A Certain Bidoof's Multi-Language Study Log 🇯🇵 🇩🇪 🇨🇦 🇵🇱

[GolyBidoof]

March 10th, 2025

• 136 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 53 reviews on Bunpro
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo
• 2h of Japanese lessons
• Misc: one episode of 薬屋のひとりごと, still early into season 2 ^^

Ahhh, my mom kept me up for a little longer than usual and my alarm clock set off a really bad rhythm for the rest of the day xddd
I couldn’t focus much on either classes, シャオマオ’s adventures or Bunpro reviews, but I did the usual block

Today in the classes we’ve had an article about a special episode of Pokemon anime that launched for the Pokemon Day earlier this year, this episode:

【公式】Pokémon Day2025 記念アニメーション「カイリューとゆうびんやさん」

…and it really sucks to have been on the internet as much as I did, because the conversation very quickly devolved into “wAIT, I THOUGHT THE FIRST GAMES WERE RED AND BLUE” from the rest of the group to my “ehhh, 聞いてくれ、ちょっと違います”, and an attempt to explain the chronology of everything from 1996 on xdddd

We also talked about what Pokemon would I make of my own and I said I’d love to have a カワウマ：馬のように、ピンクで、背中に雲が込んだ、すっごく可愛い xdddd

One of the group members did a presentation on Nujabes, they spoke about his Samurai Champoo soundtrack and production, but the presenter outside of the presentation wanted to talk about lo-fi hiphop and sampling too, so I’m nOT THE ONLY ONE TERMINALLY ONLINE, OKAY??? Nujabes is such a mood though ^^

Next week will be our final class for a 1.5 month break, and I have an option of making a presentation myself, but I’d have to prepare it. I won’t do it for as long as my mom is here (until Wednesday) and then on Wednesday I promised a friend to have an Among Us 3D night, so Thursday might be my first bet? Hold me accountable, I’ll think of something xdd

But yeah, will get my mom to watch the Tallest Waterfall in the World and then I’ll wake up dead tired tomorrow again xdd

See you tomorrow!

[GolyBidoof]

March 11th, 2025

• 124 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 44 reviews on Bunpro
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo

Surprisingly easy day across the services today, don’t know what’s caused it, but let’s rejoice for now xdddd

I read anatomidze’s study log earlier today and it mentioned Charli XCX’s special edition of the Brat album for Japan and it just made the first part of my evening xdddd

I have a feeling I should leave some comments or ask questions in her study log, I’ll try that when I have a bit more time xdd

Today’s word that I really want to manifest the retention of is gambling, 博打, that the kanjis don’t make me recall on the very first try xdd
So far it’s a weird example of a word upon which hearing that it has an “irregular reading” doesn’t make me immediately recall that reading ^^

In terms of extra Japanese study today though, not much, I’m enjoying the last evening with my mom and we went swimming earlier today and we’re both really physically tired, but not enough to pass up on Chikhai Bardo after I finish writing the study log for today ^^

The friend who we did dumplings with recommended me a Cooking Language Exchange Meetup in Berlin that might be doing some Japanese cooking in early April and I’m currently on the waitlist for it, I hope I’ll get in, would be fun ^^

And my Japanese study friend who has an account here on WaniKani asked me what games to get on the Switch to practice the language, and yeah, I directed them to The House in Fata Morgana book club, let’s get the book club started, I hope they join too xdd

I hope I join too xdddd

See you tomorrow!

[Shannon-8]

I don’t know whether it will help you or not, but my ShanMne mnemonic for that is “someone is cheating behind your back” → back cheat → ばくち = gambling = 博打WK28

[GolyBidoof]

March 12th, 2025

• 137 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 48 reviews on Bunpro
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo
• Misc: got my Japanese package and read over the 週刊ファミ通 I ordered! Here’s a summary post!

Check the post, I think the magazine is really neat! C:

When it comes to the other ones, both Xenoblade X magazines came in and one of them has a decent poster, but my current question is like… WHERE??? xddd

I think I might keep the current poster rotation for a while, I like the current state of how they look like xdd

Also, a nice, pretty, round 101 days of Bunpro streak as of today!

I didn’t even know they had a fire emoji for the study streak being higher, neat xddd
But yeah, I might have to do some N3 cram because N3 grammars are a bit difficult to tell apart, and I should just spend some more time on it.

