やる気出せ！ How to keep your Motivation to Learn Japanese up

 You need to know two things to keep your motivation to learn Japanese. First, you need to know what motivates you. That will be different for everyone. Second, you will need to know what demotivates you.

Everyone is Motivated Differently

People have different personalities and different motivations. The first step is to know what type of person you are. Ask yourself a few questions to find out:

1. Am I more imaginative or practical?
2. How much structure does my learning need?
3. Am I an introvert or an extrovert?
4. Do I enjoy the competition?
5. Am I motivated by positive results or negative consequences?

1. Imaginative or Practical

Practical People need to have a concrete reason to learn Japanese. Maybe they learn for a job, plan to go to Japan, or whatever. If this is you, make some concrete goals for what you will do once you can speak Japanese.
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Imaginative People, on the other hand, may not have any reason except that learning Japanese is fun. Great! Just learning the Japanese language itself may be motivating. If this is you, you may have a different problem. Either you may be interested in too many things and are not spending enough time on Japanese, or spending too much time on every single aspect of the language. Whichever, you could benefit by setting priorities and put more time into studying what is most important.

I can speak from experience though, don’t be too strict though. If learning vocabulary is the priority but you are really interested in grammar, then study both. Just make sure you split up your time. For example 80% of your time to vocabulary and 20% to grammar.

2. Level of Structure needed to Stay on Track

When you learn Japanese, you need two things.

1. A clear vision to accomplish your plans
2. The will to be ok with things not going as planned

These both sound like they are contradicting each-other but they are true. You need a plan to accomplish your Japanese learning goals. But, you can never know what you will forget and what will stick. You can decide what to learn but not what to remember.

Everyone needs a different level of structure in their learning plans. Likely the more structure you need, the more adverse you are to uncertainty. If this is you, then instead of focusing on the number of words you intend to learn, focus on how many you already know. Right down how many words you know today. Then compare that to how much you know in a week. Use this as a guideline to see how long it may take you to learn a certain number of words. 

3. Introvert vs. Extrovert

I would guess everyone at one point will want to speak with someone in Japanese. That is not everyone’s goal though. You may feel uncomfortable talking with people. If so, don’t feel obligated to speak. focus on your own reasons for learning Japanese. Such as watching Anime, playing games in Japanese, learning about Japanese history in Japanese, or whatever.

For the extroverts, you can use iTalki or skype conversations with Japanese people as a motivator. Or even imagine a trip to Japan someday where you can speak with people and talk about all kinds of things. Whatever motivates you, focus on that.

4. Does Competition Motivate or Demotivate

Today’s apps all seem to have competition built into them. You can see where you rank in a list, how many days you have had a streak of learning, and so on. Me personally, I ignore all of that. If you are not competitive then again find some other way outside of these apps to motivate you.

Actually, even if you are a very competitive person this may not even be enough. If so, you could try searching YouTube for people speaking Japanese and make it your personal secret goal to get better than them or whatever.

5. Positive Results or Negative Consequences

Finally, are you more driven to avoid something bad happening or to make something good happen? Probably everyone has a little bit of both. Depending on who you are though, one may be stronger than the other.

You may be positively motivated to learn Japanese well so you can get compliments on your Japanese. Or, you may be paranoid about having people criticize your Japanese. Either way is fine if it motivates you.

Figuring out why you are losing your Motivation

Now that you know what type of person you are, why are you losing motivation? Before getting into specific reasons look at your environment and energy.

First, distractions and a messy environment will likely stress you out and cause your motivation to dwindle. Second, you may just be tired. Learning something new takes physical energy. Make sure you are eating well and sleeping enough. I am not a doctor though so that is as far as I will go there. 

Other than those two reasons above, I have found four other reasons that could be why you are losing your motivation.

◆　You feel stuck from confusion or overthinking
◆　Obsessing over results and knowing everything
◆　Losing your interest by forgetting your purpose
◆　Feeling like you are not improving

You Feel Stuck

If you feel stuck with your Japanese Studies, it is most likely for one of two reasons. You are confused or are just overthinking. 

Confusion

The first reason for the confusion is you are doing too much and not sure what is most important. It is important to have a balanced approach to learning. Vocabulary, grammar, speaking, kanji, and so on are all connected. You need to study a little of everything to understand the individual parts. But, you also need a focus. In the beginning, it is easier to focus more on learning basic vocabulary. Then the basic rules to create sentences. Don’t worry so much about speaking, being able to understand what you hear, and so on until later.

Focus may not be a problem.  Maybe, you don’t have clear, short-term goals or clear study sessions. Not everyone needs to have a super structured study plan. Most of us though have limited numbers of hours for studying Japanese. So, it is important that we decide when we have time to study and block out time for that. 

Finally, if your short-term goals and time management is under control, then likely there is something that you don’t want to accept. It could be that you want to learn Japanese as quickly as possible but it is taking longer than expected. For that reason, you may be searching the internet for a quicker way.  You may just need to accept that it is going to take time.

Overthinking

Overthinking is either a type of confusion or it is a type of avoiding.  There are two things you may be thinking about. One, you want to figure out what you enjoy doing or the best method to learn Japanese.  The answer is to do what you enjoy. No matter what you do eventually you will get to the same place. 

