I haven’t taken studying seriously these last few months. BUT I tried joining a challenge for listening and reading Japanese in the beginning of the month, and even though I have a hard time writing updates, I realized something like that helps me feeling accountable. So that’s why I create this little study log as my corner the gather goals, accomplishments, (hopes and dreams, lol), something like that.
It has been about 4 months now that I reached level 24 on WaniKani, and it’s hard to say if I burned out or just didn’t have the time anymore, but mostly I just became to complacent to try and learn new Kanji. Yesterday I finally managed to clear my lessons again, and it’s just 6 more Kanji until I reach level 25 now.
It hasn’t been that hard to just get up and do it again. Why did it take me so long?
Well, whatever, so that this might not happen again, I try to post here sometimes about my studies
Once you are thinking “am I burning out” “am I going too hard?” or having doubts, that is when you dial it back a bit, do fewer lessons and do reviews for a while and find content you find engaging and fun.
Then you dial it back up again once you feel like it again and get rid of your doubts.
Most important part is probably maintaining the knowledge, that way you will only move in one direction and that is forward, you do that by immersing in things you find fun.
Yeah I try to do my reviews most of the time to retain my knowledge, that the most important to me. For new lessons I can never tell though if I am just lazy or burned out. Sometimes it’s hard to get internal motivation. How would you notice yourself burning out instead of just being tired from work or something like that?
I’ve never burned out just some days were harder than others. And I certainly felt that I couldn’t keep that up, but on the other hand I was pushing pretty crazy hours so all I had to do was dial it back a bit.
Once you do something for long enough, it’s just what you do, and you just do it. Motivation isn’t really needed if it’s a routine. Motivation usually comes from action and it brings you momentum to continue.
Being really strict with a minimum number of study per day, preferably around the same time every day will not only make it a routine but bring you motivation. Once you’ve done the minimum required time per day, it was a good day. Often the motivation that comes from actually doing it usually makes you want to continue past the minimum required amount of time you spent.
I would firstly evaluate how much time I could spend on the language daily, doesn’t matter if it’s a bit optimistic in the beginning, you can dial that back and forth, but eventually (and preferably within a few weeks) settle for some amount of time that you are really strict with.
Would also try to track the amount of immersion I do and write it down in a document, doesn’t need to be an excel sheet, just a text document with date and amount of time. That way you can always check how much you’ve actually accomplished.
That’s really good advice. I tent to do my WaniKani reviews daily but other then that I mostly rely on motivation, which I know is kinda bad. It’s hard getting into a routine for sure, but I will try to commit to a certain amount of time a day, since what I have been doing so far really isn’t working great. I think I would not try to measure how much time I spent on immersion though, since that is my fun part and I feel like attaching a number to it might ruin it a little, even though it might be motivating to look back on something like that.
Since I didn’t have the time to update yesterday I will add yesterday to this post.
2023-04-23T09:20:00Z
Overall a good day, finished my reviews on WaniKani, skipped on Anki though. Read one chapter of Flying witch. They introduced a character with a very heavy accent and for a moment I felt sooo confused, I didn’t really understand anything for a whole page. It was a big relief when they made it obvious that even the main character (who was talked to) did’t understand anything and someone else translated it into “easy japanese”. Such a Relief honestly. Also listened to a Vlog in Japanese, can’t remember the name right now.
2023-04-24T09:20:00Z
Really fun day. Spent some time watching a let’s play of Dragon Quest in japanese to check it out. Also finished my WaniKani Reviews and all lessons that popped up today. Now I finally unlocked all the Kanji of my current level and am on the best way to complete my goal of going up a level! I didn’t do any reading yet, might try to read Chainsaw man again after writing this. It’s really hard getting the motivation to write about my day after a certain time though, which is why I try to do it now so I don’t forget about it again (or just feel to lazy lol). It’s so easy to get motivation when you hang out with the right people, I wish I could motivate myself like that. But yeah, trying to build discipline is more important afterall.
Today was a very slow day. Had to part ways with a friend who had become very dear to me and who had a big impact on my life in the last 5 months. I think he might have been a big motivator to start following though with Japanese again too.
So I really didn’t feel motivated at all today to do anything. I read episode 28 of Konas Big Adventure to not neglect my challenge, listened to another let’s play episode of Dragon Quest and finished my reviews on WaniKani, so even though today was not great, I think I met my minimum requirements.
so it’s been 3 days now that I missed my challenges and posting anything.
Of course, after I skipped the first day it got very hard to start again, which is why I missed three days in the end. But at least I started again!
And I reached level 25, so I - at least - completed one goal for last month!
Afterall I am pretty sure I just overwhelmed myself. Accountability is good, but I overcompensated too much for the lost time the last months, resulting in a looming feeling of having the need to post 3 updates in the evening, which was just wayy to much for me.
Since I still want to keep the listening and reading challenge - it’s just so nice reading about everyone and posting my own stuff - plus I definitely already see some reading progress - I think I want to keep my study log on a low pace. Maybe post every other day or so. Ideally there would be no rush anyway, since my Japanese Journey will take at least some years still, haha.
But here is my little celebration about reaching level 25 with some pictures I took yesterday
