I can't get a control on my envirement

I can't get a control on my envirement - Printable Version

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I can't get a control on my envirement - Doctorhabib - 2012-02-01

I want to immerse myself in Japanese and all my other projects that matter...but this would only work...when I would be living on my own and I have full control of my envirement .

I live with my family now and moving out is not an option .

The thing is I cannot force people to act in a certain way or to take something away from them.

For example if I could , I would totally elliminate the Internet from the House and force myself to only use internet outside the house like in the Libary and school it just helps my productivity ALLOT like 70 precent, but I doubt my family wants that .
I have many more flaws in my envirement (non of them being my family itself ofcourse I love them greatly)

I also do not have my own room even ,its shared

Its just im not the most positive person there is but I want to change but this problem is blocking me from changing .

I feel like im stuck on this crappy middle ground that is only bringing me more down.

You guys should know allot about imeression and productivity can you help me someway?

I can't get a control on my envirement - LivingNexus - 2012-02-01

Ah, I'm guessing you've been reading articles by our dear Khatzumoto-san on the AJATT site. The thing about Khatz is, he can come off as being pretty hardcore about learning a language, but I think in reality he's a fairly laid-back guy. I think if you were to tell him that not being able to control your environment was depressing you, then he would say to chunk that idea. Throw it out. Pretend like he never even said anything about it. Khatzumoto's WHOLE point was that learning Japanese (or any other language) should be FUN.

As for me, I AM living on my own, but full immersion is still impossible for me because 1) I don't have $150-200 to throw away on Japanese materials and 2) there are still lots of things I need to read/see/do in English. I don't think it's any big deal. As long as I do a decent amount of SRSing and learn new kanji every day, I feel like I'm making progress, and that's all that matters to me. Khatz never said you HAD to be fluent in 18 months or you're a failure.

Also, the internet is your best friend! Why would you want to get RID of it!? You can stream Japanese music 24/7 from youtube, or even radio sites! You can download podcasts! You can watch TV episodes! You can even find tons of reading materials like manga online for free! The internet may be a huge time-sink, but you can turn it into a productive time-sink. Control what can be controlled, and forget about the rest. The point is to ENJOY the process. If you aren't enjoying it, then you're wasting your time and should just quit now. That sounds harsh, but in the end you'll be saving yourself a lot of wasted time and energy.

I can't get a control on my envirement - Hashiriya - 2012-02-01

click the wi-fi icon on the bottom-right of your screen and click "disconnect".

then get a nice comfy pair of headphones.

start studying for long periods of time...maybe your family will make comments about what you are doing but after awhile they will just accept it

I can't get a control on my envirement - jishera - 2012-02-01

Here are a few suggestions:

1) Explain to your family that you have goals learning the language. Tell them what your goals are. Tell them how much time you expect to work at it each day. Hopefully this will make them more understanding of what you are doing, and more flexible. Make sure you still have time to spend with your family, too.
2) If you are studying Japanese and someone asks you to do something, or wants to talk to you, ask them politely if it's OK to do it 30 min or an 1 hour later instead. Then go talk to them after you have finished some learning.
3) Set a timer when you study. This helps me a lot and keeps me focused. Set a timer for 15 min, or 30 min, 1 hour, however long you can focus. As you get better you can do it for longer. Check out the pomodoro time management technique.
4) Download a browser add-on (leechblock for firefox, nanny for Chrome) that can block websites during certain times of the day. This will help you stay more focused and not goof off on the internet.
5) Remind yourself that this is something you WANT. It should be fun overall. Which is going to be more rewarding? Learning Japanese, or goofing off on the internet?
6) I find it's much easier for me to not browse the web at all, vs. only browsing the web for 5 minutes. Same goes for watching TV. Once I start it is difficult for me to stop. Get your work done first, then reward yourself with browsing, etc.
7) Wake up earlier and study for a bit. Or, when you get home from work or school, studying Japanese should be one of the first things you do.

Your time management skills and willpower should get better overtime. Don't beat yourself up if you aren't perfect everyday. It's OK. Just keep moving forward.

Good luck!

I can't get a control on my envirement - dizmox - 2012-02-01

LivingNexus Wrote:As for me, I AM living on my own, but full immersion is still impossible for me because 1) I don't have $150-200 to throw away on Japanese materials

But everything you need is available for free online.

I can't get a control on my envirement - LivingNexus - 2012-02-01

dizmox Wrote:
LivingNexus Wrote:As for me, I AM living on my own, but full immersion is still impossible for me because 1) I don't have $150-200 to throw away on Japanese materials
But everything you need is available for free online.

