I think that if learning japanese is something you truly want to do, then you will never burn out

What Missing said :P

I agree with winterpromise, if you play the same game for days straight your gonna get bored and tired of it, however if your truly want/love it then you will come back to it for sure.

Sit down and do everything at once, e.g. your routine, don’t space it out over the day or you might not feel like going back to it later.

I do 150 cards on Read the Kanji, cram 30 words and do around 700 reviews on Anki every day, I do this in one chunk then I have the rest of the day to lazy about and do whatever. It works for me, I haven’t had any problems with burning out. The only times I’ve semi-burnt out is when I get back from holiday; until everything is unpacked and back where it should be I have problems focusing, this didn’t just apply to Japanese, though, for 2-3 days I did very little in general and didn’t feel like playing games or watching TV either. I still did Anki reviews every day because I think that’s pretty effortless, you can just run through that while listening to music at your computer.

• This reply was modified 13 years ago by  Luke.

I lost my recorded stats for a few decks last Thursday, the ultimate decks (except nouns) are the ones pushing the number up so high, so the last few days I’ve had to do a lot more on Anki than I usually would. It’ll even out by the end of this week, I’ve only had to do around 400 today.

Pressing space bar so many times is exhausting

*bumped to add my two cents*

In my experience, burnout’s usually caused by the materials you’re using, or how you’re using them.
When I first had a go at learning Japanese, I used JPod101; since the written notes weren’t free, I stuck to the audio, writing down vocabulary in kana, and I enjoyed it immensely. A month later, my notebook went missing, and since I hadn’t done much to actually learn the vocabulary, I decided to start over again. The second time around, though, I absolutely hated it. What had seemed like interesting banter the first time around was now just irritating fluff that meant a ten minute lesson contained maybe two or three new expressions; the idea of sitting through those forty-odd tracks again was just mind-numbing, and suddenly Japanese seemed like some kind of mental torture. I didn’t pick it up again for several months.

TL;DR aside, if you ever feel burned out, take a look at what you’re doing, and exactly which parts are making you feel like you’re running on empty. There are hundreds of ways you can learn Japanese, and if doing things a certain way’s killing your passion, try something else. Personally, I like to ‘collect’ different resources, so if I wake up and Textfugu seems like a drag, I’ll do a little Tae Kim, or Busy People, Teach Yourself, or even just play Pokemon.

I’ve been a Textfugu member for two (or three?) years now. However, I actually quit studying Japanese all-together for a full year up until last month. I was graduating highschool, had a part time and full time job, and just a bunch of other stuff that limited my time in Japanese. In addition, I was just getting into Kanji and its complexity really frustrated me, so I just gave it up. Thankfully I’ve picked up where I left off last month, so at least I’m back on track. Better a failure than a quitter, am I right?

^^Pencil: I know what you mean. I started out using the JPod101, and I agree, listening to it a second time is mind-numbing. I really like TextFugu’s system, as you can review all of its information without having to go through all of the text again like you do with podcasts or any audio system.

For vocabulary, I actually just started a new thing called JTA (Japanese Through Anime). Although it teaches vocab primarily through romanji, it’s great for learning the top 500 used Japanese words in day to day language. It also focuses more on casual than polite forms of the language. Although I don’t think anything tops TextFugu, JTA is a great supplement that offers a refreshing course for learning Japanese. It’s how I got through my little ‘burnout’ phase.