Hi guys

I'm a weakling and I can't decide what to do.

I'm really not great at self study, and soon lose focus

I feel that studying in a language school would give me two things which I need, namely: focus/motivation and lots of reading and writing.

Far and away my reading and writing are my weakpoints. Speaking and listening aren't so bad.

So, I could go to a language school here in Japan (bye bye 70万円) or do self study for free.

If I go to a language school I will have 4 hours lessons and apparently about 3 or 4 hours of homework every weekday.

If I'm doing that much homework I may as well be doing self study for without the massive tuition...

It seems that everyone else is able to study by themselves, and to be honest I'm dead jealous.

Signing up for the autumn term has to be before September.. But there will be a new term in the spring.

I'm really torn because I desperately want to improve but I am also a lazy bastard. I know these things don't go well together.

I actually do have plenty of free time (I work but just a few hours each day), but I tend to waste it with sleep and tv shows.

I would like to give the self study thing one more try before spending lots of money I don't really have, so....

I might start a crazy challenge. Right now I have JLPT0. I didn't bother taking 4 or 3 because, well, why waste my time? (not an attack on others).

I think if I crammed for 3 a few weeks beforehand I could take it, so how about aiming at 2.

I'm thinking I'll sign up for 2 (like a crazy person) and study my ass off for that. Now, it could well be impossible, but I think if I score over 200 in the exam, (not a pass, but it's like 50%, right?), I will embrace self study like the cheapskate I am. If not, I'll bite the financial bullet and sign up for a school.

But, there's no way I can do it alone. I will need the support of my internet brothers and sisters.

From what I understand, a good route to take is RTK > Tae Kim > KO and then grammar books, all the while putting stuff into anki. Is this about right?

What are your thoughts? Is this a crazy idea?

RTK > Tae Kim > KO is the preferred route of many RvTKers, but it is a path best slowly and carefully traveled, with lots of attention paid to the stops on the way. If you didn't catch my drift there, I'm summarizing that even though a lot of us do 50-100 kanji/sentences a day, it is certainly not 'cramming' because lots of thought and time goes into what we're learning.

I've never looked up the difficulty of JLPT2 so I wouldn't know what you're up against. But I can say that as with anything in life you should be patient and proceed with caution. You'll save yourself a lot of heartache and time if you do so.

So: No, it isn't a crazy idea, but your intentions are crazy if you intend to take it within the next two months. I really suggest you take your time, though, even if you are quickly demotivated. I lack a lot of self-motivation but even I have the ability to toil through RtK so you should be able to as well - just remember each and every day about what your goal is, and you should be able to do it. Doing one of those JLPT exams within a couple of months, though? I can't say you can't do it (you can do it, passing or failing is another matter). S'all up to you, my friend.

Thanks for your input!

I think I was unclear in my first post. I am not saying I should cram for JLPT2, actually I am very anti cramming. I am suggesting that I study really really hard! I don't want to cut corners. I have plenty of time to study. To be honest, If I just made an effort of waking up at a reasonable time I could fit in 4 or 5 hours of study every day and that's just before leaving for work. Then there's train rides and time after work.

Really JLPT2 is not my goal, it is just my motivation. I feel like I need some kind of clear goal. It wouldn't even have to be the actual test, maybe I'll just take the most recent practice test near the end of December. It woudl give me a good 4 and a half months of study.

I honestly feel so wretched and stressed because I feel I am not doing anything. If I could really use self study well, then I could save myself a lot of money. I am not a rich guy, and school will be paid for out of my own pocket. So if I was going to be studying for 8 hours a day plus work, I can see myself heading for a breakdown.

Thanks again for your post, I appreciate your carefully chosen words

I think doing both is the best method. Just don't make the mistake that most people do and expect the class to cover everything you need at the rate you need it. Classes and self study supplement each other, but a class is no replacement for doing work on your own.

70万円????
Can't you save a bit more and buy a car?

You say that you have the time to study 4 -5 hours a day, but let's face it you are not going to do that, not with your will power. You have already admitted that you are weak and often watch tv shows despite a desire to study. It is my opinion that you simply do not have the self discipline to commit to such a study plan. However, not all is lost. Don't join that school if you don't want to spend the money, you can build your will power and work up to the study hours that you want to do, to reach the goals you want to reach.

What do you think is an amount of study that you could do VERY comfortably every day? When you have figured out that number, half it, or maybe divide it by three. So say you said you could do 30 mins every day, in reality you are going to commit to doing 10 or 15 mins. You must make this a golden promise to yourself. Write it on your soul, you will not break this promise. Every day you will do 10 minutes. In reality that 10 mins may stretch into 20 or even 45, but it may not, as long as you do 10 minutes, your promise has been kept. Do this for 3 weeks or a month, longer than you think is necessary and then review. Can you add another 5 mins, another 10, can this become your unshakable vow? To now do 25 mins a day? It is important that you not stretch too far. Self discipline is a muscle you need to build slowly, because if you break your promise it gets weaker, but if you keep it, it get's stronger. In another three weeks review again, ad infinitum. In such a manner you will build study habits and reach your goals.

This is something I am doing now. Please let me know if you try this and how it goes.

You gotta ask yourself, do you want to pass JLPT or learn Japanese. If you want to learn Japanese, forget the JLPT and do sentences until you're fluent.

If you want to pass the JLPT, buy a study guide, study for 4 months, 4 hours a day, and you'll pass with ease. It's a standardized test after all. It's not really a test of your Japanese language ability. Study for a test, pass the test. Ya know. (JLPT registration starts late August, test is early December.)

I find that motivation and goals are relative. For example my goal is to be fluent by the time I move back to Japan, around August next year. Since I'm not a beginner, I'm aiming at 5,00 sentences. If I'm not functionally fluent after 5,000, I'll aim for 6,000 sentences. I find that setting short term goals, while keeping the big picture in mind works best.

You can set 1/3/6 months targets. Or 10/20/30 sentences per day targets. Whatever works for you.

I haven't tried Kanji Odyssey, so I can't comment. I use Kanji in Context and Japanesepod101 transcripts to mine sentences. KiC has about 2200 sentences & Jpod has about 700 lessons.

Thanks for the comments.

In reality I want to be fluent in Japanese, but if I stay in Japan for a long time (I would like to) then JLPT would be useful for finding a job, but it's certainly not my long term overall goal. I have other goals involving Japanese, like translating manga and/or subtitling anime.

"Golden Promises" mean nothing to me. I know I wouldn't keep such a promise to myself because it holds no value for me. Rather, I think I would have more chance of studying by just giving myself a kick.

One friend laughed when she saw my wallpaper said "STUDY KANJI, BITCH!".

Recently I just haven't been inclined to force myself, because what's the point.

Your comments are all really encouraging to me, somehow.

Actually at this time I am reorganising my room, to encourage study. PC is not near my bed but rather requires me to sit down at a chair! Might sound retarded but it's really important for me

The JLPT2 thing is more about a kind of benchmark as oposed to actually caring about passing or not. If I could get a decentish score without studying specifically for the test, via self study, then it would mean that I am capable of doing it.

Your old methods "study kanji, bitch!" obviously don't work or you wouldn't be in this predicament.

It's good that you are doing stuff, but re-organising a room to study, when you could just be studying seems like procrastination to me. Right now, I am procrastinating too dammit! I should be studying but instead I am posting.

Unfortunately the study kanji bitch wallpaper got changed. It's back up now.

You might think the room change is procrastination, but actually I hate tidying. I half sorted my room, my desk is nice, so I got to studying. The rest of the room is a tip.

seriously once you get trough RTK studying is a blast. I'm dissapointed if I dont get to do at least 8 hours a day. I usually average 35 sentences a day. RTK was a hard slog and a bit of a drag sometimes but im seriously glad I chucked in the idea of going to a language school, put in the effort and am now reaping the rewards! You can do it too.

I haven't hard a problem with procrastination since 'timeboxing' became the rage amongst the coolest autodidacts. Such as: http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/proc...-hack-1025

That looks awesome. Is there a good egg timer app for windows?

nest0r Wrote:I haven't hard a problem with procrastination since 'timeboxing' became the rage amongst the coolest autodidacts. Such as: http://www.43folders.com/2005/10/11/proc...-hack-1025

Hey, those methods are even better than the timebox methods I'm using. Thanks for the post.

zoletype Wrote:That looks awesome. Is there a good egg timer app for windows?

I'm using the Tea Timer extension for Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7472 - Simple and effective.

Since I'm always alt-tabbing to my browser, works for everything outside Anki so far.

Also, Khatz posted some nice stuff here: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blo...l-the-time

I haven't tried Karen's Countdown Timer yet (mentioned in his post).

Motivation is hard, something I struggled with a lot too (and still do).
For a long time I thought I should be "studying" Japanese, which I honestly don't enjoy much (I got good marks in school and university, I'm not averse to study).
This meant I just put it off, and then I felt really bad about myself for being "lazy". I ended up in a bit of a vicious loop, studying less and feeling worse about myself.

