It is extremely easy to get overwhelmed when learning Japanese. It’s pretty much as far from English as you can possible get and learning several new alphabets is tough. It’s listed as one of the hardest languages for English speakers to learn and with thousands of characters to memorise, it’s easy to feel like you aren’t making any progress.
Once you find yourself on a path of being overwhelmed it can be hard to climb out without spiralling. The best thing to do is avoid the downturn in the first place by pacing yourself and creating good habits. Once you’re in a slump the easiest way to get out is to pivot and completely change your study plan.
Learning a language is a big undertaking so today I’ll share my biggest tips on avoiding a Japanese slump.
How To Avoid Becoming Overwhelmed By Japanese
Learning Japanese is a multi-year commitment so it’s inevitable that your interest will ebb and flow during that time. The key to long term learning success is to know how to sail through the low points and make it to the next upswing.
Trent regretted committing to learning Japanese when he remembered that he couldn’t read in any language.
Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
The biggest tip I can give is to not go crazy with your study schedule. When you’re starting out and you have the kind of energy that makes you want to LEARN ALL THE KANJI… don’t. By starting with a completely unrealistic study routine you are setting yourself up for failure.
Take a hard look at your schedule and see how much free time you can consistently devote to studying. If you’re working full time and have other commitments, don’t think you can do 5 hours a day because that kind of routine will burn you out quickly.
Personally, for an adult with a life, I think half an hour a day is a good amount of study with more on the weekends. You can also pepper in learning throughout the day with games but don’t force it if you’re getting bored!
Study a little every day consistently.
Studies have shown that studying a little bit every day is better for knowledge retention than doing long drawn out sessions. It’s better to study in smaller amounts like 30min a day where you can really concentrate, rather than force yourself through several hours when you would rather be doing literally anything else.
The longer your study session, the more likely your mind to wander. When you find yourself reading the same sentence over and over, you’re not retaining information and there’s no point.
One thing I find effective is to review kanji in 5 minute bursts throughout the day. This really breaks up my work day and by linking kanji to being a reward in my mind, I’m more likely to follow through with proper study later.
Set small, tangible goals.
“Learning Japanese” is a terrible goal. It’s vague and not something with a quantifiable end. You don’t one day wake up and go “Oh I have achieved learning Japanese!”.
If you are motivated by goal setting, you should be setting small achievable goals that are easy to tick off a to do list.
For example, these are good goals:
It can be depressing when you’ve been studying hard but even a small child has more vocabulary than you do.
- Learn 10 new kanji
- Revise hiragana for 20min
- Read 1 manga without using a dictionary
- Get 90% on Clozemaster
- Do 5 lessons of Mirai Japanese and the super quiz
All of those things are tangible instructions which can be completed and ticked off.
Set yourself a long term plan with Big, Medium and Small goals. Small goals are thing you do daily, Medium are monthly and Big are the ones that will take many months or years.
For example:
Small – Learn 5 new Kanji
Medium – Read through 10 Chapters of Genki 1
Big – Learn and pass a test on JLPT N3 Kanji
By having a constant stream of achievements you will be able to see actual progression and it’s really motivating.
One example of this is a bit childish but I think it works: progress thermometers!
Mark that out with your word lists or kanji goal and get ready to feel REALLY good when you colour it in.
Study in interesting ways.
Sure, cracking a text book and buckling down is the standard way to study but it’s not the only one. Consume media, read books, watch tv, talk to people, put your language skills to good use! This is really helpful because it creates links and re-enforces the words you’ve learned in new contexts.
For this to work you will need to understand what kind of learning makes you tick. Is your goal to read manga? Then find some comics that are appropriate to your level and start reading. Want to make some language friends? Then get online and start studying together.
Buddy up.
“Yes, don’t you think this blank page really matches my dress?” Corine said in perfect Japanese.
Speaking of language friends, now is a great time to make some. It can be super motivating to be accountable to someone else when you’re studying solo. While you might not enjoy the classroom setting, it’s much easier to chat to like minded people online. If you play online games, try chatting in Japanese and seeing how far you can get. Talk to people on Instagram, make a specific language account to mark your progress online.
If you’re not at a level that you feel comfortable speaking Japanese get then make friends with people who are also learning Japanese. Set a goal that all of your conversations will eventually be in Japanese and start teaching each other.
Don’t overshoot your level.
While it’s important to challenge yourself with new material, if it’s too hard you will become discouraged. If you can’t understand anything it’s easy to think that your study so far has been a waste. So make sure you stick to media that is around your current level rather than skipping far ahead.
Much lower level – Boring, easy to gloss over meanings.
Slightly lower level – Easy to understand, good to build confidence!
Current level – Great to reenforce and revise what you are learning.
Slightly higher level – Good for learning new words by context.
Much higher level – Hard, discouraging because you don’t feel like you know anything.
Recognise when you need a break.
If the thought of doing your current study routine fills you with dread, it’s time to rethink your schedule. Sometimes the best thing to do is walk away for a while and come back refreshed. Set a realistic timeline like 7 days and make sure you have a date to come back to.
The key to a good break is to get your mind refreshed and ready to learn again.
Recently I found I was struggling with getting through the levels in Wanikani so I decided to give myself a 7 day break. The break wasn’t long enough and it was mostly filled with other stressful life things in my life. When I sat back down at my computer it didn’t feel like any time had passed at all!
