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Failure Is Moving Forward — 4 Comments

  1. I’m loving all these recent posts that talk about the unpleasant facets of studying Japanese. Many people that have already become fluent tend to gloss over those aspects and only tell other beginner/intermediate learners about their triumphs. I’m actually in the middle of bouncing back from my “lowest point” right now. Right before I left for basic training (2 months minimum of no studying), I hit some mid-level blues and got frustrated with my lack of progress. Once I came back home, I became increasingly frustrated, until I finally did the worst thing possible and quit for a while. At least, I tried… I kept coming back to it over those months and poking around a bit before stopping again. Turns out I just can’t stay away from my passion, no matter how much it hurts me. :D

    Finally, I got so fed-up that I went back to my roots… some grammar text books and flash cards. I figured my issue was how much I had forgotten. You wanna know the weirdest part, though? I remembered nearly all of it! It turns out I just had some over-inflated idea of where I SHOULD be, instead of noticing where I’m actually at. And it turns out that where I’m at is actually pretty good. So, I’m going to finish “going back to my roots” and take the next step from there, instead of trying to jump straight into “where I should be”.

    • Thanks. I think it’s more important to help prepare mentally rather than make everything seem like a rainbow path to success. Though it’s always important to remain positive.

      Glad to hear you are back to the game and stronger than ever.

  2. I am taking a break for 2 weeks (adding ~10 cards/day)because my review load reached an unsustainable level (~400/day for sentences and ~100 for Kanji). I think I flew too close to the sun and got my wings burned, lol.

    • It’s always a good idea to alternate high pace with low or medium, because the slight drop in pace prevents you from the major drop in pace that burnout would cause.

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