掲示板 Forums - How can I keep up motivation for learning japanese?

Well, you said you really want to learn Japanese. Think of what you'll gain from learning it, maybe that will help motivate you.

Aside from that, maybe as something different from anime--as you mentioned to avoid in suggesting--you could read Japanese books? I personally don't read many Japanese books outside of manga, but others here probably have some good recommendations.

And maybe just a simple 頑張って will help!

You want to want to learn Japanese? Why? There's no point in learning Japanese unless you need it for work or something. That's why 99% of foreigners who learn it do it because they want to. Life is way too short to spend it doing things that you don't want to do, especially something as time-consuming as learning a language. If you don't want to learn Japanese, then just go do something else that you actually want to do.

Watch anime everyday.

Braindead post XD :KAPPAPENIS:

motivation is an unreliable recourse - it comes and goes in bursts and is never a constant stream because your body obviously needs to focus on other things!!! this is perfectly normal, though it is a pain in the ass when something such a language learning is your goal - which is a years long dedication
why do you want to learn japanese? even if it's as simple as " i want to be able to read the names of the food in the asian supermarket " in the beginning, it'll be enough to motivate you a little bit - but you need long term goals to keep yourself going, such as. . . finishing a whole video game in your target language, or watching japanese youtube, or understanding the culture better, or talking to natives, or maybe even moving to japan
there's going to be days, weeks, maybe even months of low desire to study or even think about studying ( look at anyone's heatmap on here ( including mine!!! ) and you'll see that ) but you shouldn't give up
language learning isn't really. . . difficult, it's more like exercising - anyone can go for a jog, but it's the drive to get healthier that keeps someone jogging - not a random burst of motivation that makes you jog once a month - you're not going to lose weight or increase your stamina jogging if your exercise levels are 0-100 randomly
it's all about consistency - whenever i feel low on desire to study i just lower my reviews. sure, it's not efficient to have varying amounts of reviews done some days, but it's better than doing nothing
even if all you can do is a 30 question quiz and 5 new terms learnt - that is still 5 new terms added to your roster and eventually your vocabulary, and 25 terms you've brushed up on and are more likely to remember. 30 less than if you did nothing that day ( on a regular day, i take 15 new words a day, and review 45 terms, but everyone's different. i don't have enough time to go through the 500+ terms that are to be reviewed in my schedules everyday, so i don't. it doesn't affect my ability to retain terms because i'm reviewing every day, and spending time immersing alongside it )
also - don't torture yourself for god's sake. . . don't watch shows you're bored by just because they're " better immersion " or " more efficient " - if you're not enjoying what you're watching, you're not going to retain much anyways
put on some stupidly complex sci-fi drama if that's what you're into. you won't be able to understand a lot of the complex stuff they talk about, but you'll enjoy your time spent with the language, and it might even motivate you to get better and understand the shows you like in the future - plus, there's always common language spoken by characters in everything you'll come across, which you will understand bits of, which is also super exciting :>

I believe your goal is too far to be relevant in everyday decisions.

What‘s the first thing you want to be able to do? Something small? Something technical? Something odd? Is there anything you want from japanese anytime soon?

If your wish to live there is your single drive, then, maybe learn about Japan first - in your own language. Learn all you can, learn to understand the country you wish to live in. I believe you‘ll dislike Japan the more you know or you find a sooner-to-reach reason for learning the language. Nothing to lose in that approach. :)

I attend a Japanese conversation class run by volunteer native speakers. It's the biggest source of motivation for me to keep studying, especially to keep learning new vocabulary.

Don't worry, you are not alone in this. For me personally, I would split my working time into small parts because I could receive feedback like a reward, and that really kept me motivated. Before I developed a habit (discipline), I would always imagine myself achieving my goal (important) and why I should continue working. Hopefully this could work for those who are struggling.

What really helps me is to set concrete and smaller goals along the way to my big, vague goal (which is to be able to watch/read Japanese media in Japanese). At the moment, I work full time and have some other hobbies as well, so my main method of study is renshuu, which is really good for learning vocabulary and kanji, and for getting an introduction in grammar points. I also occasionally watch Japanese dramas (with English subtitles, just so I hear spoken Japanese. But more intense study is not ideal for me at the moment, and I'm fine with that for now. That's another recommendation I have, really look at what you're able to do at this moment in time, and change when circumstances change.

Anyway, at the beginning of this year I set myself 4 goals:

Get to 3000 learned vocabulary on renshuu - quite an arbitrary number, but also one I saw in discussions about fluency. I know that 'fluency' is not something you can objectively measure, but it seemed that with 3000 words, you'll get quite far. Also, it seemed doable for this year, as I had around 2000 I believe. It felt both substantial and achievable.

Get to 600 learned kanji on renshuu - again, achievable and substantial, I believe I was on 400 or thereabouts. I got there already, which gave me a great boost!

Do the N4 grammar lessons on renshuu - this is slightly more tricky, as I don't want to do too many lessons in succession, so I only learn new ones when my grammar schedule looks quite empty. It's a goal I need to push myself on, which is good.

Lastly, to get away from just flashcards, I decided I wanted to play the first case of the first Ace Attorney game in Japanese this year. I already played it in English, a few years ago, so I know it a little. Also, the YouTuber GameGengo did a video explaining every line and every word of the first case (of which I have by now watched about a third). But most importantly, there are some usermade ace attorney vocabulary schedules here on renshuu, so I added the case 1 words to my study regime, generated a kanji schedule based on the vocab, and started studying both. The bigger goal of playing the case has therefore also been split up into very concrete and measurable steps: learn all the vocab, learn all the kanji, watch the video, play (but not immediately after watching the video). The vocab and kanji count for my vocab and kanji goals. The ace attorney case is really where my current memorisation study meets my bigger goal of being able to engage with Japanese media in Japanese (although I'll choose some new goals after I finish these).

All that's to say: think about some concrete and smaller targets that are doable for you, but still offer a bit of a challenge, and make you feel like you're working towards your eventual goal. Whether it's a number of words you'll try to reach, or learning a specific song by heart, or learn vocab and kanji for a specific manga and then read a chapter without using a dictionary, pick one or a few and that might help your motivation!

mate, I live in Japan and don't have motivation sometimes. I do my renshuu daily, I just signed up for some classes (the city does free ones, but it's a lottery, luckily I got on one this year), but outside of that is hard. I started working through a textbook (Minna no nihongo) page by page to see if writing help, and it does a little.

I think motivation might increase with schedules. So I recommend signing up for JLPT, even if it's N5. That will give you motivation as it's an exam.

It is hard though, I've been here two years and still feel like crap! Haha