sorry in advance for this ramble, slash mini breakdown

ok, so to summarise I'm quite an obsessive person, I get hooked on something and repeat it over and over, which is why anki and smart.fm were godsends ... until i got bored, the thing is I have textbooks, I've done core 2,000, made loads of lists, added thousands of words of vocab, reviewed it, read books etc and I'm just bored, bored of it all.

Please don't respond saying mean things like "well clearly you shouldn't be studying a language" or "your not cut out for it" because I was doing really really well, and thats just being mean

Now all I do is listen to music and watch ya-ya-yah, I mean I'm learning kanji also but I'm bored ...

I'm bored of reading passages of text that are so stupid and have nothing to do with anything
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I'm bored of flashcards
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I'm bored of reading over stupid useless sentences to reinforce grammar points
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I'm bored of topics I don't care about
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I'm bored of dumb characters that have no relevance to anything except the relevant book
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I'm bored of the ridiculously uninteresting tales they tell that are supposed to help you understand what the hell's going on

I'm bored...

is there anyone in the same boat??? pleasee, pleaseeeee

-x-

Nope, I've only gotten bored once, when I first started doing sentences and overdid the 'complete written dictation of full sentence audio cues' for a month. Otherwise, I enjoy the material and/or I enjoy learning new things. If I get tired, I change gears or materials or subjects or take a break for an hour or a day or a few days.

Step 1: Stop doing smart.fm/ko2001/textbooks/etc
Step 2: Think hard about why you want to learn Japanese. What do you enjoy doing in Japanese? Anime? Games? Dramas? Manga? Music?
Step 3: If you don't already have it, procure whatever the answer to Step 2 was.
Step 4: Start trying to understand it. Have fun with it!
Step 5: Make sure that you're not approaching this like a class. You don't have to SRS EVERY sentence or whatever. I would still use Anki, but ONLY add the stuff you really want to learn. If you're reading through Death Note and you see the word 捜査官 1,000 times, you're probably gonna wanna learn it. So pop an easy sentence from Death Note into Anki that uses 捜査官.

The important thing, I think, is to decide what you want to learn. You obviously want to learn Japanese, right? Well, just start learning the things you'd like to know. If you can't think of anything, read something/watch something. Learn the one word you keep seeing/hearing over and over again. Then go back and start devouring native sources and repeat the process.

Hope that helps!

EDIT: Here's a little more advice.

If you're trying to have fun, but Japanese has suddenly become a miserable activity, it might be a good idea to go to listening only for a while. This is because it's such a stress-free thing. More of a passive thing. It's good to be in "all japanese all the time", but not if you're burning out. Take all the stress and fear out of the equation to let some fun in.

I know when I've started to feel burn-out in the past it was either:

A: Trying to learn too much at once and getting overwhelmed.

or

B: Feeling like getting to a functional level was a million miles away.

The solution to A should be fairly simple. B, on the other hand, is more difficult. For me, the solution was to make smaller goals. I would go to the Japanese language table at my University and I would see students speaking more than me. I would have the exchange students try to speak to me and say things I couldn't understand. These things motivated me. My competitive side wanted to be the best student. Not being able to understand the exchange students just reminded me to focus on learning more common words.

Sorry for ranting, but I've struggled with burn-out a lot in the past. I hope my experience/advice can help you get through this. In the end, you've just got to cut out the fear and stress and find the fun in learning.

flowagurl Wrote:Please don't respond saying mean things like "well clearly you shouldn't be studying a language" or "your not cut out for it" because I was doing really really well, and thats just being mean

Anyone who says that has never made any real progress with a foreign language. Burn-outs happen. Not just with foreign language study, but it's really problematic with foreign language study because if you can't relate what you're learning to something real, all you're doing is memorizing a bunch of facts, and then how do you keep moving forward?

In your case, if you want out of the boring phase, I'd recommend making your studying more organic. Flashcards and textbooks are mechanical. Instead, read some real Japanese. Watch a real Japanese movie, without subtitles. Go to Amazon.co.jp and place an order (which in itself could prove to be a learning experience if you don't turn on the English support). Get translations of books you know (Harry Potter is always popular to read in translation for some reason), and get books you've never heard of. A lot of people studying the language start out in exactly the opposite of your situation: they get into Japanese because they already fell in love with it and found a way to enjoy it, usually by watching subtitled anime. Might be an avenue to pursue if that appeals to you. If possible, travel to Japan, study abroad in Japan (if you are in uni), and try to expose yourself to as much of the natural, spoken language as possible.

I got pretty damn bored of heisig after about 1000 kanji but just had to trudge on through to the end. I got pretty bored of KO2001 by the end but I stuck it out to give me a chance at reading. Now I can read alright i'm never bored because i'm always reading something I find interesting.

