japanese learning burn-out - Printable Version

japanese learning burn-out - Printable Version

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japanese learning burn-out - maxwell777 - 2015-04-30

Hopefully this is temporary. Anyone else had this at some point?

I learned a lot these past 5+ months, mainly kanji, but also grammar, listening and vocab.

I'm at 1700 Kanji, but haven't learned a new one in a week now, and am having trouble doing my reps everyday.
I also notice I'm less strict in my kanji reps. I'll sometimes hit the answer before I have finished to mentally draw it. If it's close to what I drew in my mind and I can recall the story then, I'll hit "difficult" instead of "again" like I used to.

Also haven't progressed in vocab, listening and grammar in more than a week.
I suppose it can sometimes just seem overwhelming. While for a few months I was so motivated to to get to conversational level and later fluency as fast as possible, I now feel it just takes too long.

Well, if you want to tell me "japanese is a marathon, not a race" I know that much already.
I guess what I'm looking for is people who had a similar experience, that would probably help quite a bit.

thanks

japanese learning burn-out - SellingTokyo - 2015-04-30

I think everyone goes through it, motivation is a fickle friend. You may benefit from looking at some of the motivation vs discipline threads on reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/2imf8x/image_a_different_perspective_on_motivation/

http://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/comments/2scdwz/discussion_screw_motivation_what_you_need_is/

etc.

Fight through the low spots, and maybe that means no new cards but keeping up your reviews, let the reviews get down to a lower, reasonable number, whatever. And perhaps on days where the motivation is flowing for you, get a few days ahead.

The other thing I would say, for the "difficult" vs "again" and cheating on cards, is that this creates (or it did for me anyway) a feedback loop of frustration, next time all these cards come around and I only know half of them because I wasn't being honest with myself.

I wonder if the JSL community has already coined a word for death-through-overANKIing?

japanese learning burn-out - cophnia61 - 2015-04-30

It sounds like what happened to me, so I hope my little experience will be helpful to you Smile

I did 1300 kanji in rtk (the 1000 in rtk lite plus 300 other from genki), then I mined Genki I and II, and part of IAIJ, and it was great. Then I started the Core10k madness, and it was so overwelming to review vocabs each day that I ditched my RtK deck, convinced that the vocab deck would have taken care of kanji too. I was doing core10k in standard order and there were many words with kanji which were new to me. It was so stressful I ended up hating japanese and one day I ditched even the core10k deck, because I was reviewing it in a similar way as you do... I started to hit "difficult" instead of "again", and to evaluate reading only and not the meaning of the word (what's the meaning of doing this? xD ). One of the problem was that I was adding tot card every day with the goal in mind to hit like 10k words in a year because those famous fluent people said to do so xD
Honestly at the time japanese was like my only reason to live and what happened caused on me a big stress and depression ._.
But after four months I wrote here on this forum and the users here (I think even you helped me in that thread) gave me great suggestion, so I decided to start from scratch with RtK but after a first time of vanilla I followed some suggestion here and switched to recognition with kanji on front and "meaning" plus "readings" on back of the cards.
For example on front I have this on front:

便

1 - 2 <---number of kunyomi and onyomi

(便り ) <---hidden hint field
(便利 - 郵便 ) <--- hidden hint field

and on back i have:

便りたより letter, correspondence;

便利べんり convenience;
郵便ゆうびん mail service, postal mail;

convenience <--- meaning

------

So when I see 便 I say first anything which would identify the kanji, like "convenience" or "the kanji of tayo.ri" and then I say a word for each onyomi (kunyomi is optional and is here more for passive exposition but I end up saying the kunyomi too more time than not), like "ben of benri and bin of youbin".

Honestly even if I know many users here say that to review onyomi by themselves is not useful I think this is what helped me the most.

Now I don't even have a vocabulary deck and I restarted just some days ago to read zero no tsukaima and knowing the onyomi helps me to assimilate the new words more easily, even for kanji which have more than one onyomi, where obviously I can not predict it... it suffices a dictionary check to memorize the pronounciation of the word.

