I think it’s time for me to scale back on my studies and research.

There are more important personal issues I need to attend to.

So I am going to do the literal bare minimum to just keep moving forward with my language goals, while I focus on some more important private matters, at least for the next couple months until I resolve everything I need to do.

I think I want to spend at most an hour a day doing ALL of my language-related activities.

So that means something like, 5-7 minutes a day for each of these tasks:

• Rewriting Japanese Vocabulary
  • 10 words
• Analyzing Kanji
  • 10 words
• Studying English to Japanese vocabulary flashcards
  • 10 flashcards
• Studying Keyword to Kanji flashcards
  • 10 flashcards
• Studying Kanji to Keyword flashcards
  • 10 flashcards
• Studying Korean to Japanese and Japanese to Korean vocabulary flashcards 
  • 10 flashcards
• Studying English to Korean vocabulary flashcards
  • 10 flashcards
• Studying Korean grammar flashcards 
  • 10 flashcards

Okay, so I am way behind with my  flashcard studies and reviews.

My flashcard app Anki tells me that I have over 13 hours of reviews to do!

And these are just reviews, not even learning new material!

I wonder if I am being too strict on myself with my vocabulary studies.

For example, in Japanese, there is something called pitch accent, which is kind of similar to tones in other languages such as Chinese or Vietnamese.

I could just study the words without worrying about the pitch accent, but then my Japanese might sound weird.

However, for the purposes of the JLPT, there is no speaking test, so maybe I should consider being less strict on myself?

So I could just learn to read and memorize what the words mean when I see them, then start over from the beginning and work on saying them properly.

So the steps could be something like:

1. English to Japanese flashcards – just focus on getting the meaning right, but don’t focus on pronunciation so much
2. After I get to about 4000 words (which is about the total number of words needed for the JLPT N3) start over and focus on pronunciation 

To me, the feeling of doing my own research and creating my own data is very rewarding.

For some reason, it is a lot easier for me to do my own research then it is to just study and memorize stuff.

Maybe when I’m by myself, it’s really easy for me to get into the groove and start creating.

But maybe I just need to be around the right people.

I think if I were surrounded by people who were also studying, I would also study as well.

I think I am simply more self-motivated to do my own research and data creation when I’m by myself, since it’s very much a solo project.

However, language learning in general is supposed to be a social project, and maybe I need that social atmosphere and environment to help me enjoy the language learning process more.

In terms of doing research and creating data, the 2 most important things I need to do are:

1. Rewriting Japanese vocabulary in Pahanngana 
2. Breaking down Chinese characters into pieces and highlighting the sound groups.

Basically, all of my other research projects are just extensions of these two core projects.

In terms of studying, the most important things I need to do are:

1. Studying English – Japanese vocabulary flashcards
2. Studying English keyword to Kanji flashcards
3. Studying Kanji to English keyword flashcards

There are other study projects that do not necessarily build on these 3 core study projects, namely Korean language studies.

However, I think I need to establish a good core knowledge in my brain of Japanese before jumping to other studies.

I’ve been thinking about the possibility/option of Japan 2023 or even 2024.

I really need to talk to the Japanese embassy and get information about the timeline I should be planning.

The reason I’m thinking of a worst case scenario situation is because of everything that is going on in the world.

Who knows when things will get back to normal / when these programs will get back to normal.

So I think I should just be doing as little as possible for the Japanese scholarship path and plan for 2023, but be totally okay with 2024.

In any case, making progress every day is what counts!

Okay, so I’m back on the train when it comes to doing research and collecting data – especially breaking down Kanji into sound groups, which is actually what I spent most of 2020 doing.

However, I have fallen quite off the studying train, and I think it’s time for me to be honest with myself and just dedicate the rest of December to catching up with my flashcards.

I think once I’m all caught up with flashcards, it will be easy for me to start with new flashcards in January.

I’m still on track with my video and audio lessons.

Those are pretty easy.

For the audio lessons, I just listen to them when I’m exercising.

For the video lessons, I just click play and I can sit through 30 minutes to over an hour of video lessons.

However, the flashcards are extremely important, probably more so than the audio and video lessons.

I also want to start going through an actual Japanese textbook as well, but I wonder if I should just focus on the flashcards first, and then blast through the books after I’ve memorized a ton of basic vocabulary and Kanji.

Time to revisit my calendar!

The more and more I analyze and compare Korean and Japanese, the more and more similarities and cognates I find.

The sound correspondences that I’m hypothesizing between the two languages are still very much in progress.

The thing is, I’m not completely fluent in Korean or Japanese.

However, I have been playing with different spellings for a long time now, and it’s getting a lot easier for me.

There are a lot of rules and patterns that I have internalized in my brain through sheer repetition, but I need to get them out on paper or in a reference material.

All right, so I’ve been compiling all my tasks into a spreadsheet.

Also, more importantly, I have been putting more data to quantify these tasks.

For example:

• Japanese words rewritten
• Kanji analyzed
• Flashcards studied

Also, I’ve made it so that my spreadsheet automatically tells me how much I have done of a certain task – 3%, 10%, 50%, etc.

Looking at all my tasks, it looks like I have literally created a Master’s Program for myself – a DIY degree or something.

And when considering it in that light, I know that I can finish all of these things in 2-3 years, if I just go slowly and steadily like how you would normally study at school.

But I guess I just want it all now! 

I literally fell asleep while rewriting Japanese vocabulary!

I also decided to try to compile all the tasks and projects that I want to accomplish in a spreadsheet.

Holy moly, no wonder I feel like I’m making no progress!

I’m trying to do like 20 things!!!

And a lot of these projects are year-long projects are in and of themselves!

I think I’m going to really need to cut things down and focus on the most important stuff.

For content creation, definitely just rewriting Japanese vocabulary is by far the most important one, since the data itself is a foundation – once I have this data, I can do a lot of things with it.

As for videos, I think I’ll be posting videos about Korean and Japanese cognates.

Those seem pretty fun, and I can focus on a few words at a time.

I think the the two core themes that I have been encountering are regularity and stability.

Regularity – keeping a schedule and building daily habits that move me forward

Stability – Ramit Sethi talks about having a few core things stable in your life, so you can focus your energy on more “risky” or “unstable” ventures.

So some things that he recommends to make stable are:

• A stable Job (with a stable income)
• Home (not moving around / traveling / country-hopping all the time)
• Relationships (friends, family, boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/spouse)

It’s funny, because I’ve known for quite a while now that I really need to focus on establishing my tripod of stability.

I’ve been moving around too much, both country-hopping and job-hopping, and I haven’t really committed to one exact place to live, and thus I haven’t really committed to a place where I can make long term relationships with people.

All of these things are affecting my language projects, since I spend a great deal of time thinking about and stressing about things that should just be stable.