Language Journal: February 11th 2020

I don't know what to say. I may be losing my motivation. I may be plateauing. I don't know right now.

All I can say is that I don't have a lot to talk about on this topic. And I usually can't shut up.

I forced myself to write this because it has been about the amount of time since I wrote. And hopefully by slowing myself down and thinking about it, I'll come up with "something". 

The learning is progressing. I have, maybe a few months left in my Anki decks before I'm out of new cards. My broad plan at the moment is, when that is done, shift a lot more effort into reading and listening practice.

I finished Shield Hero vol1. And since that I wrapped up another volume of Flying Witch, and one of Yowamushi Pedal. I've still got one more volume of Flying Witch, and one of Silver Spoon. And then I have the Chihayafuru movie. After that, I'm out of new content.

I finished Yowamushi in one sitting. So I know I'm not really regressing. I've actually never finished an entire Manga volume in one sitting no matter the complexity.

I think that there is a bit of frustration on my listening comprehension. And on my reading pace. But, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. So, I'm intentionally slowing myself down. I have considered amping up my Anki reviews to get to the other content quicker.

I also feel like, financially, we might not be where I want to be by the time the trip to Japan is supposed to roll around. Which is another thing sucking some motivation perhaps. Hence the posts about investing. It is largely pointless to complain about investments. The last year has been great. But, the year before was utterly crap for the entire market. So, realistically, had I invested earlier, I probably wouldn't be much better off than I am now.

I can still say I've never missed a day of Anki. I'm probably still improving. It just feels like more of a drag at the moment. The frustration is partly that I can't even identify what feels like a drag though. It isn't the flash cards. If I felt it was a drag I'd be scaling back. I don't really mind slowing down.

I need a lot more practice speaking and writing sentences. That has also become clear. I sometimes switch to trying to translate from English to Japanese while reading my daughter stories at night. And I know that the translations are terrible. A lot of times I can't remember a way of phrasing something even though I know it would be trivial for me to read it.

Maybe that is the key. For now, stop trying that. I want to wrap up my flashcards before moving on. Letting things like that get me down isn't going to help. I will spend more time on that before Japan as well.

Done.

Comments

Popular Posts