October 24
Question of the Day: What’s the most interesting place you’ve visited?
何か思いつけない
Brilliant answer I know 
but I did discover that new verb, I hope I used it right. I was originally just going to use 思う
6 Likes
10月25日(金)
Skyped in Japanese with my good friend In Kyushu last night for two hours from 11pm - 1am so figure that can count for today’s speaking effort. We Skype every 3 weeks or so and swap between English-only and Japanese-only sessions. It wipes me out the next morning but luckily Friday is generally a day off. We’ve been Skyping for years and he’s accustomed now to my foreigner-Japanese so we generally manage to muddle our way through most discussions without resorting to dictionaries or anything. We have a few loose rules:
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if we’re speaking in our native language and the other person doesn’t understand, we have to try to say it using simpler or different expressions.
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if we are speaking in our non-native language we can try resorting to our native language to see if we can understand each other that way.
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only resort to dictionaries etc as a last resort (actually we’ve never used anything like Google translate)
6 Likes
That’s awesome that you have calls with your friend set up! Sounds helpful, I need to bug my friend to talk in Japanese sometime, but she’s a native English speaker as well so we always just end up catching up in English.
Today I made one of my diaries longer and put it on Langcorrect. I’ll check the corrections tomorrow and then post them here!
6 Likes
I met my friend through Lang 8 (similar to Langcorrect but was started earlier and is - sadly - now defunct). It was his suggestion to start Skyping and initially I was super resistant but he (in the nicest possible way) pressured me into it & I am so glad he did! I’ve sometimes taken years off studying Japanese and through these times, he’s been my only Japanese link. I’ll be forever grateful to him.
Look forward to reading them!
6 Likes
Alright, here’s the diary I wrote plus langcorrect corrections.
What I wrote:
今、選挙のときになって、図書館は期日前投票所です。毎日、投票するために、たくさんの人たちが図書館に来ています。賑やかなのです。投票行列は長くなります。
一昨日、投票することができました。遅くまで働くので、短い行列を待ち構えていました。閉まる１０分前に、行列は五人だけになりました。やっと、私は投票することができました。
First correction
今、選挙の時期で、図書館が期日前投票所になっています。毎日、投票するために、たくさんの人たちが図書館に来ています。賑やかなのです。投票するための行列は長くなります。
一昨日、投票することができました。遅くまで働いていたので、行列が短くなるのを待っていました。閉まる１０分前に、並んでいるのは五人だけになりました。やっと、私は投票することができました。
This person had several changes. I definitely wouldn’t have thought to phrase it as 並んでいるのは五人
Second correction
今、選挙のときになって、図書館は期日前投票所です。毎日、投票するために、たくさんの人たちが図書館に来ています。賑やかなのです。投票行列は長くなります。
一昨日、投票することができました。遅くまで働くので、行列が短くなるのを待ち構えていました。閉まる１０分前に、行列は五人だけになりました。やっと、私は投票することができました。
And this person only marked one correction. Since both people marked this correction, we can assume that it’s an important change. ‘I waited for a short line’ should be ‘I waited for the line to become short,’ essentially, which does make sense.
7 Likes
It’s always interesting reading through corrections.
4 Likes
10月26日(土)
Shadowed twice Thinking in Japanese Podcast:
間違ってもいい
2 February 2021
約10分
4 Likes
10月27日(日)
Thinking in Japanese Podcast:
Episode: マンガを読むために大切な表現
27 Jan 2021
8分
Shadowed twice
4 Likes
Reb’s Home Post
Since @trunklayer was kind enough to link to this English-Japanese discord server, I will attempt this challenge for next month.
| 11月 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
| 01 | 02 | 03 | ||||
| 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
7 Likes
Welcome to the challenge!
Did my daily diary last night as usual.
5 Likes
10月28日(月)
20 minutes free conversation class so I think I can skip shadowing today!
5 Likes
Daily diary written! 
Will have to try adding shadowing back in November.
5 Likes
last week I managed 3 days in a row with a combination of writing, conversation practice (@Lisaveeta my friend is in Kyuushuu too!), and shadowing. That’s a record for me on output streaks 
5 Likes
Excellent! Can I ask how you do your conversation practice with your friend in Kyushu? And how did you start?
2 Likes
Sure! Similarly we met on a language website: italki - they used to have a community just for finding language exchange partners where you could make a profile and get a match. It was incredible.
Summary
I had started learning Japanese in 2016 but I was pretty slow studying alongside my job. By 2019 I could tell it wasn’t going anywhere (I was at genki ch 3) and I decided to either find a reason to know and use Japanese or give it up. I built up the courage to make my profile on italki and she was one of two people I reached out to. We hit it off from the start as we both have similar interests in science, reading, learning and culture etc etc. I feel incredibly incredibly lucky that we met.
Since early 2019 we’ve always followed the same format:
We speak Wednesdays for an hour, first English 30 min then Japanese 30 min.
We didn’t make up any other rules. Her English is really good but we normally don’t switch if I have trouble. Normally if something trips one of us up we first try to explain it in that language and that works. We talk on Skype and the other option is to write tricky words or sentences to each other since sometimes seeing it helps. Then if I still don’t get it I look it up in jisho.
now we know each other really well, it is a weekly conversation that flows from English to Japanese very smoothly. Exactly at 12.30 my time she always says "日本語の時間です! Then we continue in Japanese although my level can limit the depth in the second half. So if I have something nuanced to say I better say it in the first half in English 
It is the one thing I’ve always done for my output. And during some periods it was even the only thing I did for my Japanese.
5 Likes
That’s really great! I had a few language partners after I started with my current one, but often I had trouble getting them to speak in Japanese to me even though I tried to have a 50% in each language rule. It was very frustrating!
I like the different sessions in different languages set-up I currently have because I can’t easily swap between the two languages - when I’m speaking in Japanese, my brain is in Japanese mode
4 Likes
Yeah that strikes me as a really good way to do it, I struggle to switch as well. sometime I’ll try that in mine!
I’m so glad you landed on that setup with your friend. That must have been so frustrating with the others!
4 Likes
10月29日(火)
Thinking in Japanese Podcast
習慣の鎖はあなたを助ける
8 January 2021
約9分
Shadowed twice
Actually, it happened with him too at first but then we had a fight about it. In Japanese they say 喧嘩するほど仲がいい and that was true for us as we both cared enough to argue
5 Likes
I didn’t know that one!
I had read, before seeking a conversation exchange partner, that it can be so tough to make it equal, especially when one language like English will be stronger for both parties. so wow, good for you sticking up for that and it sounds like you have a strong friendship, too, which is worth celebrating 
5 Likes