Language Journal: November 6th 2018
About a month away from 2 years now.
I already feel like I've accomplished something simply by sticking with something I'm so clearly terrible at for 2 years. But I don't want to get complacent. I do want to reach several destinations along the way, but actually making the journey is just as, if not more important than any particular goal.
And therein lies the conundrum. It is HARD. I'm not sure if I'm terrible at it. Practicing wrong. Or Japanese really is just THAT hard to learn. I can really feel the drag some days. I think the lack of immersion IS the biggest challenge though. I am a father in Canada with no one that I converse with or practice with in Japanese.
If you can't tell, I'm at another plateau of sorts on the journey. And as much as I whine and bitch, I feel I'm still doing well for the efforts made and I am making progress. But the progress has slowed again. And by a lot.
I have some good ideas what the problems are. Lack of exposure to the concepts I'm grappling with and a lack of diversity in the training materials.
What naturally happens as you progress is you start hitting vocabulary and grammar that may be common enough, and yet still exist only at reasonably small intervals. The top 1000 words for example. In the span of a month I'll probably see almost all of them, and many of them numerous times. The next 1000 words, I'll see a lot of, but definitely not as many of them. And even the ones I see I'm likely to see less often. And once you venture into the next 1000 words, things get gradually worse. It all depends on how much material you cover in a day and how diverse that material is.
The same goes for grammar. I'm super well versed in the basic usages of all of the particles. I think I even get the general usage of は and が right most times. But, less frequent usages and combinations of them are common enough. But, if I'm not studying them exclusively, or not studying tons more material I simply don't hit them often enough for them to stick.
Anyway, the answer is simple. The problem is me. Right now, I am maintaining. And I'm even growing. But the growth could be faster. And I know it. And I have reasonable ideas about how I could fix it.
And that is where I'm at 1 year and 11 months into this crazy ride.
I already feel like I've accomplished something simply by sticking with something I'm so clearly terrible at for 2 years. But I don't want to get complacent. I do want to reach several destinations along the way, but actually making the journey is just as, if not more important than any particular goal.
And therein lies the conundrum. It is HARD. I'm not sure if I'm terrible at it. Practicing wrong. Or Japanese really is just THAT hard to learn. I can really feel the drag some days. I think the lack of immersion IS the biggest challenge though. I am a father in Canada with no one that I converse with or practice with in Japanese.
If you can't tell, I'm at another plateau of sorts on the journey. And as much as I whine and bitch, I feel I'm still doing well for the efforts made and I am making progress. But the progress has slowed again. And by a lot.
I have some good ideas what the problems are. Lack of exposure to the concepts I'm grappling with and a lack of diversity in the training materials.
What naturally happens as you progress is you start hitting vocabulary and grammar that may be common enough, and yet still exist only at reasonably small intervals. The top 1000 words for example. In the span of a month I'll probably see almost all of them, and many of them numerous times. The next 1000 words, I'll see a lot of, but definitely not as many of them. And even the ones I see I'm likely to see less often. And once you venture into the next 1000 words, things get gradually worse. It all depends on how much material you cover in a day and how diverse that material is.
The same goes for grammar. I'm super well versed in the basic usages of all of the particles. I think I even get the general usage of は and が right most times. But, less frequent usages and combinations of them are common enough. But, if I'm not studying them exclusively, or not studying tons more material I simply don't hit them often enough for them to stick.
Anyway, the answer is simple. The problem is me. Right now, I am maintaining. And I'm even growing. But the growth could be faster. And I know it. And I have reasonable ideas about how I could fix it.
And that is where I'm at 1 year and 11 months into this crazy ride.
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