Overcoming the Japanese plateau

I took the decision to learn Japanese almost 8 years ago and have progressed a good amount since then. I first began studying the basic lettering system, Hiragana and Katakana on my free time while living in the USA and then after that took some beginner courses while studying abroad in Germany. This was slow progress and my Japanese didn’t really take off until I entered the “Shinkansen course” at Tohoku University about 2 years later. This course was an intensive, 3 months course of daily 6 hour days of Japanese study. This immersive experience really put me on another level and to this day I find myself thinking a lot about what was taught during that time.

However, this course has brought me to what I like to call the Japanese plateau, a common state for really any technical endeavor (music, sports, language). You’ve reached a good level but you’re not significantly advancing in your skill despite still giving effort in studying. So, I’ve reached a level where more time effort is needed to reach a higher level.

More concretely, I lack the ability to read effectively. Along with the aforementioned writing systems Hiragana and Katakana, Kanji (adapted Chinese characters) is a major hindrance to most western foreigners because they require a lot of of time to learn, and really there is no other way around it. There are no tricks other than pure rote memorization (there are a few tricks but they only prove to be slightly helpful).

I often wonder if I would have gained a much higher fluency in other languages such as Portuguese or Norwegian had I committed the same amount of time to them and if I should regret my decision. But even despite that, I do not. Japanese is a wonderful language that’s very fun to use and learn, and the ability to read and understand the way of thinking via literature is a goal that I don’t mind dedicated several more years of my life to.

The question though is, HOW. Unfortunately dear reader, I leave the answer to this for another post. My current ideas revolve around more material consumption paired with some other tools. Let’s see how it goes.