Of course textbooks and nothing but Anki will bore the pants off you. Trying putting study on cruise mode for a while and forget about actively studying grammar or vocab through textbooks and lists and just pick up enjoyable things that are in Japanese and look words up and add them to Anki to help you acquire them. I've been acquiring new vocab on pure cruise mode for the last month and i've learned 700 new words. Not bad for 15 mins "study" (reviews) a day and hours of fun and entertainment.

Nest0rs got the right idea. If something starts to grind on you just do something different. Whatever it is as long as you still learn something you're making progress.

Maybe it's time to tackle a kids story or something else simple (I used to read my horoscope in Japanese every morning from Yahoo!Kids.)

I only read the news when I'm feeling confident, since it's always the hardest thing to digest.

You could also get into the habit of writing a journal or short story using the Japanese you know (even some basic code switching in English sentences using kanji words you know)

The best way to avoid burnouts in my experience is to change up what you're studying, and to never get behind on Anki reviews. It's easy to do 100-200 cards a day, but skip a few days and suddenly you have an ugly stack of 1000+ cards that you don't want to go near. To change stuff up, switch between kanji study, vocab study, grammar study, reading practice (either readers, manga, or novels depending on your level), playing videogames, talking to real live Japanese people (where available), and watching drama/anime/whatever. Just make sure to not bite off more than you can chew and end up behind on the Anki cards.

Another good way to avoid burnout is to not AJATT. Forcibly cutting off all your hobbies/friends/family/whatever that aren't in Japanese is a great way to make you tire of Japanese.

oh wow! i went to get food came back and there were so many helpful things

i started out liking music ... and the guys, so i guess i could write up song lyrics, i know that sounds kind of lame but i guess it would be a start.

yeah mezbup i've noticed that you (not personally) start to notice kanji and their readings alot faster with heiseig, i think the main problem is because everything's constantly ongoing, their no definitive end to work towards ... just a road that goes on ... and on and on father.

awww awwww ocircle, yahoo kids is the cutest thing i've EVER seen, how did i not know about this before???

whenever i feel sad i'm just going to re-read this thread and smile to myself

thanks

-x-

You need a break. But you need something more, too, and that is you need to understand why you feel the way you do, and you need to remember how it felt when you didn’t have the burnout raging against [studying Japanese]. You need to remind yourself that there are things about this [language] that you love, you just need to get back to that point mentally.

It can be trying, [studying a lot]. Why? Because sooner or later it will feel like you "have to" [do it], and you’ll resent it for taking up your precious time. When you start to feel that way, you need a break, plain and simple. You need to let yourself relax; quit thinking about [studying] for a little while, give yourself time to remember why you love it, and you’ll be back into the groove before you know it.

Just a couple of quick preparatory tips, though: First, don’t hesitate to take that break when you start feeling the burnout. And second, don’t saturate your schedule ahead of time with [planned study] such that you’re finding yourself without any breaks when you start to need them. If I had done this, I could have saved myself a good three weeks of [study]-related headaches. Give yourself room to breath - [studying Japanese] may be your second-most enjoyable thing to do, but too much of anything can be a bad thing.

Ripped from an old PGI burnout article :-) http://www.p8ntballer.com/classroomconte...0out.shtml

flowagurl Wrote:i started out liking music ... and the guys, so i guess i could write up song lyrics, i know that sounds kind of lame but i guess it would be a start.

Not lame *at all*. The key is finding the things that YOU LOVE. If you like it, it's fun, and it's in Japanese, it is the complete opposite of lame. If you've pushed through Heisig (and more), that's all the boringness you should have to struggle through. The rest is just learning to understand things you enjoy. Watch lots of youtube videos of your beloved J-boys talking about how they would, personally, deliver a carnation, or whatever they do.

Keep goin' and good luck!

Probably the main thing to keep in mind is that language of any kind is a mode of communication. Turning it into mathematics or a never-ending road towards fluency is doing something unnatural with it. If you really want to re-vitalize your interest in the language, find a native speaker, ideally a conversation partner, but a pen-pal is fine too, and talk with them. Concrete pay-offs vs. abstract pay-offs. Instead of making this hazy, kind of undefined goal of fluency your goal, instead make a goal out of something like the ability to understand and laugh at jokes told by a Japanese person in Japanese.

As for SRS burnout... I try to prevent that by putting in some pictures here and there... part of a manga page, a funny picture with a caption,.. stuff like that to break up the monotonous text.

Good advice across the thread -

jajaaan makes a great point - Find a real J-Boy to talk to! You will have a great time, and it will motivate you to keep learning Japanese. I've used the live chats like this one- http://www.sharedtalk.com/ - and it's always been a complete blast. And go find someone in your town to talk to if you can too. From my limited experience Nihojin really enjoy language exchange, and will be stoked that you take such interest. The best part of my Japanese learning is meeting with my Japanese friend every week - I learn a lot and it's super motivating, and it turns all the boring stuff into a mission to increase my skills, instead of a grind. I think this would be the perfect remedy for you.