Many SRS programs don’t have pause buttons so while you’re away, your revisions might keep piling up! It’s very unmotivating to come back to a few hundred revisions so I always suggest trying to just push through the slump if you can.
So for taking a break to work, you need to be honest with yourself and know if walking away will re-invigorate you or if your attention will just move to somewhere else. My break was filled with stress so while it didn’t inspire me, it lifted one thing off my plate so I could concentrate on the rest of my life.
Make study relaxing.
Study time or bed time? Hard to tell somedays tbh.
Studying doesn’t have to be a slog. You can train yourself to find it relaxing and comforting. Most of these ideas are aimed around longer study sessions (30min+) but they are really effective to get into study mood.
Find a soundtrack.
Do you like those Youtube compilations of music to study/chill to? Perfect. Like something else? Go nuts. The key is to only play this music during your study sessions. It’s better to use your own music rather than the sound track of any apps you’re using so it can carry over as your learning journey progresses. When you turn the music on it should tell your brain: it’s time to study!
Mix with your favourite routines or snacks.
Love coffee? Study time is now coffee time. On a diet? Reward your study sessions with a treat you’ve been denying yourself. The key is to find something relaxing that already makes you happy and link it in your brain to studying.
Try to use your other senses like smell!
Another way to trick your mind into a studying mood is to use smell. Find a nice candle and use it only during your study periods. Anything you can do to link in your other senses is great.
Help! I already got overwhelmed and I want to quit…
Firstly, don’t quit.
Maybe find somewhere more comfortable than the bare floor to study. That laptop doesn’t look very ergonomic.
Ok so things are looking a bit down but don’t give up! Take stock of how much you’ve already learned, when you lay it all out you will probably be surprised at how far you’ve come. So don’t stop, if you quit now you will have a much harder time achieving your goals!
Inspiration tends to come in waves so don’t feel like you need to be at 100% at all times. It’s perfectly reasonable to scale back your study when other life events get in the way.
The important thing is to keep moving forward, even if it’s at a slower pace.
Stop treading water.
Particularly while learning kanji, I find myself treading water rather than actively learning. The downside to SRS apps is that once you are a few months into learning, the reviews really pile up heavily. The work loads increase a lot and if you skip a day or two it’s like coming back to 3 times the work.
With that in mind, it’s easy to find yourself only barely keeping up with reviews rather than learning new words and moving forward. It’s an easy trap to fall into but if you aren’t learning new words, you aren’t making progress. Of course it’s important to revise but not at the expense of keeping yourself motivated.
My advice here to to KEEP LEARNING. Even if it’s only 1-2 new words a day, learn something to keep your brain active. Don’t fall into a pit of reviews of 500 reviews, give your mind something interesting. Set a time limit on your reviews so they aren’t taking over.
Scale back
Pete scaled back his study by not writing in Japanese at all.
Getting through 5-10min of revisions seemed easy when you were at Level 1 in Wanikani but towards Level 10+ the amount of time required is a lot greater.
A lot of SRS programs are primed for optimal learning but they don’t really take into account your life outside of the app. For most people, it’s easy to study for 20min a day but if you have 200 reviews of kanji piled up that’s probably going to take a lot longer. Not to mention factoring in grammar and vocab.
Give yourself permission to stick to your study schedule and work around your life. Learning is important but if it’s causing you stress or eating into other areas of life, don’t feel at all guilty at scaling back. Learning Japanese isn’t a race!
If you can pause your reviews while you try something else that’s even better because you can pick up where you left off without worrying about a pile of work when you’re ready to come back.
Take a different approach.
It’s been suggested already to PREVENT burn out, but changing your study habits it a great way to dig your way back out once you’re there too.
Often I find it’s not that I’m bored of learning Japanese but rather I’m bored of the app I’m using or the kind of learning I’m doing. If you’re sick of your apps then take a look through some of my recommendations to see if there’s something new to try. Or if you’re bored of kanji then switch to grammar. If you’re bored of grammar then switch to listening etc.
Sometimes I’m also just bored of stuffy polite words. To combat that, I can keep my interest up if I skip reading text books and put my skills to use reading social media accounts. The conversation there flows a lot more easily and it’s nicer to be able to just chat freely without being overly concerned about being CORRECT.
If all else fails take a break.
If you just can’t push through then it’s time for a break. While I think it’s important to try new things and ways of learning, if it’s not working then you need to recognise it and quit before you never want to come back!
Keep in mind that it can be harder to get that enthusiasm coming back to learning than it was the first time.
In conclusion…
Remember, learning Japanese isn’t a race but it is a ticking time bomb.
Feeling overwhelmed by learning Japanese is a pretty normal part of studying a language so don’t feel bad if it happens to you. Often we take for granted how easy it is to communicate even basic concepts when you’re a native speaker so it seems like a huge step down while you’re learning.
To keep from feeling overwhelmed you should give yourself clear small goals and track your progress. Try different styles of learning and make your study time a relaxing part of your day.
If you do start spiralling, stop and take stock of how much progress you’ve made. Don’t give up, just try to study in a different way. Keep trying new things until you get back into the groove.
Remember that there is no right way to learn Japanese and any study is better than no study!