For example in a thread title on this forum there I said a word I don't know:

"地獄"

Now, I know both kanji, the first has two common onyomi and the second has one. Even if I checked it only one time five days ago, I can remember easily it reads jigoku and even the meaning sticks easily. Now, obviously if I don't see it again in months I could forget it, so I plan to do a vocabulary deck but only for words like this, and not to learn new words like crazy and end up reviewing words I don't even knew well the first time I added them just because I feel I must add x words a day.

Another example:

水着

when I saw it the first time I thinked "suichaku" but with some reservation because so many time 着 uses the kunyomi. Now I still remember the reading even if it's not the standard on + on, and the meaning, without any need of ankying the word.

On the countrary when I was counting on words to learn onyomi it was very frustrating because it happened things like this: I saw 絶対 and obviously I was able to read the word, but when I saw 絶 on another word I was unable to remember what was the reading and this made learning words much harder. Now when I see 絶 I know it as "zetsu of zettai" so when I see new words with this kanji it is easier to learn the new word.

Even when words compounds use kunyomi is easier to learn the compound because I know the kunyomi as something pertaining to the kanji itself so even if I see the kanji alone I'm able to recall at least one word with its kunyomi.

Note that this is not equal to reviewing or learning kanji readings "in isolation", because when I see the kanji I don't say "onyomi = ben, bin" but I say an actual word which use the onyomi.

So what helped me was:

1) swich to recognition only kanji deck (I still think writing is useful even in recognition and I plan to do it someday but not for now);
2) review onyomi (and some kunyomi, but if already know a word for it it's a painless process);
3) (todo) rely on native material to learn new words and put them on vocab deck only for long term retention and only if I feel I need to (in other word I don't plan to add words like watashi or kanojo);

as I started recently I have from 60 to 100 kanji to review every day and it requires only 15 mins on the morning. The rest of the day is just exposition to native media and word meanings seem to stick easily by just reading native materials (sort of like it happens with english learning, no need to anki, just read a lot) now that I'm able to recognize easily the kanji and to learn easily the pronounciation of the words I encounter.

I don't know if it would be of any help for you and sorry for the length! I started with this method after the suggestion of a japanese person on lang-8: "to learn kanji just learn a word for each reading".

Now I'm about to start a vocab deck from scratch but at my own pace and only with words I encounter in native material because before it was "oh, anki review has been so stressful today, enough japanese for today!" and now it is "native media first, and anki just as a conseguence".

I don't know if it will makes sense to you, I know everyone is different in learning but still I hope this will help with your motivation because I was in a sort of suicidal state and now I love japanese again and I feel I'm learning much more than before even if I used to do 50 new words a day ._.

japanese learning burn-out - EratiK - 2015-04-30

I had a burn-out after my first year of study. And I just waited it out (for a year). You burn out for a reason, so whatever needs rest should have its rest.

japanese learning burn-out - yogert909 - 2015-04-30

When I feel burnt out it is from these three things:

1. Workload is too heavy
2. Studying is too hard / accuracy is too low
3. Haven't felt any real progress recently

I've dealt with burnout in a variety of ways: stop adding new cards, add more learning steps, lower the initial ease to 130, mark everything hard, etc... The goal is to make everything easy enough to be fun (or at least bearable) again. The difference between making 75% and 80% correct can make or break me most days. Although I know from the supermemo site 70% is more efficient, now I set my decks so I can make around 85% because it's just a lot more fun and I'm still learning at a decent pace.

Maybe now is a good time to see what you can do with the japanese you've learned already. I got a major boost a few weeks ago when I made a CD of NHK easy and although it was too fast to follow along, I recognized most of the words. I couldn't do that last time I tried listening to anything Japanese.

Most of the sports I enjoy have an endurance component. I've noticed that when I start to feel like I'm not going to make the distance, slowing down just a little bit can make a huge difference between being having fun and questioning what I'm doing to myself (like you seem to be doing). Looking back to see how far you've come is a good confidence builder. Taking breaks usually makes getting started again much harder than just keeping on keeping on. If I find myself feeling like stopping, I usually make intermediate goals like "if I can only make it to that tree a half mile away and I still feel like stopping, than I'll stop". By the time I get to the tree, I've forgotten all about being tired and want to keep going.

