Advice for structuring study to avoid burnout?

Bunpro
#1

I’ll try to make this post understandable and concise but I’m a bit of a rambler so sorry in advance.

Context: I have been studying Japanese for about 4 months now and I feel like I’ve made great strides. I enjoy it so much that it’s essentially downtime for me, so I’ve been able to do multiple hours a day almost every day.

Problem: I’m also a huge perfectionist and not only do I want to study Japanese, but get good at it. I know that there’s no right way to learn, but I’m still running into some struggles. I have two main problems:

  1. pitch accent. I know that the common wisdom is that pitch accent is something that you should only study later, but I do want to integrate it into my speaking now, so that I don’t have to go through the pain of mainlining it after I’ve already learned thousands and thousands of vocabulary words with no/incorrect pitch information. I want to be well-rounded and have relatively good speaking, listening, writing, and reading, so building a good foundation of pronunciation is important to me.

  2. Memory and usage. I don’t really know how to phrase this, but I suppose I’ve been studying basically out of a book/website (vocab WaniKani and some Anki, grammar Bunpro and Genki) since I started. I am in a Japanese class, but it’s a bit below my level (mid-Genki 1, and I’m studying mid-N4) and my classmates are not very motivated. I’ve joined a discord server and I chat with people from Japan, and I’m also in a Japanese conversation group weekly, which is full of very friendly and motivated people (both learners and natives) so that’s nice. But I find myself in conversation forgetting the more complex grammar and vocabulary that I’m learning from a book in favor of repeating the same basic phrases and struggling even when I should know how to say something. It’s frustrating.

I know that there’s an intermediate hump, and I definitely am becoming aware of how bad I am. So that’s definitely part of it. But mostly, with pitch accent review added on to my WK reviews, which requires me to switch websites and check for pitch accent and interrupt my studying, it inflates my studying time greatly and every time that I can’t remember a word or grammar point that I am supposed to know already in a situation where it would be useful, I find myself wondering if these inflated hours of study are even useful. I’m trying to follow the advice to actually use my Japanese and speak to people, but it feels like I’m not getting anywhere with it. Like I’m swimming against the tide of forgetting everything I’ve learned - and losing. And it really doesn’t help that everyone seems to have an opinion on how you should study, and says that all of the other methods are wrong and won’t get you there (especially the pitch-accent and immersion YouTubers shakes fist). Even though I know that something is better than nothing, I worry that I’m wasting my time.

I still enjoy studying Japanese at this point, but I can feel a sense of frustration building up and I’m worried that I’ll burn out if it keeps going on like this. My problem is that I don’t really know what to do or how to fix it. If I take a break it’ll only make this period of frustration longer and I’ll dread coming back to my studies, which makes me worry that I’ll give up entirely. But the way that I’m doing things now is just unsustainable. The idea of giving up on pitch accent doesn’t fix the second problem, and I would still dread the eventual day when I would have to face it and retread a lot of the work I’ve already done. Which would still burn me out. I don’t know how to get out of this plateau.

Anyway, thanks for reading. If anyone has any insight, advice, reccomended resources or exercises, or even just a word of sympathy, I would love to hear it. Even if it’s just 'i went through the same thing, you should just keep chipping away at it and you’ll get there eventually", I think that would do a lot to help with the sense of futility. Just one request, please don’t tell me to watch the same movie over and over again, I don’t think my soul could take it. Thank you.

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#2

it really doesn’t help that everyone seems to have an opinion on how you should study, and says that all of the other methods are wrong and won’t get you there

Yeah, i feel you. It seems like there’s a lot of pitfalls on every point of the language, that will inevitably waste a lot of your time. But there’s also lot’s of ways of doing it right, along hundreds of years, a lot of people learned. It depends pretty much on which type of person you are, your circumstances, learning tastes, endurance, patience and a bunch more. Keep your eyes on your objectives, adapt yourself, your methods and just do it.

Well, I don’t know how much value my opinions will have too you, since I’m a beginner on japanese as well (Brazilian). I also don’t know that much about Pitch Accent learning. So take everything with a grain of salt. Either way…

  1. (Pitch accent) I think it’s 1 more property of a word you are to memorize, but one that you can get anyway just by hearing other people talk, if you have attention, and do shadowing practices. So it’s a waste of mental resources, specially on a early stage.
  2. (Memory and usage) for me (in english), I started to get much better at it when I started to Think in the language, when I was by myself I often did and still switch the language I think in, and it improves output and memory speed a lot. It should be specially important in Japanese since it uses another order (SOV) instead of (SVO). Translating between them is very mentally consuming and slow.
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#3

This sounds like a tools issue - if you love and need WK to study then by all means keep using it but switching to Anki or JPDB would solve this problem as pitch info can be added/is automatically included on the cards. There are many ways to study kanji besides WK (some of which are clones of WK but as Anki decks, if you feel it is the only way). You say you are around mid-N4 so moving services at this point shouldn’t be a massive burden.

