day 5!
very low percentages today woof but im under 300 reviews! 298 whoop!
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You knocked out like 200 reviews, woot! At this rate, you’ll definitely be down to normal reviews before the new year, with time to spare!
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day 6!!
did about 150 reviews while travelling today with an okay percentage :>
my API add-ons started glitching quite a bit so I decided to turn them all off, including the typo redo button one! and you know, its really refreshing going back to basic WK
when i get a word “wrong” according to WK but its just because they don’t have that synonym listed up, i don’t feel frustrated like i used to because i know i did understand the meaning really! its always good to remind myself WK isn’t a game to win but a tool to actually learn…
this will also force me to be more diligent about just learning the words they want hopefully aha
anyway… happy day 6 (233 reviews left)
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From 700+ down to 200+ in 6 days!! Congratulations!
I’m loving all the cat GIFs you’ve been posting on your log by the way! Here’s another for all the reviews you’ve done!
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thank you hehe i didn’t realize how many cats i’d been posting until a couple days ago hahah but they’re always so cute so how could i not pick the kitties
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day … 7? technically for me but also not - travelled home for the holidays so went back in time (時差だから) so wanikani and i are out of sync
did just under 80 reviews but by the end of the day i’ll be back to exactly 233 strangely enough! so today was a maintainance day rather than chipping away at the pile
just gotta keep on keepin on (or as hinative tells me) やり続けよう!
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it’s been about a month since i last posted and the same goes for when i last studied
by the end of last year i was facing real burn out and a lot of confusing life decisions ! i really needed a break and a holiday. luckily, there’s no deadline for me with language learning really
i was contemplating making a new study log for the new year but i wonder if that just clogs up the forums unnecessarily so for now i’ll just say:
— 今年もよろしく ! the new year starts here ! —
here are my january steps for rebuilding my language habit
- my first step is very basic: incorporating some amount of language learning into my day as a daily habit. let’s say I want to do XYZ every day as part of my language learning habit, first i need to habitualize even having that time carved out in the first place (so starting with just X, for example, but making sure to do X every day without fail). So for me, rather than immediately trying to get back into wanikani and duolingo and reading etc., i just wanted to practice having the habit itself. so i chose duolingo. people can say whatever they want about it, but i think the owl does a great job at gamifying language and the graphics r super cute - i think it’s a great way to reinitiate interest and rebuild the habit with minimal effort
i just finished a week of doing a little bit of it every day, and lo and behold, now i’m ready for a phrase 2 of sorts
- now i’m gonna try and slowly build back up. i’m gonna keep doing duolingo but also now i wanna incorporate 15 minutes a day of wanikani (or some other kind of language learning***). this is partially because i was back at around 770 reviews and i knew that was subconsciously overwhelming me. today in 15 minutes i got one of my lowest percentages ever but i also did nearly 100 reviews!
*** i say other kinds of language learning because i’m thinking of also dabbling in some other languages and interests right now. even though all of the online polyglots say “never start another language until you’re intermediate-advanced in your first target language”, i’m going against their advice 
i think what’s most important for me right now is rediscovering an interest in languages. i truly believe if dipping my toe into another language gets me excited, that will come across into my japanese studies too.
- one final update… i’m contemplating beginning italki lessons in japanese. i think that will be really good at holding me accountable and forcing me to keep studying and practicing.
thanks for everyone who has written kind encouragement on this page! it’s really sweet! i hope y’all have had a good start to your 2023 so far! hopefully i’ll update tomorrow with another 15 minutes logged 
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19/01/2023
- Wanikani day 2: 86 reviews, 53% - percentages are still crazy lower than what i’m used to but that’s what a month long hiatus will do! but hey, it’s 2% higher than yesterday! progress!
- Duolingo day 8: currently using the 2 week free trial of duo+ so i’ve been making my gold bubbles into purples n it’s v cute!
- ボーナス: taught some lower level students today so had some japanese speaking practice which was nice :> basic sentences but still good!
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明けましておめでとう！！
Glad to see you back on your log! I was wondering where you went, but sometimes you just need a bit of a break to catch your breath. (If it makes you feel better, I also dropped off over the holidays…I think I had around 500 or 600 reviews to muddle back through afterwards 
)
I don’t personally use Duolingo, but I’m glad to see the world’s scariest owl is helping you get back in the groove of things. 