I'm sleep deprived, so I hope this made sense and is at all useful.

japanese learning burn-out - Zgarbas - 2015-04-30

Relax. Take a deep breath. Don't think about Japanese. Take a few days vacation. Don't think about Japanese. Hang out with your friends this week. Don't think about Japanese. Set a deadline to get back to study (May 15th?) and until then, don't think about Japanese. Don't forget to actually get back to study on the deadline.

japanese learning burn-out - Robik - 2015-05-01

Cheating with difficult (or even good) instead of again happened to me as well, with unfortunate consequence: I forget these completely when I saw them next time anyway.

I have strict rules now.
1) use difficult only if answer is correct, but thinking took longer time
2) even if i think of correct kanji in head, but write it wrong (like switching ARROW primitive for much more common FIESTA primitive), i still fail the card
3) longer time does not mean super long time, if it is taking too long, i just fail the card

japanese learning burn-out - Stansfield123 - 2015-05-01

I think it's "Japanese is a marathon, not a sprint". A marathon IS a race...even though, apparently, you can just walk and it still counts as completing it.

Which helps the analogy along, though, because you don't really need to study hard to keep learning Japanese. You can just watch TV and listen to radio and music, and you're learning. Not very fast, but you're learning all the same. These days, my Japanese learning consists of grabbing a beer or some wine, and watching Gaki no Tsukai or one of the million shows Momoclo does, late at night, until I get sleepy.

And I'm still noticing tangible progress, in my listening comprehension. (I will eventually have to get back to reading, if I want that to progress as well).

japanese learning burn-out - TheVinster - 2015-05-01

For me my motivation always comes back when I come to the realization my Japanese sucks. Just got back from Japan, and while I used Japanese more and was better at it than the time I went 3 years ago, my listening was so bad I had trouble recognizing all the words in some simple sentences. Still recovering a bit from the jet lag, but going to be working harder than ever for the next year. The realization of living/working in Japan is getting closer and I want to be prepared.

japanese learning burn-out - Aikynaro - 2015-05-01

Is what you're doing easy?
I've been burnt out on studying a few times and each time I solved it by throwing away what I was currently doing and doing something easier instead. Specifically, changing from production to recognition cards and changing cards so that they only tested one specific thing instead of several helped. After that it's just a matter of making sure it's something that can be done every day robotically.

What's your goal, anyway? You talk about reaching conversational fluency - if you want to talk as your main priority, maybe you should ditch the kanji for a bit and talk. Seeing progress in what you're trying to do is motivating and trying to do everything at once is slow and demotivating. For me it was picking up manga - I could measure progress just by seeing what I was able to read. Progress is easy to notice when you're a beginner - you should take advantage of that.

Anyway, work out what specifically is making you want to stop and stop doing it.

japanese learning burn-out - maxwell777 - 2015-05-01

SellingTokyo,
Death through OverANKIing, yeah I guess that pretty much sums it up.
Thanks for the links, the bit about motivation vs discipline is quite good. even though when you feel burnt-out, even discipline can't help you. nonetheless it's something that's very important. learning japanese and anki has taught me a lot of it aready.

cophnia61,
thanks for the elaborate post! i already downloaded a RTK deck with yomi and went through the first 20 with recognition. i have no idea how to change the setup to recognition in my regular RTK deck w/ ankidroid (unfortunately I have this one, I'd rather pay 20$ for the real one, but android doesn't have it)

EratiK,
yeah, still forcing it when you feel the burn-out is definitely not gonna change things for the better.

yogert909,
good points. well i can't do much w/ my japanese right now. however I reread some of the graded readers from white rabbit today, and realized I can now read almost all the kanji, which I couldn't do a couple of months back.

Zgarbas,
that's very good advice. however, I think I won't completely stop. I have to do the RTK reps, that's for sure, otherwise I'm screwed. Apart from that I should maybe really pause, maybe now is a good time for more immersion and anime w/subs. This isn't exhausting, and if it helps only a little bit that's better than no progress at all.

Robik,
You're right, but I'm just afraid that if click failed on too many cards right now (even if I have a good idea about them) my reps will go to 200+ and I don't have the energy for that right now. I hope I can get more strict about it soon though.

Stansfield123,
thanks - well like I said in my original post, the bit about the marathon and the race is what I already understand Wink

But yeah, I had the same insight today before I read your post, namely going to at least a little bit of immersion and anime instead of making a full stop. Like you say, I hope it will help a bit.

