Help: How do people who aren't consistently motivated use bunpro?

Bunpro
#1

Hey all :slight_smile:

Let me clarify the title. Firstly, I really love Bunpro and it has done a lot for me; I’ve already got lifetime as it has been so far the only language learning tool to keep me going for this long. However, I confess, I have a personality quirk.

I cannot do anything I don’t want to do.

This has been my entire life. I never studied in school (and just got A’s by choosing the things I was naturally good at). I don’t commit to much socially. I don’t buy food for a week in advance because who knows if I’ll actually want to cook what I’ve planned, etc. And most importantly: hobbies.

I have lots of interests, from anime, to games, to programming, to gym-going, to Japanese learning. The unfortunate thing for me is that I only have the capacity to enjoy at most one of these things at a time. I’ve always struggled with things that require me to do things every day, and while Bunpro was easy at first, now that I’m actually on sentences I find challenging I really do have to put the work in; I can’t effortlessly fly through reviews in 10 mins anymore. I’ll play a game and be all about it for a month, then I’ll stop playing games and be all health-focused for a month. Then I’ll be all programming and career focused for a month. I rotate not out of desire but just because that’s what my spirit needs.

So when it comes to Japanese, I’ve been finding it really hard to do my reviews on Bunpro. The reward is a long term one, and so in the short term it just frustrates me to the point where I space out after 10 mins. Perhaps I should take frequent breaks, but I really do struggle. I spend 2 mins on a card, get it wrong, and then I have to re-do that 2 mins of thinking at the end of the review session (which is usually after 20 cards). It’s true that perhaps I don’t deserve the reward of learning JP if I am unwilling to put the effort in. That’s a valid criticism and you’re right, I just wish I could be more motivated. My goal since I was young was to move to Japan and have a clean start, and now I’m 27. I’ve given myself until 30 to tie all the loose ends and get myself in a position where I’d be able to leave if I managed to get hired by a tech company in Japan. The desire is there but the motivation is not consistent enough to get anywhere.

It’s weird, because when I’m in the mood to learn new grammar points I easily sit there for 30-60 mins going through new stuff and learning it. It’s the review process, the ‘keep at it’ mindset I simply don’t have. It’s for this reason that im slowly losing my bunpro habit and it’s a bit distressing. The fact I need to do my reviews is putting me off progressing with new lessons, which ultimately means I’ve been ‘at the end of N5’ for well over a month now with no new words.

Are there other people like me who use Bunpro? Or any tips to make reviews easier? I was perhaps thinking of trying a different review style, but surely not typing out the answer in full will make it not as useful? I don’t know… Part of me thinks to just bin reviews and just do the bit i enjoy and re-review things as I encounter examples I don’t know? Or maybe, if there’s a way, simply deleting the review queue and only adding things to it that stump me?

To add further context on why reviews are hard for me (maybe useful to staff?):

  • Sometimes I simply miss the ‘past’ or ‘negative’ tags (some points don’t even have them and just use the word in the past tense, like ‘eaten’ rather than also having [past] somewhere), and so I spend so long on trying to work out where I went wrong in the sentence and then realise that it’s the wrong tense.

  • I don’t have exceptions memorised fully. I might know that the word is an irregular, but not know the conjugations to it. Words that like like an ichidan as it ends in iru/eru but then turns out to be a godan and conjugates to ira etc. I accept that these are just practice, but its sentences that feature these that make up a lot of ghosts (but I want them to be ghosts because otherwise I won’t remember I struggled with them?).

    • I would love it if bunpro could say ‘you would have got it right, but this word doesn’t conjugate normally’ just to make a point, otherwise I start learning that my gut instinct is incorrect, which makes me fail more overall.

  • I remember ghosts too easily. I see the sentence and have learned what the answer is via memory, not by working it out. I like the ghost system but I kind of wish you could specify if it was the specific sentence that you struggled with or the grammar point in general.

