zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4411 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin
| Message 1 of 5 30 October 2012 at 9:10am | IP Logged |
just fishing for a little advice... ive been staying in japan for a little more than week now (I leave in another 3 weeks),
and by now Ive even spent time in a completely non English environment, but since that little more than 24 hour
period, it seems like my japanese has become significantly harder to use... I feel like my natural progression of
grammar is suffering a bit, and Im now forgetting words I should know (but realizing them later)
what Im really curious about is if other people have been in this situation, what did you do to remedy it?
thank you in advance
zerrubabbel
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Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5480 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin
| Message 2 of 5 30 October 2012 at 9:18am | IP Logged |
A week isn't very long. When I was first immersed in Czech full-time it was so exhausting that I had to lie down for a short nap every afternoon. It felt like the brain exhaustion was never going to end. Then, after two or three months, it started to feel manageable, and within six months it was not tiring in the slightest. It just takes time to adjust, and for your brain to learn to cope and make sense of what is being thrown at it.
Edited by Splog on 30 October 2012 at 4:57pm
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Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4468 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian
| Message 3 of 5 30 October 2012 at 9:20am | IP Logged |
It happened to me and fortunately it isn't a big problem. You are simply tired, even if you perhaps don't feel so.
You could work through it, but if you can, take a short break. Sleep more, give yourself a half-day or a day to simply laze about or do a sport, spend a day simply wandering around without speaking to anybody. Don't get back to English environment - it would give you the needed break, but it is difficult to keep such break short. Clean your head and jump right back :)
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6514 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 4 of 5 30 October 2012 at 12:00pm | IP Logged |
Your Japanese has simply hit the rockhard wall of Japanese at a native level. Don't go back to an English speaking environment, but try to establish an inner monologue based on messages you see, things you hear and things you wanted to say but couldn't formulate properly. Out of this confused soup of thoughts a new and stronger version of your Japanese will emerge, and then you can start to introduce it in situations where you think you can get away with it.
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zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4411 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin
| Message 5 of 5 31 October 2012 at 9:01am | IP Logged |
thank you guys :D but unfortunately for me, most of the days im here I will be spending with English speakers... Im
doing a construction project with them... however on weekends I have seldom need to use my English to
communicate... Ill take your advice and take a rest when I feel overloaded, and hopefully native speed japanese will
begin to feel more normal
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