Actually, someone on either bunpro, wanikani, or learn natively did a poll once. It’s mostly 30+ on these sites. My assumption on this is that most younger people just aren’t disciplined enough yet to actually keep with it or life is too hectic. I mean just look at your own post. Getting used to working full time and all the other things adult life contains is a lot.
As others have said, you’ll get there eventually. Your brain and body get used to working and at some point everything doesn’t feel exhausting anymore. You’ll know where you can sneak in studying during your week and when you may genuinely need to just take a break for awhile.
I know I replied earlier, but I wanted to share a couple slides I’m doing for a Japanese learning panel I’m doing at a local anime and gaming convention that are related to this topic.
You mentioned being really exhausted in the evenings/after work. I’m similar in that I’m usually pretty fried after the end of a long day and don’t really have the mental energy to learn new material.
I’m not sure if you’re much of a morning person or if it’ll work for your schedule, but something that has really helped for me is carving out time in the morning before I go to work and am still mentally “fresh” to learn new material. I usually end up going to bed a little earlier than I normally would to account for waking up a bit earlier, but considering I’m a total zombie after work anyway, it’s not like I’m losing any meaningful time by doing this.
Another thing that has helped for me in terms of mindset/stress levels is adjusting my mental picture of what “studying” needs to be. When I was younger, I felt like it didn’t count as studying unless I had carved out X amount of hours and studied X amount of new items. This mindset inevitably led me to putting off studying at all because I didn’t feel like I had enough time to sit down for large chunks of time and work through a bunch of new words or grammar.
Instead, I now make it my goal to study one word or one grammar point a day. If I have more time or energy on a given day, great, I’ll add more words or read an extra few pages of a book, listen to an extra podcast, etc. And sure, 1 item a day seems like nothing, but if you do that consistently that’s still potentially 365 words or grammar points in a year! Which is more than I would have studied if I waited around for the ideal conditions to study a bunch of stuff all at once.
Everyone always says it, but it really is a marathon not a sprint. Find what works for you, and don’t beat yourself up if you feel like you aren’t progressing at the pace you previously imagined. Take breaks if you need to. Life happens, and I think some of the more intense people on language forums sometimes forget that.
Anyway, good luck with your new job and hopefully things will get a little less hectic as time goes on!
I second the waking up earlier - I am so much less effective after a full day of work. I study both French and Japanese so I split my time to 1 hour of French before work and 1 hour of Japanese after work.
It definitely sounds like OP might benefit more from morning studying than evening studying.
I work, I do family commitments, and I block out an hour every night for Japanese. Is it enough to make great progress, probably not, but over 3 years I’ve reached about N4 level, which is a lot more than where I started.
For me, it’s all about making an hour of me time every day. I could watch TV, or do other things, but I do Japanese in my precious spare time. Everything else can wait for the next day when it’s me time
I’m the opposite.
for me it’s a habit, I saw a post that recomended pacing while doing anki. I worked 7-3 in America. When I parked my car I paced around the block until I finished my reviews. I also did Genki workbook prints once a week at a friend’s house. Once I step into my house It’s way harder for me to focus.
My job isn’t what exhausts me… On weekends or when I take PTO are the days I don’t get any studying done.
I really appreciate everyone’s responses. I am really not the type of person to post on the internet, so I was a bit overwhelmed at first with all the replies, but in the end I’m glad I posted, I’ve loved reading what everyone does.
I took the carving out time advice and today at work I closed my office door, blocked the window, and took an actual lunch break and just did Japanese for 20 minutes! It was great. For some reason the first two weeks of work I didn’t realize lunch break meant like … no work. Lightbulb moment. Newbie mistake, lol.
I may have had that exact thought, I’m glad to know that as everyone is saying, it gets better! I can already feel the beginning of school year crazyness die down for more routine days.
I love the doing Bunpro at the gym, if I get a membership I’m so replicating this. I can’t unfortunately do reviews while commuting as there is no public transit avaliable, but I do listen to the same 10 jpop songs on my commute which I love, I guess that’s kind of studying!
I didn’t mention in my post that I moved about a week ago into a house (lol no wonder my free time disappeared), I have SPACE, and I am so making a study nook, I love this idea.
Good point, I don’t even plan to take the test any time soon, if at all. I really do just like seeing the Bunpro numbers go up.
I work in a field with a high burnout rate so I’m really aware of this, still really appreciate the warning. Self-care is super important. It sounds like Japanese is self-care for a lot of people here, that’s so great, I’ve never thought about it like that before.
I definitely made this mistake, woops lol.
That’s so interesting, glad to be proven wrong.
Great idea. I’ve been able to do this a bit by waking up at 5:30 instead of 5:45 for a good 15 minutes of Kanji Study.
I flat out can’t study or enjoy myself at all when I’m exhausted and I’ve been swamped with work, which is why I refuse to work full time and am now in a field with heaps of downtime (I’m also a part time uni student, but mature age. This is mostly the reason).