    • Additionally, it’s a bit annoying that new words are accepted so easily after a single test. You can say you’ve ‘learned’ a word trivially, and then committing to it in the future in the review section. Perhaps lengthening the learning process would both reduce ‘binging’ on new grammar as well as reducing the amount of work done necessary in the review process?

Sorry for the huge post. By writing this I’m investing in my learning and hoping that I’ll get some answers from people with similar brains :slight_smile:

13 Likes
#2

One thing that helped me was to set a schedule. For a long time I used to do reviews during my lunch break. Every day without fail - even if I wasn’t feeling like it.

What made this possible for me was learning to not at all feel bad about incorrect answers. If I don’t know it now, I will not know it after spending 2 minutes thinking on it. I just give it my best shot immediately. If I make a mistake I spend a few seconds reflecting on why I made that mistake and move on to the next card. This means in an average session I only get around 70% right, but since the process is pretty mechanic I was able to turn it into a habit.

9 Likes
#3

I have a lot of thoughts, none of which might be very helpful. XD

First and foremost, this sounds like a problem outside of Japanese learning. I’d recommend looking into some outside resources on goal-setting and forming productive habits. That’s how progress is made. Little by little, day by day. The goal is to develop a system that you will stick to. IMO, consistency is the most important part of learning Japanese. Devoting an hour each day to learning is immeasurably more effective than simply cramming for seven hours one day a week on a Saturday.

Next up, maybe Bunpro isn’t right for you? SRS is a proven effective method for learning but it isn’t the only method. Have you explored other methods of learning to find something that works for you? Maybe spend some time looking into other Japanese learning resources!

Finally, find out WHY you’re learning Japanese (it sounds like you’re already off to a good start with the goal of moving to Japan). If you don’t have a true “why” behind your “what”, it’s a recipe for failure. Learning this language takes a LOT and I mean a LOT of time and effort. Far more than I could have ever imagined when I started learning. I am probably wildly inefficient when it comes to learning and don’t have an aptitude for Japanese, but I’ve been studying for 2 ½ years now. For a full 2 of those years I’ve committed 3-4 hours a day and I would say I just got to ~N3 level a few months ago. It takes a lot of work and a lot of forgetting things too haha. (Granted I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way that also slowed me down)

What keeps me going is I have slowly developed sustainable systems that lead to growth. I study Kanji for 1 hour every morning. I spend an hour listening every day. I do grammar for an hour and then I spend the remaining hour playing video games or reading in Japanese.

I’m not sure if that helps or not but my main piece of advice would be to spend some time researching goal setting, “motivation” (not a huge fan of that word), and sustainable habit forming.

Hope that helps and happy studying!

9 Likes
#4

Success is a pyramid of failures, and even then it’s not guaranteed. To speak quite bluntly it sounds like you need to instill discipline in your work ethic.

Start off small. Take five minutes of Japanese practice. Just five minutes and dedicate yourself to that. No distractions whatsoever. Once you finish a rep of five minutes, take a five minute break and repeat that five minutes of nonstop intense focus. See if you can do that on/off focus for 30 minutes a day for up two months (as it seems you develop a month’s worth of interest and drop off). As that will start to develop a habit.

Once you develop a habit, gradually increase your work load. Instead of 5 minutes of intense learning, do 10 minutes for a week or two. Then 15, 20, so on. Find out how powerful your mental fortitude is before you get to the point of wearing out.

What I mentioned is very similar to the Pomodoro technique and I encourage you to research it when you have the time.

It’s also incredibly important to be realistic. The majority of users on this site, even the ones posting on the forum will most likely not reach their goals of Japanese learning. You have to really assess how important Japanese learning is to you and if you’re willing to spend a not insignificant portion of your life working towards it. If you aren’t then it would be best to find something that deeply matters to you.

But when you do find something, may it be Japanese, programming, whatever, the most important thing you do is stick with it, no matter what it is, every single day. Do not under any circumstances take a day off. Especially when you’re trying to form a habit.

