Be Excited About What Happens Next
When you start Japanese, everything is new. Over time you grow accustomed to things. You begin to expect the way certain things work, both in the language itself, and the way you study the language. You gain a comfort level, and things become routine. Then all of a sudden something changes out of nowhere.
I’m not even talking about the major changes like going to J-J, or trying immersion, or reading a newspaper. I’m talking about the sudden changes.
Like when you are going through J-E, and you are slowly but steadily building one block upon the other. Then you hit your first “umm… I don’t get it. What the hell?” You move on to have it happen again. These “huh” blocks, or the awkward non-fitting Tetris blocks, continue to fall at the least expected time.
The same thing happens with your study methods. You are doing kanji in Anki, and have been progressing smoothly through the first several hundred cards. Then all of a sudden you start forgetting old cards. You have a string of mistakes. Your reviews start piling up in ways they weren’t before. This doesn’t feel good. It makes you realize that you are going to have a lot of these gut punch moments. But on the reverse, the positive experience comes in the same way.
What comes next?
You don’t know what you are going to learn next. What abilities you will unlock. What untold treasures are waiting to be found just around the corner. There will be so many moments coming up soon for you that will bring an absolute smile to your face. Moments that will make you feel good, unstoppable, and like an explorer finding something amazing for the first time in a new world.
You should be excited.
You should have trouble sleeping because of that excitement. What will tomorrow bring? The unexpected, the unknown that awaits should be a thrill. Sure, there will be some downs that follow, but these downs are merely challenges. Whatever happens next, good or bad, will be different and interesting. That is something to look forward to.
What are you excited about what might happen next?
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
This article known what I am going through. I need to switch up my mentality and be excited instead of frustrated.
Yes. Bring on the excitement!
I’m finally convinced I can do this. I also know exactly how to do this. So now, essentially, all I have to do is play a little catch up and I’m good to go. Am I excited? Damn right I am <3
And that’s the way it should be.
Thank you for this encouraging post. Sometimes I need this kind of motivation
No problem. Keep up the excitement.
Yesterday, I was getting frustrated over how many old Kanji cards I got wrong. I wondered if I was ever going to be able to remember anything past three months. I’m excited about the prospect of remembering kanji for six months. I’m going to believe it can happen, current evidence to the contrary.
It’s normal to start forgetting kanji if you’re not using it in immersion. As you spend more and more time reading, and grow your vocabulary, the list of characters you struggle to remember will shrink very quickly.
Also don’t forget that as a result of the above and because of how Anki works, you’ll see the kanji you struggle with much more often in reviews than the ones you don’t. So even if you’re doing great on 80% of them and struggling on just 20%, that 20% will end up being the bulk of your reviews. Don’t get discouraged by that – it’s normal =)
That’s the right attitude. And you can’t base things on your current evidence. It doesn’t know the future evidence that is coming soon to contradict it!
For me, my excitement level increased dramatically when I started using Tobira as a study book. Very little English, if any. New vocabulary, new kanji, lots of dialog and main lesson to translate and a higher level of Japanese to learn. Every day or night I am motivated to open the book and dive into a new section or teaching point.
That’s great to hear that a textbook can infuse such excitement. Cherish it!