I think unless you're totally obsessed about language learning for its own sake, you need a more concrete reason for learning. eg. being able to watch/read Japanese media, communicate with Japanese girlfriend, escape homeland to live in Japan, etc.

Otherwise I don't know how I would have made it through the tough, boring stages.

I've wanted to learn Japanese since I was in middle school and borrowed a VHS tape of raw アニメ, including 科学忍者隊ガッチャマン。 I've started studying before in the past, but for some reason, this time it's stuck with a vengeance, and I plowed through until I could begin having halfway decent conversations with my Japanese friends and could read (with assistance) news articles and novels. Since hitting that point, it's become more self-sustaining. It's almost at the point where I'd have to change a significant number of habits in order to *stop* studying Japanese - e.g., stop reading and posting on Japanese Web sites, and break off contact with my growing international circle of friends.

If your studies are flagging, try mixing it up (e.g., dump your Anki deck in favor of reading, start making more Japanese friends, go to Tokyo, etc.).  Also, remind yourself that it takes a looooong time before language studies pay off and it really starts becoming fun.

If all that fails, move on to something else for a while. No shame in that. I think it's fine to cycle through a number of interests. Eventually you'll find something that you don't want to put down.

First of all, no one is supposed to be "into" any given video game indefinitely. Everyone's mileage varies, but all games are designed to be interesting for a finite amount of time. For one, there's a finite amount of things to do in a game, and for another, it keeps us buying new games.

Anyway, you need a combination of long- and short-term goals to succeed, and goals that, as RawToast said, are achievable. I've been studying for a while now and Jdramas/anime that appeal to me are frequently still too hard for my listening comprehension level. Maybe I'm a slow learner, but I often find that discouraging. If that's all I had, I'd probably have given up by now. I still use those occasionally because it's good for me, but I have longer term goals as well. My biggest one is admittedly ambiguous, but I simply want to be able to communicate with Japanese people and (hopefully) use that in a career someday (in addition to being able to read/watch Japanese comfortably). I'm married (to an American), so a Japanese girlfriend is off the table for me , but I'm stubborn enough that I'm finally determined to achieve this long-held goal (10+ years now...ugh).

You need to figure out why you want this, and set a variety of (achievable) goals to help you along the way (the JLPT is a good one, but tests are more motivating for some people than others).

Socky wrote:

But either way I want to know how to keep my interest for a very long time- not just months, but years. As long as it takes me to be fluent in Japanese, and even beyond that.

I know how you feel, this happens to me a lot as well. In my opinion, there's no way to completely avoid feeling unmotivated.

You have set yourself a high goal: being fluent in Japanese "and even beyond that". So you know what I'm thinking: you're not the kind of person who's satisfied with doing "okay", you want to nail it! The thing is:

Before you get there, as you know, many years will be necessary. During this time, you will suck. You're basically going to be a total loser from a Japanese-language point of view. Plus, the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know much. This is in contradiction with the "ideal" image of what you had in mind when first starting learning (something like: you being praised by everyone for your skills, you reading novels with perfect understanding, you going in Japan and living like a native). Ideally you'd enjoy "the path" of language learning, but for those times when you don't, here are a couple of ideas to keep yourself going:

- Work every day, with absolutely no exception: days when you're the less motivated are the most dangerous to skip.
- Don't study too much when you feel motivated: it's the old ice cream analogy... if you start eating ice cream after every meal, you'll end up hating it. It's always better in the long term to stop when you'd rather continue: it keeps you motivated for the following day.
- Track your progress using numbers: count the words/kanjis you know. Think about it this way: there's a finite number of words in Japanese. More realistically, there's a finite number of words Japanese people know (say, 40,000) If you learn 10 words/day, it could take 11 years to reach that goal - but you'll eventually get there.
- Don't feel bad for spending more time looking for learning resources, enjoying Japanese entertainment, etc. It's not really helping your learning as much as actively studying, but it increases your motivation and it's just as useful in the end.
- Everyone will expect you to fail at this. Show them wrong!

Think of something tricky as a motivation that just won't fade away, ever. For me I had many reasons to learn Japanese, and they come and go, but recently I almost lost all the interest in Japanese that would make me study it except for the fact that I really really want to communicate and connect with other societies and cultures, maybe other languages can do, but Japan is unique which make things more enjoyable.

