I've seen a few posts/comments about "how do normal people do to learn japanese without much free time" and I feel like I can raise you one. Hope this is useful for anyone feeling down on their progress while I can get some feedback on the methodology used myself.
Long story short, I have a strong cognitive impairment to the point I can't work anymore, and I'm using about one hour per day of my limited lucidity to study Japanese. I've started late June for a total of about 160 hours so far.
Gonna split the post in differentiated sections as I feel it's pretty long otherwise.
I apologize if my english is weird, I'm not native and writing this ate enough Japanese practice already. Sad times.
My personal situation
So I have an autoimmune neurological disease called multiple sclerosis (MS). The debut was in july 2020, with the lasting damage going straight to my cognition. Essentially after a few minutes of neurocognitive challenges, my executive function goes off the rails, particulary short term memory and shifting attention. My SDMT is on the 3rd to 5th percentile, so yeah, not good.
That's for the performance alone, but on top of that, the headaches come in. I can't do my work (data analysis) anymore. The limit for multimedia is around 40 minutes, so I need three sittings to watch the stupid long movies Hollywood produces nowadays. Holding a conversation for more than half an hour awards me three of tumbling in bed fading in and out of consciousness.
Not good. Currently on a legal battle against social security to get a disability pension so I can secure my finantial independence going forward.
Why study Japanese if your brain is a useless piece of meat?
Well I don't work anymore. My days consist of carefully managed energy to avoid symptoms. I've managed to recover the fitness levels I had before (and surpass them even), and after trying different approaches to entertainment, early this year I stumbled into manga:
- There's pictures, so I don't have to imagine the scenes.
- I read as fast as I want, and can stop whenever my mind goes on a trip.
Amazing. Now if I only could squeeze some intellectual development. Work on something which gives me a sense of accomplishment. The requirements are:
- It has to be something I can do adaptively based on how well I feel on the day.
- The process has to be rewarding on itself, not depending on milestones.
In this time I couldn't help but notice, as much as I'm impaired when I'm out of juice, I can still use english. I've been learning the language since I was two years old, and it eventually became second nature. I do think it uses a bit more energy than my mother tongue, but it's not enough to be noticeable. So the advantages of learning japanese are many
- A skill which I can work on essentially for the remainder of my life.
- I get to read raw manga, not depending on scanlators picking on obscure series.
- Once it becomes natural enough, I can use even when I'm feelin like crap (which is most of the day).
- Maybe one day I can visit Japan and interact with the locals without being a hassle.
First steps
The first hurdle was to build a study plan. I decided on shadowing the university course from MIT OCW as they follow Genki adding extra exercises. The drills given have a much higher difficulty in listening, and also expand a bit more on the grammar usage.
The approach scheduling wise was to do the MIT course first thing in the morning after breakfast and walking the dog, using the lion's share of consciousness. Then, for the rest of the day I would find moments to practice writing new kana for ~15 minutes, adding 3-5 new characters every day. To drill them down I would play the RealKana game while working out .
After four weeks this concluded, which made me struggle to try and incorporate Anki. I picked Kaishi 1.5k, although it felt counterproductive to even approach vocabulary with kanji. Character recognition being abysmal, on top of short term memory deficiency…not a good recipe. I decided to shelve it for a while as I got more Genki content down and the words and kanjis appearing in the deck weren't all new. As such, the kana time went into JLPT-N5 kanji through TokiniAndy.
August to Now
Over the course of the following four months I've settled into a selfhosted timetracking solution and I slowly transitioned into the current schedule:
- Morning: 10 minutes of Anki + 30-45 minutes of "drills"
- During workout rests: Akebi Kanji Grid.
- Evening: Immersion.
At the start I felt happy doing S-L0 tadoku books and anime with english subs, however it was clear the anime part was a waste of time. The difference between what I could understand and how hard I had to focus to even get small soundbites was brutal. It's also exhausting.
Mid november I finally switched to Nihongo Con Teppei (basic level) and L0 tadoku. I still watch anime with english or japanese subs depending how spicy I feel, but it's considered more entertainment than practice. To take it away from the gamification, I don't add content with english subs into tracked time anymore.
Thanks to timetracking you can see the evolution in how I distributed time. Keep in mind kanji writing on Akebi is not tracked as it's trash quality time in between sets. Below the three full months so far.
"Vocabulary" is just looking at a list of words when a resource forces me to do that, which, as you can see, I try to avoid like fire.
Observations by discipline
Anki/SRS
Kaishi1.5k hurts my soul. I don't have a usable working memory so flashcards are absolutely brutal. If the kanjis are complex I simply need to see a card 30-50 times before I can recall it, and then I have to relearn it soon if it's not common enough in immersion. I think having only one new word per day, up to 4-5 if I'm doing good is the only reason I can keep going with this. I imagine I will be able to speed it up a bit once I get better at digesting kanji, as of now I'm resisting the urge of adding furigana to the front of cards and hoping situation improves.
Kanji
I think Kanji recognition is one of the most challenging hurdles to go through. My current approach is to add new Kanji to the Akebi Grid once I've seen them a bunch of time, using a story/nmenonic technique including the parts and the meaning. Then I practice them the next time I'm at the gym, piling a maximum of 5-6 new kanji per session. For example: "The WOMAN who used to take me to the FAIR and buy me nice things is my OLDER SISTER, 姉".
This however is really slow and it's at the backside of the learning process.
Drills/genki
This part of the learning process is going in waves lately. I sometimes find it boring and skip it in favor of immersion, while at others I'm happy to grind. The MIT courses are pretty heavy on nuance Genki doesn't give and it also forces me to output which is particularly useful for me to acquire grammar and vocabulary. The fact most questions come in audio form makes it the cherry on top.
Immersion
I'm done with the tadoku L0 graded books and trying L1. I'm liking reading and I'd love to have more content for the level I am in which is…very low. Learning a couple words per day only gets you so far.
On the listening side of it, I'm currently grinding the easy Nihongo Con Teppei list. I still watch anime with english subs and I'm happy I catch more bits here and there. I don't think the structures used are the main problem, the vocabulary is. Add enough words I don't know and the phrases become gibberish fast enough.
Conclusions
I'm feeling pretty happy overall. It's clear to me I need to stay in somewhat of a bubble because otherwise the amount of new information overwhelms me, but the progress is obvious. I just wish the common vocabulary kanjis I'm trying to digest nowadays didn't have 50 strokes each.
Wish I could boost time spent in listening immersion but the energy consumed by trying to understand real time Japanese is too taxing on my body.
by BelgianWaterDog