3 years of struggle, doubt and self-hatred: 10 Learnings from a “Below Average Joe”

With New Year's coming up, a lot of people will give Japanese a try again. However, some of you will also struggle to make comparable progress to the ones you typically see online. So I thought it might be a good time to post some learnings I had as someone who is at the very bottom of the progress line.

Background: I started my journey in December 2021, so just passed my 3 year anniversary of learning. I started relatively motivated with 20 new words per day and at least 3 hours of learning, but it became gradually less until I ended up at 1 hour with only 3 new words per day. I tried the JLPT N4 after 1 1/2 years after passing two practice exams months before, but failed it. Afterwards, my motivation plummeted, learning dropped to 30 minutes a day with Anki and a podcast I half-listened to with 0 new words. I slowly built things up again so that I am back to 3 new words while spending 1-2 hours a day in total, depending on the current motivation.

With that, I am still on a N4-ish level (Did a mock test this month with 123/180) with about 4k words learned according to Anki. Understanding anything above the Yotsubato manga meaningfully is still a dream at a far distance and I'm still learning at a snail's pace. But I'm still on the road, I'm still moving forward and I'm sure, eventually, even I will get somewhere. On this path, I made many mistakes I'd like to point out here so that maybe someone else doesn't do the same:

1. The Issue of "Best Resources"

We have more resources available than ever before, which also leads to new apps and methods coming up regularly that are now considered the best. Or just new Influencers coming to fame and establishing the "new era of learning Japanese". One easy trap to fall into is just trusting others that there is an objective best method.

Yes, that cool guy who aced N1 in 2 years might have used method A. But that doesn't mean it's the method for you to do the same. It's important to keep in mind what helps YOU the most. For example, when I started, textbooks were mostly called an outdated waste of your time, teaching you "unnatural Japanese" and whatnot. I've had tremendous success with them in other languages, yet I didn't give them a chance in Japanese. Instead of getting a cohesive basis to build upon, I instead went ahead with vocab I forgot several months later and snippets of grammar that never manifested in my head. For me, a text book probably would have given me a better start, but I insisted on methods of "the pros".

In the end, I think it's important to keep motivation and longevity in mind. Even if a class/teacher uses suboptimal methods, maybe just being held accountable every week is the motivation you need to really open your mind for the language and putting in extra effort. Maybe that structured course is worth it. Maybe talking with a friend daily is worth it. Or maybe you actually can just dive into immersion and get the most out of it. The important thing is: Don't just take the currently considered best method, find the one that fits you and let's you spend the most positive time with it. The longer you voluntarily spend time with the language while enjoying it or its results, the better. A subpar method that makes you spend 3x as much time is still better for you.

2. Neglecting Properly Learning Kanji

Until very recently, I only learned vocabulary. The advice I used is "Your brain will remember it if you read it often enough". The truth for me was: It didn't. My brain is a lazy dastard and only "vaguely remembered" things. Random example: In Anki, I might have had 板 correctly answered for months until it more or less disappeared. When it came up in a sentence where it was super obvious it should be this word, I might have recognized it. Suddenly, the word 枝 comes up and I'm back at point blank. I keep confusing them, seeing 板 in a vacuum also didn't work anymore. This is even worse for more complex Kanji like in 綺麗 – I just remembered vague shapes in context, and while this seems to work initially, it quickly falls apart.

Just a few months ago, I finally got Remembering the Kanji and started regularly writing Kanji using the Ringotan app. I really wish I could turn back time and do this immediately on top of vocab study. For me, who has tons of issues recognizing shapes in general, this additional effort is absolutely golden. It doesn't matter if I can write the Kanji on a blank paper, the important part is that it makes me really pay attention to the details. Again, going back to 1 this might be different for you, but I would highly encourage everyone to find a way to remember every stroke of your vocab, even if that slows down your golden "N1 in 3 years" plan.