TheVinster,
Right now I do realize it sucks, but at the same time that insight doesn't give me any energy to proceed, unfortunately. I can however see the relatively large progress I made in less than half a year. I guess I was just aksing too much of myself. I'd consider myself a fast learner, so I thought I should have this language down within a year. In the meantime I know that even for fast learners it just takes longer. Japanese just isn't the easiest thing in the world, on many levels.

Aikynaro,
Very good point. Kanji and the prospect of having to learn more is just overwhelming I guess. Even though I already learned 1700 and am having trouble with memorizing the newest 300. At least at the current speed.
Core2k is also one of the things that's harder than I thought, with all the different yomi and stuff. The mistake with this probably was that I didn't do it daily and got overwhelmed with the many reps, which right now I just can't handle anymore.
Like I said before, I guess I'm just aksing too much, you're right I should drop these hard tasks for a while and decrease the difficulty. So I reread some very easy child stories today and could recognize almost all Kanji and read it fluently - which felt good.
More talking is definitely a good idea. I did quite a bit of listening to Jpod everyday, but no talking. guess I could use italki or something. Manga, ha - there's a whole other thread about that by me Wink

Well I guess a lot of this has to do because I was focussed on Kanji so much, which by itself isn't very rewarding to say the least. However I hope that this will help me a great deal in the long run, and I get the feeling it will.

So for now, I guess it's leaning back a little and enjoying some anime.

thanks a lot guys for the great insights.

japanese learning burn-out - yogert909 - 2015-05-01

maxwell777 Wrote:i have no idea how to change the setup to recognition in my regular RTK deck w/ ankidroid (unfortunately I have this one, I'd rather pay 20$ for the real one, but android doesn't have it)

Unless ankidroid is way different than regular anki, you can only change the layout in desktop anki and then sync. Here is the section on formatting. Recognition is great btw, much less frustrating than production.

japanese learning burn-out - jettyke - 2015-05-02

Yes. I had burnout constantly.
I succeeded in spite of it.

Had many times I stopped learning for a few months and had intensive bursts of study periods.

Exercise,yoga and hanging out with friends helped.

japanese learning burn-out - JKS87 - 2015-05-02

maxwell777 Wrote:Robik,
You're right, but I'm just afraid that if click failed on too many cards right now (even if I have a good idea about them) my reps will go to 200+ and I don't have the energy for that right now. I hope I can get more strict about it soon though.

You may want to set a lower leech threshold. I had exactly the same problem you are worrying about where I had review piling up every day. I just had to learn to be ruthless and stop caring about individual words so much, if I can't learn one stupid word then I guess I'll just have to make do without it until I can use it. I set my leeches to two fails then suspend, I think this is very low for some people but I do make sure to take the leeches I really think I need to know and just learn the hell out of them individually with clozed sentences. Everything else can wait, no need overexert myself on one word which doesn't fall into the most common 5,000 when I could in the same amount of time learn five words which do.

Of course, anything you get exposed to a lot if going to mature quickly and stay mature. I bet hardly any of the characters in your graded readers are problem cards in Anki. I've learnt more of less everything from Assimil very well, but I have about 400 words from the core list waiting to be unsuspended again because I learnt them in isolation. No point of reference ultimately makes for a lot of meaningless words.

japanese learning burn-out - gaiaslastlaugh - 2015-05-02

TheVinster Wrote:For me my motivation always comes back when I come to the realization my Japanese sucks. Just got back from Japan, and while I used Japanese more and was better at it than the time I went 3 years ago, my listening was so bad I had trouble recognizing all the words in some simple sentences. Still recovering a bit from the jet lag, but going to be working harder than ever for the next year. The realization of living/working in Japan is getting closer and I want to be prepared.

Just got back a few days ago myself, and I feel much the same way. I improved a little by the end of the trip (it helped having to talk to my fiancée every day in Japanese, and interacting with my work colleagues in japanese), but I still emerged determined to increase my listening. For me that means focusing on my subs2srs deck, and spending less time with reading and more time with japanese-subbed shows.

japanese learning burn-out - CureDolly - 2015-05-02

Listening is such a thing isn't it? I am not even that good at it in English.

