Learning with a full time job

[Kelsy]

This is going to be more of a rant post, I’m really just trying to figure this out for myself. Is anyone else here using Bunpro and adding vocab and grammar regularly while also balancing a full time job? (I don’t personally have kids but throw that into the full time job category as well).

Up until a month ago I was on summer break. Before that, I worked part time as a school admin. Using Bunpro/Kanjistudy for about 30min-1hr everyday was so easy then. I was also reading about an hour of manga everyday before bed and really enjoying it. I REALLY enjoy learning Japanese and I really don’t want to stop; but now that I’ve gotten my first full time job as a high school school admin and oh my gosh … I come home so exhausted. High school is insane. I’ve been able to maintain my streak the past month just doing ~10-30 reviews a day, but I’m getting to the point where my beginner category has dried up and adepts getting there and I’m like … I need to start adding again! But I’m so tired! And it’s not conductive to learning to learn while tired!

(Math rambling, how do I collapse paragraphs?) I’ve thought about maybe adding words only on the weekend. For grammar, this is totally fine. My goal is to finish N4 by Dec 31st, I’m at 99/178 points, there are 19 saturday and sundays left this year, I could add 2 points every saturday and sunday and just barely make it to my goal. Once in awhile I could probably add on a Wednesday or whatever even. I could do the same with vocab, add 10 every saturday and sunday and just barely make my goal (I have 773 vocab left in the N4 dec). It just feels so… slow. Especially with vocab. I’d like to be around N3 by sometime next year, whether that be end of summer or end of Dec I dunno. Also, I’m crazy and use fill-in for vocab. I tried reading and I just didn’t vibe with it mentally, my rention went way down.

I have a feeling that learning Japanese in general tends to skew younger as people have more time in highschool/college, but I thought I’d throw this question out there anyways.

TLDR Life transition struggles, I got my first full time job and I’m struggling to balance learning Japanese with it and am wondering what other people do. Tips appreciated or just how you pesonally balance Japanese and other life stuff.

[shadowstar]

This isn’t a full-time work perspective, but I have been dealing with a lot of health issues that make it difficult/impossible to learn new things, so I have been going into maintenance mode, adding a single grammar point here and there over the last several months, and falling farther behind and increasing my backlog in Anki for vocab. And that’s fine! It’s a bit hard mentally to adapt to, but other things in life come first.

I just wanted to chime in and say, your job sounds exhausting, I would prioritize adapting to it for now. I’m sure others will give you good advice at incorporating it into your new life stage. Good luck with everything!

[Aunel]

I can sympathize. The most realistic thing I think is to just scale back the studying until you have more time and mental energy to scale it back up again. If that means only a minute per day, so be it. It’s far easier to pick up from something than from nothing.

Ultimately it’s a choice between responsibilities and hobbies. I like to think of Japanese as a reward for me being a responsbile adult (or trying to be one, at least).

[thelizard]

I remember my very first full-time job ages ago, right after completing my education. I remember thinking “is this life? how can I keep my hobbies with this?”. The good news is, you’ll get used to it eventually and once your rhythm starts feeling normal, you will actually have the energy to find time for your hobbies again. It just takes a moment.

Scale it back, maintain your streak. Eventually you’ll feel ready to add things once more. Don’t stress it.

[Carnikun]

Here’s what I do as someone that works 50-70 hour work weeks and can maybe give you some ideas of where to squeeze time in:
-Wake up
-Do Bunpro as I commute to the gym (I’m just a passenger so this may be impossible to replicate)
-Do Anki between sets, commute to work, work breaks, and commute home if I have a lot of reviews
-I also listen to Japanese when working when possible (although pretty rare since I have to collaborate often)
-If I have extra time I immerse on the commute back home instead
-After my getting home routine I eat and watch Japanese videos casually at the same time
-Follow that with mining 20 words from immersion
-Finally finish the day by reading as much as I can before I sleep

This is not realistic for most people obviously because I’m sure you might have noticed there’s no other time for social or family activities and such but the overall point is maybe squeeze in some study into the slow parts of the day. 頑張れ！

[qazrt]

I’ve completed all Bunpro grammar points, and I’ve come to the realization that Bunpro is only a means. What’s important is to familiarize with grammar point as fast as possible - so I’ve deactivated ghost reviews - and then watch content you enjoy with Japanese subtitles, with tools like Migaku. Without feedback, immersion becomes passive immersion which unfortunately is weak. I consider regrettable that I passed so much time to learn most common words for arguments I don’t care; what’s more, I found it stressful as well. On the other hand I’ve discovered that words learned through sentence mining in tv show that I enjoy stick in my mind, since I don’t live in Japan.
These are my two cents.