3. Dismissing Mnemonics Too Quickly

With my RTK learning mentioned in 2, I also finally learned that Mnemonics are actually way more powerful for me than I thought. I initially dismissed them because I tried to remember some vocab with a story and then couldn't remember the story, hence "doesn't work for me". With RTK I then noticed: I don't need a perfect story for things, I just need some image-building bridges that put things together.

e.g. 厚 (thickness) -> when I see this, I immediately have the image of a plump child hanging down a cliff on a sunny day. This is not very specific, but I immediately tie this image to "thickness". This is such a powerful tool to bridge the gap between short-term and long-term memory, please do not dismiss it too early!

It's really worth it to take some time for new things to build as many bridges in your brain for it as possible. A machine gun fire of new words in Anki is not worth much if you don't find ways to make them stick, although it sounds nice on paper that you add 20 new words per day to your deck.

4. Not Learning for JLPT When Doing the Test

It's easy to get too comfortable with where you are at when attempting the JLPT. I passed the jlptsensei and the unagibun simulations, so surely I don't need to worry about it a few months later when I'm even better, right? After all, I'm constantly working through stuff that is levels above. Absolutely wrong unfortunately.

When going through learning material or native stories, these are meant to be clear: Things are repeated, spelled out, done with the intention of readers/listeners following along. The JLPT does the exact opposite.

For example, my JLPT test had a text about a hotel visit where something along the lines of "What kind of life did they mean?" was asked. Unfortunately, I completely forgot what 生活 is. "Something activity?" was in my head, and I completely misread the question and most likely answered things wrong I could have easily answered if I knew this one word. I never struggled with this word in native material because it was obvious in context, and I recognize it when I essentially just have 3 words to choose from. The JLPT instead often uses this against you and plays with confusion and misreadings, so its content needs to be firmly in your mind.

The test results can have a huge influence on the motivation, positively and negatively, so if you plan to do these tests, learn specifically months before.

5. Aimless Listening

Listening always seems like a great way to squeeze in additional learning time. However, I noticed two misconceptions I usually had with this:

1. Expanding vocabulary with it: For me, this didn't really work at all. What listening is really powerful for is to move things from your short-term to your long-term memory. So in my opinion, it should have as much known vocabulary as possible, and tying listening to the vocabulary learned specifically is a powerful combo that is completely lost when they are de-coupled.

2. Pacing: On paper, it sounds great to just put "something Japanese on" while doing dishes, cooking, walking, or whatever. However, I noticed that I spaced out more and more and wasn't actually listening at some point. So for me, it was also important to give myself some slack and maybe just listen to some music for a change if I feel like it, so that I can use less time more efficiently and actually listen to things. Which leads to the next point:

6. Useless Time Benchmarking

It's so easy to fall into. You need xxxx hours to reach Ny level, so I need to put as many minutes as possible into every day! But an hour of learning can vary in value. If I take a stroll for an hour while thinking about life while a podcast is running, realizing I haven't listened after 10 minutes just to zone out again 20 seconds later, how much learning was that actually? Did I learn as much in my 60 minutes of forcing myself through Anki as with other things? How engaged we are, how much effort we put into properly learning is incredibly important. So never add things to "add study time", do things that actually seem worthwhile or that simply are fun! Because more time definitely helps, but if it's inefficient, it should not be perceived the same as direct study time. The more you get away from quantifying your learning, the better. In the end, that might lead to more effective time with the language because you also cut yourself some slack to keep it as a positive thing in your life. Forcing Japanese into everything is certainly the best approach possible, but only if you can handle it.

7. Not Utilizing the Power of Interest/Nostalgia Enough

While things can become a bit too frustrating if content is miles beyond your current level, things that are close to your heart definitely make learning easier. I've rushed through Final Fantasy 8 while struggling with other things with much easier language, simply because the game is an important childhood treasure for me. Welcome to the NHK was probably the most complicated manga I've ever read language-wise, yet I happily went through it because the anime is my favorite show of all time. I initially wanted to "wait until I'm fluent" to enjoy these works in their original language, but they were far better as tools to keep going.

