HannahEU's journey from barely aware to fluent: learning Japanese in 田舎 Japan!

Japanese
#21

My review motivation is still not great but I’ve been watching so many Japanese YouTube videos lately. I’ll write down words that stand out and in general just enjoy the discussion. Usually it’s with Japanese subtitles so I can reference those when I can’t quite hear certain things they say. It’s interesting how I can sometimes understand it better when I see it written down than when it’s spoken, which does make me worry about the dependency on written language. But sometimes it’s nice catching myself thinking reading the written Japanese is “cheating” when it’s still just Japanese.

I had lunch today with the ladies at the BoE and we talked about a number of things. I learned the word 恋バナ (girls talk/ talking about one’s love interests) and it was funny to hear the older women and men nearby in the office comment on hearing classic conversations young women have.
Towards the end of lunch they were commenting on how much my understanding has gone up since I arrived which always is followed with “how long have you been here now?” which made me realize it’s been exactly 8 months to the day since I arrived in Japan!
I showed them my notebooks I use to study and they started staying “天才” It was really cute and sweet. But there was a part of me that, once I sat with it for a little bit, kinda didn’t like. Part of it was my own impatience and perfectionism to be better already. To be able to communicate better. The other part of it was that I am working my butt off. I am doing my best to understand and communicate. So I don’t necessarily want it to be chalked up to being a genius when it’s definitely not coming naturally but from working hard. I think I would be in a very different situation if I wasn’t going everything I do now.

#22

That’s how I take the 日本語上手 so many people get irritated with. I think it is lovely to make such compliments even if they are obviously not too sincere. You might not be such a genius but they just pushed the compliment a little further just to lift you up, it is really trivial just take it for what it is, a little push in the right direction, don’t let your self judgment reverse it :slight_smile:

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#23

A co-worker of mine told me about a sports gathering in town about 2 weeks ago that I had forgotten about entirely. Her husband, who ran the youth learning center where I had my English club, reminded me of it and asked if I’d like to join. So I went yesterday! I had never heard of the sport, and it seemed like they had a hard time explaining what it was, but after googling it, it looks like a Hokkaido sport? It’s essentially tennis mixed with ping-pong. It uses a tennis court, a wooden paddle with holes, and a sponge ball. I have never played tennis or badminton, so I was really starting from scratch. Everyone did their best to help me and talk with me. I learned 夫婦 (ふうふ) while I was there. Looking back, they explained it with so many words that they completely lost me. They kept pointing to other people, and eventually, I just didn’t know what they were making the connection with anymore lol. I knew they meant some sort of relation, but it was just a little overcomplicated. But because I kept running in circles and trying to wrap my head around what was being said, I won’t forget that word any time soon lol. It’s nice to know the word for “married couple.”
Also, looking on jisho.org, it’s interesting to see that you can make the distinction of what kind of married couple it is based on the kanji you use. “夫婦” for man and woman married couple, “夫夫” for male married couple, and “婦婦” for female married couple. I’ll have to confirm that with a friend, though.

@stephane I agree with you on the 日本語上手 statement. That doesn’t bother me at all. But with 天才, that was the first time I had felt that irritation. Feeling like that was after, so I am happy with my initial appreciation of it. Thanks for the little reminder that they are just encouraging me and are happy that I am learning their language so much.

1 Like
#24

This week, I was finally able to lock in on things that needed to get done this week! :muscle:t2:

  • I got back on Wanikani, cleared out my reviews, and, after who knows how long, did a new lesson.

  • After having 200+ reviews consistently for weeks, with no end in sight, I finally cleared it to zero!
    (I know for next time that I am learning enough per day. I can’t handle more reviews than the 20 new words and few grammar points per day. That was a mistake for me lol.)

  • Unrelated to Japanese studies but more like life and life in Japan: I did my taxes on my own for my first year in Japan!
    I have always used a service to do my taxes, so I’m feeling pretty capable and adult :relieved:

2 Likes
#25

This exact same thing happened to me the other day! a policeman came to my apartment complex to do a census for keeping track of people during emergencies. I heard him say じしん and my mind instantly went to self confidence lol

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#26

I have seen this in a VN being done very deliberately, with another character picking up that she did not say 夫婦. It probably isn’t a term many people will be familiar with in speech.

