Unscheduling Language Acquisition
This post is part of a series. Here’s a link to Part 2.
This is what ended up being the turning point for me with Japanese about a year and a half ago. I still have a long way to go, but for me this change is what has allowed me to work on the language each day in an enjoyable way.
When I first started learning Japanese I was enthralled with the idea of fully immersing myself in Japanese from the beginning. The method put forth on AJATT was just so darn logical (especially after my 4 excruciating years of high school Spanish) and I loved the idea of using fun things like books and movies to learn a language. Unfortunately things just didn’t work out the way I was hoping. Not because of the method, but because of how the mentality that I had to do all Japanese all the time ended up making me resent the language instead of enjoying it.
I realized recently that the change I made to my approach is actually similar to the idea of “unscheduling” from a book
Here is a quote from the AJATT article:
For most of us, the root cause comes down to unworkably high standards gradually inculcated during childhood, often by well-meaning parents who themselves suck at self-management. Anyone who’s experienced or observed many self-consciously “high-achieving” families knows what I’m talking about: the parents who, when their kid gets ten A’s and one A-minus, rather than congratulating the kid, instead ask: “Why did you get an A-? This is unacceptable. What the flock, kid?!”. This can turn the kid into a failure-phobic perfectionist. The kid then (unconsciously) uses procrastination as a defense mechanism — starting work late because then at least “lack of time” can excuse what would otherwise have to have been a perfect project by her internalized standards.
Ironically enough, it has been Khatzumoto sitting on my shoulder for the past five years, commenting on my dedication (or lack thereof) to Japanese. Anytime I would have the desire to do something in English he’d be like, “Seriously, Jeff? Seriously? English? You’re better than that, man. I mean, I’m not saying it’ll be the end of the world if you do something in English. Just that I’ll be very disappointed in you. And there’s a good chance I’ll stop loving you. But hey, it’s up to you.”
I’m sure shoulder-Khatzumoto has been doing this with the best of intentions. He really just wants me to succeed. But as with the example of the well-meaning parents above, unfortunately his efforts often just resulted in me using passive immersion and slogging my way through hour after painful hour of incomprehensible TV as a way to procrastinate and avoid doing the things that felt like they were helping me most (because SRSing or reading were tiring and often led to me wanting to take a break in English). While at the same time building up resentment toward the immersion environment and language I was imposing on myself.
It’s hard to say what makes a standard unworkably high, but no matter how you look at it, a year and a half to native fluency in Japanese is a high one. Not impossible. Not one that can’t be achieved in an enjoyable way. But a high one. Separating yourself from your native language completely to pursue a goal with that level of focus is a high standard. And for me, starting with AJATT lead to me measuring my success off of this ideal. That in 18 months I would need to be perfect. That any English I came into contact with before reaching my goal was a sign of my lack of discipline or dedication. That any time spent on something not moving me closer to that goal was unacceptable.
I don’t mean to infer here that Khatzumoto “sucks at self-management” because clearly a lot of people have had great success with this system and he seems to be getting along just fine. But what I do think is that the system comes with an implicit assumption that would be found in high-achieving families: that we are too lazy to get things done without a restrictive system keeping us in check. That if Full Immersion isn’t sitting there ready to slap us if we think about doing something in English, we won’t be willing to do enough in our target languages.
Depending on one’s goals and time restrictions (like Khatzumoto’s 18 month limit before the job fair where he would be interviewed in Japanese), I can see the benefit of implementing a restriction like this. And clearly we are all going into this with different goals and expectations (plus I think that everything changes after reaching a level where all native materials are at i+1). But, for me at least, the only deadline I have is how soon I want to be fluent.
Besides, I have worked hard on this stuff, damn it. I’m tired of feeling guilty for the time I don’t spend on it instead of proud of the time I do spend on it.
For me, what has been the game changer is having the mindset that spending 10 minutes a day on Japanese is awesome. This is a huge project and we all deserve a pat on the back for spending any time on it. Therefore, thirty minutes is extra awesome. An hour is super extra awesome and several hours is super duper extra awesome. Then we know without question that working on it all day is super duper extra awesome fantastic.
