poster as much as it encouraged me

[Student-Bunny]

I want to thank everyone here who left a comment
all of your advice and support has been really helpful and given me a lot to think about, many perspectives I hadn’t thought about
I’m glad so many of you relate to my Stardew Valley woes
I’ve yet to try immersion, but I know one of my senpais recommended it, she specifically liked a forum I can’t remember the name of that was used by native Japanese speakers + was entirely in Japanese but isn’t accepting new members at the moment
That’s probably too advanced for me right now, but I might try the Japanese-only beginners section of this forum and look into the Absolute Beginners Book club (both of which I put off assuming I needed to be better first, but now I think I should try anyway because it looks fun even if it’s meant for slightly more advanced people)
There’s a new voice drama for a series I like coming out next week, fan translations will take a while to come out, so this’ll be a good chance to practice listening to Japanese audio because I’d probably be listening to it excitedly on repeat for weeks even if I wasn’t trying to learn Japanese WW

Definitely going to try those WK userscripts that got mentioned, so far I haven’t tried anything but it looks useful

Also everyone talking about burnout has a really good point, I’ve gotten into hobbies in the past then given them up out of frustration but I really don’t want to do that with Japanese…
I think I need to start treating it like I do drawing
I don’t spend hours doing art studies like I’m supposed to, but every day I open my art program and draw a little more, and every new piece of anime fanart I make I try to push myself in terms of painting and it’s probably slower than if I properly studied, but I find it more fun and I still improve when I compare old pieces to new ones…

Thinking about all this, I think I’ve discovered a goal:
I want to get to the point of being able to read light novels in Japanese
specifically, one came out early this year for a fandom I’m in and I know what happens in it because of summaries, but I really want to read it for myself because it’s just a good-looking story
It’s way too advanced right now, but in a few years it’s something fun to look forward to!

[evandcs]

remember: it is a marathon, not a sprint

the main goal IMO is not giving up. Learning a language takes time. Specially if you are doing it in your free time and not a mandatory thing work related with a deadline.

[sadfghjkl]

If you don’t read the forums or look at others progress there is nothing to compare to. Just focus on what you’re doing.

[Kazzeon]

@Student-Bunny

anime fanart I make

[Student-Bunny]

I haven’t posted most here but I shared a recently drawn piece in the art share thread (unless you really like MILGRAM like I do you probably won’t recognise the character but he’s a guy called Haruka Sakurai)

[Kazzeon]

:0

[Windgreen]

I like collecting quotes, and I think and hope these ones might offer you an interesting perspective on the language learning journey:

@Windgreen

An excerpt from this comic adaption of a quote by Isaac Asimov about a lifetime of learning:

“There’s only this one universe and only this one lifetime to try to grasp it. And while it is inconceivable that anyone could grasp more than a tiny portion of it… they can at least do that much.”

@Windgreen

I’m not interested in finding the perfect, fail-proof way to do things, or making promises that “this time I’ll do it no matter what”; I don’t find these helpful. I’m interested in developing a fairly consistent and sustainable approach.

In the words of James Clear:

The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game.

@Windgreen

Of course, practice involves many forms of cultivation and effort, but all the cultivation and effort is done with this attitude, with this spirit and recognition that it is really about undoing, falling off the mountain, not scaling the mountain. When we cultivate with this attitude, the attitude of letting go, and of trusting, we can have a lot of relaxation even if we are working hard on our practice. We make effort, in various ways to work on ourselves, it’s not that we don’t. But the attitude behind that effort is to undo, not to do; to release and fall apart, not to hold on and build up. To let go, not to build up; to throw things away, rather than to add something extra—when we do cultivation with that spirit and that attitude, we’re relaxed. We’re not under pressure. There can be a lot of joy in our effort, even though we may come to see that it is endless. Pressure comes from “I need something. I have to get it.” Relaxation comes from, “I’m just doing this. There’s no way to do it, but I’m just doing it and letting go, and not worrying about what happens.” ― Norman Fischer

[HermesHoshiyama]

Something that I found surprising is that every new thing I learned helped me appreciate things in Japanese more, even at the very early stages.

Making the connection between how certain common kanji fit into different vocabulary helps get nuances across that you just won’t get with translation.

I’m still nowhere close to a reasonable definition of “fluent” but my experience of music, anime, and manga has been steadily deepening since I started. This is a bit like “focus on the journey” but with the spin of “each step of the journey can be a worthwhile destination in and of itself”.

[kuchikopi]

@Kazzeon

Well, you could compare yourself to the people who never studied it or gave up,

brilliantly stated…

[rumade]

When I first opened a Japanese learning textbook, I was 14. I’m 32 now! And what’s my Japanese level? Well, I’m studying to take the N4 in December.

The first textbook I had was awful. It was teaching mainly casual business trip Japanese and only had romaji because “it’s too difficult for the layperson to learn any of the 3 Japanese alphabets”. Of course this is nonsense- I learnt hiragana pretty solidly in about 2 days later on.

Back then, there weren’t anythint like the resources that we have now. My internet was dial up! The community hubs for learning just didn’t exist the same way they did now. Nowadays we kinda have the opposite problem- there are so many resources to access, and you can spend a lot of time learning how to use them and deciding if they’re right for you.

In 2019 I moved to Japan for 1 year and finally got to everyday conversational fluency through putting in the hours behind an izakaya bar. It turned out that what I really needed to grasp things was regular forced usage and comprehensible input. Since returning to the UK, I’ve lost a lot of my Japanese language skill and at times it’s disheartening. But I know I can learn again! Because I learnt before.

So
Are you going slowly? Perhaps. But many of us have been doing this on and off for literally decades. You’re in good company