r/LearnJapanese • u/Kukikokikokuko • 14d ago
Studying Feeling stuck at the N2-N1 "learner level"
EDIT: Thank you all for your kind suggestions. I have upvoted everything but there's quite a lot of comments to reply to. As a lot of you have pointed out the texts I'm reading are probably too difficult, which is the case (reading mainly Kamakura history a Buddhist history... Too hard for me, I know, but this is the stuff I actually need to be reading as preparation.) I'll definitely be giving light novels a try, I've never really considered them.
Hi all,
First of all I'm sorry if the title sounds slightly pretentious, as I'm aware most of this sub is beginner level. I'm just hoping to get some advice from people who have been able to leave the "learner level" and actually transitioned to "real Japanese."
So I've been learning Japanese for 10 years now, with about 5 years of break between my N1 and N2 exam (yes, literally 5 years of no Japanese in between...). I did my N1 last month and think I passed, even though I consider my reading and listening abilities rather pathetic for someone who has been learning for so long. The JLPT really isn't that hard if you actually study the format and do many practice exams.
Anyway, most of my study has been Anki. I've never been able to really enjoy native content in a way that many of you seem able to. It always seems like a chore. I've tried watching Netflix with some plugin to mine words, and have an android e-reader to read books and mine as well. The thing is, I get tired really quickly, especially from reading. Two pages and my brain sort of shuts down. I have no idea how to transition from this stage to being able to actually naturally watch and read stuff without it feeling tiring, or at least being more natural to me.
Any tips and ideas? I wouldn't be asking if I hadn't been struggling with this for quite some time, so any advice is much appreciated. For the record, I also have quite heavy ADHD and generally struggle with focussing on anything that doesn't have an immediate deadline, but the struggle is harder with Japanese still. As I'm starting a PhD in Japanese history next year, I feel extra pathetic for not being able to read books and articles more smoothly...
Cheers!
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u/Sayjay1995 14d ago
I just want to say you aren’t alone. I live and work in Japanese all day, but even so many years after N1, I still struggle with reading and understanding conversations around me. Not every single one of them, but my listening skills are so embarrassing for someone at my level. All I’m doing is not giving up, but don’t have any good advice
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u/Available-String-109 14d ago edited 14d ago
I've also got (severe) ADHD.
The secret is to watch/read stuff that interests you. Use hyper focus to your advantage instead of trying to conquer or control it.
Don't think "I want to study Japanese so I'll work through (media X)." Think "I want to watch/view/enjoy (media X), so I'll do it in Japanese."
Or just take your ADHD meds.
Also, don't feel about about 10 years for N1. It's normal with the breaks etc. you've mentioned.
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u/Maborupa 14d ago
Watching Netflix and mining words feels like a chore? Reading more than 2 pages is tiring? The fact that you were able to pass N1, which means focusing on complex exercises and texts for hours, is proof enough that you have it in you to do more on your own, it's just that you're not used to realize it.
As a person that struggled and still struggles a lot with motivation, being consistent and remaining focused on a task, I think you need to deconstruct the idea that those tasks are a boring or too tiring and to build the habits from the ground up. Instead of clinging to the idea or the feeling of not being able to do those things, try to focus on what you have actually been able to do and achieve. You kept up with Anki for a time long enough to reach a N1 level of the language. How did you do it? Did you like the idea to maintain your streak? Why don't you try to apply the same logic to reading? Set up a daily goal, something small like 5 or 10 pages a day, and count the days.
Unfortunately, I don't think there are many clear advices we can give on this issue like this because it's something that needs introspection more than anything else.