楽しく学ぼう – The Method you are most Interested in is The best way to Learn Japanese on your own

The other possibility is that you are stuck on one confusing aspect of Japanese. It could be the difference between は and が, it could be about how to use time or tense correctly in Japanese. Whatever it is, just skip it for now. After you learn more Japanese later, the dots will connect.

If you can’t stop thinking then set a timer and give yourself a set amount of time to make a decision.

Pushing your Limits

Lost your Interest in Learning Japanese or Purpose is Unclear

Not Interested

Probably the biggest reason you feel uninterested in learning Japanese is you feel like you are not progressing. I will talk about that separately below. 

The next biggest reason is a boring study routine. The number one most important thing in learning Japanese is being interested. In the beginning, you will probably be excited about anything you do to learning Japanese. Near the beginning of my Japanese studies, I spent most of my time reading through a Japanese to English dictionary.

辞書 – Why to Read the Dictionary to learn Japanese

After I started to learn a fair amount of words this method became less interesting for me. I needed a new method. So instead I started learning Japanese just from reading and listening to real content. When I did not know something, I would search for the answer in a dictionary, grammar book, or online.

You can avoid a boring routine by studying the right content at the right time. In the beginning, trying to learn complex grammatical rules can be confusing and frustrating. Except for one basic Introduction to Japanese textbook which I read once and never looked at again, I never studied grammar deliberately until I was already fluent in Japanese. Everything else I just picked up through reading native Japanese material or talking with Japanese people.

Some other reasons that Japanese may not be exciting anymore:

◆　You Need more Variety in how you Study　◆
If you spend every day for one or two months doing nothing but either Duolingo, Memrise, Busuu, or whatever you will probably have depleted all of your interest in learning the language. You could do a little bit of all of those, but just picking one to the exclusion of everything else is a recipe for disaster. Make sure you have a few different ways to study at your disposal.

◆　What you are Studying is Not Challenging Enough　◆
Sometimes we can get into a habit of feeling unsure if we truly know something. We may read about the difference between おいしい and おいしそう but it may not click for us. Maybe we understand when we should say おいしい and when we should say おいしそう but not fully understand why.

We naturally want to feel more confident in our Japanese abilities. So, we put in extra time to get from 85% understanding to 100%. It is ok to get to 100% but that last 15% is less fun than the first 85%.  If you know how to use it, that is enough.  There is no need to try to go beyond that if it is costing you your will to go on. 

◆　Too much Time Reviewing or Doing Repetitive Things　◆
Something worse than not being challenged is reviewing too much. There is no sure way to stagnant your Japanese progress more than studying the same material over and over. Reviewing is fine but too much is fatal to your learning. If you use a website like Memrise you know what I mean. I enjoy reviewing new words but reviewing old words is very tiring. It is important to review what you learn but in moderation.

I never used flashcards to learn Japanese vocabulary. I did not keep track of the words I learned. Instead, I carried around my dictionary and read it over and over when I had time. My only review time was from looking up words I forgot when I was reading.

Unclear Purpose

If you don’t have a clear purpose for learning Japanese eventually you will start to question why you are even studying. I wrote a whole post on setting your Japanese learning goals. To summarize, having a purpose helps you to focus. When you are able to focus confusion and overthinking have less power over you.

Even if you do know your purpose, it is good to periodically remind yourself of it. You can write affirmations, or visualize yourself speaking Japanese. A little reminder here and there allows you to get back on track. For me personally, my goal was to live in Japanese for a year. I always had that in the back of my mind when I studied. For me, remembering my goal was the most motivating thing I had.

Feeling like you are not Progressing

Japanese is very different from English. It can take a while before you start to feel like you have a good grasp of it.

I see learning Japanese as a puzzle. Every time you learn something it is like you take a puzzle piece out of the box. You may have a few other pieces on the table but nothing fits together yet. So, you decide to put the pieces aside until you can find something that fits. Eventually though when enough pieces begin to fit together you will start to see the whole picture. At this point, it becomes easier to fit the pieces together. You can put the pieced together in any order you like, and you will always end with the same picture. 

It is hard to completely get rid of this feeling of not making progress. But, keeping this metaphor in mind is the best remedy to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

If you want a more practical option to get over the feeling of not progressing, then just track your progress. This is fairly easy if you use any of the numbers of free resources online.

https://japaneseuniverse.com/2022/08/10/free-ways-to-learn-japanese-online/

At least in the beginning. Most apps I know of are not designed to get you past basic fluency. So, after you clear Duolingo, Busuu, or whatever else is out there it becomes harder to measure. It is not impossible though. You can take courses on Memrise, or on LingQ. LingQ shows you the number of known words so you can use this as a reference.

Learning Japanese is a rewarding experience that requires dedication. There are times when you will not feel like doing and other times you won’t be able to pull yourself away. Just figure out what motivates you and where you are losing your motivation and try to fix it. I hope some of the tips I provided will help. Good luck.

If you are interested in learning Japanese I have reviewed what I consider the best resource for Japanese Grammar below: