A Late Q1 Update: How I Started Studying Again
Lessons from Q1: Reentry, Ondoku, and Real Language Use
Q1 Study Progress: What Actually Happened
January began with good intentions and an old mistake. I pulled out my Japanese textbooks and told myself I would finally be consistent. Within minutes, I remembered why I had quit before. Grammar study felt tedious and like.
Repeating the same study habits while hoping for a different outcome felt absurd. So I stopped trying to “push through” and asked a better question: What if the problem wasn’t my discipline, but my approach?
What followed looked like procrastination—reading about learning methods instead of studying—but it wasn’t. I needed to rethink how Japanese fit into my life.
Three months later, I wasn’t grinding textbooks. I was doing ondoku, reading a novel, talking more with coworkers, and tracking progress in a way that actually worked for me.
This is what easing back into Japanese really looked like.
📅 January: What didn’t work (and why flexibility is important)
The textbooks: I tried getting back into the JLPT resources I had. Opened them daily for maybe a week. They felt empty. Just going through the review motions with no real engagement or purpose.
The reading I attempted: Light novels, articles, graded readers. All felt like homework. I’d open them, read a few lines, feel nothing, and close them.
What I learned: I tried to return to studying using my old system with timers, schedules, and clear goals, but it didn’t work. After so long in maintenance mode, that version of me no longer fit. I had to rethink my approach before I could study seriously again.
✍️ Why writing the series mattered
Around mid-January, I began researching and writing the Learning Languages as an Adult series, nine posts on maintenance mode, slow progress, realistic timelines, what counts as practice, isolation, speaking struggles, unexpected advantages, and the long game.
The series became my own re-entry process, written in public. The research helped me trust small efforts. Writing about maintenance mode gave me permission to be where I was. Naming the gap between competence and performance stopped me from feeling broken about understanding Japanese but struggling to speak. Explaining why speaking feels hard normalized the awkwardness at work. I realized I needed to understand the why before the how would stick.
If you haven’t checked it out, here’s the first of nine articles:
💬 The conversation shift (unexpected win)
Somewhere in late January or early February, I made a small decision: talk more with my colleagues and be funny.
I asked about weekends, family, and kids. I commiserated over difficult students and laughed at the random absurdities of school life. I even went to after-work gatherings. Me, the person who usually bolts at 5pm. I put in the effort that makes you feel like you belong.
It didn’t feel like studying, but it was real language use, and it made everything else feel less like a chore. It also helped with social anxiety.
Small win: The principal scolded a colleague and said to stop the private talk during work hours.😭 The twist? They got into the habit of stopping by my workspace to talk since they found I could actually be chatty. I was embarrassed, terrified, and am still calling it a win.
🔄 February–March: Finding rhythm (not perfection)
I used to track every study session by the minute. This time, I only tracked completion. Not to build a streak, but just to know when something had gone too long without my attention. This was more like a nudge rather than a record to protect. Did I do the thing or not? Yes? Good. No? That’s alright, we’ll find time soon.
To execute this, I set up my Google Sheets tracker again and had it instantly open whenever I clicked on my browser at work and at home. That reminder made a difference. Every time I opened my computer, it was there. Japanese study became one row among many, which somehow made it less intimidating.
By March, I saw the problem wasn’t my study routine but life maintenance. I needed mindfulness, movement, and study working together, not competing. I used to treat it as a choice: Japanese or everything else, and that all-or-nothing thinking cost me a lot of sleep.
Now, not every box gets checked. But Japanese isn’t competing with my life anymore. It’s part of the same system.
📚 What actually stuck: Ondoku
The centerpiece of Q1 was a 30-day ondoku challenge I wrote about in detail.
TLDR: I bought a book designed for elderly Japanese readers worried about memory decline and committed to reading one passage aloud twice a day.
It took closer to seven weeks, not thirty days. And somewhere in that same experiment:
Small win: I sang well and loud enough at the school graduation concert that the principal complimented me afterward and joked that we should organize a karaoke event.
Then we held a farewell party for the departing teachers.
Small win: I gave a three-minute speech in Japanese in front of over seventy people. This kind of thing would have had me on the verge of a panic attack. I was still a little nervous. But I got through it, and I was damn proud of myself.
Maybe all of that was unrelated. Maybe not. But there’s something about deliberate, intentional speaking practice that works differently than just using the language to get through the day.
📖 And then: picking up a book and having an enlightening conversation from it
The short version: I drastically reduced my internet time and reached for books instead. Eventually I picked up コンビニ兄弟, a novel that had been sitting on my digital shelf for years. There was a lot of kanji I’d forgotten, more than I expected. But removing the distractions made me stick with it, and the story was interesting enough to keep me turning pages.
Small win: I’ve reframed reading it as a diagnostic rather than a goal. Not “finish this and understand everything,” but “see where you are and let the rest come back with time.”
A colleague complimented me for reading, and I almost launched into a defense: all the words I had to look up, how slow each page was, how exhausted I felt, how I couldn’t possibly pass the exam. I even showed them my N1 textbook, which I like to keep at my desk.
They looked at it and said, “But what happens if you pass? You’re not changing jobs. You’re already doing the work. Your classes are good, the kids like you, and you’ve taken on more responsibility. You’re learning what you need through the job itself. That matters more than a certificate.”
That reframed how I think about learning Japanese. Some things are necessary, some are optional, and some just aren’t a priority. Knowing the difference is progress.
💡 What I learned about re-entry
You can’t force motivation. The reframe has to come before the action.
Social connection is study. Talking with colleagues gave me more real language use than any textbook session did.
Systems beat willpower. A tracker you actually see beats trying to remember to study.
Small and sustainable beats ambitious and abandoned. Every time.
The exam isn’t always the goal. Ask yourself what passing actually does for your life right now. Sometimes the work itself is the proof.
Know the difference between what you need, what you want, and what would just be nice. That distinction is worth more than a study streak.
You’re probably doing better than you think.
🔜 Q2 and beyond
I’m moving out of maintenance mode. I’ve found practices that fit real life, a low‑friction tracking system, and less guilt about modest progress. I understand better how I actually learn.
Q2 looks different. I’ve switched to a tough new school1 where I barely know anyone, and it feels like an opportunity: new students, new colleagues, and lots of real language use.
My goal for Q2 isn’t streaks or hours. It’s connecting with students, being encouraging but firm, making people laugh, getting to know my colleagues, and reading because I want to. That’s what Japanese has always been for me: living in it. Q1 was about remembering that. Q2 is about doing it sustainably. If I stumble, I’ll pick myself back up and continue.
If you enjoyed this, a restack or share helps it reach someone who might need it today. And if you’d like to support this newsletter, you can always treat me to a rice cracker over at Buy Me a Coffee. It helps more than you know. 💛
Waddle on. 🐧
The warning that I got was, “Think Tokyo Revengers attitude, but they’re in elementary school.” The game plan is to win them over with warmth, wit, and rigor.
Article Cover Photo
British Museum. (1776). Seirō bijin awase sugata kagami (青楼美人合姿鏡): A mirror of beautiful women of the green houses compared (Vol. 2 of 3; illustrated book; colour woodblock print), by Kitao Shigemasa & Katsukawa Shunshō; published by Tsutaya Jūzaburō & Yamazaki Kinbei. Edo (Tokyo), Japan. British Museum, Asia Department. Museum no. 1979,0305,0.124.2.