sethg
Member
From: m
Registered: 2008-11-07
Posts: 505
So, first, a little background:
August 2008 - Lightly start learning Japanese
September 2008 - Begin Japanese classes in college
November 2008 - Friend introduces me with AJATT, which introduced me to RtK and this site.
Spring 2009 - Got through RtK using this site
September 2009 - Started using Anki with sentences
October 2010 - Came to Japan to study
March 2011 - Forced to return to America by university due to radiation fears
July 2012 - Return to Japanese for a teaching job
December 2012 - Took the JLPT for the first time (N1) and passed
So, I've been studying Japanese for 4-5ish years and I've always followed the AJATT philosophy. I've been SRSing since September 2009 (almost 4 years).
My Japanese is decent. I can understand almost any situation I am thrown into (banking, taxes, medical, etc.), though I sometimes can't respond in a natural way. I have achieved my original goal in that I can enjoy Japanese movies and TV shows and manga without translations.
Now, the issue:
I am so sick of SRSing. I have done it almost every day since 2009 and I'm just tired of it. I know it is amazing and I credit Anki with all the high-level vocabulary that I have managed to stuff into my brain. At this point, though, I am seriously thinking about "graduating" from the SRS.
I've tried, as Khatzumoto from AJATT suggests, deleting cards. It's not a matter of the card content this time, though. The process itself just feels so tired and worn-out to me.
From this point on, I am thinking of just continuing to enjoy media, like I do in English and try to absorb from now on. I feel like, if I can take the energy I was using to SRS and push it into pure media consumption, I will better be able to keep my motivation and progress.
Part of the reason I've gotten sick of this is, I think, connected to an overall drop in motivation. Since coming to teach English in Japan, I have few opportunities to use Japanese. Sure, I order at restaurants and in the back office I speak with my co-workers a bit... but honestly, I don't care to speak to most of my co-workers and the ones I'd like to talk to insist on speaking English. I talk to my girlfriend in Japanese quite a bit, but aside from talking about 就活, we rarely breach topics that challenge my abilities.
The reason I'm making this post isn't to whine or shoot down the value of the SRS or anything like that. I'm just curious: is there anyone out there who has had a similar experience? How have you proceeded? In my personal life, I know very few foreigners more skilled in Japanese than I am. On TV or in media, I look up to people like Robert Campbell (who is, without a doubt, the most native-like speaker of Japanese among anyone who started learning Japanese after reaching adulthood). I would like some advice from any 先輩 who might be out there.
よろしくお願いします。
erlog
Member
From: Japan
Registered: 2007-01-25
Posts: 633
I'm about the same level as you, and I had a similar experience with SRS at one point. The thing is that the reasons for doing SRS change a lot as your level becomes higher. If understanding written and spoken material is usually not much of a problem then those decks where you're just practicing understanding become a chore. The cards I was failing were ones with super rare archaic words or just a dumb things like mixing up the pronunciation of words that use 大. It felt like I was spinning my wheels.
At that point, I started studying for Kanji Kentei with an almost singular focus on production. They're the standard Kanji Kentei writing problems where a bit of the sentence is written in katakana, and you have to write the kanji. I even flipped all the usual reading questions so that they were production instead of simple understanding/pronunciation.
Studying suddenly felt gratifying and interesting again. I've been going strong on that for a little more than a year, and doing that kind of practice has improved my off-the-cuff kanji ability AND my listening by quite a lot. I still fail cards if I can't understand them or I botch the pronunciation in another part of the sentence, but adding that extra layer to my studying has helped me maintain interest.
So I think that instead of just quitting SRS you should pick new goals that SRS might be able to help you achieve. How's your keigo? Maybe SRS'ing that would improve your skills in that area, and be interesting again? How's your ability to read names? As a teacher you probably have access to class lists you might be able to SRS first and last names from.
It's tough to know what to do after you've reached goals you've spent years working toward. You have to set new goals in order to continue getting better, and I think SRS can help you reach them.
Last edited by erlog (2013 April 01, 2:56 am)
Stansfield123
Member
From: Europe
Registered: 2011-04-17
Posts: 799
Quitting is bad. Not objectively speaking (objectively, quitting can be good or bad, it all depends on context), but psychologically. And psychology is what drives us. For instance, you are not quitting because you've objectively established that it's a good idea, you're quitting because you're sick of SRS-ing (you're quitting for psychological reasons).
Instead of quitting, you should address the problem: change your study methods; replace SRS-ing with something more interesting. I don't think just "absorbing media" is an adequate replacement for SRS-ing. You should consider adding something more (be it reading; writing!!! -like keeping a regular blog; practicing pronunciation). And, this time, don't make it open ended, set a goal. That way, when you reach that goal, you will have finished the job, not quit.
"Don't quit, change" sounds a little like spin (an empty slogan), but it isn't. Human psychology is a real thing. Motivations are real things. They should be taken into consideration. In general, it's important to make one's life and work always move forward, in a linear progression, rather than a roller coaster ride of constant starts and surrenders.
Last edited by Stansfield123 (2013 April 01, 5:54 am)