This is in contrast to what I felt with full immersion: that all day of Japanese and one minute of English was a failure. All day of Japanese and 2 minutes was more of a failure. And all day of Japanese and several hours of English meant the sky would fall.
Working with the assumption that I wouldn’t spend every waking hour on Japanese immediately forced me to take a close look at the time I was spending on Japanese and figure out what was contributing the most to my progress. For me this was/is pretty clearly time spent on the SRS or reading and listening that is closer to i+1.
At this point I start each day with the general goal of spending some quality time on these things and the rest of the day is to be spent however I want (whether that be with additional exposure to the language, passive immersion, or something in English/completely unrelated). This focus on quality time isn’t because I have felt that passive immersion isn’t worth the time, just that I would rather start with a focus on the things I think have the greatest impact, and fill in the rest of the time how I please.
The nice thing with this mentality is that I feel I end up spending more quality time with the language because I get to choose to do it instead of feeling like I have to. This is something I love working on so sometimes I spend most of the day on it. Sometimes I don’t though, and on those days I just try to get a little bit done to feel like I’m still moving forward, while keeping in mind that this project is huge and it is the work spent over the long term that will end up accumulating into noticeable progress.
To help facilitate this different approach I have been using a notebook to record the time I spend. It has been really helpful because it is fun filling it up with time spent, and it gives me a clear look at what I did each day. I will show a specific example of how I format it in my next post.
I would love to hear about your experiences with juggling the daily time necessary to continue working on the huge goal of learning a language. Have you had success with full immersion? Any tips for people who want to try it out? Anyone with experiences similar to mine? I’d love to hear about them in the comments. 
Unscheduling Language Acquisition, Part 2: Using a Notebook
- Related Posts (From very similar, d(^_^o), to not similar, (O_o).)
- Habit + Necessity and Proximity (^_^)
- Unscheduling Language Acquisition, Part 2: Using a Notebook (^_^;)
- What To Do When You're Stuck, Part 3: Relax (^_^;)
- Plant More Words (^_^;)
- Part-time Paradox (O_o)
12 Comments
I am planning on writing a bit more about this, but I am currently working a full-time job while trying to immerse myself AND plan my thesis. Actually, having less time has been really beneficial with me.
However, you described an issue I was having perfectly–I had no idea why i felt such pressure with my immersion, and I think you nailed it. That definitely opened my eyes to a few things. I often cheated on my immersion just because it wasn’t fun (oh MST3k would be fun for a bit!). Almost that immersion became a tedious chore.
Thanks for sharing!
Wow, that must be pretty intense. I definitely know what you mean though. It can be tough getting things done with an abundance of time (actually a problem I’m having now
).
I’m looking forward to reading more about your experiences with it!
Nothing to say here, except that that was an uncannily accurate Khatzumoto impersonation.
Haha, thanks!
Great post! It was only after I unscheduled my language learning that I became a fluent Spanish speaker. Too much worrying kills all the fun and indeed makes you resent your target language.
Now that I think of it, I never made a planning to learn English. Yet, I speak it fluently. Sure, I took me longer to learn English than it took me to learn Spanish, but I also had more fun learning English. And that’s the most important thing (and also an idea Khatzumoto promotes): having fun.
Great blog by the way!
Thanks! Cool to hear that you had similar experiences with unscheduling things. I’ve read through a bunch of stuff on your blog over the past year and it has helped me relax a little and try not to be such a grumpy Japanese machine.
And yeah, very true about Khatzumoto promoting fun. Didn’t mean to come off as negative to the entire concept he promotes. The idea of using fun input is something that I have really loved from the beginning.
Wow, this post is incredibly encouraging.
I’m someone who needs a schedule. Whether it be my ADHD or just a personal flaw, if I don’t have a schedule I won’t do much that day. And even with my schedules, I never follow them 100%. I’m always wavering, and I’m okay with that. As long as i have some sort of something to keep me in track with school, responsibilities, Japanese and so on.