You said it yourself - you're doing really well. You don't need to be fluent to speak to people, so get out there and go have some fun with it!

If you're burnt out, it's because you're genetically mismatched with the Japanese language, and aren't cut out for learning languages in general. Yep. ;p

TaylorSan Wrote:Find a real J-Boy to talk to! You will have a great time, and it will motivate you to keep learning Japanese.

I don't mean to sound like Randy-Pan the Goat Boy, but I find things said by attractive members of the opposite sex to be the easiest to remember. Especially when what is being said is directed towards me and is sexy.

(Props for anyone who gets the Randy-Pan reference)

@Tzadeck: Bill Hicks was a legend.

You rack disciprine!

sethg Wrote:If you're reading through Death Note and you see the word 捜査官 1,000 times, you're probably gonna wanna learn it. So pop an easy sentence from Death Note into Anki that uses 捜査官.

If you read the same word a thousand times you're probably going to learn it anyway, with or without an SRS.

I know I'm definitely in the minority here, but...

I stopped using any kind of SRS about a year ago and haven't missed it a bit.

I personally can't think of anything more boring than reading the same thing over and over again 100s of times (no matter how interesting the material may be).

In the past year, I haven't once felt like, "Oh, I just have to put this somewhere! It is just too fabulous to let go of!" I've actually found that most materials will have the same words repeated quite often and usually enough for me to remember it naturally. Actually what I've found is the things that are really interesting or useful to me, I will learn almost effortlessly.

Another thing that has taken a tremendous load off my back is feeling that learning Japanese is some sort of race. Going around like mad hunting down as many sentences to put into an SRS as possible to reach some magical number of cards as quickly as possible. It's all just too much. So, I just decided to stop worrying about when I would be fluent and just take it all step by step each day.

Blahah Wrote:@Tzadeck: Bill Hicks was a legend.

We have a winner! And it only took 7 minutes.

thistime Wrote:If you read the same word a thousand times you're probably going to learn it anyway, with or without an SRS.

Yeah, until you finish Death Note. Then maybe a few weeks later. But what if you don't read anymore 刑事漫画 for a while. You really think you'll remember 捜査官 a year later?

I use the SRS for long-term memory. I don't SRS everything. But some words just aren't as common as others. Sure, if you're properly immersed, the SRS becomes less necessary, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with using it and it's a powerful tool.

[ファブリス]

From my experience the real discipline is to learn to stop. I've had many burnouts in the past, and now I can see the pattern more clearly.

You need to take breaks, real breaks. A real break is when you stop putting even your mind to the task. If you stop studying but continue to think about it or what you should do next you haven't stopped.

That's what interesting about time boxing techniques, it's not so much about being more productive, but about learning to balance productivity time and off time. The pradox is you think you'll get more done by working more and taking less breaks but the opposite happens. It works for a while and then you'll burn out.

Try for example to make a deal like for every hour of study I must play, watch movie, take a walk, or whatever for half an hour *and refuse to think about study* during that time. Another deal would be to discipline yourself one day of the week to NOT study at all. You'll know you are doing it right when you feel a sudden relief at the moment you make the decision. If you don't feel a relief, you didn't really make the decision.

Another seemingly insignificant thing I did for example, is to take the time to read a good book when drinking a cup of coffee, that way I'm not sitting in front of the computer, and I'm not drinking cold coffee

Another good benefit is that by taking real breaks.. your mind seems to come up with more ideas instead of being stuck always on the same track.

sethg Wrote:But what if you don't read anymore 刑事漫画 for a while. You really think you'll remember 捜査官 a year later?

捜査官? This is far to common an animal to use as an example, but I understand the point you are trying to make.

However, even thought it was an exaggeration, reading a word a thousand times will, mostly likely, guarantee you remember it for more than a few weeks. This is especially true for words that are composed of compounds or kanji you come across regularly. /facetious

And yet...

thistime Wrote:I personally can't think of anything more boring than reading the same thing over and over again 100s of times (no matter how interesting the material may be).

If you're reading something hundreds of times and not getting it, you're doing something wrong.

Quote:I've actually found that most materials will have the same words repeated quite often and usually enough for me to remember it naturally.

Then why was the information being repeated hundreds of times? o.0

Quote:Another thing that has taken a tremendous load off my back is feeling that learning Japanese is some sort of race. Going around like mad hunting down as many sentences to put into an SRS as possible to reach some magical number of cards as quickly as possible. It's all just too much. So, I just decided to stop worrying about when I would be fluent and just take it all step by step each day.

