Feeling Stuck/Slump?

[chrome nest]

I am going to be real and that is, I am feeling stuck. Initially when I began, I was on the right track but then somewhere in the middle it feels like I took the wrong route somehow and got lost. I do feel lost at the moment and need to get back on track. Here is what I been doing so far but it feels it's not enough or something is off.

1. Look over through the Refold Grammar Primer (as a refresher)
2. Going through Tae-Kim's Grammar Guide --> but feel kind of lost
3. (New): Trying out Renshuu
4. Active Immerse via J-Drama/Anime....but I feel like I am not doing something right. Right now, during Active Immersion, I just watch and read the TL Subtitles but that is about it...still can't read most Kanji and only know a few characters and their meaning as I immerse.
5. Go on Iago and quiz myself (sometimes).

That is basically where I am at the moment but I feel I need to retrace my steps and take a step back. Perhaps maybe I am experiencing a ~~"burnout" ?~~and need to take a breather and then restart the engine again. Any advice/help is appreciated. Thank You.

[chrome nest]

You may be right, perhaps I am overthinking this. Things do take time.

Continuing and moving forward seems the right path forward (probably).

[silk imp]

Judging by your introduction and server join date, you’ve only really been making a concerted effort of this for a month. There is little to no possibility you’re doing immersion wrong—if you’re consuming native TL content, that’s it. That’s all you need to do to be “correct.” The methods of consumption will impact your exact trajectory, but this is all you need to worry about doing for now.

You’re experimenting with some stuff for yourself that isn’t generally discussed around here, and that’s great. It shows drive and motivation and I’m impressed by it. That said, you mentioned that you might be experiencing burnout. What exactly are you feeling, and when? Are you feeling like you can’t understand anything during immersion, or do you get exhausted doing a lot of active (conscious) study? Conscious study is drills, reading grammar, repping your SRS, and so on.

[chrome nest]

Maybe the word "Burnout" may have been an early call. You're right, it hasn't been that long since I started and I think I just need to find my footing and continuing. Sometimes when I am doing some grammar or doing Iago, my brain is like "I give up, don't want to do this" (sometimes). Maybe it's just a mood or something. There are still lots of things I still don't understand but that is a given since I only recently started.

I just have to keep going, toughing it out.

[silk imp]

Are you still enjoying your immersion? The solution to the specific problem you’re talking about is to just not do grammar study when you’re feeling that way, and to go immerse instead. It sounds dogmatic, even to me. However, coming from a background where I tried to do way too much grammar study and got frustrated when it wasn’t translating into real skill, this is the solution. There’s only so much grammar you can look at without having actually experienced that grammar in immersion before you get hopelessly lost.

Regarding your 3rd point in your original post (and related to what I said above): immersion is the answer, but it isn’t a magic bullet for all language-learning ails. It’s the way to learn, and everyone who has advanced on here truly believes this. However, it is a slow method, and if you’re used to traditional learning in any way it can appear slower than that. This is an illusion—one trains usable, subconscious knowledge, while the other trains a large amount of unusable surface-level knowledge. The payment that must be made, though, is time. Subconscious (procedural) memory takes so much time to begin budding, and until then it will feel like you’re not making progress. No amount of grammar study fixes this, and that’s why I recommend you just move on to immersing when you get this feeling. If you start to feel like all immersion is painful, that’s when you’ve burned out, and that’s when you need to take a break before you irreversibly associate learning Japanese with frustration and unhappiness.

[chrome nest]

I can say with certainty that I do enjoy immersion more than reading a bunch of text on a website. During immersion, I think I am starting to understand how words and especially Kanji can be learned through Native TL media. That is because you hear the words the characters are speaking and right there and then you are learning that specific word or Kanji, especially with the help of the TL Subtitles.

Perhaps I should put more focus/hours into immersion and only put a very brief amount of minutes into going through grammar. I think with grammar, I am putting too much focus on what is being said rather than just going through it briefly...perhaps that is where the "feeling" is coming from.

I can also say that, with the small progress I made thus far and being able to follow subtitles and even lyrics is a plus. Before that, I couldn't follow it at all or none. I just need to keep it up and keep going forward and will eventually be able to read more and eventually be able to write and speak properly.

[silk imp]

Yeah that’s probably a good idea. The primer mentions that you should only look at it briefly, and it’s because without a decent amount of immersion time (50-100 hours) there’s simply no way for you to fully grasp the concepts being explained because you have no contextual basis to fit them in, and you end up banging your head against the wall. Good luck!

[chrome nest]

Appreciate the input and the good luck.

[livid cedar]

So, imagine you're in a wuxia film - you've run away from home to learn kung fu because nobody else in your village has the guts or grit needed to stand up to the bandits. Usual story.
You get there and beg the master to take you in - he listens to like half of your story and is like "hmm, ask me again next week."
So you've been sleeping outside the gates in the rain, begging for food, yesterday you punched a guy out when he tried to hassle you. But you're not learning anything yet. Certainly not kung fu.

This is what it feels like to start a new language, especially one from a new language family. The master is just testing you; it won't last forever.

[chrome nest]

That is an interesting way too think about it and I can certainly see that. Appreciate the input.

[ashen pilot]

Just to add to this! I'm only a couple of months ahead of where you are Japanese-wise so I'm not going to pretend I know much more than you do, but I've made a bit of a habit of learning new skills in general and I think it's incredibly important to find a way to focus on what you're enjoying about the learning process. This is why I reckon the advice in this thread (and around Refold in general) to focus on immersion is so important, because it gives you an opportunity to do exactly that by getting stuck in there with the language itself.

Japanese is very beautiful in many different ways, and Japanese media is a lot of fun. You're also doing yourself a huge amount of cognitive, social, cultural, etc. etc. favours by taking on a new language, and I think it's good to remember that too.

The times when I'm most discouraged are when I consider fluency and how long it might take to achieve, or my general lack of understanding. If you can, I do think it's much better to focus on your day-to-day activities rather than what you haven't yet accomplished, and trust that your brain is sorting things out even when it feels like you're not making any visible progress.

[livid cedar]

^ This advice is awesome

[chrome nest]

I appreciate all the input and feedback and will keep them in mind. Your right, I just need to focus on the task ahead rather than feeling discouraged.

[ashen pilot]

Hang in there 🙂