I was under a similar circumstance a few years ago, where I really wanted to know Japanese and programming and one day I decided to be crazy and focus on both, intensely every single day. As a result of years of doing both daily, I have developed an Anki deck of over 20,000 vocab cards, I have spent countless hours writing kanji and learning their meanings (thanks to @Asher 's thread a while back). And on the programming front I am developing a 3d game engine from scratch.

Edit: I also want to mention that the feeling and desire to quit is something I flirt with on a weekly or a daily basis. That’s a normal (at least I hope it is) feeling to have and it’s more important to keep your nose to the grindstone on days like that. Again, no circumstances will you skip a day.

This can be done, you need to put in the work and effort to do so. Motivation is fleeting, discipline is forever.

I sincerely hope for the best and you do whatever you need to to achieve your personal happiness.

6 Likes
#5

I agree with what the guys have said so far in that perhaps the issue here is the lack of setting up good habits. At the same time, if learning Japanese is that important to you then it shouldn’t be a struggle to learn it. Or perhaps it’s the SRS method that’s not working for you?

Is moving to Japan the real goal, but learning Japanese is basically what you feel you have to do in order to achieve that? Or is learning Japanese also the goal? If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the former, but I might be wrong.

6 Likes
#6

This! I think maybe 10 minutes might feel too much for you, but it can be a goal once the habit flows better over time.

And you’re doing so much better than me! I probably spend less than 5 minutes daily on a good day, as my basic goals are 10 reviews per day. On a bad day, even one is better than none. My review streak looks like a monster tooth, but I’m pretty happy because it’s been much better than it was years ago when I first began my Japanese-learning journey.

3 Likes
#7

I’m going to echo what others are saying in that habit forming is pretty important especially when it comes to something like languages that requires a gradual build up and sustainment of knowledge.

That being said, I do want to acknowledge that I think it’s totally normal to have competing priorities and other interests. I see a lot of people on these forums who regularly study Japanese for multiple hours a day and I think that’s awesome! But for other people, that might be completely unrealistic and trying to achieve that level of focus consistently is going to lead to burn out.

So while I do think setting a very small goal to keep up consistency is important, make sure that you are still making time for the other things in your life that you enjoy, and find ways to stay engaged with Japanese that keeps it fun.

Edit: I’m mostly trying to be encouraging in the above section, but realized I didn’t really provide any real strategies.

Spitballing here, but it sounds like the bigger issue is maintaining focus on Japanese even when you’re more engaged with other hobbies. Could you commit to 5 minutes a day like other people suggested? The goal here would be more sustainment rather than learning new material, but I think that’s okay especially if you are having periods where you go all in on Japanese — sounds like that’s a better time to focus on newer material.

Another idea is could you combine your hobbies? You mentioned getting really into health stuff. Could you watch short videos in Japanese focused on health? I know Tofugu had a few articles focused on learning Japanese through yoga, for example.

5 Likes
#8

You make some interesting points. I made a hard rule. No English media whatsoever. If I wanted to enjoy a show or a video game, it had to be in Japanese in audio and in subtitles. If there was any English, it was a pass.

For example, I really wanted to play Forza Motorsport, and spent like five hours downloading that beast. Realized it had English vocals and uninstalled it immediately and went back to Biohazard 4.

Using my love of games honestly furthered my love of games AND Japanese.

It reminded me of when I was 6 playing Pokemon Red back in the day. Yes I could understand some words, but most of the text was too complex for a child. But as I got older I understood more and the mystery slowly unraveled itself.

In a way, learning Japanese made me feel like I was a kid again. Mystery of the unknown was back into the games I played. I couldn’t just google a problem I had in English, as I would need to not only type the issue I had in Japanese, but I would have to read the solution in Japanese too.