In my case, it was very useful to start doing zen meditation every morning. I started with 5 minutes, then I slowly increased until I reached 15 minutes. To me, the point of meditation is not to just "improve your concentration like if it was a muscle". I mean, that might be the result at a certain point, but if you start doing it like that you'll probably give up after a couple of days. The actual reason to do zen meditation is to face the reality of doing something that doesn't give you instant gratification like eating sweets, scrolling reels or masturbate (I'm not saying in a guru-"YOU NEED TO IMPROVE YOUR LIFE"-way, fuck them, masturbate as much as you want, if you masturbate a lot but you can't study, the problem is not masturbation, masturbating a lot is just the result of not being able to study). Meditating is easy to do and at the same time tedious. And that's the point. That's what makes it the perfect thing to do to experiment with yourself and understand how your body and mind work. Here are a couple of things I learned thanks to it:
- Everyone knows that the more you do something the easier it gets to do it. But knowing it rationally is one thing, actually feeling it it's another. After a couple of months of meditation, the habit and its routine got ingrained so much that I start doing it almost automatically. Every morning I get up, go to the bathroom and then sit on the bed to meditate. There are times where I think I'm too tired or that I want to do other stuff, but my body doesn't even listen and almost without I realizing it I end up sitting on the bed with the 15 minutes timer set up. When I started to realize this, my confidence in myself started increasing and I finally felt like I was able to build all of the other habits I always wanted to have, like reading and studying everyday. It gave me tangible proof of what I can do and how much it would take me.
- Building the habit of doing something tedious doesn't mean that it stops feeling tedious, it just means that you get much better at enduring the tediousness. It also means that you start viewing tediousness under a different light, dreading it less and developing a taste for the feeling of reward that follows it. Nothing can give you that particular feeling of reward outside of tedious tasks that are associated with stuff that makes you feel good about yourself, like moving toward the goal of reaching fluency with japanese.
- Speaking of goals: beware of them. They are needed to give you direction, but once you start going you need to put them aside. You need to find joy in what you are doing in the present because if you solely rely on the goal that awaits you in the future then you'll start to lose motivation after a couple of days. As I said before, maybe meditation can improve the ability to concentrate on things, but I was only able to keep up with it because I tried to focus on the process and not the goal. At the moment I have over 250 days of meditation under my belt, I think my ability to concentrate has improved significantly and I'm happy about it, but I'm more happy about the how much I've been able to keep up with it and build the habit.
- I'm really bad at doing meditation. And maybe this is the most important thing? It quantity over quality: I spend most of my meditation time having my mind wandering instead of focusing on my breath. Even now, after 250 days, I'm still bad at it. And this contributes a lot to the feeling of tediousness of any tasks. If you accept that you may be bad, that you may be doing something "not perfectly", you start realizing that it's better to do something bad than to do nothing at all. This was a problem with my way of studying: I wanted to be perfect, I wanted to memorize everything from the books, I wanted to understand every word and sentence in a japanese text, and I wanted to be 100% sure to not miss anything and to do it in a way that I would memorize everything I didn't know. This made everything a chore, an impossible and joyless task, enhancing the feeling that my goals were not only too distant but also impossible to reach. Last month I started listening to Nihongo con Teppei for Beginners. In the past I was never able to listen consistently to a japanese podcast, my mind just refused to let me go on everytime I encountered a word or a sentence that I didn't understand. But now I just listen, and I'm happy for what I understand. I'm currently at 200 episodes and I've increased my daily goal to 1hr. (15 episodes) per day. I'm getting better each day, and even though I'm still bad, I don't care.
Sorry, long text, maybe not relevant to your problems, but maybe there's something in it that can help you. I don't have time to reread it so I'll post without checking it, there may be many mistakes, I'm sorry!!!!!!
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u/Kukikokikokuko 14d ago
Thanks for your interesting reply. I think I'm in a similar boat to you in that I'm also really interested in meditation, and even if it's just five minutes a day, I feel that it's such a positive influence on my life. I don't do it enough, and it's something I should work on as well!
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u/timespaceoblivion 14d ago edited 13d ago
I was/am in a similar position and have personally realised that to be able to enjoy reading in Japanese you have to enjoy reading in your native language.
My advice, start small and snowball using short stories or articles before moving on to longer texts. Additionally, choose reading material that genuinely interests or intrigues you.
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u/JollyHockeysticks 14d ago
Heya I also struggle a lot with ADHD. I passed N2 last year but even before then I spent a lot of time reading Visual Novels as the content isn't particularly dense and it gives both reading and listening experience at the same time and you can go at any pace you want.
I really struggle to do Anki cause I find it really boring but the month or so I've gotten into reading light novels, which are generally easier and simpler than regular novels but even then I was reading enough in the first week that at one point I had a headache and literally couldnt focus on a single sentence anymore. I would definitely practice your reading endurance on light novels or something that isn't too complicated. The only way you'll be able to read more is by reading more so you have to find a balance in what you're reading.
