Learning Chinese has become a weird trigger for my OCD. I keep rereading the same characters, checking tones, and restarting lessons because I feel like I didn’t learn them correctly. A ten-minute exercise can turn into an hour of correcting tiny details.
The frustrating part is that I do want to learn. Then the checking takes over and makes it feel impossible. I’m trying to accept that I can make mistakes and still move on, but that feels really uncomfortable. Has anyone found a way to practice a language without getting pulled into endless checking?
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@Ronald_Jones, the ten-minute exercise turning into an hour because of tiny corrections sounds exhausting. The hardest part may be that the checking feels like studying, even though it’s really keeping you stuck.
One thing that might help is setting a very specific stopping rule before you begin, such as one pass through the lesson and no restarting. When the urge comes up, you could mark the character or tone as “good enough for today” and keep going, even if it feels unfinished. The discomfort probably won’t disappear right away, but moving on gives you practice tolerating it.
Would it be easier to use short lessons with a timer, or does having a timer make the checking feel more urgent?
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@Tracy_Pratt, the stopping rule makes sense, especially deciding it before opening the lesson. If I make the decision while I’m already anxious, I’ll usually negotiate with myself and call another restart “just one more check.”
A timer can make me rush, so I’d probably use a fixed number of exercises instead, maybe five characters and then stop. I’d leave a note about what I covered and start there next time, rather than going back to prove I learned it correctly. The unfinished feeling is still there, but at least the practice has an actual ending.