• arxaseus is not here@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    4·
    2 days ago

    Something happened to me last Friday and have only been doing 30 mins of Japanese since then (still not enough to progress).

    In somewhat of a depressive slump right now. Trying to muster any energy to study is incredibly difficult. I’m amazed I managed to even do 30 minutes of Japanese a day since. But yeah, just really gutted, no energy, and in a degree of emotional pain.

    Talking with other language learners does enable me to feel somewhat connected to my habits still though, so at least there’s that.

    • emb@lemmy.worldOPM
      3·
      2 days ago

      So sorry to hear it. Not much meaningful support I can give, but know that people care and want to see you succeed.

      Take care of your health first. If studies help take your mind off things or put you into a good place mentally, then great. But if you need to take time and process some stuff, breaks are OK too.

      • arxaseus is not here@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        3·
        2 days ago

        Yeah, I feel that, studying is something I pride myself on, which is why I rather not skip a single day, but yeah, I’m only human, and not everything can or has to be perfect. I actually learnt that, in a language learning sense, from a Japanese learner on YouTube, when he admitted to missing a day on one of his live feeds, then said he forged the dates on Anki to make it seem like he didn’t miss any. I get it. People on social media want perfection, I just felt sorry he had to lie about something so simple, so I’m not really one for trying to egg someone who misses a day or two out of hundreds. Life happens.

        Again, talking to fellow learners, even if I’m not as active, does help ease the pain by a fair amount. Just really want to indulge in the languages no matter what facet I can come across, so I’ll take what I can get.

        I should have really slept hours ago, but need to stay awake longer still, so I’ll probably try do it now after this message, I really gotta do a lot more so even just the 30 minutes should at least tide my senses over for a while.

        Also cheers.

    • emb@lemmy.worldOPM
      2·
      2 days ago

      Haven’t tried the Learn Through Haiku, so I can’t comment on that one.

      How beginner are we going? I like the graded readers from Ask. At first I thought it wouldn’t be worth getting printed ones, but they’re pretty nice quality. And around level 3 (as far as I’ve tried) you get substantial little short stories in there - around 30 pages per book, and they come in bundles of 5.

      I’ve tried some of the Japanese Language Park’s ‘Short Stories for Japanese Learners’ stuff, and actually it’s pretty good too. They have vocabulary lists, q&a, and a full English translation after each story. Personally, I’d rather just have the vocab list and not use so many pages for the other stuff, but it’s preference. I also have a “Japanese Short Stories for Beginners” from Lingo Mastery, which I’m not a big fan of. Typsetting and editing seem sloppy, but it does the job of providing short stories.

      More advanced, the Tsubasa Bunko stuff seems like a good route. I picked up a Tsubasa Bunko copy of 時をかける少女 (Girl Who Leapt Through Time) and it seems really nice. Full furigana, a picture every handful of pages. But it’s a lot, reading an actual novel (even youth-targeted) for me, for now, just involves too many word lookups.

      For broader options, try browing Natively maybe.