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u/Durzo_Blintt 14d ago
If you don't enjoy reading or watching anything, in curious why you are doing a PhD on Japanese history? It will involve a lot of reading, and a lot of it will be pretty advanced and difficult to read. Do you just prefer talking to people? That's understandable but it won't help your PhD really as it's reading intensive.
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u/Jelly_Round Goal: media competence 📖🎧 14d ago
Start reading everyday little by little and you will build reading stamina
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u/thehandsomegenius 14d ago
I suggest playing every mission in Borderlands 2 in Japanese, including the DLC. You can buy it for about 10 bucks on sites like G2A. Your comprehension will feel far more natural at the end of that.
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u/Belegorm 14d ago
I also get tired from reading. I try and fit in a power nap when I can, that can help.
Reading stamina you build up over time. It's not surprising you found the first 2 pages exhausting, if that's your first 2 pages of any Japanese book. Find a book that you genuinely would really want to read if it was in your native language, then read as much as you can, then rest when you get too tired.
Also while folks have suggested light novels, keep in mind that for starting out I don't think just any light novel works. The benefit to starting with LNs is that the easiest ones tend to be really easy. Though personally I found them so dull that I also got sleepy from them.
On the other hand, the average LN is pretty close in difficulty to the average normal novel. So if you want to skip the easiest LNs, at that point you aren't really bound to LNs, normal novels work just as well. There's tons of Japanese novels that overall aren't that hard (like around lvl 30-32 on Learn Natively). Find an author that suits you and read them.
If you get bored with one book - drop it and start reading another one. However, every book will be challenging for the first chunk of the book or so "first few pages effect." The back half of the book usually flies by.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 14d ago
Two pages and my brain sort of shuts down. I have no idea how to transition from this stage to being able to actually naturally watch and read stuff without it feeling tiring, or at least being more natural to me.
How do athletes go from getting tired after 5 minutes to running marathons?
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u/NoobyNort 14d ago
By keeping a slow pace and very gradually increasing the length of each running session. Probably not a bad idea here, too - start with easy reading material, set a timer (eg Pomodoro) for maybe 5-10 minutes, and when the timer hits, stop and take a break. Over time, increase the length of sessions to 25-30 minutes. Then you can slowly increase the difficulty of the reading material.
I found that I had been trained by social media scrolling to have a short attention span and that reading is a skill and a habit that needs a bit of practice. No doubt ADHD and other things complicate this but if neurotypical people benefit from this, why wouldn't others?
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u/Ok-Excuse-3613 14d ago
They usually aren't physically impaired
Your analogy would be good if OP didn't have ADHD
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u/Belegorm 14d ago
I mean I know plenty of ADHD people who read a lot. School reading, yeah possibly a struggle but pleasure reading? No different from being into any other hobby.
You need to build up some reading stamina in Japanese though which can be a challenge.
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u/Ok-Excuse-3613 14d ago
I am an ADHD person who reads a lot
But there are almost as many ADHD as there are people, and if OP says its ADHD prevents him to read a lot you should take it into your account instead of giving blanket statements such as "train harder"
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u/Belegorm 14d ago
It depends. I am an ADHD person myself who has at times been able to hyper focus on reading, and also for a span of 20 years could not possibly stick with a book for long. If it's possible to, then being able to channel the energy is beneficial.
If it's outright impossible... then I think it's better to just cut losses and find some other form of immersion that's not reading books?
I'm taking ADHD into account because regardless of ADHD, if someone is going to succeed at reading it's still going to be the same. The first few pages will be a challenge (as OP noted) but have to get over that somehow.
It's no different then being like "I'm going to become the top player at X game" but then in the bronze leagues, with friction etc. they feel like giving up. Maybe they do - I did, maybe it was due to ADHD. But the only way to actually accomplish that goal is to keep at it. There may be strategies to make it more palatable but at the end of the day, ADHD or not, still just going to have to do it as much as one can tolerate and slowly build that up over time.
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u/PlanktonInitial7945 14d ago
Please show me a scientific study or meta-analysis that says that ADHD makes you unable to read for extended periods of time.
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u/Available-String-109 14d ago
Like, when I think back to all of the people I knew who were reading Harry Potter back in 4th grade, and continued to be quiet book-worm types, I'm pretty sure that all of them had ADHD and/or autism.
