The power of moving on when stuck

Japanese is a highly contextual language. It's also wildly different from English ^^

As English-speaking learners of Japanese, we often can't know how to use a word or express an idea in Japanese without hearing it many times in the appropriate context.

Because we need to see a concept in so many different contexts before we can become functional with it, trying to memorize things perfectly before considering moving on is more likely to hinder your progress rather than help it.

Instead, we recommend getting through your reviews quickly so you have time to learn new Japanese and use lots of native materials ^^

We like to call this idea "studying widely, not deeply".

Wide, not deep

There are arguments to be made that if languages were on a tree, the distance between Japanese and English would be the largest of them all.

What this means for us is that, as English speakers (and unless you're a native of / highly proficient in Korean), we're going to have quite the time figuring out how to express ourselves naturally in Japanese.

And the word "naturally" is good to keep in mind here. As we're figuring out how to make lots of sentences in Japanese, we're likely to reach for an English-to-Japanese dictionary and just use the first word that pops up.

Unfortunately for us, this often results in sentences that might not make terribly much sense

Thankfully, this is part of the learning process and your first years of Japanese study should be full of mistakes. That's what learning is, after all

However, I think it's fair to say that most learners would enjoy moving beyond that stage as efficiently as possible ^^;

To help with this, we like to tell people...

Study widely, not deeply.

Wide

When we study "widely", we increase our exposure to new Japanese as much as possible.

We progress through new NativShark Units, we interact with many native materials, and we try to have Japanese conversations as much as possible (if that's part of our goals).

Doing these things means you get a ton of exposure to many different concepts in many different contexts in Japanese.

As you increase your exposure to new Japanese overall, you'll notice that the concepts you've formally studied before begin to cement.

Things that used to confuse you slowly become more clear. Or you finally have enough context in Japanese to understand that one sentence that has been bugging you for a week or two.

And when you continue your studies with your learning materials, you start to see things that you've already gotten exposure to before, allowing you to solidify them very quickly. Then you unlock a whole new world of understanding.

It's exciting

In a sentence, if the concept is important, you'll see it so many times that you will have no choice but to remember it.

And that remembering then leads to the ability to use it in your own sentences without thinking about it ^^

This is opposed to if we studied "deeply".

Deep

"Deep" studies might look like you trying to perfectly memorize a certain conjugation, kanji, piece of grammar, etc., and be able to produce it instantly before you move on to the next one.

This approach can be harmful to your progress for two reasons.

First, Japanese relies too heavily on context for anyone to understand something perfectly the first time and the first context they run into it with.

There are too many words with meanings and nuances that can only be used in specific situations. If we never see those situations, we probably won't know how to use the word in a way that makes us readily understandable to other speakers of Japanese.

Second, this is kind of a stressful approach to deal with, honestly. And stress leads to burnout.

When you try to memorize something before moving on, you're in a constant battle of judgment against yourself. This results in us beating ourselves up when we fail to produce a certain concept or word.

But that just isn't what learning really is.

I highly suggest checking this article out about one of the biggest misunderstandings about learning there is out there for more info on this!

This isn't to say that you shouldn't, say, drill conjugations or such in extra time if you want to.

It's just that many learners think this is absolutely necessary to do, or they're going to fail at learning the language.

Thankfully, this simply isn't the case!

I (Ty) have literally never drilled Japanese conjugations once in my entire study journey of almost 9 years. The thought of doing so sends chills down my spine

Despite that fact, I now have no problem using the various conjugations to express myself. I even use Hakata dialect conjugations without thinking about it, also without ever actively having drilled them ^^

And I don't say this to be a flex

The fact that I did it means you can too, whether you drill conjugations or not

Things work themselves out in the long run. You just need to worry about showing up and being consistent

Improving study quality

Applying these ideas, we want to make sure we continue our progress through our learning-focused materials while also getting plenty of exposure to Japanese in the wild when possible and practical.

We also want to keep in mind that it's okay to only understand the gist of a given piece of Japanese. Deeper understanding comes from seeing things in many contexts!

Keep progressing and you'll find that concepts that used to be difficult slowly (or suddenly) click when you see them in new sentences. This is thanks to your brain piecing things together with the help of your increased overall knowledge of Japanese ^^

Let's take a look at an example of what these ideas look like when they're applied to our core studies

Thanks to you habit-tagging your studies, you open up NativShark as soon as your morning tea is done brewing.

You see that you have 60 reviews to do.

You go through them at a brisk pace while listening to one or both pieces of audio per card before pressing the smiley face option on each one of them.

This means you're spending 3-12 seconds per card, and your reviews are over in about 10 minutes or less.

This gives you plenty of time to go through a new Unit. You read the lesson, listen to all the audio the lesson contains, and then move on to the kanji flashcards.

You know that kanji is best learned in context and that these kanji flashcards are meant to warm you up to the idea of a certain kanji, so you press the "Got it" button through these pretty quickly.

You move onto the vocab, where you listen to the audio and spend a bit of time trying to let things sink in, but you don't press the "I forgot" button because you know you'll see it again in reviews, other new content, and your exposure to Japanese in the wild.

You listen to the Dialogue and maybe try to repeat after the speakers once or twice if you want to improve your speaking abilities.

Alternatively, you might close your eyes the first time you hear it to give your listening abilities a bit of a challenge.

Once you're done with the Dialogue, you close NativShark for the day and then go out and enjoy Animal Crossing in Japanese.

You see a few of the same words you saw yesterday when playing, solidifying them while having fun doing so ^^

お疲つかれ様さまです！

Now that's a great study day

Depending on your goals and available time, your study day might look a bit different. Maybe you have only 30 reviews, maybe you have 150.

Sometimes you just have a few minutes to study with, so you just show up and hit the smiley face of a few cards for that day and that's it. Everyone has these days, nothing to worry about ^^

Also, it's completely reasonable for new learners to take longer than 12 seconds per review card.

This is an ideal to slowly work your way up to. It's okay to not be perfect here. Aiming for less than 20 or 30 seconds per card is a great number to start with!

Also, you might not care about games, so you focus on something else that catches your interest instead, such as anime, books, TV shows, manga, and so on.

Anyway, the above example is what a lot of my study days have looked like in the past. Yours will likely look different from mine! And that's how it should be. You gotta make it work for yourself ^^

By the way, reviews are helpful, but they're best treated as reminders, not tests.

You can't fail a review. Take it as a quick reminder of "Hey, this exists" and then keep on going.

The more you keep doing this, the more everything starts to solidify and you're able to understand more and more.

And once you start to understand more and more, then you can produce more and more.

From there, you just keep showing up and making progress towards your goals

Good luck! You got this ^^

Note that this is a general recommendation!

We notice that many students want to stop seeing any new Japanese until they have things perfect. Again, we've found this approach to be generally harmful to making real progress with Japanese.

However, if you're seeing lots of new Japanese and constantly feeling more and more lost, it doesn't hurt to do a "review-only week" and just let things sink in a bit.

Then, once you're feeling a bit more caught up and comfortable, begin again with seeing new Japanese.

No matter what, you have to do what you find works best for you. So please experiment and adjust!

Whatever keeps you showing up consistently

More info on this idea in this newsletter.