I don’t know whether it will help you or not, but my ShanMne mnemonic for that is “someone is cheating behind your back” → back cheat → ばくち = gambling = 博打WK28

Yep, that was useful, got gambling today first try, back cheating my way into mnemonics xddd

I’ve been listening to the Liz and the Blue Bird soundtrack I got with all of the magazines as well, and I find it so interesting that a Wikipedia article for the album exists in German, but not in English or Japanese

But yeah, banger album, makes you feel much more vulnerable xddd

One of the words I would love to reduce the usage of in my daily life is 疲れちゃった、しんどい、草臥れる, it kinda feels like I just love to throw it off hand as a conversation ender, “I’m tired, that’s the end of the day”, but I feel like my mechanism to recover from mental and physical fatigue is weaker in March than it usually is and I find myself half-dead some of the time, not as in “haha, i also like napping every once in a while”, more as in “I decided not to respond to a friend of mine who sent me a message a week ago because I don’t have the mental energy to respond to their post, and also I will not study extra Japanese, and also I will just mindlessly scroll YouTube for the rest of the evening” - so in a sense, I hope that Japanese grinding block is not contributing to that much, it might or might not keep me holding everything together because I know I can’t just pass out, I have 137 review items that should all be there at 11PM xddd

I could technically give another shot to morning routines, I just consider myself to be way more of a night owl though xddd

But man, 疲労, too many things on my mind, too many things getting in the way.

Of course, in a procrastination block I landed on this funny video on YouTube that helps to classify mood disorders:

Every Type of Depression in 17 Minutes

I love the description of “atypical depression”, I think I’m very susceptible to HYPE stimuli that work for exactly 37 minutes and then I’m back in the dumps xdd
Though, who knows, maybe it’s seasonal depression
Or maybe I’m just making stuff up xddd

Today’s mood: give me a freaking break (an eternal one) (actually pls no lets have something happen in a few days or i’ll be sad) (Xenoblade X coming out in a week omg) (Doing things with friends on the weekend how cool is that C:) (Nintendo Direct on April 2nd let’s gooo) xdddd

SLEEP

[GolyBidoof]

March 13th, 2025

Japanese Block:

• 144 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 43 reviews on Bunpro
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo

German Block:

• Watched Heldin in the cinema today
• Works Council admin work, needed to do some Germanying of documents around ^^
• Watched a video about the plans for the first 100 days in the Bundestag by Die Linke
• Forgot how a “vet” is in English while I remembered it in German xdd

…i felt so dumb when i knew exactly the name but couldn’t recall it in English ;_;

I get it across Polish and English sometimes both ways, but now with German joining the mix, it’s going to be entertaining to see it in one more language as well xdd

When I watched the movie called “Heldin” today, there was a word “Vitalzeichen” in there and I nodded my head immediately being like “yeah, I get what it is”, but then out of the cinema trying to translate I was like, “eeee”, and then, wiktionary:

and then, wikipedia:

I’m pretty sure it’s something similar to “vitals”, " バイタル", “oznaki życia”, but I just accept this word existing in my head without a direct translation to either English or Japanese or Polish. Wait, it’s too late now xdddd

So (read with German accent), bringing the German block once again because my amount of German activity will rise for a while over the next week: I still haven’t forgotten about me wanting to improve in German, and I’ll have another one of those Seminars starting next Tuesday in Hamburg, will be demanding definitely, but I’m looking forward to giving another shot at introducing myself in German to 15 people I will never see again most likely ^^

I might do some extra German study this weekend too, starting with the next episode of Severance tomorrow, and maybe try to read a manga in German to prepare myself for the cognitive load of Germanising around between Tuesday and Friday!

Anyway, Japanese!
There’s this WaniKani extension called Media Context Sentences and wow, discovering it has been an absolute game changer. First of all, I appreciate the commitment and dedication of nerds to pirate hundreds of thousands voice clips of anime in Japanese, immersionkit.com really is a great service and I can see myself playing around with it more.

I did it today for the words that I failed, and was trying to pull sentences that could help me memorize stuff, like I failed 大衆 today and then went to the context sentences, something like:

and when you play out the clips and the sad music starts playing and you go like “NOOO ROY MUSTAAAANG”, I have a feeling I might not fail 大衆 tomorrow as lightly as I did today xdd

But here’s an interesting bit: my review sessions are slightly timed to be finished before midnight, only because I just like for things to be in order for some reason and get a physical reaction of “myeh” in my tummy when I finish at 0:01, so towards the end I just wasnt checking the media context sentences, and for the ones that I did, I was rushing them xdd
That’s not a very good way of studying, but it finishes the review session at 11:58pm, so, a part of my brain labels it as worth it xdd

I wonder when would be a good time for me to just do an extended self-study with all of the leaches and things that have been lingering for a while.

