Part of our natural tendency to want to study-study-study to learn Japanese is how we think learning occurs. We equate study with learning. They are certainly related, but there’s a lot more to it.
Let’s start from another type of development activity for humans: exercise. Specifically, strength training and weight lifting.
You go to the gym and lift weights, do push-ups, pull-ups and all that fun stuff. When do you get stronger?
You’ve been at it for an hour, completing a brilliant workout of every muscle from every angle. Are you stronger? Actually, you’re weaker. Much weaker. You can barely lift your arms.
What’s happened is that you’ve actually injured yourself. You’ve made thousands of small tears in your muscles that now need to be repaired. And a few days later when the repairs are complete you’ll be stronger.
But there’s even more to it. If you do that workout and then fast for the next three days, you won’t get as strong. Without the nutrients, you body is not well equipped to heal itself.
What this means is that your workout didn’t make you stronger, it prepared your body to make itself stronger. And you still needed to provide the fuel, the food, to help it do that.
So, studying Japanese… Study is the workout. Reading, conversing, writing, watching, listening are the food. Study is great because it can prepare you to hear new words spoken in context or understand patterns of speech, idioms, jokes and the like.
The real learning occurs as your mind strengthens itself through non-contrived interaction with Japanese.
And just as you can over train your muscles, you can over study your brain. A strained or torn muscle is one that can’t be used. A burned out mind is one that won’t learn.
Think about it - If you wanted huge biceps, how many days a week would you work on them? For how many hours? To build stronger arms, you actually spend the vast majority of your time not working them out!
A few forum quotes from a recent discussion, you tell me when the real learning is occuring:
When I was doing RTK, I made paper flashcards to drill throughout the day, and then did my electronic reviews at night. But, now that I’m doing UBGB sentences and audio flashcards, I’ll be looking at the book, ripping MP3s, making Anki cards.. I don’t think making paper flashcards as well is an option. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.
I usually have 200 cards to review per day. I’ll stay on top of the reviews in spurts, usually 5 days on, 3 days off. I just get to a point where I can’t stand looking at the Anki screen any longer. My cards then pile up, and at the 600-700 expired mark I’ll go through the whole stack over a weekend day.
I had 200 today to go through and I gave myself a migraine trying to get through them throughout the day.