There is no getting around it: learning a language will be painful. It will be painful in part because learning anything new is painful as it takes time to build the cognitive reps necessary to create understanding. But the pain is especially pronounced for the study of Japanese, which is so linguistically distinct from most other languages. As I have written, it is no coincidence that the development of spaced repetition technology (Anki or 暗記 means to memorize), had a major focus from the beginning in aiding Japanese language learners—SRS technology is particularly useful for students of Japanese because Japanese has a combination of linguistic quirks that create high barriers to entry compared to most other languages.
We can’t avoid the pain, but we can make sure that the pain is kept at a sustainable and appropriate level. Think of this as the good kind of pain, like your muscles getting tired during a workout. What we are aiming for is the equivalent pain for language learning—enough to get feedback that we are making gains, but not so much that we get injured or are in too much pain to keep going the next day. The key is to embrace this metaphor treat your language study like you would a strength training program. Like a good strength training program, you need consistency and a sustainable routine that leads to non-linear gains with a low likelihood of injury.
Consistency is key because when you are not building, you are atrophying. The mind and body are alike in that if you don’t use something, you lose it. 15 minutes a day of working out or language study will lead to better gains than a single 2-hour session once a week. And the truth is, you don’t need more than just 15 minutes a day to make incredible progress. But you still have to know what you are doing to maximize your 15 minutes a day.
Pushing yourself to the limit in those 15 minutes is unhelpful and counterproductive. Trying to read native content without learning any Kanji or vocabulary is like trying to squat 400 lbs on your first day in the gym—it’s impossible, and likely to lead to serious injury. When you have no idea what you are reading, the process of looking up every word and every character will kill the fun. You won’t enjoy the content you are reading, and you will get frustrated and bored. Do this enough times and you’ll forget why you were putting yourself through these pains to begin with and quit your study altogether.
But just because you shouldn’t bang your head against every sentence until you are bloody and bruised doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be pushing yourself. Remember, you’ve got 15 minutes a day and each minute needs to count. In those 15 minutes you need to push yourself until you feel that burning warmth that lets you know you are getting better. The workout equivalent is finding the weight that you can rep somewhere between 4 and 8 times per set—not too heavy to risk injury, but not so light that you’ll have to up your sets (and time) to get equivalent gains.
This is where the SRS comes in. It’s like a full body exercise if done right: not only will you forge associative connections with new vocabulary and characters, but you’ll also be mylenating your contextual and grammatical neural pathways as well. The Ashiba SRS is designed to stimulate as much growth as you can handle in a sustainable way. If you use Ashiba consistently, you’ll find yourself growing in Japanese knowledge with only 15 minutes of study a day. If you’ve struggled to use an SRS in the past, fear not—the only pain you’ll get from using Ashiba is the pain of learning, not the pain of figuring out how to set up the SRS or finding cards to study.