掲示板 Forums - burnout

so i’ve reached the point all language learners have reached before, i have burned out. not just japanese but im talking about that here. what should i do while i recuperate essentially (and its not like ive stopped learning all together i still do warmups, just don’t have enough drive right now to do my renshuu

The main thing to know to get through burn out is: Taking a break is more than just A-OK.

Just because you are taking a break doesn't mean you are stopping forever or giving up. It is simply a time to re-group and return to what you want to do in this case Japanese and do it better than ever.

I have burnt out more than twice (actually dozens by now) from over doing it in all areas of life not just Japanese but giving myself a break is what allowed me to come back stringer with more efficiency.

So in summary, taking a break is crucial from time to time and a slight burn out is a simple sign saying take a small break and then come back stronger than ever. This is not just for Japanese, it is for everything you do.

Just focus on another activity for a bit of time. It will almost reset your burnout if you do it long enough. (At least in my experience) This is normal and when you feel ready again, do a focused review and get back to it!

@shamugan

bouncing of off this, i may or may not have blitzed through the whole schedule and only remember about half of them, but either way i still learned about 40 of them that i can read consistently in my studies.

i also have quite the good shape recognition, so i remember some stuff, kinda like how rain looks like rain on a window, snow looks like snow piled up on a window, and how electricity looks like you plugged in a generator while it’s snowing out! stuff like that!

(more tid bits, pork looks like the lines you see in pork. next year looks like a star over a gas station pie, we americans love stuffing pie in our mouths, hence the one for the west. holy s//t this eye is walking around on legs you gotta see this for 見ます. and how japan is sun book, so i have reverese engineered a lot of them)

my big issue point is my actually speaking and my vocab list is so small i can barely string a sentence together and convey the right meaning

​Great! That's you strenght. Then spend less time and go slower on kanji recognition from now on. Because 1) shape is not the only things you should focus on (and later, it will become slightly more complicated 時、持、待、特, etc., your strenght will be useful here) and 2) because you can spend more time on the things you're not as good at. And you should =p
Take it easy with the things you're good at and let them mature slowly. And at the same give yourself more time for you weaknesses. AND, most importantely, be kind to yourself. Because it's normal to not be able to do a LOT of things. To sum up, take time to recognize/appreciate your success and recognize/admit that you still have to learn (which is obvious but frustrating to do).

Second, not being able to string a sentence is normal and is expected. You're not supposed to create your own sentences at beginner level. You're supposed to memorize and imitate "correct", "native" sentences. You're not supposed to even understand grammar. That's a misconception a lot people have. Learning and understand grammar + memorize words, that's the pedagogical method from one 100 years ago (between the 1900 and 1930). Modern pedagogical method don't rely on that. Because it created too much problem like Hypercorrection (Overextend a grammar rule and then developping bad habit that you will need to correct later). There are a lot of online and self-learners that suffer from that. Especially on renshuu. They want an answer immediately. They THE correct answer immediately, ask for an answer on the internet, get something which is not really wrong but not correct either, build up on that, generalize it and much later, realize they incorrectly understood that grammar pattern, misused for the past few years because they never had a professional or a native to correct them. They even worsen the problem by trying to understand more complicated grammar framework that belong to linguistic while still not having solid foundation. And getting more things wrong that they will need to correct later.

On the other hand, there a few type of learners that make much more progress than others and faster. On renshuu, for example, you have the "Even if I don't understand, I don't care but I will do all of my review" type. I'm jealous of that type because I'm unable to do that ; ;. But basically, they don't really try to understand grammar or create their own sentences. They just buldooze through their reviews and whether they get it wrong or not, whether they understand everything or not, doesn't matter. Because of that, they accumulate correct Japanese in their head instead of believing that they're able to understand/analyze Japanese at any level. And when they start to properly study grammar at intermediate level (with a textbook or something created by a "professional" teacher, not the crap on the internet), they make tremenduous progress. And even before that, seeing enough correct Japanese will simply start to aggregate naturaly past a certain threshold.

Well, that's a simplification but roughly it's something like that. JLPT ressources are also based on that (Well, I should say ressources based on the old JLPT published guidelines since the JLPT doesn't publish anything anymore). And renshuu is also partially based on that (even if I'm not exactly sure of the exact pedagogical design of renshuu... Currently reverse-engineering it based on マイコー occasional pieces of advice and renshuu design :D).

If you look at the first lesson for example, "Simple sentence with です", it doesn't really teach anything about grammar. It only teach you:

- AはBです ≈ A am/is/are B

And on top of that, it threw at you a lot of unknown words such as "Topic", "Topic marker", "Particle" without properly defining any of them.
Basically, memorize the pattern, get used to it and... try to remember those various words I threw at you =p. That's not understand what's happening or how the sentences work exactly.

Once you've seen that basic pattern enough time, you will naturaly be able to produce sentences. Because your head will be filled with "correct" Japanese. Even without understanding what's happening.
Well, if I simplify the process. Because it's not that linear and there is a lot of back and forth.
Also, the reason why it's design like that most of the time is because "grammar pattern" is more complexe than "grammar" but also easier to learn. Grammar on the other is more "complicated".

TLDR: Don't try to create your own sentences, you're not expected to do so nor to develop the ability soon. But you can still search for "correct" Japanese in the sentences dictionary and swap only one word or two, for example. You can even search in english if you need too. That's far safer than trying to create your own sentences on your own, getting things wrong because you have neither a teacher, a native or a professional translator to correct you! And then having to undo that habit at higher level because you finally realizing that misunderstood things all this time! Well, it will happen no matter what you do but it's often worse when you take the habit of creating sentences on your own. Without never getting any feedback.

Anyway, I talk too much x). But yeah. To sum up:
1) You're did fine so far and your strong suit is shape recognition. Now, do it in moderation, give yourself a break and study in a more balance way in the future (less time and effort on your strengh, more time and patience on your weaknesses)
2) Don't worry about not being able to string your own sentences. You're not expected to be able to so. And you could even say that most ressources almost don't want you to create your own sentences (or use grammar to create them). They expect you to get used to correct Japanese and memorize patterns. And much later, you will develop the ability to freely create sentences :). And if you really want to be able to say one sentence/can't resist the temptation, then used a lot of correct Japanese as a reference and get a lot of feedback from others. Preferably from a teacher or a native if you can.