“Every time you’d leave your room you’re back in an English environment. Everything outside is in English, all the signs, all the overheard conversation, all the store clerks, all your friends, your family, your job.” … “when you’re going to the supermarket to get some stuff to fix yourself a sandwich, that’s like at least a 20 minute mental break back into an all-english environment”

Solution: put some J-pop on your MP3 player, and hop on the bus to the International District for that sandwich. Even if you don’t go to a Japanese market or restaurant (and decide to hit up that cool new Vietnamese sandwich shop instead), you’re not going to hear or see much English, so you never quite fall back into L1 comfort zone. As a bonus, it’ll highlight just how much you’ve learned already: “If this was Japanese I could at least read like 2 or 3 kanji on that sign!”.

“On the flip side of the coin you have Japan. Everything outside of your room is still in Japanese; the signs, the overheard convos, the store items and store clerks”

Really? I’ve known people who have lived in Japan for years and managed to avoid learning more than a handful of words. Besides, these days, everybody seems to have an iPod in their ears and a book (or Kindle?) in their hands, so even what you hear and see is your own choosing.

One of the big lessons I’ve gotten from AJATT is that immersion is what you do to yourself, not what your environment does to you. You just have to choose to be.

Anyway, I think burning-out happens to the best of us, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Take me for example, I HATE routines so burning-out happens often. But that’s not an issue. For example, say I’ve been working on SRS for a few weeks and am tired of it and feel burnt out. There’s nothing wrong with taking a break because on my hiatus, I’ll just do something else in Japanese!

Also, I agree with Khatzumoto on immersion being essential. But I would think idea of switching over to the target language completely in like a week isn’t the best way for most people.

Khatz and Gerry Garcia may not want to be eased in, but I think for most of us, increasing our immersion environment in correlation to our ever increasing Japanese skill would work better.

*I sat down and talked to my wife about how much I want to achieve this goal, so she has become very supportive and sometimes becomes involved in the process. We listen to Japanese music almost all the time and sometimes she has fun sitting next to me while I work with my SRS seeing just how many I get right.
* I stay awake for a few hours after my wife is asleep, reading Japanese and doing my reps and wake up before she does and get right to practicing. I’m sacrificing hours of sleep, but hey, that’s how bad I want to become fluent.
*There are no Japanese people as far as I know in this island, so I make friends with all the Japanese artists on my Ipod. Every minute no one is talking to me, the Ipod plays.
*My Spanish-speaking friends don’t get emails from me anymore. Why? I spend my time writing Japanese on Lang-8 in the form of journals and emails to Japanese people.
*Except for the times I go out with my wife, no Spanish or English movies. Same goes for TV. Even in those times we go out, when I’m driving I put a headphone in one ear and listen to her with my other ear. (I’m telling you, she IS supportive.)
*Whenever I’m on a meeting, a rehearsal, driving around, shopping, eating, drinking, dreaming, my thoughts are constantly constructing phrases and sentences in Japanese based on what I see, hear or feel. My mind translates what I hear on the meetings. Every object I see during the day becomes the key word of a kanji. I try to think in Japanese as much as I can.
*Since I have to spend time with my family I offer to help with chores that no one wants to do in order to have some additional time to listen to Japanese on the headphones. For example, I volunteer to do the dishes after we have dinner, so while I do that the Ipod plays.
I could go on for quite a while but my whole point is, where there’s a will there’s a way and if somebody as busy as me can figure a way around it, if someone as busy as me can give the best he can and then some, then anybody can. The same creative power people use for making excuses could be used to figure out solutions when obstacles arise, or better yet, could be used to completely ignore excuses, see them for what they are and get back to doing what you should.

Thanks Khatz for stepping up to the plate and preaching… er… saying things the way they should be said.^^ You are an inspiration to all of us!

Aaanyway, just wanted to agree that lots of people who come to Japan without knowing any Japanese (that’s what I did) feel something like “burnout” from time to time. I think part of it’s the combo of the new language/new culture/new-job/being-away-from-home hitting all at once.

Not saying that it’s good or bad or inevitable, just saying that it seems to be common.

I wrote an absurd illustrated list of dealing-with-burnout-tips for a foreigners-in-Japan newsletter a long while back, and after reading this thread decided to pop it online:
http://www.kidethnic.com/article/182/how-to-not-hate-japanese

(tip 1 will be comically familiar to AJATT readers, but if you like graphs…)

A hurdle I have to overcome with full immersion is comedy. I think Japanese comedy generally sux. There’s only so much I can watch of one dude acting like an idiot and saying silly **** while his friend scolds him for it.