[BreadmanNin]

I super much sympathise with you, OP. I totally get it. In my opinion/experience, the key to keeping it all doable is to find a couple of moments during the day to chip away at a handful of reviews, so that you’ve got a little bit of time left to do some learning at the end of the day or during lunch break.

I have a full-time job with a lot of overtime. Fortunately not as much as Carnikun up there, but between 44~50 hrs a week. Currently, the way I structure my day is as follows:

• Wake up. Chip away at a handful of reviews while still in bed.
• Sometime during the morning at the office, chip away at a handful of reviews on the toilet. I’m sure I sound like I’m being facetious here, but doing reviews here is the perfect way to fill in otherwise wasted time. Make sure to check the bowl afterwards to see what kanji you produced.
• Lunchtime. This is my go-to time for learning new items. The review pile is decently under control at this point due to the moments listed above. Grab a spot at the work cafeteria and take my laptop. Learning Japanese while having lunch is pretty enjoyable.
• Home after work. I suppose it completely depends on your obligations, overtime, children, hobbies/gym and stuff whether you’ve got time here, but if you do, here’s a good moment to get a good number of reviews in. The new items from during lunch break should come up here.
• In bed, just before going to sleep. Chip away a little more.

Now that I’m going over the list, I realise it kinda sounds like I spend every free moment studying Japanese, but it’s not like that. Other than lunch break, those little “chipping-away” moments take very little time and don’t actually take away from time I would have otherwise spent in a useful way. It’s just optimising daily downtime.

I hope you’ll be able to figure out something that works for you, and that reading this and the posts from other people gives you some good inspo for how to integrate learning into your daily routine.

[Meanfire]

Sounds like I’m a good twenty years older than you. I started late last year.

It is possible, and honestly I doubt I’d have been able to do as much while I was in school.

I don’t drive, so public transport is a good opportunity to do a little now and then, morning commute in particular is for the day’s new items. But basically, I replaced a lot of aimless social media scrolling with learning Japanese. I also try to keep an hour and change before going to sleep for it for reviews.

And also, I don’t know how much privacy you have at work and how much phone/internet use you can get away with, but a quick check now and then during the day also helps keep the reviews down little by little.

[okayfrog]

I used to be able to do most of my reviews at work, but lately I’ve been busy so I’ve been doing a lot at home.

I multitask, basically. Like right now I’m doing reviews while watching Star Trek. Sometimes I’ll do reviews while listening to new music. That’s really my only suggestion, lol, sorry man, best of luck.

[Edo9]

What has worked for me is to truly make studying feel like a reward. For me, study time isn’t work time, it’s fun time. I’ve invested in my desk area, made it very convenient and cozy for me to set up, I typically have a good coffee or snack. I also occasionally visit coffee shops if I can’t concentrate at home.

I look at studying not as something I “have” to do to get better, It’s something I get to do. I know that line if often said by TikTok influencers who don’t actually mean it 75% of the time, but it is true for me, and something that keeps me motivated even if I’m tired. And if you are tired it’s fine. Start fresh the next day, Japanese isn’t going anywhere and it’s not the end of the world if you pause your reviews for a day. For me skipping a day or two every now and then keeps me from burning out.

[hx9]

Proposed schedule
Learn Saturday, 10AM
Review Saturday, 2PM, 10PM
Review all other days ~10PM

Time commitment: 30-60m daily, 60-120m Saturday (Or Sunday)
Weekly Commitment: 4.5-5 hours

Going to slow? Learn both Saturday / Sunday or add more on Saturday
Going to fast? Do every other Saturday

[maurice620]

I agree with @Edo9 , making the mental shift to have your language study time (and by extension learning the language through engaging with Japanese media) and associating it with fun little treats like a comfy, cozy spot or a snack will help immensely. Finding ways to remind yourself of why you’re learning the language, whether for travel/work/fun, can also keep you going when work drains you of everything you have.