Try to remind yourself why you learn Japanese everyday. And keep a record of things that you read or watched which gave you more motivation, even if on short term, so that you can read or watch them later when you lose motivation!

Good luck.

Edit: about your friends, why bother telling them?

Last edited by undead_saif (2013 June 14, 4:52 pm)

undead_saif wrote:

Think of something tricky as a motivation that just won't fade away, ever. For me I had many reasons to learn Japanese, and they come and go, but recently I almost lost all the interest in Japanese that would make me study it except for the fact that I really really want to communicate and connect with other societies and cultures, maybe other languages can do, but Japan is unique which make things more enjoyable.

Try to remind yourself why you learn Japanese everyday. And keep a record of things that you read or watched which gave you more motivation, even if on short term, so that you can read or watch them later when you lose motivation!

Good luck.

Edit: about your friends, why bother telling them?

My reasons for learning are:
1) I want to go to Japan, and if not live there, spend a few years there when I get older.
2) I am interested by Japanese culture, modern and ancient (though I still have much to learn about that).
3) I enjoy studying language, especially things like Kanji because it feels super cool to be able to understand things that many others could make no sense out of.
4) I want to understand anime, read manga, listen to Japanese music, and read Japanese writings without a translation or subtitles. Also, subtitles are often altered and it doesn't feel like your getting the true meaning of the words sometimes.

But sometimes I feel like these reasons aren't strong enough. When my motivation begins to fade (which I know someday it will, it's basically inevitable. There are always rises and falls in motivation) will these reasons be enough to bring it back up? Or will I no longer have a fascination in Japan or anime or whatever and eventually just stop?

However, I love anime either way (my favorite movie, even before I was into anime itself, is Miyazaki's "Spirited Away"- such a good movie), and the good thing is that I know even if I may kind of stop watching it for a while, I can't see myself not liking it. Don't take me for an otaku though, I'm not obsessed with anime. Haven't even seen that many. I just like it, and always will enjoy it not as an obsession but just as something that I like. And will forever.

As for why I told my friends, I have a few reasons.

1- They motivate me.
2- Many of them share my interests in Japanese.
3- I wanted somebody to study with me to maybe help me become motivated again if I ever stop or something. If there's somebody else doing it with me, I feel it's another reason to keep going. (I know you guys are basically studying with me as well in these entire forums, but it's more solid with a personal friend )

I'm not sure that this is the best strategy, but hey, yah never know until you try, right?

Haych wrote:

You are somewhat new around here Socky and I don't know how far you have gotten, but I just gotta say.. I think if you managed to make it through RTK1, you sort of owe it to yourself to keep going at least until you have managed to reach a decent level of reading comprehension.
I mean, at that point, you at least have something to show for your efforts and can decide if you want to keep going. RTK1 and a lot of your initial efforts are part of that huge initial investment of time you need to put in in the beginning before you start seeing results with this language. Its never going to be very gratifying until you get over that hump. No one loves the vocab/kanji grind, but you stick with it because you've got a goal in mind. Once you get that reading comprehension down, I think you might find your motivation problem took care of itself.
If it doesn't, I'd say just stop adding new cards, and focus on maintaining what you have. Essentially, go into 'hibernation' until your motivation comes back. I guess you could just give up entirely, but I don't really believe in that. You should try to maintain what you have accomplished, because whatever feeling brought you here is just in remission and probably it will eventually come back.

I haven't nearly finished RTK1 (just got to my 300th frame yesterday) and I have a long way to go, but I don't mind. It's pretty fun, anyway (though apparently it will just start getting hard after 300).

I'm afraid of a "hibernation" because I think if I stop, I won't start again, regardless of my goals. But I do believe finishing RTK1 would make it harder to quit, after I'd spent all that time and learned 2-3K kanji. I'd have come too far to quit, I think. Besides, after that, I could start reading and writing things, and begin some real speech. I haven't studied much grammar or anything, and don't plan on it until I finish learning the kanji.

Also, just as a separate question, should I learn to read/write all the kanji at the same time as I learn how to say them (I don't mean the On and Kun, just the ACTUAL word) or should I learn how they're all written and after that, as I learn how to speak and stuff, learn their spoken form? Or maybe neither? Please tell me how to go about this process, I want to make sure I'm doing the right (or maybe not RIGHT, but SMART) thing.