So I’ve had a great day (immersion-wise); woke up early, did my reps, listened to all japanese tunes all day, kept my face in books and anime all day, did my daily online newspaper article, it’s all good. I had a lot of down time at work and I made use of it. But I’m a little tired and need to take the edge off with a good laugh when I get home after work. Here’s my dilemma: J-comedy thats starting to really irritate me, or Dave Chapelle. I gotta risk breaking into English or falling asleep half miffed-off because I can’t laugh out the stress. If you’re tired of Japanese comedy like me, youtube this: 人を怒らせる方法 <—-balls deep funny. It’ll renew your faith.

Also for you English teachers out there: I’ve came to realize that in school Japanese are taught English strictly through translation. If given a Japanese sentence, they have translation techniques. If given an English sentence, they’ve got translation tricks to get it back into Japanese. We all know this method is indescribably horrible, but this can actually help you with your Japanese. Most of the time when your students are talking in class, it’s not English; it’s Japanese using English words. So if your vocabulary is decent you can work backwards and get a lot of natural Japanese out of this otherwise painful experience. For example, when I heard a student say “in the time that has been decided” 「限られた時間」 I finally realized this is how you can talk about having to do general **** outside of your leisure time (someone correct me if I’m wrong).

So if you’ve got a high class load and you’re all pissed off because you can’t get that much Japanese in on that today, don’t despair too much: keep this in mind and you can still be absorbing Japanese even in an English class.

@Ivan the Terrible
I agree completely on the “details” part. This method shouldn’t be taken as absolute guide for success in the way that if someone doesn’t follow this he/she won’t reach fluency.

But then what would the details be? “Oh, I’m listening to too much japanese and don’t get even a word let alone a sentence.” and other similar “details”? I personally think that details would be: what SRS to use, what headphones to use, kind of sentence I like and other more “technical” aspects.

I don’t remember as a baby, being able to run to a native language as that native language was precisely what I was acquiring(I’m starting to not like the word “learning” somewhat in this context). Surely, one has to do things in his native language, but only IF forced. I guess that’s the overall spirit of the AJATT.

In some post, Khatz wrote the following (general idea only): “Learning japanese is easy, just forget that you’re a foreigner.”. How can someone burn-out now?
With all the now-existing high-tech, I think that’s perfectly feasible. By the way,
1. I don’t have money to buy headphones, let alone an MP3 Player and obviously online buyings are out of question.

2. I don’t use J-J dictionaries because my internet connection is not for 24 hours (besides being 8kB/s AT BEST for downloads), so I use Edict from JWPce.

3. Almost no time to watch anime and if I can it’s subbed and there’s no “Japanese Item’s Shop” or something like that in the area I live in.

Is any of these stopping me from learning Japanese?

I could just say “Damn, I can’t go on like this, I give up.” and I must admit I’ve thought it a few times (and even stopped for 2 weeks) BUT the love is greater.

With guys having the opportunity to immerse themselves almost (if not really) 100% in Japanese saying “I burnt out”, I feel hmmm…., I don’t know the word for that in English as I’m not a native speaker but in Portuguese it would be “Zangado”, maybe the word is “Angry”, I don’t know.

Do you really think the comments section only exists so people can stop in and say, ‘Yes, Khatz! You’re SOOOO right! I SOOOO agree with every word you say!’ ?

This site details a method that was used by one person to achieve absolute fluency in Japanese in an insanely short period of time. That means it’s got a lot of backing to it, but it doesn’t make it the Gospel of Khatz, with every tiny detail of it utterly beyond second-guessing. The general method can be entirely useful and powerful while people still have differences of opinion on the details.

I feel like I’ve stumbled in on a round of My Immersion is Bigger Than Yours or something.

I think if you read it he’s saying -not- to take breaks and instead feed yourself more varied and new/interesting things.

“I’m trying to get some feedback on why this is so sinful.”

It’s not ‘sinful’ – there’s nothing catholic about it! It’s just in order to get the results, you have to put the time in, and when you’re listening to/watching stuff in English you’re not putting in the time. In one way though you’re right; ‘sin’ is an old Greek term from archery that meant ‘missing the mark’ so yeah, in watching English TV etc., you are definitely missing the mark (of learning/absorbing Japanese).

I say again though, take people’s advice, but in the end, after consideration; do what works for you.

If I recall, during those 20 minutes Khatz would have an MP3 player and headphones on him playing something in Japanese.

Of course burn-out is not an issue if you’re immersing yourself in a country other than Japan. Like burning-out on playing World of Warcraft for 10 hours a day is not really an issue.

Because when you’re going to the supermarket to get some stuff to fix yourself a sandwich, that’s like at least a 20 minute mental break back into an all-english environment. I’m giving the bare minimal example here for the sake of argument, ignoring jobs and friends and family etc.

You get no such breaks in Japan, and thus burnout does become a real issue. That’s all I’m sayin’. I don’t see how someone in America’s 20-min supermarket excursion is any different or more noble than me having some laughs over a 20-min daily show video on youtube while living in Japan. I don’t like the word “wuss” being throw at the latter and not the former.