When I was working in tech pulling 60 hour weeks, and when I got my master’s and worked pretty well around the clock every single moment of every day, I used language study as my ‘mental vacation.’ Even for just 5 minutes, during my commute or in between calls, just doing something that’s not your job or the biggest stressor of your weeks relieves some of that mental load. That doesn’t mean I was able to study a lot all of the time, nor that I wanted to though - but when the busy times died down and I compared where I was to where I started, there was a HUGE difference.

It’s absolutely difficult to feel this way as you’re tracking the road ahead to your JLPT and study goals, but it really helped me personally to get rid of any numerical goals (i.e. X amount of grammar points a day). Putting these measures on it can inadvertently make you feel like it’s an obligation or requirement, rather than something fun you’re challenging yourself to do, and it can really make it seem like you’re moving “slow” since your schedule has changed so much. However, I really think if you follow your body and mind’s cues as to when you feel like you learn most efficiently in the day, and rest when you need to because that’s the most important thing at the end of the day, you’ll do well. Even doing a little is better than nothing, and doing too much can eventually put you off learning Japanese entirely - everything in moderation!

Best of luck, you’ve got lots of supporters here!

[Chimmsen]

Just wanted to drop in to say:

you’re all crazy for learning japanese with busy lives like full-time jobs and stuff That’s hardcore mode! Time constrains, mind always occupied with work and stuff and then “life happens” all the time. You’re all admiration worthy for even trying Making any progress in such a situation is so hard and still, here are so many people who rock this! Honestly, that’s way more impressive than any “speedrun N1 in 1 year” people who have the time and ressources to focus on nothing else.

Keep up the good work and give youself a pat on the back for chosing the hard mode setting

[Flandre5carlet]

I work full time monday-friday from 9am to 6pm, on top of which I have give or take 1 hour of commute (as in, 1 in the morning, 1 in the evening.) So I’m out of the house every single day from 8 to 7.
I do still manage to get both my Wanikani & Bunpro lessons and reviews done every day, but it takes quite some optimisation of my time (squeezing reviews in during my commute while sitting on the tram for example) and limiting how many lessons I take on.

As things are, I add 3 items a day on Bunpro (1 grammar, 2 vocab), and 8 on WK (priorising new radicals, then new kanji, then vocab). All my Bunpro reviews are reveal & grade, and I have WK syncing with Bunpro for extra practice.

Since my reviews are split during the day throughout commute, breaks etc it’s hard to really say but I estimate it takes me about one to two hours in total throughout the day.

The big downside of my current situation is that I have very little time to immerse if I want to do, well, anything other than study with my limited free time in the evening.
So it feels like I’m studying but not really learning if that makes sense. Especially when it comes to grammar. Vocab/kanji I can definitely tell I’m progressing and learning, but grammar and understanding and speaking, hooo boy. 🫠 🫠

[ArbitraryIcosahedron]

@Kelsy

I’ve thought about maybe adding words only on the weekend.

This is kind of what I have been doing recently. I only add new vocab or grammar points when I have multiple days ahead of me when I’m not swarmed with reviews. My goal is to keep daily reviews below 100, above that starts to feel more like a chore and less like fun.

I cannot tell you if this is a “good” way to learn, but at least it is much nicer mentally. I only add words when I feel I can push to learn new words; some days I add 5 vocabs, or if I have time and relaxed schedule ahead I add some grammar and 10 vocab.

With this highly “fluctuating” way of adding cards, it seems I still average about 5-7 cards each day over longer periods of time, but it feels a lot less stressful to do it this way. With the daily approach the worst feeling for me is when I have done a 100+ card review session with ~60-70% accuracy, and I should add x+y new vocab/grammar cards. Not adding new cards on those has been a blessing…

[Occupant3068]

48 hour week this week, ~350 anki cards reviewed a day, (30-40new daily), bunpro 3/day (recently resumed, reviews starting to ramp up as i now crossed halfway thorugh n3)

I can definitely sympathize with you just entering this transitional phase in your life. The first few months of full time work is definitely mentally tiring, you feel like you have no time, but it’s definitely there. I’d recommend just halving your new content for the time being, keep up the discipline, but it will take time for you to actually find the available hours in your day (this is more like finding the willpower to use the available time instead of resting)

Don’t be too hard on yourself, you’ll get the hang of it.