That said, I’m AuDHD. Mental resources come at a very high premium for me, so I can’t handle what other people can and not fry myself. That said, I used to work full time before I got back into uni and everyone else is right: the first few months are the hardest, and then it gets easier. How much easier depends on your capacity.
A word of warning, I did lose hobbies that I was never able to recultivate during full time work. You may or may not find this to be true of yourself, but give yourself a good amount of time to adapt before worrying about that.
Japanese I find easier to keep up with than most hobbies even when I had full time work, just because the SRS apps are my little dopamine hits here and there. But I couldn’t manage the “serious” learning or emersion back then.
I know this isn’t the most encouraging reply, but I think it’s important to know the spread of possibilities and the possibility of limitations too. There are too many variables to count.
I work full time and I do daily bunpro/wanikani. I’m a pretty slow learner, part of this is because I’m working full time and part just because well I’m just a slow learner I guess… But that’s ok. I like to use my reviews as mental breaks from work, though sometimes on busy days that can be hard to fit in.
I do struggle to fit in more personalised study/reading (reading NHK easy or Satori Reader etc), as on an evening/after work I either want to just do nothing/relax or go out. I wish I’d have been motivated to learn when I was younger but for whatever reason that didn’t happen. But I’m pretty motivated now, despite many frustrations with my learning speed I’ll keep grinding.
Hello! Finally a kindred soul! I am happy to find this perspective to balance out those active on the forums about how competitive and intense they are to stay on top of their reviews.
I studied/passed N5 to N2 in four years while juggling an 8-10 hour job five days a week, plus the declining health of my grandparent who I had to accompany to dialysis 1-2 times a week (and eventually their death).
Here’s how my life schedule turned out:
Going home after work involved 1-2 hours of reviews. Just staying on top of Bunpro, Satori Reader, and WaniKani. Most days I could finish at least half of my reviews, but some days I just couldn’t so I would take a sick/vacation leave to maximize one full day just to catch up
Any “waiting in line” times (whether at the mall, hospital, etc.) was again, to do those flashcard reviews. I really maximized those (anywhere from 1 to 6 hours)
Life events such as illness (mine or others), vacations (of course life has to have some), etc. had to take priority when they did, but again, devoting a full day or a few intense days to catching up with the backlog became key
Weekends/days off were for more concentrated studies (Genki and Sou Matome workbooks and textbooks). This could be anywhere from half a day to the entire day. I also had a Japanese tutor who answered all my questions from those books within 3-4 hours
Whenever possible, I did homework from those workbooks (2-4 hours). I definitely lost a lot of sleep and averaged 4-6 hours of sleep per day
In short, I developed a caffeine dependence, but hey at least I am N2 fluent now XD I also work in the JP bilingual industry as well.
This is not to say you should live as intensely. Just know you’re not alone! If you’re not rushing to work in Japan or for the Japanese industry you can take as much time as you need and delays are normal
I really feel your struggle. I’ve been studying Japanese on and off since I was a kid, but this year I finally decided to commit to it and aim for the JLPT. I had some trials and tribulations when I first started Bunpro, but having a structured system has helped me stay committed to it. Everyone’s different, but for me, I created a “cache deck” (for future study) and an “intense deck” (for current review) to keep things manageable.
Here’s what my current routine looks like:
Morning: I start by reviewing yesterday’s “intense deck.” After I finish, I clear it out, and any words I missed get sent back to my “cache deck.” Then I refill the intense deck with 30 words pulled from the cache. After that, I complete my Bunpro reviews, adding any items I missed to the cache deck as well. Finally, I study 25 new words (I might knock this down to 20 or 15 when I get to the higher levels)
Morning Commute: On the subway, I spend about 15-20 minutes on Chase Colburn’s Study Kanji app (super handy because it works offline).
Lunch: I use this time to clear any Bunpro backlog and run through my intense deck.
Evening commute: Another 15-20 minutes of kanji review.
At home: I dedicate about 2 hours to my intense deck, repeating until I can get through the whole deck without messing up.
Then I go to bed and hit reset for the next day. It’s about 4 hours a day during weekdays. I get some extra hours in on the weekends.
I work full time and I have kids. I also have two dogs for which I’m the primary caretaker although my wife does take them out once a day. Basically every time I’m doing any chore, taking out the dogs or commuting I listen to Japanese podcasts, during my lunch break I watch Japanese dramas or YouTube (with subtitles in Japanese), I read books to my daughter in Japanese, then after she goes to bed I’ll read books in Japanese. Usually at night is when I’ll do all of my reviews. On the weekends is when I’ll add cards. During this process I end up mining a lot of vocab and sentences from dramas etc to Anki.
I’m also working through the quartet books but I really can only make progress on the weekends. I’ll add the grammar points to Bunpro and review them throughout the week (again usually at night).
I’ve been making pretty good gains this way and am still present for my family.
It adds up. Just gotta stack lil by lil. Sometimes I end up staying up a bit too late cause I absolutely want to clear some review stack, but even when I don’t, I’d say it easily adds up to over an hour of reviews throughout the day.
I hope that study nook turns out great!