I have had a break from learning Japanese and other languages which has been my passion for ten years to learn chess, mainly to give myself a hobby that won't get me arrested or killed.
I was surprised how low my level dropped after about a month or two of no study of Japanese and am upping my anki reps and immersion hours.
How do long layoffs effect other people's proficiency at Japanese or other languages?
I sometimes take 2-3 weeks breaks due to real life kicking in (out of town, Easter, exam season, whatnot) and it can take me a month till I get back on my feet with my Japanese. Like vix says, it's much easier to relearn than to learn from scratch though, but it's always frustrating.
Also this one time i spent a while not talking to anyone in English, and when i started talking my accent was off and I had a hard time finding some words. This happened in ~a year I got back on my feet by the end of the week, but it was still very surprising. Can't say I've studied English in years though, so not really the same thing. I totally mess up my native language when I've been traveling and not using it for a couple of weeks as well.
Ampharos64
Member
From: England
Registered: 2008-12-09
Posts: 166
Pretty badly for me, I forgot what I'd learned, basically. >_< That's after about two years break from studying consistently, after over a year of studying. Some of it was easier to relearn, but much less came back than I thought it would. So I now consider myself to have been studying Japanese for *checks* three months, rather than thinking of it as having been learning for over a year. I think it'd be better for someone who'd had a higher level of Japanese, but still don't recommend long breaks. Any (other) beginners reading, at least make sure you keep up with SRS reps, or go over chapters in a textbook often, if you have to take a break from studying and learning more Japanese, to maintain what you have. It was definitely my worst mistake, especially losing my RTK knowledge.
Last edited by Ampharos64 (2012 September 24, 2:29 am)
Chiller
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2009-04-01
Posts: 12
I returned to Japanese after a 25 year break, and it took over a year to get back to where I had been. I don't recommend leaving it this long, as it was like starting again. It has been interesting, though, to see what had stuck in the recesses of my mind and what had not. (kanji readings came back well for some reason). And sometimes, something pops into my head out of seemingly nowhere.
Quufer
Member
Registered: 2012-02-07
Posts: 25
I've been studying for about 18 months now, and don't think I've ever missed more than a day, for the reasons described above. I'm sure you can find material on chess in Japanese that would kill two birds with one stone. When I took my first trip to Japan last December, I bought four books on 囲碁 in Japanese, just as incentive for myself to keep going. I figure that eventually I can practice reading Japanese, and learning about the game, at the same time.
warrigal
Member
Registered: 2012-05-07
Posts: 61
Like Chiller, I'm back after a long break - in my case, 30 years. I learnt so little of the language in junior high and learnt that little so superficially that there was never any hope of establishing the long tap roots we're putting down here through SRS.
But the basic structure still lingers and it doesn't feel like *complete* atrophy, though it's so near to it as makes no never-mind.
Watching this thread with interest.
Last edited by warrigal (2012 September 24, 6:06 am)
qwertyytrewq
Member
From: Gall Bladder
Registered: 2011-10-18
Posts: 529
HonyakuJoshua wrote:
I am giving an honest appraisal of myself as a human being. Due to poverty and mistreatment as a child I was involved in criminality as a child and realise the risks of being killed, arrested and gang raped and have been threatened with all three (mostly gang rape) and want to encourage people to move away from that life style mainly by joining clubs and volunteering and such the like.
Can we make a deal?
I (or the admin) give you the privilege of making a new thread on the Off-Topic Koohii Lounge. In that thread, you can let it all out, telling us your life story, giving an honest and complete appraisal of yourself and how you went from almost being gang-raped to being an enthusiastic scholar of the Japanese language and finally how you ended up on this forum. I'm sure you have interesting stories to tell while we wait for nest0r to return.
In return, from now on, in any Japanese language related thread you post in in the future, you refrain from making references to violence, killing, rape, unlawful behavior, incarceration and anything of that sort, unless context dictates it to be appropriate. For example, talking about effective fighting strategies in the Martial Arts thread is context appropriate. However, an off-the-cuff throwaway comment about how your girlfriend or ex-girlfriend almost incited you into killing her in a random Japanese-language help thread, is context inappropriate.
How's that sound?
Ampharos64
Member
From: England
Registered: 2008-12-09
Posts: 166
SammyB wrote:
Does anyone else start rolling their eyes when they read this kind of comment again and again?
I actually didn't notice this time, but yeah, it's a little... And the explanation didn't really help. It feels especially odd for me because I must live reasonably close to him. I think keeping it context appropriate would be best.
HonyakuJoshua wrote:
Offshoot topic a linguistics professor pal tells me that grammar sticks in the mind longer than vocab - is that true for most of us?
That's interesting, I guess it would make sense since grammar is more of a framework. I think it might depend at the point the person was at, though, I don't think I forgot many words at all, but totally forgot some grammatical structures - ie. changing adjectives into adverbs, I know I must have covered it before but hadn't even remembered that you could do that. Then again, I feel like I covered a lot of grammar but didn't fully understand it, I understand it better now and feel like this time it will stick better.
What I really forgot was kanji, and nearly all katakana. >_<