Also, creating schedules is the first step of creating new habits for me. I don’t need to be told to read manga, but I used to need to be self-told. Once I got in the habit and learned I really enjoyed it, it became something of its own.
However, I really related with the guilt component of your blog entry. I have to stop myself from feeling guilty about doing something in English. It’s like an ingrained feeling in me, the product of this learning method. However, I love my immersion environment and don’t feel bitter. Right now as I am typing, I’m listening to Keyhole TV, and it makes me so happy. But that guilt…
There’s such a pressure in our community to learn the fastest, however there’s really no need to learn in 18 months if you’re not going to live in Japan. I started with AJATT and it’s been five years since then and I am not fluent. However, I can do more than my prior classmates who were in their fourth year of Japanese at Uni, and not only can I do more, I’m enjoying more. What I try to emphasize is not my progress or how much English I listen to every day, but the ability to enjoy the language so much, as I’ve fallen in love with it.
It’s amazing how these feelings resulting the method are so common among us, yet outsiders looking in really wouldn’t understand. I only know one other person who uses this method that I didn’t meet through the internet. It would be kind of lonely without the internet if I had no-one to discuss these things with.
I can definitely relate to everything you said. It’s really cool how the community has developed online and is filled with so many people so excited to learn a language.
I really love reading about other people’s stories because it’s always so clear that we all love this stuff so much.
But unfortunately I also see a lot of guilt (because I’m used to hearing it coming from myself) and I think it’s unfortunate because we all work so hard!
The notebook I’m going to write about in my next post has actually helped me a lot with giving me a gentle nudge each day to get some things done, while at the same time not making me feel guilty when I’m not perfect. Not as something to just completely do away with immersion (especially if you enjoy it!), but one thing it has definitely done is help me just take things a day at a time. I don’t necessarily think it will be for everyone, but I think you might find it interesting because I can relate to your experiences. Good luck with your October goals!
I’m teaching a little girl Japanese (more leading her in her own study) and recently told her that we’re all like babies, listening and reading Japanese until one day we say “Mama” or “Bottle”. I told her if we go without Japanese for a couple days, it’s not that good because like babies, we need to listen a lot. Babies listen almost all their waking hours, but we mostly listen to English, so it’s important to do a little every day. But remembering the guilt factor, I tried to water what I said down a little by saying she shouldn’t feel bad if she doesn’t do anything in Japanese that day though.
I am definitely interested in your notebook! I might try it out myself. I once made a checklist for myself, and had a list of activities I aimed to do each week. My goal was to make it to 20 activities every week. It worked well short term, but in a couple weeks I gave it up and pursued different methods. I’m not one to stick to a method for long. My October Goals may be kind of like your notebook, because I’m recording every day what I did. As long as I did a little reading and anki that day, I felt very happy while writing the entry. And I haven’t missed a day of reading or anki yet, even if it’s just 10 minutes of anki and reading manga. And some days I do better because I’m motivated to make it to my goals.
You described this dilemma so perfectly! I love the language learning community, but it does feel like everyone will shun you for not studying every waking moment.
My major I’m studying in college doesn’t allow for free time. Plus work and responsibilities seem to get in the way of Japanese. I’ve been feeling ashamed that I don’t put as much time as I’d like for my studies.
But your entry has changed that. Especially the part about any bit of studying is awesome. I carry manga with me and read it between classes. So I should feel great about that.
Really enjoyed this entry and will be following your blog from now on!
I’m so happy to hear this was helpful for you! Yeah, I definitely get the same feeling about the community as well. It’s easy to get the impression that it has to be all or nothing and forget about how great it is to be working on it at all.
Thanks for the kind words and good luck!
Thanks for the article. What has worked best for me and has kept me on my language-learning journey is the realization that I have to keep things easy. I tend to think in an all-or-nothing way, but over the past year or so that has started to change into a more easy-going attitude with objectives. The all-or-nothing attitude,I believe, led to the constant starting, becoming frustrated, stopping for long periods of time (sometimes years), then starting again. If I had just done something easy, whether that means half-hour of a L2 show, or ten minutes of L2 music, I most probably would have been far more consistent.
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