Speaking offfff…

This extension is called Item Inspector and it’s another toy you can use to give yourselves a few pats on the back, I’m definitely overcomplicating my WaniKani experience, but it’s fun to know that 提供 simply doesn’t stick no matter what and it’s time to immerse myself in pirated anime to not miss it the next time xddd

On the note of Bunpro…

WHO DIS??? Seeing Expert for the first time on this account, nice to know I’ve remembered some grammars for this long xdd

But yeah, language learning day, let’s do more Japanese and German over the upcoming few days!

[Shannon-8]

OMG I knew immersion toolkit, but never much felt like going and looking up words for the extra short snippets of sentences… But to have it going ask the time for Media Context Sentences?! Brilliant!

[GolyBidoof]

Jeeesus, Shannon’s post got overtaken by the rowing mafia, was fun to read it though xdddd

March 14th, 2025

Japanese Block:

• 138 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 50 reviews on Bunpro
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo
• Misc: Played over seven hours of Xenoblade X with Japanese dub…

German Block:

• …and German interface language xdddd
• 2x09 Severance with German subs

okay imma be real with you today.
one shop broke the street date of xenoblade x switch and that completely ruined any semblance of productivity for the day

i literally only stopped to go and grab a bubble tea and to take a shower and then went back to my new full time job… I mean, it’s language learning, so it should be on the cool side of things xddd

The game is really, really, reeeeally good from a technical standpoint. It feels similar to Metroid Prime Remastered where you go like “huh, it looks exactly like I remembered, what did they change?”, and then you look at the footage of the old game and it’s like “WHOA.” xdd
It might be the single best looking Nintendo Switch game, with native resolution, really good LoD and pop-in for a Nintendo Switch game, I won’t be posting any spoilers here, but I’m really, really happy with the remaster and I’m hoping for the game to sell crazy well and get crazy good reviews ^^

As soon as I’m done with this post, I’ll most likely jump in the bed and keep going xdd

In terms of German language with the game: I understand everything from the context, because I love this game, but the individual words are tripping me up really often, like “Verhandeln”, I was wondering which part of the business transaction could that be… and then I learned it’s “negotiation”, and I was like “huh, I both wouldn’t be able to produce this word and I wouldn’t understand it either”, weird one xdd

Luckily, German is not holding me back in this game and I’m learning a bit along the way, but I’m definitely smashing A quite often sometimes rarely before I read a dialogue being like “yeah I don’t get it” before I even attempt to understand what the characters are saying. With Japanese dialogues, the words that end up being katakanized, like “データプローブ” vs “Sonde”, the katakanized one just gives me a better idea of what we’re looking for xddd

But with German interface, I find myself drawn to the German translation much more than the Japanese voices, so I wonder how much I’m getting out of Japanese voices. Probably some grammar, because I definitely heard 中々と and わざわざ, ということらしい, the fun grammars, but I’m not paying as much attention as I could, definitely.

On the note of things that are slowly starting to make sense…

I have a feeling I finally get what every letter means in this grammar, and this grammar looks so long, and I get it, wow xddd

And on the planet WaniKani:

nO ITS NOT PARADOX >:[[[[[[
I watched Kara no Kyoukai, Paradox is 矛盾, like 矛盾螺旋 xdddd

Fantastic film btw, I will revisit Kara no Kyoukai one day when I’m not doing Xenoblade X and when my Japanese is a bit better ^^

It’s funny when I look at the two kanji, “reverse” and “theory” and I go like “opposite thinking…? counter-argument…? unpopular thoughts…?”, nope, it’s paradox, fair and square ^^

And in terms of life, tomorrow doing bouldering with a friend, on Sunday playing Vaesen with another group of friends, Monday, final lesson of Japanese and from Tuesday a seminar, I might not have that much time for big robots after all. I’m a bit mentally overwhelmed in terms of writing responses to my friends on Whatsapp, so I have a few people not-even-on-read, but I’ll get back to them before too long.

See you tomorrow!

[Malinkal]

@GolyBidoof

rowing mafia

@GolyBidoof

矛盾

矛盾 is a much cooler word for paradox anyway

[GolyBidoof]

March 15th, 2025

Japanese Block:

• 126 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 40 reviews on Bunpro (C: will have 60 tomorrow though )
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo
• Misc: Played another 4+ hours of Xenoblade X with Japanese dub…

German Block:

• …and German language set up again xdddd
• Started watching an interview with Die Linke leader on YouTube…
• …which lead me to take a mock test of Goethe-Institut for German-Kentnisse…

… … …and you know what?
I’m frustrated xdddd

Here’s the result of the test, even before doing the seminar next week and all

Even the mistakes that I did, they were not things based on me not understanding something, or not knowing how to conjugate something, they were based on me being bad at following question logic and not understanding what the question is asking about

But the part that it says “Information about our exams online”, I know Goethe is counting on me to just farm money from their exams and courses, but there exists a possibility I could be somewhere around the intersection of B2 and C1 from German, and that freaking sucks, because I remember a while back thinking to myself that I should learn a different language in addition to Japanese just to find out how difficult would it be compared to Japanese

And here I am. Goethe incentivizing me to apply for a C1 certificate.
These days I find myself much, much more incentivized to study German than Japanese, as seen through Xenoblade X and random YouTube videos, and even though my stamina is still crazy low, I’ll have dozens of hours of thinking in German next week and that’ll definitely elevate my German signficantly.