5 Likes
#9

Thank you for your replies so far :slight_smile: I appreciate that you took the time to reply

This actually seems like a powerful technique. I might give it a shot and see if it speeds up reviews :slight_smile:

100% agreed, but its also what’s required for literally everything else in my life. I find it hard to have the balance of a little bit of everything, I can’t keep on top of all the small things slowly building up bit by bit each day. I want to give Japanese an hour a day, but then I say that for my mental and physical health and career as well, hence why I came looking for advice in the first place :slight_smile:

I am applying things I learned from the book ‘Atomic Habits’ - ‘make it obvious, make it attractive, make it easy, make it rewarding’. I find my reviews unattractive and difficult by nature - it’s a literal chore. I don’t want to think of it like that. I also find them difficult because… well… if you’re not challenging yourself, you don’t learn right? That’s the point, right? So I find it really hard to make a habit of something I really am struggling with :frowning:

You could be right. While the lessons are really really good and I’ve learned a lot, this isn’t the first SRS I’ve tried and failed at, anki being the first.

So I’m trying to simply prepare myself as much as possible. I know that the companies I have talked to are okay with hiring people who can’t speak it since they offer language learning assistance etc. I also feel like actually being there and being surrounded by the japanese language would help as well. I just wanted to make the process as easy as possible, and to some extent I’ve achieved a lot of that, reading the alphabet, some kanji, and N5 level grammar. Doesn’t mean I can speak or write, but a lot of the basics are coming through.

Congratulations! :partying_face:

That certainly is a lot of time dedicated, it’s frankly intimidating. I don’t want to give up but this is kind of giving me ‘I shouldn’t bother’ vibes.

You nailed it. I got to where I am through extreme amounts of drive and energy. I spent my youth programming, but now that I have a job my mental health is in the gutter and I can no longer focus on anything I really enjoy anymore. But even when I was extremely motivated, I still achieved a lot by focusing on what I felt like when I felt like it. But I never studied in school and I lack discipline, the only times I do things I don’t want to do is when I absolutely have to (cleaning apartment if people are coming, dressing smart if im going outside).

As someone with mental health issues I can’t do that. I really do try my best, but I can’t be my best every day, and there are periods of days or weeks where I simply can’t. It’s no excuse, but it is an explanation :frowning: I understand what you’re saying though.

Good luck! This was one of the best things I ever did and is what got me on the road to a good career :slight_smile:

I will remember this, it’s simple and something I will easily internalise. Thank you for your reply :slight_smile:

Japanese is important, but not every day. Just as I was saying to comments before, this rotation of passion is kind of how I’ve always been. Building some really big intricate project, then taking a break to do other things, is how I learned a lot of STEM things and that is my style of learning… so I was kind of hoping this thread would generate ideas that weren’t just ‘do it everyday’. Sadly though it seems like this is one of those skills that necessitates daily use.

100% could be, I haven’t tried any other methods as I simply don’t know how else. Thanks for your reply :slight_smile:

Glad to hear you’ve improved :slight_smile: would you say thats thanks to Bunpro in particular?

I’m glad to see someone with this perspective. Yeah, I appreciate that I’ll never be a Japanese scholar, but my goal isn’t to necessarily be fluent, it’s just to improve my skills. I want the journey of learning japanese, rather than some arbitrary “I want to do this”. To me, JP is something you never stop doing, so I want to be in a position where the language opens up and my confidence improves just as much as it did when I learned the alphabet.

That… is a really good idea. I don’t know how fruitful it’d be, but I like the idea of getting in more JP-related things into my day. I don’t really count watching anime as a language learning hobby sadly! :joy:

I really want to try this, but at what skill level do you need for this to be useful?

I did try and play Sekiro with both JP sub and voice, but the kanji they used just made it felt alien. I couldn’t parse grammar in their sentences because it was full of unknown Kanji so I didn’t even know what was a noun or verb before trying to decipher it. Maybe its a case of playing a western game with JP sub/voice, that way maybe it’s a little simpler?

I know this exact feeling. I watch speedruns of people playing games in JP and I actually can decipher a lot of the words particular on the UI, so its quite liberating having that same eureka moment. Different scenario as to what you described, but I get the vibe. I remember not knowing what the word ‘inventory’ meant as a child, so figuring out what the button does through context lets me enjoy things as if they were puzzles :slight_smile:

Would be interested to know if this was alongside your Bunpro SRS or not, and when you felt comfortable starting this way of living?