Usually, yes. But I don't have the extra $30 to buy a kanji poster, for example. Nor do I have the money to pay for cable to have Japanese shows playing in the background all the time, which is something Khatz recommends. If I wanted to watch anime or listen to music and couldn't find a site that streamed it, I'd have to use torrents. Stuff like that.

I can't get a control on my envirement - dizmox - 2012-02-01

Uhh... no one actually learns from a kanji poster, it's just decoration. You have Youtube if you're averse to torrents don't you?

I can't get a control on my envirement - LivingNexus - 2012-02-02

The OP was about controlling your environment, not just learning the kanji.

I can't get a control on my envirement - jankensan - 2012-02-02

Hi Doctorhabib, nobody lives in a 'perfect' immersion environment. People have jobs, university/ school classes, children, parents and so on. I don't mean to be harsh, but could it be that you are using your family as an excuse not to just get on with it?

Let me illustrate my point. When I first decided to go back to studying Japanese seriously after a break I knew that the way I'd studied before was to blame for my failure. I had studied perched on the edge of my bed, on an evening with music blaring. Needless to say, I often just snoozed or listened to the music rather than study. I began telling myself that I couldn't study because my partner was in the house 'making noise' and 'distracting me' by coming in to chat.

Eventually I realised this was total nonsense. I wasn't studying because the parts of my environment I could control I wasn't, and I also didn't have any 'mini goals' other than just getting fluent.

The solution? I set my alarm clock an hour earlier every day, got up while my partner was still sleeping, sat at the table in the dining room and got my head down. I also started to set mini goals, for example reading 5 pages in a text book today, or something along those lines.

My advice is to find the elements of your life you can control (i.e. the time you get up in the morning, or the free time you have during the day - like your lunch break), and control them. Nobody can control everything and nobody has the perfect immersion situation but as long as you are moving towards your main goal through a series on mini goals, does it really matter that your little brother is playing x-box and you have to study?

LivingNexus you don't need money to have an immersion environment. I have no spare cash and I still manage to get the things I need. You can download free ebooks onto a laptop (or you could save them as Pdfs and print out hard copies), read articles from the internet. Set your country to Japan on the i-tunes store and listen to free podcasts, there's a widget the you can use with youtube that puts it on endless play (see AJATT website for info). Get a language exchange partner. You can pick up free newspapers at Asian supermarkets...

I can't get a control on my envirement - LivingNexus - 2012-02-02

Jankensan, I don't actually know enough kanji to make use of those things even if I had them. I've only been studying Japanese for like...four days. But before that I read all of Khatzumoto's articles on AJATT.com, so I know where the OP is coming from. At times it can feel like people who are ahead of you are pressuring you to do things you're not ready to do yet, and sometimes that can affect your motivation negatively because you think you aren't where you're "supposed" to be. I'm pretty sure that was the OP's real message.

But I do believe I said "control the things you can control, and forget the things you can't," and I follow this philosophy. In fact, if you would actually read my post instead of focusing on the one sentence you don't agree with, you'll find that I mentioned quite a few things that you brought up. In fact, I SPECIFICALLY mentioned YouTube and podcasts and all that. So please forgive me if I don't really take your criticism that seriously :]

I can't get a control on my envirement - Doctorhabib - 2012-02-06

I see that Ive been complaining to much !

Thank you for your advice .

I can't get a control on my envirement - Zgarbas - 2012-02-06

Kanji poster wise...you can find many kanji poster images on the Internet. Printing them costs almost nothing. You don't have to buy the fancy ones.

I can't get a control on my envirement - Sean2 - 2012-02-06

Doctorhabib,

I don't think you are complaining to much. Some people are supernaturally focused and organized. I have to trick myself into getting things done. Different things work for different people. But, I work better outside the house at a cafe or library, but I've got human and animal obligations and I can't always go out to study. If I am procrastinating sometimes I set a times for 15 minutes and get to work. After the 15 minutes are up I've generally broken through the barrier and either just keep working or set the timer for a longer period of time. If I'm wasting time on the internet sometimes I set the timer again for 15 minutes and stop messing around when the timer goes off. This works for me.

I can't get a control on my envirement - thurd - 2012-02-06

To put it bluntly, stop whining and start working or watch this and quit if you can't face the fact that you will have to work to get results and no amount of immersion is going to do that for you.