The most important studying is the studying you actually do, after all.
And I would say not to worry too much about your accuracy while you’re coming back! I know I have to remind myself sometimes that wanikani isn’t a scored test, or a game where you’re aiming for the top. It’s studying! So if you miss a kanji, it just means you need to spend more time with it, and missing it on WK will do exactly that – put it back in your pool to spend some time with. Like we’re all chilling in one big onsen (or boiling, more accurately) with the kanji that still need some work. 
Can I ask what other languages you’re interested in? I’ve had the devil on my shoulder whispering about Chinese for a while now, so I’m probably going to go against that particular bit of polyglot advice sometime soon as well. Maybe we can be foolish together 
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お帰りなさい and 明けましておめでとう! Glad to see you back and hope you’re all refreshed from your break.
Yayyy! Someone else who’s defying convention! Or at least thinking about it like @Ayara012. Come to the dark side! 
I decided I would do the exact same this year with Korean and Spanish, both of which I’ve studied before and both I’ve got to advanced beginner with… I’ve also read so many articles saying it’s best to focus on one but at the same time I don’t want to lose my progress and start regressing with both (which has already started to happen actually). Ayara012 already asked, but also curious which languages are you thinking of taking up? Are these from zero or perhaps languages you already studied before?
My italki lessons are my only speaking practice and it’s definitely been helping in my confidence in speaking! Definitely go for it! 
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I’ve literally been in a conversation with my friend (who learned Chinese growing up) all morning, and it’s just making the devil stronger… Maybe we can all buddy up and suffer together 
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The three of us defying conventions. Hahaha.
Yes yes! Just do it!!! I hope we can either prove all the naysayers wrong or at least enjoy in our suffering? 
And if we have a change of our heart along the way, that’ll be okay too.
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Yeah, since I posted said friend and I have made a pact to go for Japanese/Chinese and Korean (she’s starting Japanese and Korean bc I’ve already got Japanese underway, I’ll start Chinese and Korean bc she’s already got Chinese from her childhood).
Y’all will have to let me know how it goes with picking up your languages! @raindrops Still curious which language you’re looking at, if you’re willing to share
anyway time to go download ninchanese and search for some korean resources…
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thank u both for the cute happy new year / welcome back messages 
i totally support both of yall listening to your devils heheheh let’s do it! i think @alygator u hit the nail on the head when u said
it’s a win-win! as long as we stay optimistic and taking on another language only motivates/encourages us, then we’re golden! even if that encouragement eventually comes in the form of “wow languages are so cool and complex, studying 1 is enough!”
to answer u both, i’m looking at studying russian ! and i’m going from absolute 0! i also have recently taken interest in IPA (the international phonetic alphabet) so I would like to learn the basics of that too because I think it will help with general comprehension of pronunciation in the long run! so in total right now, i’m looking at 4 different alphabets (english, japanese, russian, and IPA) and my head feels a bit scrambled (of course there’s a bit of crossover!) but i’m loving it
@Ayara012 that’s soooo awesome that u have a buddy who grew up learning chinese who can help you AND you can help them with their start into japanese! and then both of u beginning korean together 
that’s just SO cute i love this !! having a language buddy is so good for motivation and keeping learning fun! i’ve been chatting to one of my brother’s friends who’s studying russian and he’s been giving me the DOs and DON’Ts for beginners and sending me resources and i’m so thankful to have a 言語先輩
good luck with chinese and korean and totally keep me in the loop with how it goes! ditto @alygator tell us about your re-entry back into korean and spanish! i’m sure it’ll be a lot of dejavu moments if u made it to advanced beginner for both in the past. i hope it’s fruitful!
do either of u have set plans with how you’re gonna divide up your time for studying the different languages?
lastly, thanks @Ayara012 for your empathy about the post-holiday percentages haha i totally love your point about
i’m not trying to cheat the system but want to genuinely learn! sometimes i will burn an item but if i think i don’t actually know it (like it took me a while to recall) i’ll redo it and force a mistake to send it back to guru for exactly this reason haha if i ever “finish” wanikani it’ll take me a decade but at least i’ll be thorough!!
let’s have fun listening to our devils! 皆さんがんばって！
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20/01/2023
- busy day at work (in a good way! very productive) and plans in the evening meant no wanikani but that’s okay! did some duolingo on my lunchbreak (day 9)
21/01/2023
- Wanikani day 1: 15 minutes, 80 reviews, 60% accuracy !!! we creepin back up! (i even did 5 vocab lessons bc why not!