Thank you to everyone who replied, sorry if my replies come across as argumentative I didn’t intend on them sounding like that! I was just trying to get through everyone :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#11

To cut the band-aid off. That is something you cannot think of doing. When I say no matter what, I mean it. When my mental health was at the absolute lowest after the death of a close family member and a breakup happening back to back, I still kept doing it. You have to find some way to consolidate the “under any circumstances” part into your routine or else your odds of success quickly approaches zero.

You can just jump in. It will be a mystery even if you studied for years. I made a firm rule about no English, and kept with it.

That’s okay if you don’t understand the Kanji. Just make sure it’s only in full Japanese, not a mix of two languages. The deeper you go into only Japanese media the easier it will be for you. You just have to come to terms with the reality of not understanding everything all at once for a long period of time.

I personally finished Bunpro about two-ish years ago and restarted it at N3. I’ve been doing five grammar points a day as I have focused on narrowing down the nuances in some grammatical terms. It’s actually much easier the second go around as I have seen so much of the N3 grammar points in my daily immersion.

2 Likes
#12

Others have pretty much said it when referring to time, but noone said it explicitly referring to quantity - it seems you do too much new stuff a day. Your reviews piled up, while your retention of information dropped. This results in frustration and here we are. For reference, I’m doing 1 new Bunpro grammar point a day. Just 1, that’s it. I have like 15 reviews on worse days and about 5 on better days.

If you are European, you can learn a couple European languages in the time it takes to feel confident in your Japanese ability. And that is assuming you actually have a proper studying routine that you follow daily. You cannot speed things up by cramming lots of new information each day, that won’t work for most of us regular folk.

To put what I’m saying in some perspective, I’m studying Japanese for over 8 years. Truth is, if we summed up all the days that I actually studied (I had lots of breaks, burnouts and days I’ve been just slacking off pretending to do some reviews), it would total maybe to 3 years max. Still a lot of time, though it doesn’t sound as pathetic as 8 years with what I am about to tell you. I still cannot watch anime like Jujutsu Kaisen or Oshi no Ko for the love of me. I can though watch anime for young teens with relative ease, like for example the recent Sousou no Frieren.

Now imagine if instead of burning myself out by cramming lots of new stuff I did some structured daily study. 1 Bunpro grammar point, 10 new words a day that I encountered during immersion. No more than an hour a day on reviews and study, the rest for pure fun like immersion. Simple, easy, not overwhelming. I would be pretty damn good right now. The power of baby steps. Of course I doubt anyone can maintain 10 new words a day for 8 years straight, because this stuff does pile up over long periods of time, but after so much time of actually using the language and having fun I doubt it would matter. At some point you gotta drop the SRS.

Anyway, less quantity and more fun. You’re in for a long ride, this isn’t a matter of a year or even three years.

8 Likes
#13

Less is more, I agree with you. When I was dipping my toes into Bunpro, I did one grammar point a day for a few months then upped it to two when I felt more comfortable with my progress until it was “done” (this was before they added more points).

Now making a 2nd lap, I can add a lot more and my pace with it is pretty easy. I have few ghosts and even though I added 90 grammar points in less than 3 weeks, the review count is pretty low.

So you make a very good point. Sometimes burning everything down and starting over with a fresh foundation is what’s best for long-term success. Maybe starting over and focusing on smaller, but more meaningful gains is what she needs.

4 Likes
#14

I did some reviews while I was waiting for you all to reply, it seems that simply doing them in batches of 10 makes them a lot less scary, and skipping ones I don’t know immediately really helped. I’ve already got some powerful tips and words of advice so I’m going to say that I’ve already learned some powerful tips.

I saw this on reddit, I wonder what you all think of this?