And I’m not even using Anki cards! I’m not even studying grammar at all! I’m not even doing Duolingo or anything, and I still managed to get so far ahead ;____;

Goethe-Institut is offering those preparatory courses for an examination

…and I’m showing November 10th on purpose, because I’d like to apply for German citizenship as early as February 2026 and I need to have a proof of my German knowledge with the application, why not flex with the exam and just go with C1?

Of course, stamina is a huge bit, and the fact I’m supposed to be studying Japanese doesn’t make it any easier, but a girl can dream.

The arbitrary labels of B1, B2, N3, C1, are there just as names, but if I’m doing a B2.4 Japanese course at the moment, and my German is much better…
…anyway, I’m wondering if I should try to set myself a goal to aim for a C1 certification from German, and if I fail, doing a B2 then. If I were to go for C1 as a target by the end of November, I could try to refocus my language study sessions to involve a bit more German, purposefully subscribe to German YouTube channels, listen to German podcasts on the way to work, and it would be significantly easier to do so than Japanese right now, but then, can I maintain a grind for two languages at the same time?

A while back I started Apollo Justice Trilogy in German and started with Dual Destinies, went all the way to 5-3 in German, I could just keep playing it for a bit…?

Thing is, Japanese on WaniKani is about to become more difficult at fast levels, and I’m already autopiloting a ton of reviews, what would become of my mental stamina if I were to deprioritize Japanese for a while?

Midnight rambles, I don’t know where does this conversation lead yet, I’m curious to find out though

In terms of Japanese, well guess what, I got offer wrong once again xddd

Both of those kanji in isolation:
提 and 供, are something that doesn’t stick very much in my head, first, because of 是 and 題, second, because of 共 and 洪. The worst part of the both of them is that they both have different readings than similar kanjis to them, so even if by any chance I get the meaning right, I mess up the reading, so self-study would probably be beneficial here.

In terms of Japanese though, does anyone want to be friends on Duolingo?

We could do some friend quests together, so feel free to just drop me an invite and I’ll accept you ^^

Also, life, bouldering, yay! I have a pretty delicate skin though, so after a few hours my hands were like sandpaper and I just couldn’t moisturize them anyhow, not even the chalk helped. And then you look up videos online on how to care for your hands, and people say stuff like

tHIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT IM TRYING TO ACHIEVE XDDDDD

But yeah, the bouldering gym was really cool, I have a terrible camera so I hope I’m not getting in the way of anyone’s privacy xddd

There are so many women in there that are just so flexible and nimble and sporty and I look at them and I go like “whoa, I wish that were me”, so, I don’t know. I cycle every single day, but I don’t know how to do splits for example, would be cool to learn to be a bit more flexible. I’m not saying “no” to going bouldering a few more times, friends will be interested in going next Saturday too, so vielleicht? Wir könnten es schaffen?

Sigh.

Anyway, jumping in bed and getting stuck on a different planet once again ^^
See you tomorrow!

[GolyBidoof]

ehehehe i write “screw japanese actually german is cooler” and suddenly hearts keep coming on the post, we did it yall xdddd

March 16th, 2025

Japanese Block:

• 126 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 60 reviews on Bunpro (!!!)
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo
• Misc: XENO…

German Block:

• …BLADE X
• Trying to diversify my YouTube algorithm to have German in it, so watched a few politics videos and a few psychology videos in German today
• Found and clicked through a couple of grammar materials on German Learning and Discussion Discord server

Nah, no hating Japanese on my watch, it’s still a language I hold close to my heart and it helps me get out of slump in times, and today I meditated to my WaniKani reviews again, though it’s a bit harder to do it to Bunpro, you have to engage in deeper focus doing those