- Duolingo day 10: 10 day streeeeak hell yeah! since i get most of my vocab from wanikani which is ordered by stroke order not exposure, it’s nice seeing vocab on duolingo that i should know by now but don’t bc of my (silly) lack of study besides wk e.g. 三週間かかります (it takes 3 weeks) — on the flip side, it’s bad when the audio is wrong hahaha i’m sure a lot of people only using wanikani are saying the wrong thing for a lot of words
- now i’m gonna do some russian studying in my notebook
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22/01/2023
- Duolingo day 11: nothing special, learnt the word ぶどう (grapes) thinking it was strange to ask if martial arts are sweet hahaha
-
Wanikani day 2: 40 minutes total!!!
– first session: 15 minutes, 81 reviews, 59%
– second session: 10 minutes, 55 reviews, 55%
– third session: 15 minutes, 91 reviews, 64%
i’ll have 507 reviews tomorrow still (190 in apprentice) but we’re slowly slowly chipping away - i discovered @crihak’s 30 day russian challenge which i decided to binge over a couple hours, reading all of it today with a cup of coffee! my russian practice today was practicing the alphabet by reading the vocabulary they include in their posts.
my main take aways from their experiment (with some 書く練習):
~ 毎日目標言語を聞いたほうがいい。特に話す人は目標言語の国！YouTubeでゲームを見ろうと思う daily exposure to native material is great! there are 2 fun looking gameplays crihak watched that I might check out in the future
~ 時々ロシア語は日本語みたいだ crihak confirmed something i had heard people say before: some russian words sound like japanese! also, as they mention on day 29, “Russian is a more “drop-positive” language than English. This means that the subject can be omitted if it’s not important” (just like in Japanese!)
~ 私も他人も言語を習うことは莫大時はかかる… 良かった! It’s always a little bit of a relief when I see people admitting language learning takes a while for them too since most of the time online u see people speedrunning languages lol
~ ロシア語のためにアンキが使いたいかな。。。便利そうだ! maybe I should use anki…
~ 面白いニモニックといい助言!
i liked this funny (AND good) mnemonic!
as they say when discussing how they think of doctor who’s daleks for the word далеко (daleko / far away), “you don’t need to go out of your way to make up the best mnemonic, just taking the first thing that pops into your head can often be effective enough” - i love this advice!
~ lastly (in what has turned into a v long love letter to these blog posts haha), i like what they wrote on day 2:
勉強の日記は有用だ。 新しく習った単語については話してみる study logs are a great tool! I will try and talk more about what I learn each day in these posts
In conclusion, huge shout-out to crihak! their dedication to learn every day let alone post for 30 days with accompanying videos is admirable とても感心した!
I didn’t think I’d write this much about it but who cares it’s my study log haha anyway see yall tomorrow!
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Oh my goodness! Best of luck studying all four!! Well unless English is your native language, so i guess three? Honestly had to look up IPA and my mind was blown. I’ve always seen those symbols on word but never really thought twice what alphabet that could be. That’s pretty amazing.
I have no set plans of dividing exactly. More of an action plan which is to renew my duolingo subscription as a refresher for both Korean and Spanish. For now, I just want to have a daily streak for Korean and Spanish for thirty days and then we’ll see from there. I’m deliberating on whether to sign up for classes to practice speaking… But I need to consider the costs and time that that would entail juggling it with japanese classes plus a full time job that takes up 5 days a week 10 hours a day 
what a perfect gif! Pochita is so adorable!
I studied Korean in person for a year so I learned from a textbook called Sogang Korean. Here’s an amazon link to the first textbook of the series. I also heard good stuff about Talk to me in Korean but haven’t actually tried it myself yet. I’ve been looking online for similar platforms like WK, Bunpro and Satorireader for Korean, but haven’t had any luck. 
Do let me know if you find anything worthwhile!