I actually can’t find it in any J-J dictionaries either, but if you put it in quotation marks in search engines you can find a bunch of blogs and articles written for that demography using both 婦婦 and 夫夫. I did find 夫夫 in weblio though, just not 婦婦.
Anyways, I don’t think there is any Japanese person who will not intuively understand what it means written.

#27

haha I’m so glad I’m not the only one!

#28

I’m back at work at my schools, so my schedule has been busy busy. Luckily, because I cleared my review queue at least once, I’ve been able to handle WaniKani and Bunpro reviews pretty well.
I also got an extension for WaniKani to help my experience over there AND to keep track of the reviews I do to add them to the walking journey.

I’ve noticed that when I talk to myself in Japanese, it feels more natural, not as stinted and short. It’s at least somewhat better. Speaking is still the most frustrating and necessary part of learning the language for me, though.
I’ve been doing a lot of extra activities lately where I spend a lot of time with Japanese people, and it’s both fun and challenging.
I definitely feel the swing between feeling pretty competent and not. But I know I can’t stop. The only option is to keep learning and practicing until it starts flowing naturally.

#29

I had a good social day this weekend! I went to yakitori :meat_on_bone: with some tenipon teammates and was initially worried about how well I’d survive with my Japanese, and it was a lot better than I thought it would be. We even got a bit into social issues in Japan, and I was surviving well enough!
I do have to say the power of alcohol to release my inhibitions was very helpful here. :wine_glass: I was more willing just to say something and hope for the best, rather than normally, where I’m thinking too hard, trying to say it correctly.
I also think this group of people does a good job of catching when I don’t know a word and explaining it in other ways I can understand.

I’ve recently been doing more shadowing practice with YouTube videos. It’s been a great way to see which words or grammar points I trip over or struggle with. I also get controlled practice working out my Japanese speaking muscles! :tongue:

I think a switch has been flipped recently, and I’ve been talking to myself more in Japanese, and even just thinking in it as well. :brain: It’s nothing complex, but for the simple things at least. It definitely gives me the impression that the language is settling in more. :tada:

5 Likes
#30

Burnout hit, then Golden Week gave me the break I needed, so not a whole lot was going on since my last update.
I’ve been growing frustrated that I can’t communicate how I want to and haven’t for a long time. It’s hard not being able to express myself how I want to. It makes having deep relationships with anyone all the harder to do so loneliness was kicking my butt.
I’ve been anxious about getting into conversations I can’t keep up with, which would feed into the frustration, too.
“What if I don’t know how to respond?”
“What if they talk about something I don’t even know how to engage in?”
“What if they give up on the conversation altogether?”
“What if I sound like an idiot/a child?”

These kinds of worries have been circling my mind. Some got worse when I was in a group of people talking about green cards and immigration on a day I already had a low social battery. I could not engage at all and just sat there. Eventually, I had the hardest time focusing on even the smallest bit of what anyone was talking about.

But I’m feeling a bit better and am slowly getting back into the routine of things and figuring out how to give myself proper breaks!

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#31

I understand your pain and its something we all go through.
Seeing your current struggles, this is something I’ve gone through with as well with the ups and downs. For me, my main breakthrough as a non-native speaker, was to realize that as a non-native speaker that I will never sound native. The reality is that unless you grew up in JP with the idioms and cultural aspects of your generation, we will never fully fit in.
The barrier that I broke and accepted; was that I will never be a native level communicator.
Once you break it and take joy in every conversation (the good and the bad, and learn from every experience、だんだんだんだん), your headspace will be better.
This is probably not what you want to hear, but its a significant reality for the majority of learners.
Best wishes on your learning journey

#32

Thank you for your comment! It’s great to hear how other people got through their struggles. I know that, at least where I’m at now, I won’t sound anywhere near native. I think it’s unrealistic to think that I’ll be able to handle the language like that so quickly while still learning the language. My focus should be on just using it and settling into it. Perfectionism does slow people down from progressing, since the desire is not to fail, but you have to to learn and grow.

