Hello again, my dearest Wani Kani community! It’s been quite a while since I peeked in to say hi, not since June of 2020, to be exact!
It’s been a long journey of learning and, sadly, forgetting since then. I’m writing this post to document my experience with the Japanese language over the last 9 years and my intent for the future. I’ll ultimately request the community’s help and expertise to get me going again!
So, without further ado,
IN THE BEGINNING
It all started on an ordinary afternoon for a middle-school aged version of myself. We had been handed a list of classes for the 2015 fall semester, and lil old me decided it would be a fun idea to drop Spanish for Japanese! Little did I know this one decision would dictate the course of the rest of my life in one form or another.
The first few years of that class were a breeze. We spent most of our time getting acclimated to Hiragana and Katakana while only lightly touching on basic sentence structure, kanji, and vocabulary. We took the language in at a snail’s pace, but that was only to be expected for a middle-school to high-school-level curriculum. All in all, as the challenge began to ramp up over time, five years of these classes equated to a roughly 200-level university education. It was quite the commitment, but one that was well worth it, if you ask me!
As a quick aside
These classes just so happened to be a seed of my gender transition (did I mention that one decision in middle school changed my life?). I remember pondering the speaker’s gender distinction as the topic came up with words like 俺 and あたし. Something within the idea of using feminine language in my speech sent a dopamine shot straight into my little brain cells.
And now, for your listening pleasure……
A vocal comparison of the past and present <3
The golden age
The next few years of high school were some of the most dedicated I’ve ever been to a language, heck, the most dedicated to any subject, for that matter. I attended Japanese language learning competitions, started a study group, ran the school’s Japanese club, visited Japan over the summer, began learning 書道, got about 500 kanji deep into Wani Kani, received Japanese AP college credit, and began looking for universities in Japan to continue my education. Did I mention that my decision in middle school changed my life?? To call this anything less than an obsession would be an understatement!
So… what happened?
In short, COVID happened. I graduated from the five years of language study my high school could offer and was left without any community to speak of! This is what I would like to call the ULTIMATE BURNOUT PERIOD!!! As Japan closed down its borders, I tried to find ways to do language immersion at home. I found a couple dozen online resources and just… kept… studying. Sadly, as I kept trying more and more to retain the language I’d already learned, the lack of a stable and consistent community broke my ability to keep up with all the energy I’d previously had. My review pile kept getting larger and scarier while my textbooks began collecting dust on the shelf. Over the next few years, I lost my conversational ability, and all my burned vocabulary gracefully drifted away.
Well, where am I now?
Due to the lockdowns, my passions and aspirations changed massively. While I once intended to attend a language immersion program like CIEE before applying to Temple University, my humble new beginnings saw me as an aspiring horticulturist and later entomologist. So, here I am in Portland, studying environmental science and loving every second of it! However, no matter how far separated I am from my past, I keep having this desire to begin learning once again.
As a quick summary of where I am today, I:
- Literally can’t read the essay I submitted for my AP exam.
- Reset from WK levels ~15-20. It’s back to square one for me!
- Am generally unable to speak, write, or read the language anymore.
- Want to start again! I can see now that language learning will be a challenging and lifelong undertaking, and I don’t want to stop here!
And I need your help!
I’d love to get back into the process of learning Japanese! I don’t think I’ll ever have the same vigor I did during my pre-burnout phase, but this is an alluring and worthwhile endeavor, regardless. So, what advice do y’all have? I’m looking to begin studying in my own time between university classes, and I’d most particularly love to find more opportunities to immerse myself in the language fully. What’s your methodology for self-study? How do you stay motivated outside of a classroom setting? Are there any resources you know of or recommend within Portland in particular?
And, above all else, I’d love to hear your experience! What does your language learning path look like? Was it straightforward or challenging? Did you take significant breaks and later retry, as I wish to do? Did you exchange your soul with a witch in the dark woods for N1 proficiency? Please feel free to leave anything from a quick reply to an entire life story!
And, of course, thank you for taking the time to read my post, it truly means the world to me 