This is normal and means you just don’t know it as well as you might think you do. Recalling something during SRS reviews or de-coding a sentence (which is what is normally happening at N4 level) is not the same as understanding it automatically. If you cannot easily and automatically understand something without thinking then there is a very low chance you will be able to produce the same thing. At N4 level I would have to think what I wanted to say in English and then work out how to say it in Japanese - there is nothing wrong with that and it is to be expected at that level but you are probably expecting a bit too much of yourself here. Keep pushing and it will come.

This might sound harsh so I am hesitant to say it but this is probably just the end of the beginner enthusiasm, not the intermediate hump. That is something you can look forward to later… Right at the start everything seems exciting and your knowledge can literally double daily or weekly. Eventually that slows down (and it only gets slower as you get better) and it sounds like you are now entering that “main phase” of learning Japanese.

You should learn whatever you want and do it however you want but you are maybe seeing why people advise against learning it immediately as it adds a huge amount of workload at the start, a period when most people give up anyway. Keep memorising the intonation of words if you want but I would strongly recommend working on your ability to hear intonation using a test like the one on this website as you likely do not have to ability to correctly hear intonation. My personal view, based on my experience, is that if I am busy trying to understand what is being said or thinking about what I want to say then intonation is the absolute last thing I will be paying attention to. During very simple conversation I do actually try to use the correct intonation actively but it is because I am not thinking about what I am saying. When watching TV or whatever you can pay attention to it but you will probably realise you are missing what is actually being said. Basically, get lots of input and pay attention to intonation when you can and your accent will improve. Japanese people have the same issue with stress accent and advanced learners can get pretty smooth accents without actively studying this kind of stuff.

Essentially this - everyone experiences this. You have hit the place where most people quit or stagnate. Mostly when I meet tourists (who are learning Japanese) here (in Japan) this is the level they are at as it requires a few hundred hours of work, give or take one hundred. You are probably approaching the level where looking at native media is something worth doing. It will be mostly incomprehensible but it may inspire you to keep going. I also have high expectations of myself for learning Japanese but the reality is that you need to be humble and expect yourself to be like a baby or child for a reasonably long stretch of time before you are close to “good”, if you have high standards. Keep at it - I hope to see your actual intermediate hump post a year from now!

Edit, additional note on pitch accent: When you are having a conversation very often you will hear the same word you have said repeated by the person you are speaking to. Very often I will hear the difference in our intonation if I have said it incorrectly. This is probably the easiest way to pick up pitch accent, in my experience. I also live in Kansai so the intonation I hear and semi-use is different to the intonation that I have on my vocab cards. It is not a simple topic, hence why it causes so many debates online 笑

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#4

The more grammar you learn, the worse this gets! I’m on year 5, and knowing that you studied the thing you want to say, but can’t is so annoying!
For anti burnout, just get a sense for when you are repeatedly getting the same thing wrong, and then take a break. Figure out how much it takes to get to the point, and then target 80% of whatever that is, every day.
Pitch accent for me is nearly impossible to hear. But, after trying to just mirror Japanese speech I sort of got used to it. I’m sure I’m wrong a lot, but doing what feels right is a lot easier now.

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#5

There are a bunch of pitch accent resources/strategies/suggestions in the Usagi Chan Pronunciation Guide. Specifically, the Strategies for Acquiring Pitch Accent in Japanese video, talks about learning pitch accent as a beginner vs. advanced learner.

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#6

I don’t have a ton to add that others haven’t already said, but I did want to echo one thing in particular that @CursedKitsune mentioned above, which is that pitch accent will depend on which region you live in.

I also used to live in Kansai, and to this day am still told by my Tokyo friends that my pitch accent sounds like someone from Kansai.

If you enjoy pitch accent and it’s something that you enjoy doing, then by all means keep doing it! But if you are merely doing it out of perfectionism, then I think it’s important to be cognisant of the fact that even if you study standard pitch accent, you may end up living or visiting parts of Japan that pronounce things different, so it may not be as important an aspect to focus on right now especially when you could be putting in more time to build up your confidence in other areas, such as more complex grammar points.

Edit: Adding a satire video from two YouTubers who are known for teaching pitch accent for the 笑s

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#7

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to read and write a reply!

You say you are around mid-N4 so moving services at this point shouldn’t be a massive burden.

