So, for the past month-ish, I’ve been doing primarily listening practice while making flashcards for words from the content I’m watching.
The problem is that I’m not really sure what I should be doing at this point. I think I’m at the point where a lot of people give up because they don’t know how to proceed.
Should I just continue what I’ve been doing, or should I be doing something specific? My pace with learning has been slowing down because of school, and I feel like I’m not getting a lot out of my current method. Am I just not taking this as seriously as I should? Should I intensify my current method to get more cards out of a single video?
I have so many questions about my current situation that I can’t answer without wasting more time to figure it out myself.
What is your goal for learning Japanese? Are you making flashcards out of videos because you enjoy those videos, and/or those videos are a measurable stepping-stone towards your goals that motivate you, and you want to understand them better? Or are you making flashcards out of videos because someone else told you that it's an effective study habit, or because you don't know what else to do?
If it's the latter and it's making you feel bad (i.e. like you're not being serious and need to punish yourself by studying harder), then stop doing it. If any study method is demotivating you, drop it and find a method that engages you instead -- language-learning is a long-term endeavour, and the single largest variable affecting your success is your motivation to do it. The "intensity" or "efficiency" of your study does not matter at all to how far you get in the language, it's how consistent you are with the habit and how long you maintain it. Sustainable study habits and continuing to enjoy your contact with the language are paramount.
"I'm stuck because I'm not pushing myself hard enough" or "Thinking about my needs and goals is a waste of time I could spend studying more/better" is a toxic mindset that will cause you to burn out and give up. Since you're asking about how to avoid that, I think you need to do the opposite: slow down and assess what you like about language-learning and think about how to prioritize that in your studies. Without knowing what level you're at and what kind of things you've already done, I can't give much specific advice besides to just experiment. Focus on what makes Japanese fun for you, and build out from there. Don't be scared of trying out different materials and different methods to see what works for you -- finding out how you study best is part of language-learning, too, so it's not a waste of your time to do that searching.
Thanks for the feedback. It’s hard to describe exactly how proficient you are in a language when you aren’t measuring every little aspect of it. Either way, you’ve given me a new perspective and some more stuff to think about.
Have you been following the grammar lessons here on Renshuu ?
I can only speak for myself, but completing all the N5 lessons gave me a great confidence boost. Now I started "journaling" to practice writing, which (at least for me) feels like a great way to feel progress.
Following these lessons may give you a clear goal to chase, and then you can start working on small writing "projects".