A few years ago I finally decided to "accept" the fact I wasn't going to spend all my time studying, and just started enjoying watching stuff in Japanese. The result was that I enjoyed myself a lot more, and my Japanese actually improved faster. This ended up building my motivation.

Of course, last year I heard about AJATT, and it started to make more sense.

Now I realise that everything I've every enjoyed "studying" was something I enjoyed doing or really wanted to do. It wasn't the studying I enjoyed, it was the results I got from the studying.

zoletype - in case you haven't heard of AJATT - http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/
Also, you mention reading and writing are your weak-points.
It would help a lot if you found stuff you really want to read.

Jarvik7 Wrote:I think doing both is the best method.

I agree.
IMO you'll learn lots faster with self-study (most classes are really terribly slow), but I think there are some things that you'll learn better/faster from a class, and classes can also help with motivation (especially if you've paid 70万円! ouch!).

What about taking some (cheaper!) lessons, a few hours a day/week, and self-studying for the remainder? I'd be biased towards more self-study, but if motivation is really a huge problem then you can allocate more time to classes.

oregum Wrote:You gotta ask yourself, do you want to pass JLPT or learn Japanese. If you want to learn Japanese, forget the JLPT and do sentences until you're fluent.

There's no reason you can't take the JLPT without studying for it, especially if it helps provide motivation for studying. Just don't fall into the trap of studying only for the test. It sounds like zoletype has the right idea already.

My "study" for the JLPT2 consisted entirely of adding the 完全マスタ２級 grammar sentences into Anki (even that was arguably too much). And I've occasionally been able to recognise some of the grammar in real situations, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Of course, I'm not sure if I actually passed

PS: JLPT definitely isn't the be-all-end-all measure of Japanese ability. In fact it's far from it. But I really don't understand the massively negative attitude some people have towards it (this is not directed specifically at oregum - sorry).

I think that classes have the potential to be very productive, but it is really important that you find the right class/school. I signed up for 6 months at a school in Japan that had really small class sizes and claimed to be brilliant, but was very like going back to primary school. They basically taught to the lowest common denominator; their focus was on trying to make people have fun and think that they were progressing, rather actually pushing them to get them learning. After the first month I just stopped going and began studying by myself (this had a lot to do with wanting more time to finish RTK) and then after 3 months, horrified at the amount of money I was flushing down the drain, I just came home.

So I would say, don't think that classes will make you learn and push you. If you are willing to spend a lot of money on group classes, you might be better off spending that money on one-to-one lessons slightly less frequently; that way the lessons will be exactly the way you want them to be and you will have more time for self study.

I think you need to be honest with yourself, in what you want and what kinda of study person you are. What motivates you, why your doing this.

I think bandwidthjunkie has a good point. I did one course I loved and another I quit. Teachers and the speed they work at, plus how good they are make a big difference. My last course I quit the teacher was just trying to get the end of the book, even when we said we wanted to take our time on the important grammar points. I cannot work like that. Some can. I was very sad as there are few classes in Japanese about, and I held on as long as I could. Only now months later am I getting back into studying. A bad class can also put you off a subject. I have been curing it by watching lots of anime, what a hardship! Personally if I was in Japan, that would be self motivating as I find seeing lots of kanji makes me want to know what they mean. But maybe you could try and see what subjects you enjoyed/did well @ school and try and see why you liked/did well at them? Some people like/need structure some need to work at their own pace.

Do both. Use SRS self-studies to remember what you learn in class and expand on it. Use the classes to get comfortable using Japanese, and as a motivator. You can also get loads of Korean friends to speak Japanese with (but don't be get sad when they become good at conversing in Japanese twice as fast as you, Koreans have a pretty big advantage with grammar so unless you use your self-study time effectively, they will probably excel faster than you).

As for oregum's comments, I'd say ignore them. You don't have to choose between JLPT and learning Japanese since JLPT tests Japanese ability. By studying specifically for the JLPT using study guides, you might get a SLIGHT advantage, but studying Japanese in general is EASILY enough to pass JLPT. And thinking that one can pass JLPT1 in 4 months by using study guides is preposterous anyway. Only someone who learns Japanese from very specific sources will have problems with JLPT... say, someone who has learned all his Japanese from JRPGs and Anime. Such a person might not know words like 弁護士 and 留守番. They might feel they are good at Japanese since they can play a game decently in Japanese... but is it that odd that a standardized test checks the important words before stuff like 魔法, 賢者 and 勇者? People living and learning Japanese in Japan will think JLPT is extremely logically created, the levels cover just the words and grammar one should expect to know at that level of ability.