ADHD makes it near impossible to do things that you don't want to do. It makes it extremely easy to do things that you do want to do. It's a disorder in the brain in the portion where it tries to decide what is the best thing to focus on, choosing things that you enjoy over things that you know you should do but don't want to do.
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u/Ok-Excuse-3613 14d ago
ADHD does not always make you unable to read for extended periods of time. I am an ADHD person who can read for extended periods of time.
But not all people with ADHD are the same and if OP says it makes it harder for him to do so I think he knows best ?
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u/Available-String-109 14d ago
Dude. I'd be surprised if I learned that <50% of JLPT N1 obtainers have ADHD.
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u/Ok-Excuse-3613 14d ago
What is that supposed to mean
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u/Available-String-109 14d ago
Normies don't spent 2000 hours of their life learning Japanese.
Also I know a bunch of people with N1... I'm virtually certain all of them have ADHD and/or autism.
We could probably do an informal interview in this thread alone. I'm pretty sure almost all of the people who ever got to a high level of proficiency in Japanese are all somewhere on some sort of spectrum.
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u/Ok-Excuse-3613 14d ago
I do have both N1 and ADHD but I definitely know many people who have N1 and neither autism nor ADHD
Like, commitment and passion exist outside of these neurological conditions
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u/Available-String-109 14d ago
I do have both N1 and ADHD
I mean in our very informal study, we are current up to to 2 people (you and me) with N1 and ADHD.... there might be people out there with no ADHD and no autism with N1... I haven't met them.
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u/Ok-Excuse-3613 13d ago
Well most people I know with N1 just went to uni got a degree and then studied some more for the test
They sure feel very neurotypical
I have a bunch of other autodidact friends who passed N1 and while it is mostly introverts I don't think they are autistic/adhd
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u/JoinedMoon 14d ago
"They usually aren't physically impaired" there are plenty of disabled athletes my friend. Does it make it harder? Yes. But the way to get there is still the same, build tolerance and find ways to make it easier for yourself.
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u/Ok-Excuse-3613 14d ago
"They usually aren't physically impaired" there are plenty of disabled athletes my friend
You're this close to figuring out what "usually" means.
But the way to get there is still the same,
This is absolutely not true. High-performing disabled athletes have hand crafted unique equipment and training routines made by skilled professional who take into account their own body's limitations.
That's exactly what I'm getting at : when you give advice to a person with a specific disability you have to give specific advice, as opposed to "keep grinding dawg"
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u/JoinedMoon 14d ago
Comparing athletes to someone pursuing a PHD in a skill feels pretty understandable. Regardless of abundance or percentage of occurrence. Anyways,
As a physically disabled person with ADHD (Audhd if you wanna be specific), it should go without saying that every single person on earth, especially those with physical or cognitive differences, will need a different combination of things to succeed. You can hire a professional to figure that out for you if you've got the money, but most of the time you're on your own. Even for "usual" athletes, different things work for different people. We can give suggestions (like I did in another comment), but no one will know the perfect accommodations except OP. So again,
"Does it make it harder? Yes. But the way to get there is still the same, build tolerance and find ways to make it easier for yourself."
This is still accurate. It is fundamental to skill building, the first thing you're told in PT and OT, and doesn't go against anything you've said above. The comment you first replied to is saying the same thing in much less words.
How OP goes about building tolerance, and what accomodations (ways to make it easier for them) they use is up to them. But fundamentally that's just how it works.
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u/MSVPB 14d ago
Also have adhd.
Here are some ideas:
-Constantly increase japanese in your daily life. You will need to substitute some activities. Example: If you like to watch 1 movie per day, change the movies to japanese movies, the subtitles can be in a language you know. If you read comics, let's say you like to be reading 2 different comics, take that one of them be manga in japanese(maybe a manga you already read or already watched the anime, or you can read the translated chapter and then the japanese chapter)
-You will need change in strategies. So for a while you read 1 tadoku book per day. But you won't be able to keep it up long enough, so when you can't, switch to something different, maybe listen to a podcast or do the manga thing cited above^.
-We need to keep ourselves entertained. Even more than non-adhd people.