Even when choosing easier content, I'd play around with different things if you don't feel what you currently do emotionally. Yotsubato is a common recommendation for beginners, and I also personally really loved this manga regardless of the learning and am currently re-reading it because it feels so homey and has such great humor. Shin-chan is similar in difficulty, but I didn't really get into it and struggled every day to continue reading. Trying easy things is cool, but it needs to vibe with you. So don't be afraid to try out new things instead of forcing through – both easy and hard things could work equally well.

8. The App Trap

No matter what you want to improve: There is an app for that. While apps generally are a great way to stay on track, they have a common issue of enforcing time. Make sure to not escalate the "must do" in a day. If you spend 1-2 hours every day you HAVE to do with apps, this might kill your whole motivation for other activities. Even worse with the punishments of additional study time for each missed day to keep the algorithms happy. But these other activities are incredibly important to not forget things: Despite SRS "Showing you things right before you forget", you probably will anyway if you don't encounter things in other contexts. Not to mention they are way more interesting! So these other activities should not suffer just because they don't add to your wordcount. So watch out that the app stack does not become overwhelming as it stacks up.

9. Not Being Pragmatic and Positive

It can be incredibly discouraging to see other people's progress if you suck. It certainly is for me. The default of all learners seems to be 20 new words per day, some people mention they unfortunately only do 10 new words per day, all done in 20 minutes of Anki a day. If this does not apply to you, you are in for a very vicious downward spiral of self-hatred. I struggled to stay below 30 minutes with my 3 new words per day. Telling others about it usually just ends up in a "wtf? You should need way less time for that" yeah no shit, thank you. I've rarely felt this inferior in my life, and my thoughts usually spiral around a "Do I have a disability? What's wrong with me?" mindset.

This escalated very recently when I decided to switch to FSRS since that is the epitome of algorithms now: everybody suddenly can learn 20 words per day in 2 minutes, although they previously needed 20 minutes for 10, etc.. When I switched, my time went up from 20 minutes to 40 instead. Then it became 60. Then 70. I asked for advice, thought about lowering the retention rate. But other people told me "Nah, you should not go below 90. You don't seem to actually learn anything otherwise". When I reached a breaking point, I just put it down to 80. Too low for language learning? Maybe for you. My times at least stabilized to 30 again and I didn't wake up feeling miserable having to go through 70 minutes of hell. Still sucks and something still doesn't seem to quite work for me, but at least I can manage this time on a daily basis while trying to improve the situation.

You can't properly re-access your learning if you need to spend hours a day just forcing yourself through a frustrating process, so if you are in such a situation, cut yourself some slack and focus on the positives. Yes, obviously things don't seem to work as well as you hoped. But at least you move forward. Maybe a different angle will do more. Sure, I'm still at a beginner level, but far away from 0. When the motivation comes back or you want to try something new, you don't need to start from scratch this way. There's no guarantee the next attempt will be much better. Learning something with a perceived efficiency of 10% of others is still better than always dropping to 0 and giving up.

10. Routines, routines, routines

The most obvious, but important one: Routines are key for everything. The best decision I made was getting up earlier to start my "daily must do". No matter what happens during the day, the minimum I want to do every day is done. Additionally, there are no excuses in the morning, while evenings are much more problematic. Similarly, it works wonders to have fixed time slots. If you are motivated and read something every day after dinner, chances are you will automatically do it again even after the motivation has faded. If you randomly do it throughout the day, it will last as long as your motivation. Having these routines will keep you floating even at your worst.

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tl;dr: Be kind to yourself, allow yourself to experiment to find your personal way of learning, establish some minimal routine that carries you through dark times. The language journey can be hard and frustrating, so try to stay on the road, even if things are slower than expected.