In my opinion, the biggest challenge for learning Japanese is not whether you have the best teachers, techniques, methodologies or other nonsense. It is your interest. Real “discipline” come from interest, not will power. Real dedication comes through interest, not self-flagellation to maintain focus.
And so the question that I ask whenever I see someone struggling to keep up discipline or consistency is, “Where is the interest?” The typical response you’ll get when you say you’re having trouble will be something along the lines of: “Suck it up”, “Do it everyday”, “You just have to”, “You’re supposed to”, “Stop making excuses”, “Be more like me, I do it everyday”, “You have to want it”, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
And we have the nerve to call this help! Imagine a similar meeting with a therapist or counsellor; you struggle with depression and don’t know what to do. The fix? “Feel better!”. Thanks, chief. That helps.
Meet People Where They Are
I bring this up because of a discussion I recently read on the Reviewing the Kanji forums.
User ihatobu lives in Japan and has been starting and stopping with the Heisig method and is looking for other’s thoughts on long term retention. For ihatobu, life gets in the way of flashcards. Put another way, he enjoys living more than studying.
And so, given that ihatobu doesn’t have the interest to plow through all that studying continuously, he seems to be looking for encouragement or alternatives for attaining long term retention. He also uttered the greatest sacrilege of language learning, “…sooner or later everyone lapses in their study. It’s inevitable.”
In response he gets an earful of “You biffed it. Study harder”:
People manage to spend hours every other day exercising to keep fit. People read novels before bed every night. People read their bibles every morning before work…That argument invalidates the entire attempt at language learning anyway, really. Every aspect of the language takes minimal amounts of effort every day to become proficient, not just the kanji.
Most people who get a lot of regular exercise find it easy because they enjoy it, not because they force themselves. People read novels because it’s fun, not because they’re working on their English. That language involves everyday effort doesn’t mean you need to force specific activities everyday, especially if they burn you out.
Every day effort is the natural fruit of their interest, not something they imposed on themselves. Just try to get a dedicated marathoner to stop running or a voracious reader to stop reading.
No offense to the OP, but I think you need to re-evaluate how you manage your time…The time you put in will equal the results you get. A lot of us on this site are SRS junkies. I have probably missed less than 2 weeks total of review days in 2 years of using a SRS.
Why can’t you be more like me? Why are pleas for help met with claims of superiority?
You’re an apple. I’m an orange. Be like me and the problem will go away. If you’re really interested in helping this person, you’ll deal with the reality that they’re an apple, not enumerate the advantages of being an orange.
Some days, it was VERY HARD to make myself review. But you know what, after doing it for so long now, it has become a part of my life. Its just what I do every day.
The most important thing above all, is to try to never miss a day, no matter what. Because when you miss a day, you may just think “I can make up for it tomorrow”. But then when tomorrow comes, its suddenly much easier to blow it off again. And before you know it, you’ve completely stopped.
Go ahead and miss a day. Seriously. It’s ok.
Back From Vacation
It’s been a little quieter than usual on this blog because I’ve been working and took 10 days traveling from Chicago to Little Rock, Arkansas to Omaha, Nebraska and back to Chicago. Water skiing, a little bocce ball and a wedding: Good Times.
I didn’t review at all. I didn’t miss it. I didn’t feel like I’d blown my obligations or a solemn oath to myself. I listened to Japanese music and podcasts, read some Japanese blogs and had a grand ole time of it.
And when I came back I had 500 items to review! Oh the horror! But it didn’t matter to me because I do no more than 75 a day regardless. And I start with the easiest items on the pile to reinforce what I do know first and build up momentum.
That, for the moment, is what I do. It works for me. Its driven by what I read and watch. It builds my interest in Japanese culture and their perspective on the world and makes study that much easier. But what works for you? What works for ihatobu?
Recall vs. Use
Looking back at the discussion, notice the focus on tools for language as opposed to using language:
I did the same thing (I was reading a TON) and skimped on reviewing. After 6 months I realized I could no longer write a lot of the Kanji. My vocab and grammar skills definitely improved, but my ability to write and recall Kanji were abysmal. So I started RTK over again (this time with Japanese keywords).
Notice that when people talk about forgetting how to write kanji, the solution invariably moves towards a study technique like flashcards. No one’s writing essays in Japanese or seeking out the equivalent of a creative writing course in Japan.
No one is suggesting reading material that uses those obscure Kanji more often. No one is talking about using the Kanji, only recalling the Kanji.
If you don’t use those Kanji outside of SRS reviews, why should your mind retain them? To do what? Win a Heisig recall competition? To memorize what you don’t use is to fight with your own brain.
My long term goals with English are not to have perfect recall of the definition of every word or to be able to name every word based on its definition. I want to write better, to more readily understand others’ writings, to listen better - To use the language. And that’s not a memory problem, it’s a practice problem.
Now using language isn’t quantifiable, you can’t make satisfying statements like, “50% cards in Stack 8, 95% of RTK cards in Stack 4 or higher, ~25,000 reviews since June 2007″. But then again, when you know a language, you don’t think about it or measure it, you just use it.