What Anki is great for is intermittent studying — a minute here and there. Walking to the bathroom? There’s a line at the water fountain? Class/meeting not starting on time? Waiting to board the bus? That’s prime Anki time!

I think this suits me more than dedicating a lot of time per day in a batch. I think, rather than say ‘1 hour of bunpro a day’ and then missing a day, I’m going to set the bar as a low as ‘1 batch of 10 reviews’ per day, and then anything else will be a bonus. I have bunpro on my phone and I think I’m going to try doing things on there more than my PC, to encourage me to do it when I feel like it, rather than when I can (i.e. not waiting until i’m on my computer).

Those 10 reviews felt a lot more manageable than sifting through 35 in one session, so maybe I’m just feeling optimism but breaking things up is helping.

This is the attitude I want, I want to enjoy Japanese learning, not dread the inevitable hour of struggling :slight_smile:

Thanks again everyone!

6 Likes
#15

Everyone is different. Personally I find it hard to pull myself in and out of “the zone” so to speak. I like taking my sweet time with Anki in a dedicated learning session. But your mileage may vary.

If you want, you can have a Japanese study session. Five minutes of bunpro. Break. Five minutes of anki. Break. Rinse repeat until it’s done. When I feel like quitting, I do that as it gives me smaller goals to finish.

Sometimes it really isn’t fun. Sometimes I dread doing it. But you gotta eat your veggies before you can have cake. And you know what, the veggies are good for you, and it makes the cake taste even sweeter.

4 Likes
#16

I’m gonna be very blunt here, but you’re not going to get better at Japanese if you keep making excuses for yourself. This is the first bad habit that you need to break ASAP!

Also, as far as not having enough time for everything, this is where you need to prioritize what’s important to you. Nobody has time for everything. We make priorities.

That’s all I have to say. Wishing you luck! :blush:

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#17

Yeah, I think having a small goal and finishing it rather than a big one and getting half way, even if I technically got more done with the big one, will be better for me i nthe long run :slight_smile:

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#18

My answer is going to be pretty different from the others here.

I am also not consistently motivated, but unlike you I don’t have a specific goal or deadline to learn japanese - it’s entirely a hobby in itself.

Somedays I’ll spend hours studying, somedays minutes, other times I’ll spend days without coming on Bunpro. I only study japanese because I like it so I only study it when and for how long I feel like it.

Without a doubt it’s less effective and slows down my progress compared to doing it consistently, but like I said, I’m not on a deadline.

So this is NOT advice for how to learn/study, just saying how I use bunpro - without stressing about getting the review count to 0 each study session (Meaning don’t copy me if you care about making effective progress)

Btw, I just passed N4 this July. I’ve been learning japanese inconsistently for years, but I only applied after being confident I could pass without much further studying.

5 Likes
#19

Congratulations! And thank you for your insight. As for me, I wouldn’t say I have a deadline for my japanese language learning, its a deadline for everything else (getting finances together, sharpening my career while still in an English speaking world, getting healthier while I have good resources available) so that when I have my fresh start I’m not dragged down by old necessities. etc :slight_smile: so I think we are quite similar!

For me I’ve had to start over in my learning as i’ve switched between services, so perhaps because of that I haven’t really been able to transfer what I’ve learned between anki and whatever. Thats why invested in lifetime for BP as it means whenever I want to use it I can do. That said, I think I’m going to try and slow down and focus on consistency than clearing my review list. As long as i do some reviews per day I think I’l be okay, and any more than that is a bonus :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#20

This rings all too true for me. Like you, I was and still am a person who has several hobbies and interests and I still struggle with balancing them all. I have learned to get better about them over time, particularly for Japanese, and hopefully these things can help you out too.

-Consistency really is key: You’ve probably heard this one a million times, but I feel that it is true. I think it’s more effective to do 10 minutes a day over the course of 6 days then study for a whole hour just once a week.

Pomodoro: This is a method I use to this day and one you may be familiar with. There are plenty of apps for it, but you can just use a timer. For me it’s great because I can track how much I actually studied during the day. Most people will do 25 min with a 5 min break, but start with whatever you like.

