I love coming here and reading what experienced learners have to say. But this forum creates two problems for me (or, I create two problems for myself and use this forum as an excuse). Firstly: I come here to avoid doing any real learning. Reading about learning is much more fun than learning. Secondly: Every time I read a post it contains details of some new method which seems vastly superior and makes me doubt my own methods.

About 20 times since I started making an attempt to learn Japanese, I've completely changed my approach. Sometimes this has been due to a change in my life which has forced a new situation, but mostly it has been because I read a bunch of posts which sounded way better than what I was doing. I wish I didn't have the internet sometimes - I'm hopelessly infected with the procrastination bug, and the internet is the mosquito which bites me.

How the hell do you pick a method and stick to it? There are so many which sound good, and so many people have gained great results, but most things I try just leave me wanting. Anyone got a method for deciding?

When you feel like your "method" isn't a "method" but just becomes how you "roll" it becomes super easy to stick with. If it grinds on you, you're probably gonna chuck it at some stage. Just my 2 cents having gone through the same process and finally, finally having wound up in my groove.

If you use Firefox, install the LeechBlock plug-in. I limit my time on this site to 30 minutes per day (most of which is spent pulling pictures and stories from the One Kanji One Picture thread), after which Firefox redirects me to this page. You can set it to a certain amount of time per day, or certain blocks of time during the day, or both. You can also set it so that you can't access the preferences while the site is blocked, so you're not tempted. It's pretty handy.

Just don't get tempted to use another browser once your time is up.

Other than that, just pick something and do it (if it's working for you). There's nothing out there that will be so much better than what you're doing that it merits a change, unless what you're doing isn't working or isn't enjoyable.

bflatnine Wrote:If you use Firefox, install the LeechBlock plug-in. I limit my time on this site to 30 minutes per day (most of which is spent pulling pictures and stories from the One Kanji One Picture thread), after which Firefox redirects me to this page. You can set it to a certain amount of time per day, or certain blocks of time during the day, or both. You can also set it so that you can't access the preferences while the site is blocked, so you're not tempted. It's pretty handy.

What url do you enter for blocking this site? I've tried to leechblock this site a couple times, but it doesn't work. When I start browsing, it stops timing me.

forum.koohii.com

No http:// or anything like that. Just the above.

I think everyone is like that and tends to avoid doing any real learning. But you can take advantage of that too. Actually being a professional procrastinator worked for me. I'm pretty good at procrastination so I always put aside what I'm supposed to do and watch my favorite videos, browse forums, etc. in English. Since I'm learning English, this is working pretty well.

I think "learning" is also important. But if you're anything like me, it gets boring pretty quickly and you start doing something else. How about procrastinating in the language you want to acquire for a change? Find something that gets you regardless of whether you understand it. It's ok if you don't think you're learning anything from it. I'm pretty sure your Japanese gets better even if you don't notice any progress. There are a lot of things textbooks can't teach you. Your brain is much smarter than you might think, and it picks up a lot of things even if your conscious mind can't catch them.

Even if this unconscious learning thing is plain nonsense, it doesn't prevent you from doing traditional learning, does it? If you're a compulsive procrastinator, I think it makes sense to let your procrastination improve or at least maintain your Japanese skills. If watching movies/dramas/anime/youtube videos/porn/whatever you don't understand at all doesn't improve your Japanese, still it won't hurt your grammar or vocabulary.

That said, it's not fun to keep consuming native material you don't understand at all for a long time. Ideally material for procrastination shouldn't bore you, but it's difficult to procrastinate in Japanese if you're a beginner. Just look for something you can really enjoy and have fun as much as possible. If it gets boring, just stop it. Don't try to procrastinate. It's not procrastination at all. The point is that whatever you're learning, being addicted and obsessed is key to being a good learner.

This procrastination strategy might also solve your second problem. If you can't help but reading about learning methods and stuff, think of it this way: Without a good learning method, after years of practice most people who are just addicted to their hobby end up being mediocre players at best when compared with professional players etc. Most likely they'd stop progressing when they become as good as a terrible pro with horrible skills by professional standards. But when it comes to a foreign language, being as good as a stupid native speaker is awesome as it is. If you end up speaking like a mediocre native speaker, it's something beyond awesome.

Anyway, it's just procrastination, so you learn a language whatever way you think is good for you when you're not procrastinating. I've never met a person who doesn't procrastinate, and I think it's good to do it in a way that doesn't slow down your progress.

The problem is that you are picking other peoples methods, which leads you to have no real faith in them. You need to create your own method which you really believe is the best. Then you can take inspiration from posts here without having to completely change how you're doing. For example, because of the pretty big "goodbye sentences" topic, I've started my own vocab deck even though I've always done nothing but sentences. This doesn't change my method, it just expands it. Evolution is the key.

Tobberoth Wrote:Evolution is the key.

You said it.

Or ban nest0r
har har har!!

Jokes nest0r ^_^

I think at some point, I'll make a personal page on the RevTK wiki and detail methods I recommend (or do). Then it's just a matter a providing a link that people can easily ignore without being swamped in a wall of text. Let's face it, everytime someone posts a "Help, how should I do YYY" there's about 4 or 5 lengthy responses. All are correct, but all are different and it leads to threads like these.

There is no one way. Plus, like Tobberoth elegantly puts it, your own way will evolve over time either through your own trial and error or adapting based off advice and input from others.

liosama Wrote:Or ban nest0r
har har har!!

Jokes nest0r ^_^

耳が痛い。To quote Katsuo.

I've come to the conclusion that I am actually happy with the way I study, but have been gradually perfecting my methods over time. Looking back, it's a good thing that I discarded so many methods because they just weren't right for me. What I have now is a synthesis based on elements of other peoples methods and some of my own ideas.

The problem was mainly when I was progressing slowly - it's so easy to reject the system when you don't see immediate results. I'm starting to see really fast progress in the last few weeks and can pinpoint the reasons in my methods, so I guess I can be more confident from now on. It just took me to really think through it (without comparing my results to someone elses) to see that I'm making good progress.

I completely agree that evolution is important, and that mixing it up a bit every once in a while can keep things interesting. The challenge is to keep the approach consistent enough that my learning doesn't become disjointed or waste previous effort, whilst not missing too many tricks. Gradually experimenting with small changes and keeping the working ones is going to be my approach from now on.

I'm also gonna try out leechblock. I installed it several months ago, but procrastinated indefinitely when it came time to set it up. I'll also stop using the chrome beta for linux, so I'm stuck in firefox and can't avoid the block.