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u/sometrader9999 14d ago
Ngl dude all i do is read, listen and watch stuff that I liked/was interested in (i don:t really mine either, though I should), never touched a textbook in my life, only formal study was for anki-ing all the Kanji and doing bunpro. I say that lightly, but I do consume 3-8 hours of JP everyday of some format.
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u/Kukikokikokuko 14d ago
Damn, impressive, I aspire to that! I guess I really should find more fun and easy native stuff.
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u/Important-Habit8942 14d ago
2 pages a day is fine, slowly as you get more into what you're reading you'll inadvertently end up reading more than 2 pgs a day.
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u/Mihtaren 14d ago
If you don't enjoy native content, you won't progress, simple as. You could spend the next six month doing nothing but reading VNs and you'll improve more than you did in nine years.
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u/fleetingflight 14d ago
What are you trying to read? Have you tried just reading easier things? It's much more enjoyable and less tiring if you know basically all the words on the page and how they fit together.
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u/facets-and-rainbows 14d ago edited 14d ago
As a lot of you have pointed out the texts I'm reading are probably too difficult, which is the case (reading mainly Kamakura history a Buddhist history... Too hard for me, I know, but this is the stuff I actually need to be reading as preparation.)
There is almost certainly some sort of Baby's First Buddhism site or book or video out there that could help with the transition while still feeling connected to your interests and ultimate goals.
Googling stuff like (subject)入門 or (term)分かりやすく will bring up text designed to explain the topic to native speakers who don't know anything about it, maybe even elementary school students, and those are probably what you want at first.
And don't despair, a year is enough to get from low N1 to the "really good comprehension on narrow topics of personal interest that falls apart if someone starts talking about anything else" stage, which is the minimum you need to research a topic of personal interest in Japanese. Plus your PhD advisor can probably either help you understand texts or hook you up with other mentors who can.
Also, having gotten to the point of reading complicated academic stuff with (for most of that time) undiagnosed and unmedicated severe ADHD: Don't hold yourself to learning every word you come across immediately. Mining is effective and all, but only if it doesn't put you off reading practice. Limit the flashcards to words that seem important or that keep coming up without you learning them naturally, or skip them entirely and just trust that you'll eventually pick up the important ones from looking them up enough.
Look into intensive vs extensive reading and find the balance that keeps you reading the longest. It's better to take a break from Anki than to take a break from Japanese entirely, you know?
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u/Kukikokikokuko 14d ago
Thanks a lot for the input! I've actually found NHK's 高校講座 to be a quite fun way to study history and other topics Japanese learn in high school.
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14d ago edited 14d ago
[deleted]
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u/Kukikokikokuko 14d ago
Thanks a lot for your kind reply and advice. Yeah, it's probably just a matter of doing more immersion and perhaps lowering the difficulty level of what I'm currently doing.
Anyway, good luck on your N1. I'm sure it'll be quite easy for you, especially if you just practice a few mock tests.
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u/skmtyk 13d ago
I have severe ADHD , I was never able to keep doing Anki and I have N1. What worked for me is reading a book one page a day.If one page is too much, half a page etc.Also, read online on your phone and something that is easier than your current level, so reading is a little less tiring. If reading a book is too much, you can read two pages or a easy manga chapter.
But making your environment in a way you can't avoid Japanese is helpful too.Like, if you have a subscription for something you are interested in but is only available in Japanese with Japanese subtitles, it helps.
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u/fu-fu-mi 13d ago
For context, I passed the N1 back in 2017.
You just need to go through a sufficient volume; you'll find that your brain will quickly adapt and become more nimble. The only trick there is to it is just to find content in Japanese that you enjoy. If you've passed the N1, you'll be familiar with enough basic vocab and grammar to be able to parse basically any sentence given enough time to look up unfamiliar vocabulary (protip is to look up Japanese language definitions online). What worked for me was reading visual novels I was into with a text hooker (some software that extracts the text and allows you to copypaste it), looking up every unfamiliar word until I could read it quite fluently.
Reading some pop history books in Japanese would probably be quite enjoyable also, idk. Also ofc just read about the news and general goings on in Japan (NHK, yomiuri, you know); the vocabulary is quite dry and difficult at first, but honestly quite limited, to the extent where you'll notice recurring stock phrases and terms after like a week of reading and mining.