The real problem is not SRS but attitude, so it seems. I intentionally killed the 10000 card thing by downloading a deck that had 10000 cards. In my mind I was already fluent and merely did reviews to learn to what extent. Then I got bored with that.

I started using smartfm. My sole goal was to try to complete a 10 words lesson in under 8 minutes; 3 lessons per level, 3 levels at a time. Once I completed the core 2000 I simply did 50 reviews per day in Anki until the cards were mature, then I did 50 kanji production reviews. Then I tried sub2srsing a show. Goal was 30 cards per day. I got tired of deleting things like よかった and はい, so I started doing scriptorium. The goal was 1 昔話 per day. I kept mixing up scriptorium and subs2srs. Then I got bored with that.

Then I decided to give the core 6000 a go. I imported all the sound clips into anki and arranged the deck in alphabetical order. I then used a word list to learn 200 words, and then I supplemented that with anki. I played on the audio for the vocabulary word to see if I could recognize it by ear. Then the audio of the sentence. I then grade according to whether or not I understood the word. I got bored with that and then started playing the vocab audio and the sentence audio at the same time. I then set anki to fork out 50 new words a day in 10 minute sessions (100-150 reviews). I didn't get bored.

I decided to see how much I could take before reaching the burning point and set it 75 new words per day. 75 was hard to keep up with (300+ reviews per day). I set it to 100 for shits and giggles (me so burny). Now it's down to 25.

School doesn't start until Monday so I might take it back up to 50 and keep it there depending on the work load.

So, for me, SRSsing and learning Japanese isn't a race. It's simply setting goals and testing limits. I already know that I get bored easily, so I constantly look for ways to switch things up. I watch shows between review sessions, study other subjects, leave the house (sometimes), play games, talk to people, skype with people, eat food, take rests, rests are very important, and watch television in English as well.

Introduce variety, take rests/breaks, and experiment or you're going to get bored and burned. Being burned isn't really so bad if you still want to go on, but once you lose interest as well the ship has sunk.

burnout happens to me so often. So what i did was lessen the amount daily. Because if you have so many decks, and so many cards to do daily, it'll add up to so much reviews. I once had around 800 reviews from adding 100 per day. That seriously killed me. So boring to do. But i did do that 800 reviews done. But i decided i'll add 50 per day, and if my reviews get really high, i'll just review the old material(reviews). I have a kanji deck, another kanji deck, kanji production i.e. seeing the kanji then say the meaning(yea i know ppl say this maybe in-effective but it has been working). And i have a deck labelled 10,000 sentences AJATT. So far i'm at 5255 cards. and recently i made a deck labelled, kana-kanji. So i can get practise writing from memory. But if you're getting burned out too fast, i'd advise to lessen the load and enjoy what you're learning. I used to think so much cards and reviews would lead up to some good skills in a year or so. But in moderation daily will add up to some good things in the future.

kazelee Wrote:

thistime Wrote:I personally can't think of anything more boring than reading the same thing over and over again 100s of times (no matter how interesting the material may be).

If you're reading something hundreds of times and not getting it, you're doing something wrong.

I meant the word will pop up in your SRS over and over again, whether you get it right or wrong. But, maybe I'm just particularly allergic to doing the same thing over and over again so seeing the same sentence 10 times feels like 100.

thistime Wrote:I've actually found that most materials will have the same words repeated quite often and usually enough for me to remember it naturally.

kazelee Wrote:Then why was the information being repeated hundreds of times? o.0

I didn't say hundreds of times. I said quite often. If you read a book on a particular subject, they will tend to repeat pertitent words often.

thistime Wrote:I meant the word will pop up in your SRS over and over again, whether you get it right or wrong. But, maybe I'm just particularly allergic to doing the same thing over and over again so seeing the same sentence 10 times feels like 100.

May-be

Quote:I've actually found that most materials will have the same words repeated quite often and usually enough for me to remember it naturally.

kazelee Wrote:Then why was the information being repeated hundreds of times? o.0

I didn't say hundreds of times. I said quite often. If you read a book on a particular subject, they will tend to repeat pertitent words often.

Ah but you would then SRS these words and then they would appear 100s of times but really only ten or so which is just as bad. No? Perhaps I should have added another /facetious.

I realize you were just exaggerating but there's no need to play off the benefits of SRS because it's something you 'prefer' not do. If you take data from material you've actually covered, say a book or novel, and you SRS those words that are already pounded into your memory, you'll pretty much never forget them.

And, let's not forget that review of a language is necessary no matter who you are (just ask a polyglot). Unless you plan on living in Japan forever (and even still), some form of review system is necessary.

SRS is just making review a part of your daily life rather than a once-a-month-cram-a-thon. Just find a way to integrate it that suits you. Or not... But... why waste your own time?