Habit over motivation: I study Japanese not because I just finished the newest episode of Zom100 and now I want to be a cool gaijin like Beatrix, I study everyday because I’m used to it. It took a while to get used to it, but now I do it without thinking about it, I even crave it. Won’t get into it too much, but James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” can explain it a million times better than I can.

Relish in the difficulty: Japanese is hard, no matter if a random Youtuber said that they became fluent in like 2 hours and passed JLPT 1 after like a month of studying. (Totally not a grift) It’s going to be a long, difficult, and sometimes lonely road, and you know what, that’s okay. Anything that is worth it is likely going to be hard.

Happy Luxurious studying: For me study time it fun time, not because it is on it’s own, it’s because I made it that way. Grab a coffee, a sparkling water, sit at a nice desk or go to your favorite coffee shop. Reward yourself because you’re doing something the better your self development. Or if you like to stay at home and have the funds, invest in your study area to make it a place you actually want to be. This was really helpful during the pandemic when I couldn’t go out to coffee shops.

Slowly integrate Japanese into your daily life: I know this can be difficult especially since you said that you like to do things one at a time. I most certainly still have my English Youtube binges, even though I did quit social media all together. If you’re already watching anime subbed, that’s one way. When you’re confident enough, throw on easier videogame in Japanese. Then a website here, a Youtube video there. Eventually it will become second nature. I pull up Rocketnews24 and I’m like, why am I ready this pointless article about an udon shop I’m never going to go to? I’m not even thinking about the fact that it’s in Japanese, I’m just concerned about the useless content. But…not so useless when I’m still learning new words.

But overall, I know where you’re coming from. I didn’t even make A’s in school, I just didn’t study and it made it very hard for me in College. I had to learn to study, I had to learn to like it, I had to teach myself that the difficulty wasn’t torture, it was learning. It’s not something that I learned do until I was well into my mid 20s. It’s probably the same reason I can’t get into souls games, they’re still just torture for me. And maybe for a lot of people, thousands of Kanji, a complex grammar system, and a massive vocabulary is torture. But not for me, I relish in the difficulty, the struggle, in the hours and hours of work I’ve put into it. I found out how to make it work for me, and the rewards have be worth it thus far.

Sorry I rambled, I’m an older millennial gettin’ to that age when I’m yelling at Chainsaw Man cosplayers to get off my lawn.

10 Likes
#21

I think we’re similar in a few ways. I also struggle to stick to one thing at a time. I think of them as “seasons” where I pour all my focus into one thing - programming, JP, Forex, etc.

Rather than motivation, I think building a strong system of habits can be a better way of maintaining consistency. For example, I try to link actions together so that the next step always feels natural, e.g. turn on rice cooker, do strength training and go for a run while it cooks, then eat and study. Like breathing, it ended up becoming just another part of the process. I think we overestimate how much we can get done in a day and underestimate how much we can get done in a year, if we stuck to our plans.

One of the motivations I received earlier on - and still receive today- was finding people who speak JP and trying to interact with them. At first it was just small things like “wow i really just said hello to them and they understood?!?” and that 10 second interaction would keep me going for a few months, and now its become “wow I was just on a call with someone for 5 hours?”.

Also, when I started wanikani and bunpro, in my mind I would be a master of the language by the time I completed them both. Consuming different types of media which are more “complex” made me realise this was far from being the case. This created a sense of urgency in me to finish these as fast as possible, as I began to deem them as just the introductory courses to get into the language.

Another motivating factor for me was knowing that my time is not limitless. I didn’t want to commit 10 years of my life to learning Japanese through studying for 15-30 mins a day, occasionally missing days and not remaining disciplined. This alone made sure that I would study as much as possible to meet my goal.

Over time I have realised that we pick our “hards”. It’s may be hard somedays to get up and study, but what I have found to be even more difficult is the regret of knowing I could have done more in the past, and that that effort would have meant I would know more today.

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