[brethelm]

I’m divorced with a full time job and one adult daughter living at home. Doing well over 100 Bunpro and 100 wani kani per day. It’s basically going to be my hobby and pastime for the next couple years. Which is fine with me as I’ve noticed marked improvement in both my understanding of Japanese and in my overall memory recall on things outside of Japanese.

[kvnqs]

I also work full time and for me, time is also tough (not much time left after learning Japanese).

Since you said that you find learning grammar with bunpro slow, I would maybe find some days on the weekend and do 2-3 study sessions (~1-2 hours each), where you focus on learning ~3-5 grammar patterns in each session.
Here, it would be important that the grammar patterns are not only consisting of challenging items (e.g. conjugations, sonkeigo etc.), so that the sessions are not too overwhelming. Rather, I would try to find a mix of “expression” / vocab-like grammar patterns + 1-2 challenging items for each session.

Doing this will increase the review workload, but you might geta head-start for the remaining grammar progression curve.

For vocab, you should definitly add at least 10 words a day, even on weekdays. Try to find time for this.
Learning with only ~20 words a week just is a too slow increase in vocab.
You will need a vocabulary thousands of words at some point. With that pace you will probably lose motivation before you can reach a level where you can immerse in Japanese content…
Bunpro is great for grammar, but I recommend trying out anki for learning vocab in the long term. It has SRS and a lot of plugins that make mining vocabulary easier.

[DeannaK]

Sounds like you’ve just entered a new phase in your life, which is going to naturally take more of your physical and emotional energy (to say nothing about the demands of the job itself, which sound significant). I think you’re at risk for burnout here, so be careful not to push yourself too hard in order to maintain momentum, because that might produce the opposite result (you’ll get sick and tired of the reviews piling up and stop for a long time).

For now, while you get used to the fast-paced lifestyle of full-time work, it’s okay to ease up and just be in an “easy” “maintenance mode”. I think that will protect your consistency, which is likely the most important thing right now.

I have a very intense, high-pressure job (I’m at work doing overtime on the weekend as I type this) so I feel you. But you’ll find a routine that works for you.

[soundjona]

As others said, it’s a common feeling a lot of people have when they get into that part of your life, where you’ll make more money than time or energy you have to use it normally, and not only limited to language learning.

But,

• With time, you’ll realize you don’t have to work 100% of your worktime. Of course it highly depends on the job, the country, the culture, … but you get the point. If you can do a bit of your reviews during your pauses, fine ! If not, do during those small pauses the things you would have to do at home : paying a bill here and there, some phone calls, etc.
• Cut the fluff at home. I don’t watch randomly TV anymore, I don’t scroll on social networks, I don’t chat with people on discord. Even right now, answering to a forum post, is something I limit myself to do to only 1-2 every 2-3 days, and only if I feel my take could have some value.
• Have strategies to bulk chores, instead of having to them “here and there”. Context switching is a time killer. Try to for example do all the housekeeping in only one slot for the whole week. Do it fast, keep it focused, don’t do something else while you do it.

Even with all this, though, you’ll have to make sacrifice. In my case, Japanese Learning takes me around ~1h per day. I also do ~1-2h of videogames per day, ~1h of gym per day, and 30min of walking my dog. That’s it, ~4h is my max time I can afford on "extra"activities, and if I keep doing Japanese for 25% of it, it’s because I really value and enjoy it. If it was not fun or it was not providing any value anymore, I would stop doing it.

Of course, for some people they learn japanese to be able to consume “more” content like Anime. But to be honest, the most time-efficient way to consume more anime is just to watch them subbed. Learning japanese is really something to do if, you really like learning japanese anyway.

tl:dr : It feels unsolvable at first, but with time you find strategies, you cut the fluff and you only do what really matters to you