Thanks again for all the comments.

I live in Japan already, so have tons of native speakers to converse with. And I'm plenty comfortable conversing 100% in Japanese. I have plenty of friends who can only speak Japanese...

I will probably end up enrolling in the school, even if its just for 6 months to see how I like it. It's still a hefty amount of money though..

If I can keep up the self study for a few weeks, I might give school a miss until spring, to see how far I can progress.

Which leads me to another issue. I don't want to spend lots of time covering stuff I already know. I know the basics are super important, and that's great, but I really don't want to spend a lot of time doing really elementary stuff. As it is, other than some vocab and lots of writing practice, I feel I wouldn't get a whole lot from the first few months of school, as I've heard from friends that they really cover the basics to give newbies a good foundation (which is great). If I could enroll next term and go into a higher class, that would be better just for the sake of saving time.

To deal with my writing thing, I'm writing out kanji every time I review. Before I would just write them on my hand with my finger, which doesn't make a huge difference really to now, but I guess actually using a pen is good.

When it comes to sentences etc I'm planning to do the same thing.

I would deff use an SRS eitherway. But it would be tough to do really independant study while attending school, as there really isn't enough time in a day (4 hours school, 4 hours homework, 4 hours work, travelling etc). I do have my doubts about 4 hours of homework, I'm sure an SRS could cut that down a lot.

Anyway.. thanks again for all the comments. I've said it a lot, maybe because I've been spending so much time on mixi recently and have had it beaten into me that you should thank people for every comment. But I really do feel encouraged by this all.

My room has been transformed into a haven for study, and I'm reaping the benefits now.

Timeboxing is also great, it makes things feel a lot more fun!

@Tobberoth

I should have been a little clearer, I am not against the JLPT. I was commenting on the fact that zoletype said it wasn't his goal. I think goals should be individualized. (ie. pick up girls or whatever, lol) That way you are motivated to achieve the goal. If he doesn't care about the JLPT, it makes giving up easy when things get rough.

Also, I got the impression that s/he was at intermediate level already. So my comment about studying for 4 months was in regards to the upcoming test in December. The official estimated time needed to study and pass the JLPT2 is 600 hours. I think it's BS, but that's what they say. (5hrs * 120days)

http://www.jlpt.jp/e/about/content.html

A thing that I've found that motivates me to study is going to the library. If you get sidetracked at home with sleeping or TV, then the library is the place to go. First of all, there's usually no distractions when you are studying there, and you can focus your mind entirely on the task at hand. Secondly, the library has a great atmosphere created by all the people reading and studying. This environment can keep you from being idle, and give you motivation to be more diligent. I find that I can easily do a 300 card anki review in around an hour at the library, one that would take me over 5 hours to do at home. Also, parks are a great place to do reading and other, more mobile, studying. I don't know how the library system works in Japan, as I'm in the States, but something like a 有料自習屋 may work as well.

Yeah public places are great for studying. I often use Starbucks or Mr. Donuts. In Japan it's perfectly acceptable for you to buy one drink and then stay in the shop for several hours. Mr. Donuts even has free refills!

zoletype Wrote:Which leads me to another issue. I don't want to spend lots of time covering stuff I already know. I know the basics are super important, and that's great, but I really don't want to spend a lot of time doing really elementary stuff. As it is, other than some vocab and lots of writing practice, I feel I wouldn't get a whole lot from the first few months of school, as I've heard from friends that they really cover the basics to give newbies a good foundation (which is great).

If I could enroll next term and go into a higher class, that would be better just for the sake of saving time.

You should definitely have a level-check before signing up for a class, especially for that kind of money.

Your speaking is good but your reading/writing are beginner level?
That might make it hard to fit into a group class.
I think that would definitely make a beginner class way too boring. An intermediate class might be too hard for the reading (and still too boring for the talking!).
How many students in the class?

Have you considered private lessons?
Then you can concentrate on what you want, and you won't have to listen to all the crappy Japanese of the other students!
The going rate in Tokyo seems to be less than 4000 yen an hour, which gets you at least 6+ hours a week for 6 months (175 hours) for your 70万円.

７０万円 is a ripoff. Top private universities don't even charge that much. The top private uni I went to in Japan is pretty expensive, and it was still only ８０万円 per semester for a full course load. As a 交換留学生 I only had to pay ８万円/semester though