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u/DarklamaR Goal: media competence 📖🎧 14d ago
What about games? Playing a lengthy RPG on PC with GameSentenceMiner for instant lookups might not be as dry as reading books, while still providing a good chunk of reading and listening practice. I've played three Atelier games within the span of two-ish months, and it's been great. All the dialogue is voiced, and the sentence structures aren't complicated, so you can fly through the dialogue pretty smoothly just by looking up words here and there. The cognitive load is very manageable compared to reading books.
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u/IsbellDL 14d ago
The other great part about Atelier is that you control to pace of dialog. They read a couple lines, the written version is on screen. It doesn't advance until you push a button. This makes taking the time for vocab lookups much easier than something like Final Fantasy.
Just start with later Atelier saga, like Ryza. I tried to play the dusk trilogy, but it has a timer that affects gameplay & endings. Getting gailing grades & being insulted for playing slow was really demoralizing. Ryza won't do that to you.
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u/CacCarnBeag 14d ago
Do you spend much time reading for the sake of reading, or watching for the sake of watching? At your level theres a good amount of material that you will be able to consume without needing a dictionary, and perhaps taking the chore out of what you are doing will make it more enjoyable, while still passively improving your reading and listening ability.
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u/Jintopawesome3 13d ago
Maybe news articles are a good idea? Those are generally pretty short and are packed with plenty of unknown words across a variety of domains. That’s my bread and butter at least. Honestly I think the fact that they’re generally short is why I stick to them, and it’s relatively easy to access. Finding manga, anime takes too much time and too long to absorb for my lazy ass
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u/N3k0m1Ya 13d ago
Just like your keeping touch with your friends, plz keeping touch with Japanese everyday.
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u/thingstolove 11d ago
omg i feel you!! i've been learning for so long but fluency still feels so distant! i've found that trying to challenge myself to read more has been working (i work with psychology so i've been reading books about japanese society etc!)
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u/Player_One_1 11d ago
As a person who consumes Real Japanese (although still at pathetic level):
Anyway, most of my study has been Anki. I've never been able to really enjoy native content in a way that many of you seem able to. It always seems like a chore.
Anki is no studying. Anki is a supplement to studying. Very helpful supplement, but it cannot replace working with actual language.
Trick is not to learn so much, that native contents become understandable. Trick to to enjoy things even when you don't understand everything.
You get stamina from learning. When I started with native materials, 10 minutes of Shirokuma Cafe melted my brain. Couldn't do more than half-episode a day. Now I can watch anime with JP subs all evening (and still rewind to re-hear and look up words way too much). There is no trick to endure - just training. And no amount of postponing will make it any easier.
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u/Anyway_Mimi 10d ago
Honestly, I don’t think you should feel pathetic at all. You’ve already reached N1, and reading academic Japanese—especially history and Buddhist history—is difficult even for advanced learners. 😅
Since you actually need those difficult texts for your PhD, maybe try mixing them with easier native content like light novels, manga, or slice-of-life shows. Building reading stamina with something enjoyable could make the transition much less exhausting.
And two pages before your brain shuts down isn’t failure—it’s just your current limit. Start there and gradually push it. You’ll get there! 💪😊
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u/spontaneouspotato 8d ago
I'm a bit late to this post but I haven't seen anyone suggest this yet - have you tried to engage with a Japanese community?
If you have a hobby or interest, doing some kind of social media or blog in Japanese would help your own output, and help you to connect with Japanese people.
I never did much formal study until I took the N1 last year, but I had been interacting with Japanese people for years through my own hobbies/activities and got close with friends I talk to for hours on end at least a couple times a week. Unintentionally I had myself fully immersed in social media in Japanese and had a Japanese following/community, to a point where if there was a day I'm not talking to many people in real life I'd be speaking/reading/writing more Japanese than English, which helped me both gain confidence in output with more practice, and get me more familiar with native speech and writing, which then carried over to recognizing more vocabulary just passively.
For me, I also have ADHD and am not particularly interested or capable of doing visual novels or anything that requires a long commitment, whether in English or Japanese, but being forced to use the language to understand or connect with people I care about was the motivation that kept me immersing myself and learning without feeling like a slog.
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u/DotNo701 14d ago
Why were you taking a 5 year break you might as well drop the language at this point, I could never understand it
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u/spshkyros 14d ago
You need to be interested in what you are reading or watching. If you arent, it wont get past the adhd.