Introduction:

Japanese is an East Asian language spoken by about 128 million people, primarily in Japan, where it is the national language. It is a member of the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family, and its ultimate derivation and relation to other languages is unclear. Japonic languages have been grouped with other language families such as Ainu, Austroasiatic, Korean, and the now-discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance. It is also recognized minority language of Angaur, a state of Palau and Singapore.

When it comes to language learning, it’s more than okay to admit that you’ve hit a wall or could use a little extra motivation. In fact, it’s bound to happen at some point. Language learning is a long-term process — it takes commitment and enthusiasm. And just like any long-term goal, we all need encouragement from time to time to keep us going.

Here are our top tips for staying motivated to keep learning.

1. Remember Why You Started

When you first started your language learning journey, it was for a reason. Perhaps you wanted to reconnect with your heritage, get more out of your travels, or make yourself more competitive in the marketplace. When your brain is focused on learning grammar and verb conjugations, it makes sense that these concrete goals may slip out of your mind. But research shows that returning to these images and visualizing your goals can help you succeed. So go ahead, get lost in that daydream of sipping rosé in the French countryside.

2. Reflect On What You’ve Learned So Far

Learning a new language is undoubtedly a huge undertaking, and it’s easy to look at everything you still have left to learn and feel overwhelmed. But before you look ahead, take some time to reflect on how far you’ve come. As an exercise, try writing a short story or poem in the new language you’re learning. Being able to hold something tangible that’s a direct result of your effort will help you stay on track as you increase your skills.

3. Identify Distractions

Motivation ebbs and flows, but there are strategies we can use to keep us going even when our energy dips. One way is to identify the other choices we are making that are distracting us from our goals. Maybe it’s our commitment to staying up-to-date with every television show our friends recommend to us, or that extra hour of Facebooking we do before we go to bed. Whatever our distraction of choice, it’s important to recognize it, and ask ourselves if we can do without it. We have a limited amount of time and energy, which means that every decision we make has trade-offs. The key is finding a balance so that we have enough time to achieve the things that are really important to us.

4. Reward Yourself

We saved the best one for last. To stay on track, divide up your main goal of learning a new language into smaller goals and milestones, and then reward yourself after you reach each one. Perhaps that means after you master all the vocabulary in the food and drink category you’ll finally throw that fancy dinner party you’ve been dreaming about (which doubles as an excuse to show off your new skills to all your friends). A big reward at the end, such as an international trip, can certainly be motivating, but don’t forget to also celebrate your small triumphs along the way.

5. Make Language Learning a Habit

Brushing my teeth isn’t something I get really excited about, but I still do it every day. What’s the key to my remarkable teeth brushing consistency?

Habit! (And visions of all my teeth falling out.)

If you make language learning a habit rather than just something you do when you feel like it, loss of motivation will become less catastrophic. Of course, motivation will still affect the quality of your language learning and you still want language learning to be something intrinsically rewarding overall, but having language learning as a regular habit woven into the fabric of your day-to-day life will make it easier to push through the times when you’re not feeling it as much. And that’s because sitting down to study language will be more automatic.

6. Have a trial run 

A lot of people who struggle to find their passion, try different things as a trial run and see if that interests them. If it does, they spend a lot of time nurturing it and it becomes their passion. If you don’t know if you’re passionate about Japanese, there’s only one way to find out, by actually trying it out. Have a trial run at learning Japanese and see if you like it. This will help you find out whether you are actually passionate about it or not.

7. Be patient.

The last one is to be patient. You can’t expect yourself to learn a language in a day. It takes time and to keep up with the passion and motivation is a tough task to do. Try to be patient and calm.