Hi, I'm Alivia, and today I want to talk about what to do if you feel like you're struggling to
find the motivation to study. I'm not sure if it's because I’m a bit more busy now,
or maybe if it's just the time of the year but recently I’ve been finding it harder to do my
studies every day. And this isn't the first time I’ve experienced this. I also went through a bit
of a rut when I finished the Genki textbooks and I felt a bit lost and I didn't know what I wanted
to do next. So hopefully these tips will help you if you're also struggling to find motivation for
your studies and if you have any tips of your own make sure you let us know down in the comments.
So my first tip, if you’re feeling a bit stuck, is to reevaluate your current routine.
Don't be afraid to change things up if what you're doing right now isn't working for you,
and see if maybe you can change the approach you're taking for a certain resource
or find a new resource altogether. So take a step back and ask yourself:
is what I’m doing right now working for me? Is it appropriate for the level that I’m currently at?
Is it helping me move towards where I want to be? And most importantly: am I enjoying it?
Now all of us have different reasons for why we're learning Japanese but I’d assume that we're all
doing it for ourselves. So don't make it hard on yourself, don't feel like you have to force
yourself to follow a certain method of study or to use a certain resource just because everyone else
is. If it's not working for you just change it. There's a lot of talk of, like, what the “best”
resources or the “best” way to study but the truth is even if one method is more efficient,
that doesn't mean anything if you don't like it and if you don't feel motivated to continue doing
it. So for example RTK or “remembering the kanji” is a really popular method to learn kanji and it's
very fast. I believe you can learn 2000 kanji in three months if you're really dedicated to it.
But when I tried it I just didn't like it and I dreaded doing it every day. Even though RTK is one
of the fastest methods to learn kanji, I decided to go with WaniKani because for me it was the best
option. I enjoy using WaniKani more than RTK so I'm less likely to slip up and miss a day and I
also find it's easier to remember the kanji. When I was trying RTK I found it really hard to focus
and so it took me a really long time to learn the kanji so for me WaniKani is the better option.
I also think it's really important to incorporate immersion materials into your study routine
even if you're just starting out. Not only will this expose yourself to the language in practice
but it's also really motivating when you come across something that you previously learned.
Immersion materials could be shows, books, podcasts, games, music. Anything that you
find interesting. Find something that you're excited about that either makes it feel like
you're not studying at all or that makes you really motivated to improve so that one day you
will be able to understand it. For example, I was doing a ton of reading and was really enjoying it
but recently I kind of hit a wall and have been finding it harder to sit down and do my reading.
I ran out of easy books that I was interested in and I don't really feel like committing myself
to one of my more difficult books right now. So what I started doing just this past week is
playing Stardew Valley in Japanese. So it's this game where you're a farmer in this small town and
it's pretty laid back and pretty chill and it recently got an update and I was really wanting
to play it. So I decided, okay, I can play it but only if I’m playing it in Japanese. So I’m getting
in a ton of reading practice because the game has a lot of dialogue and I’m reading a ton of
new words for all the different items in the game. So I’m getting in some studying but it's also fun.
My next tip for motivation is to actually not rely on motivation too heavily. It's totally
normal not to feel motivated all the time and your motivations are going to change day to day. So you
don't want to be waiting for motivation to hit in order to study. Instead what you want to do is to
create a habit of studying. So just to like make this make more sense think of brushing your teeth,
okay? You're probably not thinking to yourself: oh I really want to brush my teeth today so that my
breath smells good and for like good oral hygiene. I mean, yes, you probably want those things but
that's not an active thing that's going through your head before you brush your teeth. You're not
waiting for the motivation to brush your teeth. It's just something that you do without giving it
much thought because you've made it into a habit and that's what you want to do with your studies.
Every time that I slipped up with my studies it was because something else in my life was
interfering with the routine that I had. Like for example for a really long time, I was doing
most of my Japanese studies in the morning. I would do my reviews I listen to podcasts and
I do a lot of reading. But recently I started editing my youtube videos on a couple mornings
every week and even on days where I didn't do editing I found it a lot harder to sit down
and do my reading because I had disturbed that habit that I made. So like I touched on earlier
what I did is I moved my reading time that was usually happening in the morning, to playing my
game at night. So to make these habits easier to keep try and make them as similar as you can day
to day. You don't necessarily have to be doing the same thing every day but I found it really helpful
to be doing my studies at the same time every day. In fact, I actually find studying on the
weekend the hardest even though that's when I have the most free time because I’ll often sleep in
and they'll eat breakfast at a later time and then I just forget to do my morning routine. Another
thing that I found really helps is writing down what you want to accomplish. So you can start by
thinking big picture of what your long-term goal is for learning Japanese: what level do you want
to get to, what skills are really important to you, do you have a certain timeline that
you're thinking of? But then work backwards and think of what you can do in the short term to
move yourself closer to those goals. The big goals are great to give you guidance but I find having
these short-term goals really build momentum and make you feel really motivated each time you check
something off. So I usually like to think in terms of what I want to accomplish in a month
or in a week and then I also figure out what I need to do each day in order to reach those goals.
Another key thing is to make sure that these goals are realistic for you and that they're easy
to measure. So maybe this month you want to learn 100 new words, so that would mean that you need to
learn 25 words each week or around three to four words each day. Or maybe you want to read your
very first manga and those are usually around 200 pages, so that would mean that you'd have to read
around 50 pages a week or seven to eight pages a day. And if this is your very first manga that
might be a bit too much for you so you could tweak it and instead say that you want to read 14 pages
a week and then as you keep going you can decide if that is a good level for you or if maybe you
want to bump it up or bump it down a bit. Taking the time each week to actually plan out what it is
I want to accomplish has been really helpful for me, so if you're watching this, pause this right,
now grab a sheet of paper, and write out what it is that you want to get done this week. And also
don't just keep it in your head, actually write it down! Studies have shown that writing down goals
makes you a lot more likely to reach them. I don't know why but it works. My last tip of the day is
to try to find a way to keep yourself accountable. Many of us are self-studying so we don't have that
built-in accountability that comes with taking a language class. We don't have set hours for class,
we don't have homework, we don't have classmates or teachers to keep us in check,
so you're gonna want to try and build in that accountability on your own. So while we can
set our own goals of studying at a certain time every day or to learn a certain amount of words
each day, we don't have anyone to answer to if we don't reach those goals. And like I said earlier,
writing down those goals makes you a lot more likely to reach them than if you just kept them in
your head but try and take it a step further and tell someone else what your goals are and ask them
to keep you accountable. So if you're in a bit of a rut right now try and think of some goals that
you want to accomplish this week and let us know what they are down in the comments. And hopefully,
you'll also help someone else who is struggling to figure out what they want their goals to be.
So following my own advice I’m starting an Instagram account to keep track of my studies
so every week. I’m going to be posting what my goals are and then I’m going to give updates
on how it's going just some other casual just motivational type stuff. So if you're interested
in being my study buddy you can check the link to my Instagram in the box below and hopefully,
we can all motivate each other to keep up with our studies. If you like this video make sure
you give it a thumbs up, subscribe, all that good stuff and I will see you again soon!
hi um hi hello