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+--- Thread: How to properly pause learning Japanese: preventing skill degeneration (/thread-13631.html)
How to properly pause learning Japanese: preventing skill degeneration - z1bbo - 2016-03-13
I plan on traveling Spanish-speaking countries in about a year and though it would be neat to get fluent in Spanish as preparation, which I estimate to take a minimum of 6 to 8 months, but I really want to start as soon as possible to have some leeway.
I have been learning Japanese like a lunatic on steroids for almost 2,5 years now and have gained a more than acceptable comprehension level, but there is still heaps of stuff to learn. And since the remainder of goals for my Japanese skills are so ambitious that I can't possibly reach them within half a year (e.g. Kanken 1kyuu, mastering kobun and proper writing etc.), they will have to be postponed a few years to be challenged once I'm done with Spanish. I naturally don't want to forget all the rare words and kanji that I have hunted down so far to save me from having to learn them a second time, which is why I plan to keep reviewing my Anki decks. Or would you nuke them?
Right now I'm working on reducing my Anki load by doing tons of reading and listening while deleting common words and trying to add as little new cards as possible. However, out of the approx. 60 hours per week that I spend on languages (collage student banzai!) almost a third still goes into Anki.
This figure seems way to high at the moment to not massively impede my planned Spanish studies, but how many hours/week would be an acceptable level?
And Anki only helps to not forget words/kanji, especially rarer ones, but I guess that in order not to loose grasp on the language as a whole you need to spend considerable time on reading/listening as well. How do you think these two aspects should compare timewise?
And once having started learning the new language, would you review the old one a few minutes every day or in bigger blocks every xx days?
RE: How to properly pause learning Japanese: preventing skill degeneration - Zgarbas - 2016-03-13
Japanese-spanish decks for win-win situations.
I tend to confuse japanese and spanish a lot, they're really easy to mix...usually it's a given that so long as I'm in a spanish speaking environment my japanese disappears and vice versa
. Just aim for basic maintenance (anki reviews - the number goes down fast once you stop adding, and try to get a bit of reading done in a month? Just enough for you to not get too rusty). Languages are easy to forget temporarily, but not that hard to remember once you get back to them.
RE: How to properly pause learning Japanese: preventing skill degeneration - scooter1 - 2016-03-13
That sounds exciting. Spanish is reportedly one of the easiest languages to begin learning. Spanish people on both sides of the ocean tend to be extroverts and there is plenty of interesting history to discuss. And the language gets plenty difficult at the "expert" level, if you want to enter that territory; not necessary, but it opens up some fantastic literature. Interestingly, both Spanish and Japanese are difficult languages to master at a high level of native fluency but the learning curves seems to be the opposite, at least for westerners.
I lived in Spain for years and my Spanish is near native, although my accent is not there. I have gone years without speaking Spanish and it comes back quickly, after a few days. So that experience is in line with that of Zgarbas.
Japanese is a different story. I am still at the intermediate level, and kanji, vocabulary, grammar are just trying their very best every day to run away from me. It is a constant battle to keep everything in "accessible memory." When I leave the language for a few months, it is a painful and steep curve to recover.
I'm not sure why Japanese is that way. Maybe it is because the language is so complex. Maybe it is me (not yet fluent, not yet practiced enough, not a teenager anymore, not trying hard enough...).
Anyways, after all your hard work, I would recommend that you block off a fair amount of time each and every day to maintain ALL aspects of your Japanese. A little effort will save you potential relearning and will further cement your learning to date.
Spanish is a fun and accessible language so have a good time.
RE: How to properly pause learning Japanese: preventing skill degeneration - Stansfield123 - 2016-03-14
What skills are you looking to preserve, specifically?
Comprehension is the easiest to preserve. You definitely don't need to use Anki for that. You can go for years (probably even decades) without using a language, and still be able to understand everything being said in it.
What is hard to preserve is the ability to speak a language seamlessly. I'd give it about two years of not practicing regularly, before you go from speaking a language on a native level to sounding awkward and constantly pausing, looking for ways to say what you're trying to say. I speak from experience, this happened to me with a couple of languages that I've been speaking for a long, long time. And it's not easy to get back, either. It's not just a matter of practicing for a few dozen hours...to be able to speak about complex subjects, you have to go through those specific subjects, not just everyday language.
RE: How to properly pause learning Japanese: preventing skill degeneration - z1bbo - 2016-03-14
(2016-03-14, 12:42 am)Stansfield123 Wrote: What skills are you looking to preserve, specifically?
mainly comprehension\vocabulary skills! I've never been to Japan or had any other occasion to actually practice speaking, so there is no actively built skill here to begin with.
I guess what I'm most worried about is skills concerning Kanji, especially remembering rarer readings and the ability visualize the correct characters once I heard/think of a word. It took me ages to learn that even with simple unorthodox words like 部屋。
RE: How to properly pause learning Japanese: preventing skill degeneration - Stansfield123 - 2016-03-14
(2016-03-14, 3:16 am)z1bbo Wrote:(2016-03-14, 12:42 am)Stansfield123 Wrote: What skills are you looking to preserve, specifically?
mainly comprehension\vocabulary skills! I've never been to Japan or had any other occasion to actually practice speaking, so there is no actively built skill here to begin with.
I guess what I'm most worried about is skills concerning Kanji, especially remembering rarer readings and the ability visualize the correct characters once I heard/think of a word. It took me ages to learn that even with simple unorthodox words like 部屋。
I don't have any experience with Kanji (the languages I've been neglecting are written with the Roman alphabet), but I have been noticing some light degeneration when it comes to spelling. Nothing too serious though. And it doesn't affect my reading at all.
So I don't think reading should be affected too much...it's the ability to speak fluently that degenerates...this might be a simplistic explanation, but it's probably because it's the hardest thing to do to begin with. There are people who only speak one language, and can't really speak it fluently.
RE: How to properly pause learning Japanese: preventing skill degeneration - risu_ - 2016-03-15
Aside from doing your reps consistently, maybe you can consider getting your news in Japanese? If you read the news every day, you can kill two birds with one stone by reading it in Japanese as well.
You could read a book for 30-60 minutes before bed every day too, if that's your kinda thing
