4 months of learning Japanese daily

An no, no Duolingo involved!

Every day I wake up early and spend more than an hour learning Japanese before going to work.

At the very beginning, I learned Hiragana and Katakana. Then, I introduced myself to radicals (small elements that build up kanji) and kanji themselves (which is my favorite part, by the way!). At the same time, basic grammar and vocabulary. After about 2 months, when I started feeling confident with kana, I completely cut myself off from any rōmaji (Latin script to write the Japanese language) in my studies.

Today marks my 4th month of learning and I have never missed a day. I honestly don't think I have ever been this dedicated to anything in my life.

Where do I get my motivation?!

Being a weeb since many years... I tried learning Japanese before, of course. However, my motivation was always pretty poor. When I was a teenager, I just picked up some random words from anime. Then, later, a bit of hiragana... only to forget about it and relearn it years later. And again, learn and forget. And katakana? Please, I didn't even try.

Somewhere around the pandemic, I bought "Remembering the Kanji" and I even learned some of these. It was quite fun, but also quite useless, given I didn't learn any readings or practical use. Even then, my motivation really just ended after mayyybe around two months.

So what changed? Why is my motivation suddenly this high, when it couldn't be before, not even when I was a kid with so much free time that I somehow learned all the hand signs from Naruto? Well, the thing is...

Nothing! Most of the days, I do NOT feel motivated during my studies!

What is different now

I admit that this time is a bit different, because of the one event that really ignited my language-learning journey, and that is... I went to Japan. Last year, I spent 3 weeks in Japan. Before that, I watched a lot of vlogs, read travel blogs, reddit, and so on, so I thought I was prepared, but I was not. Literally every expectation of this country I have ever had was surpassed, easily. I fell in love.

That trip was the spark I needed to start for real this time. I started learning Japanese the very first day I came back and at the beginning, I felt that my motivation was fueling me.

You might think, maybe that's it? Is this the ultimate answer to my lack of motivation? Go to Japan? And I'd say... No. I mean yes, go, but not for that reason. I'd love to have a simple tool, a hack, or a quote to share with you, but the truth is that my motivation after this amazing and inspiring journey, did not survive the crash with the reality after all. My motivation was indeed very high at the beginning, but just as before, it went away slowly after a few weeks.

What really changed is my mindset after that inspiring feeling faded.

Now, I set myself a goal - being able to talk with a Family Mart employee on my next visit to Japan. A goal, to work the best, should be SMART.

• Specific - being able to talk with a Family Mart employee
• Measurable - I can track grammar/vocab needed to accomplish this goal and watch videos to make sure I am able to understand them
• Achievable - realistically, there are not too many situations that can happen in a shop, so I'm sure I'm able to learn all I need
• Relevant - it's a solid start for acquiring a new skill, especially now, when Japan matters a lot more to me
• Time-bound - I want to achieve this before my next visit to Japan, which should be within a year

To achieve this goal, I need to act towards it, and not wait for it to happen. And it turned out that having motivation is nice, but it is not necessary. What is necessary is dedication.

Motivation is a wonderful feeling, but only a feeling. It will pass and there is no way to change that. Dedication, for a change, is like a habit, a work, just pure action. There were days when I really, really didn't want wanna study. But I did. There were days where I'd rather spend them on a game... but I learned. There were days when I was lying sick in a bed, feeling absolutely awful. But I kicked my ass and studied anyway.

It's not like my motivation is gone forever. Obviously, I am sometimes inspired after watching some Japanese Vlogs or just looking at my photos from Japan, but there is no way this feeling alone would be enough. And it stands for any longer project, not only language learning.

For me, being dedicated is a work that pays off. By building this habit, I am getting closer to my goal, and honestly, I also feel like I'm growing as a person.

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." - Bruce Lee

Oh look, after all, I have an inspirational quote for you.

My resources

Japanese is a very popular language - you will find a lot, A LOT resources, including many free, hidden gems (like this A Lingue Latina Per Se Illustrata inspired online book). Insane.

I will list some of my learning resources below, but I highly encourage you to find what works for you. None of the links are sponsored.

Anki

My beloved... Anki. Which I absolutely hated at the beginning due to very boring and weird UI. But it is really, really great, once you give it a chance (and maybe upgrade it to look and work better with some add-ons).

Basically, it's a flashcard app. A free, open source, robust, customizable, working on both PC and mobile flashcard app. It shows you one page, guess what's on the flip side, rate whether you got it right or not, and Anki shows you this card again, after some time, depending on how you rated your answer. If you keep guessing correctly, the interval between repetitions will be longer. If you forgot (and you will - hit that "Again"!), the card will show up more often.

The Anki community is huge - if there is a subject, you can probably find a deck for it.

• Hiragana: Link to Anki deck
• Hiragana -> Katakana: Link to Anki deck
• Kanji production & recognition - Migaku Kanji GOD addon. It acts like a dictionary, have stroke animations, and can extract kanjis that will soon appear in other decks, so you can learn kanjis that will actually appear in tour studies: Link to Anki addon
• My personal fav and must-have: Japanese course based on Tae Kim's grammar guide & anime: Link to Anki deck
• Core 2.3k: Link to download on gitlab
• Decks for learning anime/manga/games can be found here: Jo-Mako's Japanese Spreadsheet

Satori Reader

Satori Reader is an app with short stories along with their readings (you can change the speed of the voice, really helpful) and curated remarks - no generic copy-paste descriptions from somewhere else. Some chapters are paid, but you can get plenty of content for free.

Iago Addon

Supported on Youtube and most of the streaming platforms, Iago helps you lear with subtitles. You can watch is alongside subtitles in another language, look them up in a handy dictionary and add save chosen words for later study session.

Takoboto & Yomitan

Takoboto is an online dictionary, and Yomitan is a web browser addon allowing you to quickly look up words on a various sites by just hovering on them. I use both of them on a regular basis, first when I don't really get the full picture while learning, and second when I want to quickly check the meaning of a word while browsing the web.

Why am I sharing this?

Firstly, if you want to go to Japan but you've been putting it off for whatever reason, this is your sign to GO! Japan is a really affordable, quiet, clean, friendly and extremely cool place. And you never know what feelings and new passions it may awaken in you.

The second thing is to tell you that if you want to commit to anything, motivation won't be enough. There will be days when learning will be enjoyable, there will be days when it won't be, but you'll have to stick it it anyway. Finding the goal that works for you really is crucial for developing new habits. When I was younger, I used to want to learn Japanese because... because... why? To watch anime? To.. to what? I don't know. So no wonder I couldn't commit to it then.

Now, the right goal and my initial motivation made it possible for me to really enjoy the process of learning Japanese. And I'm glad for that, because it is quite... fun! And I swear, learning languages never seemed fun to me, but now it become sort of a hobby of mine.

頑張ろう!