The question is, what is "interest", and what is it good for?

Normally, a person should be interested in the things that help better his life, and achieve his highest goals. His "interests" should be, by definition, the things that make him happy and accomplished. That is genuine interest, that originates with the (thinking, rational) person who's interest it is. There is also fake interest, that either copies another person's interests to please them, or is taken up to make oneself look smarter, cooler etc to other people, or worse, just chosen capriciously.

I believe that life should not be what happens to happen to you. Life should be what you make happen for yourself. I also believe there are much better ways to phrase this thought than what I just did with it, but I can't think of any right now, so this will have to do.

If you choose your interests with that general principle in mind (carefully considering what your personal goals should be, and how to achieve them), rather than capriciously, at random, or based on what other people say and think, I assure you that they won't fizzle out. Instead, your interest in what you are doing will grow as you see yourself progressing towards your goals. I don't know if you'll have the discipline to act on your interest and make it an efficient process, but the interest will be there. (in the case of language learning, there are many ways to do it: you can study hard, or you can learn it by mostly reading manga and watching TV - the latter requires little discipline, but takes many more years, especially in the case of the Japanese writing system; but you can always learn the spoken language first, worry about writing later)

Clearly, choosing a video game as a central interest of your life (even for a month's time) is wrong. I'm not saying that playing video games, for relaxation, or as a social activity, is wrong, mind you. I'm saying that choosing a video game as a goal and a personal interest that consumes your life (like those people who quit their jobs to play Everquest or something like that all day) is wrong.

Choosing Japanese, on the other hand, might be right or wrong, depending on who you are and what your goals are (and depending on how much you spend on it and what else you sacrifice for it). If it's the right choice (if your interest is well thought through, and genuine, and if you can afford to spend the time it takes to do this), then you'll be able to maintain it. On the other hand, if you just decided to learn Japanese out of the blue, with very little consideration, you should think things through a little more.

Last edited by Stansfield123 (2013 June 16, 9:31 am)

Socky wrote:

either way I want to know how to keep my interest for a very long time- not just months, but years. As long as it takes me to be fluent in Japanese, and even beyond that.

Find your motivation.  Whatever pushed you in to the realm of learning japanese hold on to that and use it to your advantage.  Say you like anime, does it not excite you when you see kanji you recognize, or you hear words you might understand? Keep it in mind there will be a day when you hit the top, and be where you want to be. 

I just hit the 3/4 mark in RTK yesterday and it feels great hitting new milestones. Back when I was at 500 in I was thinking about quitting and I reminded myself that I got my self in to this. This is what I want to do, how can I turn back on even just a months worth of work? Even something as simple as finishing RTK can not be in vain.  Remember how far you came. 

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.

Probably a reiteration of what most people have already said, but just keep changing what you study as your likes and dislikes change. Don't keep doing something you aren't enjoying. I really love Jdramas but for this past drama season I haven't watched any of them. None of the dramas struck me as something I'd like. For that reason I'm just focusing on daily reading. Maybe in a few weeks things will change but for now this is how I'm studying. Don't force yourself to do things. That's also the reason I haven't watched variety shows in several months. I need a break from that style of thing but I'm sure I'll be back.

It's kind of like listening to music. You get a new album and you listen to it for a week straight. Then the next week you are looking for songs to listen to and immediately skip past songs that were, up until last week, your 'favorite'. Switch it up often. I'll also agree with other people that say keep a routine. Yes I'm suggesting to change your method of Japanese study often, but never forget to routinely study regardless of the method.

Socky wrote:

So a lot of times, I get a new hobby. And I start getting really into it. And I put lots of time and effort into it. And then I stop.

You can do this by not treating Japanese as a hobby, but as a means of doing new things. You can play video games in Japanese then get tired of them and then move onto watching anime in Japanese. You'll get tired of that and then move onto reading books, music, etc. in Japanese. After awhile you may get tired of all of those forms of entertainment and just decide to just talk to Japanese people and (if you have the opportunity) you can just hang out and stuff all day with them. You can live your entire day in Japanese if you wish to do so.