I have a few very trusted friends who tell me that using Japanese subtitles is bad for listening ("you read rather than listen"). I wrote a piece on listening without subtitles, which I have been and am still doing.

However I am also using Japanese subtitles, and am kind of back-and-forthing between the two methods. Not so much changing my mind as continually getting fresh confirmation of the benefit of each.

My subtitle-senpai, a native Spanish speaker who learned pera-pera English mostly by watching English-subbed English language movies, simply kept the subtitles and let her dependence wane, and I think that is happening to me too. I do find that with simpler material I find myself automatically doing less reading and more listening just because where you don't need the subtitles for understanding they are a bit mendokusai.

As for burning out. Well when I get burny on study I play a Japanese game or watch an anime, with or without Japanese subtitles. Is there another language?

Oh yes. English. Now that I burn out on. (Seriously)

japanese learning burn-out - gaiaslastlaugh - 2015-05-02

CureDolly Wrote:I have a few very trusted friends who tell me that using Japanese subtitles is bad for listening ("you read rather than listen"). I wrote a piece on listening without subtitles, which I have been and am still doing.

I have never seen any research backing up this contention. In fact, the research to date points in the exact opposite direction: having the text available aids in future listening comprehension.

I think it helps to use a system like subs2srs where you're first forced to listen, and can then flip the card over to see if you really understood what was being said. This ensures you're developing your listening vs. reading skills. Subtitles can be used in the exact same way without subs2srs, though: listen once without subtitles, listen again with subtitles (studying the text you didn't understand), and then listen a third time, again without subtitles.

I think there's a huge benefit as well to practicing raw comprehension, assuming you can at least follow the general flow of what is being said. I don't see any benefit to listening to imcomprehensible gibberish, especially when you're just starting out.

japanese learning burn-out - CureDolly - 2015-05-02

Ah no. I don't think anyone has suggested listening to things one doesn't understand at all. I am not quite sure where people place the limits of raw listening. I suppose it varies with the individual.

My own suggestion was to watch raw episodes of shows that one *knows* one can already follow with Japanese subtitles. That way one is sure that the listening problem is almost purely that, and not a problem of vocabulary or grammar. I have been told by some people (but not the senpai I trust) to "just watch and let it wash over you" but I have never felt very convinced by that.

But yes, in all cases I think you need to be able to follow at least the general flow.

Incidentally, what do you think of listening raw but pausing or backtracking where necessary to catch as much as possible? I have been told that this counts as intensive rather than extensive listening. To my mind it is kind of semi-extensive if one isn't doing a lot of grinding over the same passage.

Currently I am doing this with completely raw material (i.e. I don't even have subtitles) and finding it working quite well for understanding.

japanese learning burn-out - gaiaslastlaugh - 2015-05-02

CureDolly Wrote:Incidentally, what do you think of listening raw but pausing or backtracking where necessary to catch as much as possible? I have been told that this counts as intensive rather than extensive listening. To my mind it is kind of semi-extensive if one isn't doing a lot of grinding over the same passage.

I do this for podcasts (Soko Ani, Hotcast, NHK News), as well as with episodes of 名探偵コナン.

I think re-listening to raw material is important. For me, a large part of my issue is that my brain doesn't retain what it hears in the first part of a sentence or story, and I end up losing the logical flow from idea to idea. So I may listen to a certain portion a few times until I get the gist. I particularly like to do this with the stories in NHK News, or with the reader letters on そこあに and Hotcast, as those are short-self-contained passages of content.

japanese learning burn-out - fzort - 2015-05-03

maxwell777 Wrote:Even though I already learned 1700 and am having trouble with memorizing the newest 300.

Wow. If you know that many, I think you should start trying to read native material right away. I probably can't write more than 500 kanji from memory (I can recognize more), but it doesn't matter. When I'm trying to read something, what makes me reach for the dictionary all the time is never "wow, what is this kanji, I've never seen it before in my life", it's all the $#!$@# compounds made of perfectly easy, run-of-the-mill kanji. I bet that 90% of the kanji in, well, anything, are within the 1,000 or so kanji taught in elementary school.

