- Phase One - Journey to the Dōjō
Find Your Study Sanctuary
NikoIf you want to make ongoing progress in your Japanese acquisition, then you should be studying a minimum of a full hour every day.
In the previous section, I talked about habits and whatnot, which should help a bit. There is something else that I personally find extraordinarily helpful when trying to study consistently day in and day out: a "study sanctuary."
Back when I went through the kanji challenge (which we'll talk about in Kanji Mastery, Phase 2), I went to my favorite coffee shop every single morning. Usually I went around 6 am, when it was totally empty. Most mornings a thin fog was hanging in the air. The lights were dim. People were calm, and I had a delicious coffee and a fresh, toasted bagel with cream cheese. It was my favorite time of day. The ambiance was perfect. The food and drinks were perfect. And it was the place that I turned into my study sanctuary. Every morning, I sat down with that coffee and that bagel, and I didn't leave the coffee shop until I'd learned all of the new kanji for that day.
Most likely, your study sanctuary will be different. Maybe you don't like (paying for) coffee. Or maybe you don't like waking up before 6 am. Or maybe you work mornings and it's not feasible to study before work. I was working evenings at a restaurant back then, so it was feasible for me. What's feasible for you might be at home, or in your car, or at the public library. The key is to find a study sanctuary that fits into your lifestyle.
Qualities of a Good Study Sanctuary
- You can go there every day.
- It's a blocked off time in your schedule.
- You enjoy going there.
- You look forward to going there.
- It's peaceful (i.e. it's conducive to concentration).
- It has an internet connection.
- It's free from distractions.
Maybe you've heard the phrase that goes something like this: “If you don't like exercising, it just means that you haven't found the right type of exercise for you yet." I think that the same can be said of studying Japanese. We just have to trick our idiot brains into enjoying it.
For example, I absolutely loved going to coffee shops, but the idea of studying Japanese kind of freaked me out because every time I thought about it I put pressure on myself, felt stressed, and wanted to quit. In order to avoid those negative feelings, I had to focus on the extremely enjoyable process of going to a coffee shop and studying and ignore the extremely stressful process of pressuring myself to succeed.
Additionally, studying at a coffee shop was also the only time in my daily life that I listened to music because whenever I was in my car, or running, or going for walks I was always listening to JapanesePod101 (nowadays I listen to audio loops, mostly). Seeing as how I'm a human, I love music. So, I wanted to listen to music. So, I wanted to go to the coffee shop. So, I wanted to study Japanese. I was creating a series of rules that formed into enjoyable, positive study motivators.
The hierarchy of rules that formed my study sanctuary looked like this:
- Rules
- Every time I go to the coffee shop, I have to study Japanese.
- I cannot leave the coffee shop until I finish my flashcards for the day.
- I can only listen to music at the coffee shop. I can't listen to it anywhere else.
- Mental Process
- I want delicious coffee and a bagel! I love coffee and bagels!
- So, let's go to my favorite coffee shop.
- So, let's study Japanese.
- I want to listen to music! I love listening to music!
- So, let's go to my favorite coffee shop.
- So, let's study Japanese.
- I hate living with my parents. I need to get out of the house.
- So, let's go to my favorite coffee shop.
- So, let's study Japanese.
In time, my brain started to think that studying Japanese was fun. It was something that seemed intrinsically positive and exciting. I wanted to study Japanese every day because it gave me that relaxed, drinking-a-coffee-and-listening-to-awesome-music good feeling. Just writing about it here, I want to put on my headphones and drift away into hours of studying. It is my sanctuary, my place of peace. I am so happy when I go there.
That is the kind of study sanctuary that I want you to search for.
Discussion
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6 comments
Douglas Marcel de Moraes Matos 2 months ago Hey Niko! I've read some books about how to improve our memory and learning skills, because yes, learning deeply and consistently can be very difficult for some people. In one of these books the author commented about the importance of creating a habit of studying every day AND in the same place. "Once you
get to your study place, your brain gets concentrated almost automatically, because it understands that the study hour has come". Something like this.
During my college years, I used to love to go to the university's library: the colossal amount of books and information on the shelves fascinated me, I felt myself diving into a world of learning and transformation.
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2 months ago Paul Michael Tidwell
I'll have to find a place after I get my license and set up there. It'd be good to go somewhere pretty much exclusively to study...
Right now all I have is my room, I'm working on TWO Goals at once, get license + learn Japanese.
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a year ago Diana McQueen
This is so well thought out, I'm really enjoying the lectures, but as someone who's studied Japanese throughout school and is rusty and is looking for a targeted way to find a good starting spot, I'm wondering when the lessons start? Maybe I'm in the wrong section, or is it all Anki flash cards?
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a year ago Diana McQueen
Ah never mind! Sorry, I was drowning in open tabs. I found everything. :)
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2 years ago Virginia Aikens
Thank you so much for all the work you are doing on this course as well as your others. I have been using your site for almost a year now, and thanks in large part to your advice, I have stuck with it, and I'm making progress! I have been able to read manga and simple stories (news) in Japanese (slowly, I admit) for a while now, and my listening comprehension has really improved as well! Thank you Niko and Caleb and all the others who are putting all this work together for people like me!
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2 years ago Niko
Thank you so much for the kind words, Virginia. I Instructor mentioned this elsewhere, but hearing things like this is exceptionally motivating for us. It makes me want to put more and more into making this site an amazing resource for learners of Japanese.
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