Yeah, you’re probably right. I’m hesitant just because I’ve already spent money on WK, but I guess that’s a sunk cost fallacy. I just like the amount of hand-holding it does. I hate research and self-structuring information.

This is normal and means you just don’t know it as well as you might think you do.

Excellent, thank you! You’re so right, I didn’t think about it like that before.

This might sound harsh so I am hesitant to say it but this is probably just the end of the beginner enthusiasm, not the intermediate hump. That is something you can look forward to later…

It’s not harsh, you’re absolutely right. Honestly, just knowing there’s a shared experience where I’m at helps a lot.

you likely do not have to ability to correctly hear intonation.

I appreciate the advice, but I am an experienced musician and I’m pretty confident :wink: Still, I’ll try the website you linked. Thanks!

You are probably approaching the level where looking at native media is something worth doing.

This is an excellent point. I already watch anime (<dumb weeb), would you recommend something more like a drama?

I also have high expectations of myself for learning Japanese but the reality is that you need to be humble and expect yourself to be like a baby or child for a reasonably long stretch of time before you are close to “good”, if you have high standards. Keep at it - I hope to see your actual intermediate hump post a year from now!

Thank you so, so much! Your post was very encouraging, especially this. Even just accepting that I’ll be bad for a while is really helpful. I appreciate it.

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#8

You can get pitch accent on Wanikani if you use the Wanikani Pitch Info userscript.

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#9

If you don’t mind posting later how well you do testing yourself on that site - I think doing 100 reviews (no replays) of the single-word pitch test is enough to roughly see ability. I am genuinely curious to see to what extent your musical training affects your ability. For English speakers, the main reason hearing intonation is hard is not related to the pitch itself but to hearing a “ghost” stress accent that isn’t actually present in the Japanese. Some people are much better at picking it up than others though.

Glad to be of help - I also went through a similar experience around a similar time so I understand how you’re feeling. The main difference between those who are fluent and those who aren’t is that the latter group gave up.

Edit:

This highly depends on your goals, tolerance, and tastes. My own goals when I was around N4 were focused on natural conversational Japanese so I used a show called Terrace House. If you love anime then by all means just keep watching anime. I would suggest getting into reading at a some point as it is basically a cheat code for kanji/vocab/grammar acquisition past the beginner level. Simple manga are normally how people begin to read native material - you’ll find many threads here and on other forums/sites that discuss reading suggestions. You can check out Lear Natively or JPDB to see difficulty ratings. Learn Natively is ranked by users and JPDB is ranked by some computer wizardry so both have their own issues.

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#10

Thank you once again for your advice! I took the test and here are my results.

Screenshot 2023-10-26 10.19.42 PM

So, you know, not perfect, but good enough to study from, I think. :-p

Edit: btw, I’ve heard of the ghost stress accent you mention! From what I can hear, it comes because the so-called “flat” tones have a slight fall, even to the point of being a tone lower by the end (plus it can be difficult with unvoiced consonants and the rising tone at the start). It’s about the relative interval size, though, so the 中高 words have a noticeable “cliff.” At least, that’s how it seems to me, but maybe you should take me and my 67% nakadaka recognition rate with a grain of salt, lol.

Edit 2: It also occurred to me that you might want to know my musical background/skill for reference. I sing in a bluegrass trio and know some limited piano. I was also in a choir for a few years. I do not have perfect pitch but I can match notes/intervals, and sing and transpose a melody if I hear it. I don’t learn my bluegrass parts by reading them, I just listen to them played on guitar and memorize them that way - so hearing pitch and mimicking pitch is pretty important.

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#11

Oh, this is excellent, thank you so much!!

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#12

Now, who went and got you all riled up about pitch accent?
English actually has something called ‘stressed and unstressed beats’, but I don’t remember taking a seminar on that.
I just wouldn’t worry about it so much. Hakuna matata.

When I get burnt out I switch my method of studying. Sometimes you have to give your study life a blast from your spice weasel!
image

You’re in it for the long haul, right? Try to have fun. Goodluck, man.

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#13

I actually am aware of English stress patterns and have taken a linguistic interest in it, so, yanno… I guess I have kind of taken a seminar on it! :’)

Jokes aside, I see your point, but pronunciation is still something I want to work on actively. But you’re right - maybe shaking things up is just what I need.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

#14

Yeah, very good for a beginner. Have a look at some of the guides that were posted elsewhere in the thread and you will see some good suggestions for where to go from here.

Pretty much exactly, yeah. It sounds stupid but accented words in Japanese have an…accent. The “ghost” stress that people hear is normally due to not being aware of pitch accent and occurs with words that would have a stress accent if they were an English word (try saying these words with a heavy English accent and compare with a native recording and you will probably notice what I mean: 学生、職員、待って、ツルツル). Devoicing can also make it hard to hear.

