I've run into a problem where I should be doing something in Japanese, but I don't because I'm bored of it. I've run out of fun things to do. The things I find fun can only be done for a certain period of time before they become boring and I need to take a break before they can become fun again. During these burnout periods, I just say "screw it" and do something in English. This never happens to me in English though because I've spent a lifetime accumulating different things to do. When I burnout on one thing, I can just move on to the next and come back to it later when it fun again. I don't have a huge list of fun things to do in Japanese though, so in the end I just take a break from Japanese in general. It seems every morning I wake up, telling myself I will spend the entire day doing Japanese, but after about 5 hours of doing various things (reading manga, watching videos on nicovideo, etc) I've exhausted my list of fun things to do. I guess my questions are:

What are some fun (and not super obvious) things you do in Japanese?
What is a good way to find fun things to do in Japanese?

You can join me on my adventure to learn how to program lol. I just leave T.V shows, dramas, and music in the background for a couple of hours. Maybe that's Japanese enough for you.

Quote:What are some fun (and not super obvious) things you do in Japanese?

This suggestion will depend on a number of factors: Japanese skill level, finding (japanese) people to tolerate it, and finding the place to do it since you aren't in Japan.

But, Tabletop RPGs. There is a ton of TRPG material in Japanese. Its social and it'll expose you to having to use speech to get things done. Unfortunately if your level isn't fairly high, you are looking at a high wall (skill-wise) to climb.

This may be too obvious, but podcasts. There are a ton of podcasts out there, so there's bound to be one on a topic you like. Also, there's audiobooks, but podcasts are easier to find, and I think there is more of them online. Another thing to try would be fanfiction.

I'm not in this circumstance, all the will is to finish this unit then start another. For other aspects, viewing original fictions/interesting books of majors maybe a good way to stimulate interests.

I started shadowing anime and Youtube videos while doing voice impersonations.

This is super obvious, but it's a good general rule of thumb worth mentioning again:

1. Think of what you do in English.
2. Do it in Japanese.

However, it's also worth mentioning that my "tolerance" for Japanese is much less than English. While I sit down and spend 10-20 minutes reading a long article in the Atlantic or New Yorker a few times every week, I do the same in Japanese only once every 1-2 months. Most of the time I just read Yahoo News or Chiebukuro (知恵袋).

Whenever I burn out, I always move to the simpler, easier material. Tired of reading a novel? Read a blog. Can't focus throughout a long movie? Switch to YouTube. If you're like me, you'll eventually get tired of the fluff and want to chew on something with more substance. There's an ebb and flow to it.

VARIETY SHOWS. Overlooked by a lot of Japanese learners despite the wealth of awesomeness.

Use this blog to keep up with the latest episodes of stuff: http://youtubeowaraitv.blog32.fc2.com/

and install the "Unblock Youku" plugin for chrome and you're in for J-TV bliss.

I think the real key to being able to continue enjoying Japanese media is to make yourself try-out a lot of different stuff but at the same time allow yourself the right to say that it sucks within a minute of putting it on. Switch to the next episode/song/show/page/site/etc until something catches your eye and before you know it you'll have found something that excites you enough to waste an hour mining away at a wikipedia page or downloading a back catalogue of episodes or albums. Do this enough times and you won't be able to stop yourself from just going for that Japanese.

But don't beat yourself up about it. You're already going in for 5 hours at a clip. That's great. You don't have to be doing it constantly. Especially not actively. If you get burnt out but still want to "study" do it passively. Put on some J-pop and read a Cracked article or whatever tickles your fancy. And feel no shame in completely tuning out the Japanese audio while enjoying your English activity.

Just so long as you are getting a little bit better everyday and enjoying yourself while doing so you're gold.

EDIT: just remembered this site that I like a lot:
http://2ch-c.net/

its a 2 chan まとめ. They collect all the best 2chan threads so you don't have to do any of the work sifting through boring stuff. The best part about that particular one is that each link has a little bar next to it showing how many clicks its getting. So you can filter it even further to only get the best of the best .

I've always thought playing an MMORPG in Japanese would be a good thing to try. The usually time-wasting addictive aspects would be to your advantage for once.

Recently I've been reading a lot of children's novels. I like manga, but I'm finding them more engaging than most of the manga I've tried to read in Japanese so far. I guess that's an obvious one though.

egoplant Wrote:What are some fun (and not super obvious) things you do in Japanese?

I don't know about not super obvious, but for fun in Japanese I... read books, read news, read academic papers, chat/skype with friends, browse internet forums, watch TV, watch movies, waste time on video sites, listen to music... Chatrooms can also be fun.

Quote:What is a good way to find fun things to do in Japanese?

Like other people, I started by converting my habits in English to Japanese. If you need specific recommendations of cool websites, books, TV shows etc then that would make a good topic of conversation with Japanese friends.

You said you watch nicovideo. Are you into ニコ生 at all? I was super into that for a while.

http://shasetsu.ps.land.to/ - This site's awesome for current affairs by the way. I think I found it on this forum and I'm hooked.

This is a long shot but if anyone's interested in 両声類　let's chat.