掲示板 Forums - Why is learning Japanese so hard for me?

I'm not aware of your goals and learning facilities; so, only generic advice follows:

My teacher had told me to "always keep the end in mind", i.e. know what your specific goal is. Japnese langauge mastery is not a goal in itself generally; it is just a tool to assist in the actual goal achievement. Japanese language isn't like Latin-based languages and will initially feel 'alien'; this state is normal. But, as you begin to learn and immerse within it, you'll see that it (and its associated things about Japan and its culture) is(are) interesting and 'human'.

So, take the piecemeal learning lessons on Renshuu every day without getting fatigued. It can be a single session of 1-2 hours or 20-min. chunks of 2-4 sessions in a day. If needed, even take break-days. Try giving yourself a small reward once you finish your daily learning. Try attending Renshuu discord events to interact with other learners here or play games on Renshuu, if you like them. But keep your 'end' in mind and keep up studying/interacting. All the best!

Firstly: I know exactly how you feel. The more I get into the Japanese language, the more weird stuff I encounter, all those very different ways of saying things and using the words in a different way than we do. I don't know if I will ever be able to remember all that special stuff o.O

I must say that it very much helps me to visit a real class once a week and being forced by the teacher to have conversation with my classmate. I try to add in some new words I learned in renshuu and then I am very proud I could not only say the absolute basic that the current exercise asks.

Also, I use a book that has a lot of writing/reading and sentence translating exercises.

For Kana/Kanji I very much recommend learning with the association method (in German it's called Heisig method after the author) and not learning them by heart through simple repetition. Or use the mnemonics the users added to the kana/Kanji, choose the best one for you and try to really imagine it while you write the character.

And finally, take your time. I limit most of my schedules to 5 new words a day and 30 review questions. Sometimes I only do reviews and no new words/grammar at all. Sometimes I only do one schedule. Not everybody has the time and brain to study everyday. But try to study a little as often as you can. Then I do the crosswords. Somehow it makes my brain think differently than the quizzes. And, as stated above, when you are finished with the beginner schedules, try the discord events and talk! :)

It's not just a you problem at all! Being frustrated with it is just part of it, so don't really let that feeling get you down. I also think a lot of that frustration is frontloaded - that is to say, the further you go into the language, the easier it will become to remember and learn and the less frustrating it will become

Also, expect to forget a sizable chunk of everything you learn, ESPECIALLY at first. That's perfectly normal, but it's easy to feel like it's you just " not learning", even though it's not. Forgetting is fine and I do it too!

Memorizing kanji ⇒ Don't worry about on/kun readings too much start off with. If you're really deadset on them that's cool too, just go to your Renshuu settings and go to the Kanji section and see what option might be the best fit (I recommend "No additional readings" which will only give you readings you've already seen in words before, so you have something tangible to tie them to in your head). Another thing I can't stress enough, is that since you'll forget stuff either way, blast through them. I was learning a couple at a time, and was only managing 70% on quizzes, until I learned 200 in one week and still got around 70%. Grab a notebook and handwrite them with their meanings, the little mnemonics renshuu has also helps a TON to remember the building blocks that many kanji are made up of. If you have Renshuu Pro, use the handwriting quizzes. Just spam those quizzes and use Focused Review with it set to "Kanji I learned recently>>Today" to review for the day

Grammar that feels different from your native language ⇒ Japanese is definitely different haha. My native language is English, so thoughts are mostly reversed. The important thing is to find the new way of saying things interesting and cool. Think of it as that every time you learn a new grammar point, you can express yourself in one new way, when that happens and you're seeing and using it, it feels good. Textbooks can be tough for explaining the grammar in a way that makes sense - a lot of it I've had to kind of explain to myself because there aren't many good explanations on the internet. So if you get stuck, a quick web search might help a TON

Trying to speak and listen ⇒ I don't speak and listen well either almost 2 years later, I can read and write quite well though. My HUGE recommendation is to use social media in Japanese and when you find words you don't know, copy+paste them into the dictionary here and add them to a Word List. For speaking and listening, just do it. You genuinely will NOT get better if you don't talk with Japanese people all the time. Try a language exchange app or if you have local Japanese events where you can meet natives, I HIGHLY recommend it. Even connecting with other learners might help, but definitely talk talk talk. If that's not an option, talk to yourself and then do listening through anime, podcasts, and YouTube videos. If you'd like some good ones, let me know your interests and I'll see if I can dig a couple up

At the end of the day if you're going to keep doing it tomorrow, you're doing great

If you have any more questions at all please feel free to ask away. :) I'm rooting for you!

One of the study things I do sometimes to test my retention and is another indicator of my progress is that I will do reviews when I'm so tired I could fall asleep any moment or I have a major headache even being loopy on allergy meds. Each quiz i take that I either ace or miss very few also motivates me to keep going. One thing that helps me at least make the daily minimum study goal is that I want my heat map to be completely blue like many others I've seen.

If you get stuck try and grasp some understanding of what you learnt and move on because at least you’ll make progress and you can always come back to it later. It’s better to move on quite quickly when you learn a language so you don’t get stuck and lose motivation but also don’t overface yourself and take breaks. Also dw about kanji it can feel so overwhelming because of how many you think you need to learn at once but it will build over time. Just remember your goal and it’ll get easier dw!!