You can learn the other characters as you memorize vocabulary.

japanese learning burn-out - cophnia61 - 2015-05-03

fzort Wrote:
maxwell777 Wrote:Even though I already learned 1700 and am having trouble with memorizing the newest 300.
Wow. If you know that many, I think you should start trying to read native material right away. I probably can't write more than 500 kanji from memory (I can recognize more), but it doesn't matter. When I'm trying to read something, what makes me reach for the dictionary all the time is never "wow, what is this kanji, I've never seen it before in my life", it's all the $#!$@# compounds made of perfectly easy, run-of-the-mill kanji. I bet that 90% of the kanji in, well, anything, are within the 1,000 or so kanji taught in elementary school.

You can learn the other characters as you memorize vocabulary.

I think fzort is right, but consider also that RtK is not ordered in respect to frequency of use, so it could be that those last group of 300 kanji contains some very common kanji. For example I think 生 is one of those. Now that I'm looking at it I see many other common kanji after the 1700th, like 1701. 仰, 1702. 迎, 1703. 登, 1705. 発, 1711. 形, 1712. 影 (not used in many words but at least in one common word: 撮影) 1717. 顔, 1725. 文, 1726. 対 and so on... and those are only the more frequent ones, but there are other still used in very common words like 1722. 修, 1723. 珍, 1724. 診.

And I must add I think this is an advantage because the most common ones are the easier to learn and reinforce, while maybe in the first 1700 you already know there are less common kanji, but still used from the moment almost all the RtK kanji are common, so you must learn them before or later and those are the most demotivating to learn... and you already know them!

So no wonder you feel a little discouraged, after all the hard work you have done, with feel of little or no immediate reward... but believe me, you'll be rewarded three times as much on the long run, and ten times as much for those last 300 kanji Smile

You need to do only a little sprint and then you will end with Remembering the Kanji! The worst is over, believe me!

japanese learning burn-out - dizmox - 2015-05-03

Stop thinking of it as something that you'll finish in a certain time period and just get used to the idea of learning everyday as part of your lifestyle (whether it be learning Japanese or anything else).

It takes years of regular practice to get good at anything non-trivial.

japanese learning burn-out - fzort - 2015-05-03

cophnia61 Wrote:but consider also that RtK is not ordered in respect to frequency of use

Ouch. In that case, forget what I said. :-)

cophnia61 Wrote:影 (not used in many words but at least in one common word: 撮影

Also 影響, heh.

japanese learning burn-out - CureDolly - 2015-05-03

fzort Wrote:
maxwell777 Wrote:Even though I already learned 1700 and am having trouble with memorizing the newest 300.
Wow. If you know that many, I think you should start trying to read native material right away. . . When I'm trying to read something, what makes me reach for the dictionary all the time is never "wow, what is this kanji, I've never seen it before in my life", it's all the $#!$@# compounds made of perfectly easy, run-of-the-mill kanji. I bet that 90% of the kanji in, well, anything, are within the 1,000 or so kanji taught in elementary school.

I absolutely second this. Just learning kanji is only a small part of the battle. You have a wonderful basis now to start reading Japanese.

Especially if you are in danger of burning out. I would suggest that now is the time to stop "only studying" Japanese and start enjoying it.

I think part of the burnout problem is the idea that there is this huge huge period in which one is "learning Japanese" and only when that is over will one be able to enjoy it.

One of the reasons I never burn out is that I look at it differently.

The period when I am "learning Japanese" is the rest of my life.

The period when I am using Japanese to have fun and read, watch and play the things I love, (and chat about anything and everything with Japanese friends and anyone else who isn't afraid to use the language) is NOW (and also the rest of my life).

And it has been NOW since the first year. Though it just gets better and better as you progress.

japanese learning burn-out - cophnia61 - 2015-05-03

fzort Wrote:
cophnia61 Wrote:but consider also that RtK is not ordered in respect to frequency of use
Ouch. In that case, forget what I said. :-)

But what you said is true! Even when you know 2000 kanji there will be even more so there is no need to learn all now, with those 1700 one covers many words so if the op feels the need to pause kanji learning for one or two months I think he can continue to study other things without any problem! Even if those 700 kanji contains many common ones there is not much difference if he pauses rtk to make the review number go down!

cophnia61 Wrote:影 (not used in many words but at least in one common word: 撮影
Also 影響, heh.

asd you are right! Big Grin