Khatz’s question was how do you deal with keeping yourself immersed, I think taking a youtube break to watch some comedy or listening to English music is a perfectly valid way of taking a break, I’m trying to get some feedback on why this is so sinful.

Where have all the whiners in the comments come from so suddenly??

Daniel – why do you give a toss that Khatz may think you’re a wuss? If what you’re doing is working for you then carry on doing it. Take what is useful from here and discard the rest.

“In my experience, if I’m feeling super-burned-out and stressed, I take a day of no-japanese-at-all, and then the next day I’m usually quite refreshed and come back to immersion with a clear and sharpened mind. Is there really something so wrong with this?”

In all honesty I also sometimes have a bad time here in Japan, and as part of making myself feel better throw on some English youtube clips or music for *a few minutes* to cheer myself up. Is that AJATT? No. but do I occasionally view it as vital to maintaining my mental well being? Yes. Hopefully as my Japanese progresses I’ll stop needing to do this.

One thing though, 2 days ago I hit the half was point in RTK1 and rewarded myself by having a ‘day off’ AJATT – I felt like I was cheating myself and after an hour or so put the Japanese back on!! I want to learn Japanese so much. at the end of the day, if I cheat, I’m cheating myself.

Like NDN said:”One must feel on the skin what it is to lose 1-2 hours of Japanese(which he/she probably wants to know) while watching other infinitely less important things(which happen to be in the native language, i.e, already known).

Then, after that movie/song/book, if the person is not crying (or just sad. At least I almost did cry) _for_having_lost_such_precious_time, then I guess he/she doesn’t want to learn Japanese (or any other target language) at all, it may be just a feeling of coolness.
When it comes to practice, nothing (or almost nothing) can substitute trial and error, I think. “

Seriously though, I like what you’ve done with the “Just do it” theme. I’m not ashamed to admit that this has revolutionized the way I do many things. I can’t help but examine EVERYTHING through this lens. For example, my public speaking class spends waaaayyy too much time debating, studying, and examining the theory and waaaayyy not enough time practicing. I know studying the theory is important in some cases, but, wow, I can’t help but realize all the worthless debating and theorizing, all in the name of some test and eventually a degree.

Yeah, anyways, I know you’re probably not particularly interested in what I’m doing myself, but oh well. I’m still in the kanji phase (like 350-ish), although this taxes my immersion environment somewhat. In anime and other places, I can recognize many kanji, which is kind of cool. I can be like, “Ooh that kanji means x!” to all my anime friends. However, there are just some things that I have to do in english on the internet and other places that I am unable to do because I am not good enough at kanji yet (I know, lame excuse…).

With audio, I almost always have japanese music playing or some random japanese podcast, although I do have to sometimes turn it off b/c I physically CAN’T do some things with that distraction. However, a word of warning; DO NOT use your car stereo to play Japanese music cds. Seriously. Just keep the headphones in. This is because, for me at least, every time I get out of school, I’m like, hey, I don’t have to put the headphones in cuz I’m heading to my car right now. Then when I get home I’m like, I’ll just wait till I get inside and turn my laptop on. WARNING! This is a poison! It was eat away your immersion environment time! And once you start to lose time, it’s a downward spiral from there.

Oh yeah, and about the kanji thing. Assuming you’re using an SRS (oh, btw, I gave a speech on SRS in my Public Speaking class and totally mentioned Khatzumemo as an alternative to Supermemo-tho I must confess I am a faithful Anki fan…sorry!), it can become tiring doing 70 repetitions a day sometimes. I solved this by doing it at lunch at school with my friends (I have two hours for lunch cuz I’m in college). I’m sitting there at the table doing kanji with my headphones on. All my friends are like, “what the heck are you doing? You actually learn stuff OUTSIDE of school? Is that that crazy Japan-speak-stuff?” OMG, right? Well, for me the hardest part of kanji is the actual learning and not reviewing (I often have trouble with Heisig’s stories and/or creating ones of my own), so I thought I’d have my friends help. It has worked great. It’s like a really fun word game, and they stop scoffing at what you’re doing and really appreciate it. Anyways, this kinda requires SOME english so…

As far as the writing down everything you’re going to do before you do it, I love it and will definitely implement it. It seems like it would work perfectly for me: if I don’t have a plan of action or basic outline, I go off on weeeeeeeiird tangents.

Oh yeah, BTW. With anime, I love having it on a tab in the background and listening to it but not watching it. That way, I can skip over the subs but still get the benefit of Japanese-ish while working on other stuff. Also, have any of you realized how hard it is to find Anime with Japanese subtitles? I’m talking about like buying it (and not from Amazon.jp…). Seriously, all the flipping anime at Best Buy is like “ooh, we’re cool enough to have English and Japanese audio and english subs, but SCREW the Japanese subs!” Yeah, that’s pretty asinine…

Okay, anyways, I apologize for cursing you with this ridiculously long comment. Thank you very much!