This is also how I used to play when I was in bands so I know what you mean. I have also seen people with musical talent be awful with pitch accent so I always wonder how they are connected, if at all.

I teach English in a Japanese high school and I do actually teach them about stress accent. Obviously perfecting it in class is a waste of time (for my classes, anyway) but being aware of it makes it much easier to pick up and also notice. Many Japanese people who learn English can’t recognise some words when they are in their weak form. This video demonstrates what I mean fairly well. Imagine the stereotypical bad accent that a Japanese person has when speaking English. That is probably how your accent sounds in Japanese, true of most learners anyway. Of course you can understand someone with a bad accent and of course accents generally get better over time but for native English speakers it seems to take around 15-20 years of living here to have a foreign accent that is almost totally gone. Having said that, I personally find the idea of drilling pitch accent and shadowing and corrected reading to be absolutely mind-numbing…

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#15

I don’t know if it has been mentioned but if you go to the wanikani forums, you can find information on how to go about installing and using userscripts. A tool like tampermonkey will be required and then there is a script called pitch info that displays the pitch pattern when learning and reviewing voabulary

Screenshot 2023-10-27 165331

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#16

I would be careful about going down the pitch accent rabbit hole at this phase. When I started studying many years ago, pitch accent wasn’t even part of the discussion, but it’s been given prominence by certain youtubers and developed and almost cult like following around it.

If you are the perfectionist type, I guess theres nothing you can really do about that, but the fact that you’re already having conversations with Japanese people goes to show that you’re not really a pure perfectionist, and that’s actually a very good thing. It goes to show that you’re willing to make mistakes and be corrected.

Overall, whenever I said a word with the incorrect pitch accent, it was for the most part inconsequential. There was context, explanations and clues given to convey what I was trying to say. Personally, I get a lot more out of listening and repeating sentences I hear in the media I consume and try to match it as much as possible.

For burnout, just keep things fresh. Sometimes getting away from it for a couple days isn’t going to hurt you in the long run. I nearly burnt out when I was studying abroad in Tokyo, but that’s because I was constantly surrounded by the language. It got so bad I straight up read through most of an English language novel while I was there. I’ve met too many students that wanted to speed run Japanese and get fluent in a year only to burn out months later. If you feel you need to take a step back, take a step back, Japanese will always be there. Your mental health though, that’s another can of worms.

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#17

Don’t think of learning pitch accent later on as having to redo everything you’ve learned. It’ll be more like a review, which is good for learning. Honestly though, if you’re regularly listening to the language, either via media or directly speaking with native Japanese speakers, you’re probably going to naturally acquire the pitch accent (this is the same for any accent in any language; for example, I studied German in school and picked up a Bavarian accent due to speaking it with a friend from there, to my professor’s confusion). So, I wouldn’t focus on that for now, as you might not even have to formally study it to acquire it.

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#18

Slow down / Calm down / Chill out

Learning a language is a marathon.

You’re going through the new learner ‘sprint start’ feeling, ‘if I run quicker, I’ll get to the end sooner’.

It just doesn’t work like that.

Repeat, repeat, repeat. Plod plod plod, one foot in front of another. Head down, find a steady pace you’re comfortable with, keep doing that.

There isn’t a perfect method, there’s only your method. A perfectly effective method that shaves 6 hours off of a 5 year journey at the risk of burning out / getting bored… it doesn’t make sense.

Keep going, do what you enjoy, don’t worry, if you keep running, no matter how windy the course, you’ll make progress.

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#19

Whilst I do agree that learning pitch accent is probably best suited to intermediate learners and beyond, I disagree that it will come naturally through contact with the language. Learners of foreign languages will absolutely tend in the right direction through proper engagement with their target language, but the efficacy of it is heavily dependent on the learners native language.

For native English speakers, we don’t do pitch accent, certain rules aren’t very intuitive, Japanese vowels and consonants are frequently placed differently than the approximations a foreign speaker would make (take う for example, pronounced /ɯ/, compared to the English /uː/, and the French /y/.) A native English speaker learning Japanese could easily arrive at working proficiency with a very heavy accent if they never paid any attention to Japanese phonetics.

Anyways, sorry to go off on a long tangent haha, but I think it’s important to be concise when talking about the subject of pronunciation - many people are working on being understood and being ‘good enough’ and intuition definitely works for that. But for those who are aiming for a fluid, natural pronunciation, I believe the study of Japanese phonetics (namely, pitch accent for what the OP mentioned) is incredibly important.

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