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luckily english is my native language yes :> but i do find my english is getting worse with all the other languages i’m juggling in my head hahah it’s terrible
yeah IPA is such a cool concept right!!! unfortunately i think i’m going to shelve that one for now because i’d be taking on too many new things i think but i definitely want to return to it in the future
this is a biggie for me too! i think i’m also going to first prioritise the daily streak, spend a couple days/weeks getting back into the swing of daily language practice, and then once i’m sure the habit is strong again i’ll take the time to properly divide up how i allocate my time/energy (making sure to factor in rest days!) i hope you’re able to find a good balance with working full time and jp classes already!
30日間勉強してがんばって！(ง •_•)ง
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Sorry I’m super late to respond to these, my brain just disappears over the weekends, whoops.
yeah i told her right off the bat that I was gonna come crying to her about things…like tones. i live in fear of tones.
we have slightly modified the blood pact (yes we did in fact call it a blood pact, yes there were 
emojis involved), because she cracked a joke that between us we’d be covering all of east asia…and then we went about googling what other countries are officially considered east asia, since obviously it’s not just the big three.
So as the current pact stands, she’s starting japanese and I’m starting chinese, and as we get our feet under us in those (which will probably be a while, to be fair) she’ll start vietnamese and eventually korean, and I’ll start korean. If I get to a point after that where I want to pick up another language, I’d probably go look at mongolian because why not.
Overall, I am not a person who’s great at hard and fast plans. Right now I think my goal is to make sure I don’t chicken out by just trying to get a habit going? I’m also still looking around for resources, so for the moment I’ve just added duolingo back on my phone to let the owl harangue me into practicing. He kept me on track last night, so I’ve got a three day streak, which is super tiny of course but like. baby steps.
I’ve found two online courses that both seem to have solid recommendations going for them, but I’ll need to poke around with their free resources before I can drop the money on them. (I’m looking at ChineseforUs and MandarinBlueprint. I poked at ninchanese, but had a pretty immediate knee-jerk dislike of how they introduce characters. Kind of disappointing, since they’re the only one that had Traditional in addition to Simplified characters, and people have posted about them being the most WK-like. I might give them a second chance in a few days, but initial impression is not great.)
And for Korean, I’m gonna wait until I’ve got some progress in Chinese before I try to get started with it, just to avoid the risk of overloading (since I’m obviously still doing Japanese on top of all this.) I know the korean alphabet is “easier”, but still. I also figure I’ll take the time to find some resources, too.
What do you think you have in mind for balancing your 3/4, @raindrops ?
EDIT: Whoops just saw your comment about waiting on IPA, whoops. So just Japanese and Russian for now, right?
Yeah I’m basically starting with duo, even if I don’t really bother with it for Japanese I figure it’ll at least help with habit-forming, since the owl will hunt me down on a daily basis.
This is really helpful, thank you! I’ll probably try to look around for online resources, just because I seem to do the best with studying when I can plunk down and do it whenever (without needing to have/focus on a textbook), but I’ll definitely look these up, thank you!
Honestly I think this is a great approach to take, because you’re just being honest and thorough with your own learning. I don’t do exactly the same, but I try to make sure I’m not cheating myself just to get the guru, so to speak, like if I see the meaning or reading somehow but wouldn’t have remembered on my own I’ll fail the review.
ANYWAY this was a super long response but like. Kinda boils down to the same as y’all – I wanna try and get some habits established/solidified and build from there.
みんなで一緒に頑張ろうよ！
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23/01/2023
- Duolingo day 12: a few rounds during my lunchbreak; that’s the part i really like about duolingo. it’s really easy to catch yourself on your phone anyway and then quickly open the app - i find i need a proper break in order to do a wanikani session
- Wanikani day 3: 15 minutes, 93 reviews, 66% - today’s session felt good
- and some news…
I PASSED THE JLPT N4!!!
so now, in the next week or so, i’m going to start japanese italki lessons and potentially say i’m striving for n3 this year (summer or december we’ll see!)
応じましょう！
hey, that’s great for travelling!
i’m a big advocate of celebrating a streak no matter the size!!! we gotta start somewhere 言語の道は長いでしょう
that’s a good call! better to start slow n steady! that’s why i dropped IPA too for now :> so yup just japanese and russian right now which i’m really enjoying – in some ways it makes japanese feel less scary because by starting an entirely new language, i’m remembering what being an actual beginner looks like haha
ぜひ! グループで勉強のほうが楽しい!
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