#33

Okay! It’s been a loooong while since my last update. My progression has slowed significantly. I got stuck on reviews and trying to bring them down so I could do lessons again without drowning in reviews.
I also had a lot of things happening in life in general that prevented me from really focusing on my studies. I’m back to desk warming, but the motivation has been low still. The heat is really not helping have energy for anything really. I haven’t really found a way around it but I’ve changed my study course.
I am going to continue on with my lessons because I find that a lot of the words it teaches me are ones I already know. Yesterdays lesson had 10 new words and only 3 of them i didn’t know. I’d rather progress on my lessons and get the information I already know out of the way.

If anyone has any advice on any of this I’m open to hear it! Also any ideas for practicing output? I’ve been frustrated by that lately since my opportunities to use it in conversations has gone down. So it feels like a weak point.

3 Likes
#34

Output progress is super frustrating to really feel good about, in my opinion. Recently, I’ve tried having days/periods where I absolutely refuse to allow myself to use English unless its in a situation I’m required to. If I get stuck, I force myself to explain what I’m trying to say as best I can. Sometimes quite embarrassingly badly, admittedly. But I think I grow a lot from embarrassing myself like that in conversations.

On days where I’m not able to hangout with friends and practice, I actually resort to hopping on VRChat and join a JP world and force myself to chat. I want to avoid having any days where I don’t have a real conversation with someone in Japanese, so VRChat has been my output backup plan for a while now.

But I’ve noticed insane improvements from forcing myself to commit to meaningful output every day. I’ve just always felt frustrated with output, since its naturally always a fair bit behind my input comprehension. Probably important to step back and give ourselves props for our milestones more regularly, language acquisition is hard.

頑張ってね！

#35

Regarding review pile-up, I’d consider whether going through decks where you can know 7/10 words in a random sample is the best thing to be concentrating on. A better way to get the information you know “out the way” is to not SRS it at all.

I’d be even more cautious about adding those 7 words to your review list at beginner stage if you’re using Bunpro (which I think it said in your initial post you were). Having lots of piled up reviews for lots of stuff you more or less should know (but might still make careless mistakes on due to burnout / overwhelm) is never going to be inviting. I’d potentially try comb the deck you’re in for the words you don’t know and consider that to be your learn queue.

If you do want to add the ‘known’ words in there for completism, I’d choose an SRS interval to set them to (eg. Seasoned 1, but whatever feels right). Anything you’re a bit unsure on will naturally fall back into the queue after failing, and you can send off the known known ones for good quite quickly.

Your output struggles are something I wholeheartedly relate to, not sure there are many easy answers other than dive into sink-or-swim majority / only Japanese social situations.

#36

Just to frame things in another way, if you are encountering things that you already know, then that is a success to your immersion. I love days like that!

#37

Hopefully a quick update here! :wave:t2:

I decided to register for the N3 JLPT and do the best I can until the test day comes around. I know I would do well on the N4 but I want to challenge myself. I know that even if I fail the N3, I would still be further ahead in my studies. Which in itself is a huge win!

I feel very confident about my listening abilities but know I could hugely benefit in focusing my efforts on kanji studies. That way I can read more and strengthen vocab and grammar. Plus with there being a reading section, it seems like a huge win all around.
I’ve turned my focus to WaniKani since I haven’t done much of anything with it in the last 3 months :sweat_smile: But when I did use it, it was easy to see that I was remembering well. I can already see the results of it from the last 2 weeks of consistent studying. I’m also using kanji flashcards and textbooks since I think wanikani’s pace isn’t gunna get me as far as I need to be. I reeeeally fell behind on WaniKani
I’m still using Bunpro and have been pretty consistent lately. I upped the amount study items per day so I can get what I need to into my reviews in time.

Things have been clicking better lately too. I’m remembering vocab better as I improve my kanji, and conversations around me are becoming more clear. Not as hazy.

I’m looking forward to the JLPT. It’s nice to have something to work towards and to have some pressure to keep me consistent!

Generally speaking I’m feeling more positive about my progression which is helping to push me further! Hopefully it stays around for a while!

6 Likes
#38

Cheering for you! I love the motivation of aiming high to pay less, honestly one of the best ones out there lately. Seeing your update, you’re gonna do great. Keep at it!!