Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Slow Down Before You Burn Out

It’s nice that you can work at your own pace when you’re studying Japanese (or any subject) on your own.  It makes it a lot easier to accomplish greatness sooner than if you were to take a class on your subject of choice.

However, there is a risk involved, and that risk is burnout.  I studied Japanese intensely on a couple of occasions, and when I couldn’t keep up the pace, I quit altogether.

Now I’ve been back at it for almost a month, and every day I’ve been learning 25 kanji characters, 25 vocabulary words, and 25 sentences.  This is great and all, and I feel like I learned a lot, but now my reviews are piling up every day.  I used to have all of my studying done by noon, and now it’s later in the evening when I finally finish my routine.

I can feel it: exhaustion.  I’ve had this feeling a couple of times before, and both times I gave up on my favorite hobby.  I’m not going to let that happen again, so today I made the decision to learn 15 new kanji characters, 15 words, and 15 sentences instead of 25. 

I’ll probably retain the information better, and it’ll make my reviews easier.  I don’t know if I’ll go at this pace permanently, but I need to take a little break to catch my breath without going cold turkey.  I’m going to continue studying every day, but now that I’m four weeks into college classes and I have scholarship essays to write, I need to slow down the Japanese pace a bit. 

Until next time,

Adam

アダム

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