Today’s Bunpro was a bit easier than I expected what it would be for a record-breaking 60 reviews, but that’s mostly because the N3 lessons coming in are mooostly things I’m familiar with. There’s a few things that don’t glue together, like 次第だ, 却って, 切っ掛け, but what’s pretty surprising to me is that there are a few grammars with ぐらい and ばかり I expected I wouldn’t be having troubles with, and they always escape my mind when the review time comes, like “simply because”: たったから？だけあって？ No, it’s ばかりに, how come it never came to my mind xddd

Also, had a jumpscape on WaniKani today, this guy:

As soon as I saw it, I was like “eee, もうせい”? Imagine my surprise when our fellow “application” in fact wasn’t humbly 申しましng, and it’s extra funny because I remember there’s a word that’s about to come in a few levels that’s 申し込む, and would you guess what, it actually IS spelled もうしこむ.

ahh, the first run at WaniKani funny moments xdd
It might take me a while to burn 申請 xdddd

And yeah, played some Vaesen today, it was supposed to be part 2 of our previous session, but the DM went hard and threw in some more monsters for us to detect and try to overcome, what was meant to conclude the story took us over six hours of playing together, so fun times ^^

The next RPG we’ll play together will be D&D in the second week of April though, so might be a long break now ^^

And tomorrow - final lesson of Japanese in the current course block, hope it’s gonna be fun!

[GolyBidoof]

March 17th, 2025

Japanese Block:

• 127 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 57 reviews on Bunpro
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo
• The final 2h Japanese lesson of the B2.4 block
• Misc: making a magazines post on the current issue of Nintendo Dream!

German Block:

• Japanese classes in German: spoke about Duisburg, NRW and chocolates today ^^
• Signed up for another course in VHS Mitte

Yeah, housekeeping notes:

• I’m like 80% sure I’m on the upswing of a manic episode rn xddddd
  I wish I could trigger this condition at will and not suffer the consequences afterwards, but it is what it is, let’s use the flow to study Japanese xddd
• I might have went a bit pre-emptive with the German blocks in those posts, but we’re going hard in German studies from tomorrow on!
• Did a huge amount of Japanese study today, really happy about the amount of stuff I did!

Final Japanese classes and the oldest member of the group did a presentation on Nordrhein-Westfalen, my favorite region of Germany: according to the presenter, the area is of the size of Tokyo Metro Area and all of the cities are really close to one another. Next week I’m going to Düsseldorf there for a FFVII Rebirth symphonic concert with a friend, and Düsseldorf has the single largest Japanese expat community in Europe, so might be fun to take a few pics ^^

Anyway, we played some Fruits Basket, karaoke’d チョコレイト・ディスコ, I didn’t realize how much I was taking those Japanese classes for granted, GOOD STUFF xdd

Already signed up for B2.5 in early May and looking forward to that ^^

On another note, I started looking at my local VHS for a German course at a C1.1 level and unfortunately, they get full really quickly, and some have really weird schedules: there is one that looks just PERFECT to me: Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6PM, and on the way back home, but it’s full right now, so I added myself to a waiting list and worst case scenario, I can wait another month or two for another opening to open up there xddd

In the meantime, I was looking at Japanese classes with an Italki teacher, and the teacher that used to teach me in the past doesn’t have any times next week in my after-work block (she’s from Bogota, Columbia, so her timezones are all over the place), and I got a little sad, so I’ll have to think what to do about it.

Aaanyway, was a fun day today and looking forward to the Hamburg seminar tomorrow~ ^^

[SpiderWeb]

@GolyBidoof

I’m like 80% sure I’m on the upswing of a manic episode rn xddddd
I wish I could trigger this condition at will and not suffer the consequences afterwards, but it is what it is, let’s use the flow to study Japanese xddd

Oof, I know what you mean about wanting the good early part of a manic episode before it goes off the rails. It feels so fun and productive until all the negative parts come in. I don’t think I’ve had a full manic episode in a couple years now (my last one had some negative consequences), but it’s an experience when they do happen. Just be careful.

[GolyBidoof]

@SpiderWeb

I don’t think I’ve had a full manic episode in a couple years now (my last one had some negative consequences), but it’s an experience when they do happen. Just be careful.

Well, there’s a good likelihood I’ve overestimated my diagnosis, but I know full well the feeling of “I’m the BEEEST i’ve been in a WHILEEEE”, followed by “oh no. oh nononono.” for the next day or two, so I’m just hoping that when I wake up tomorrow I’ll still be BEEEEST i’ve been in a WHILEEEE and that it doesn’t get that bad xddd

Fingers crossed it’s the Xenoblade X fumes though ^^
I’ll try my best to be careful, thanks for checking in on me!

[GolyBidoof]

wuuuu C:

I’m officially level 30… or level 90 on WaniKani! Only (the shorter) half to go, and since there are 18 fast levels available right now, I might be finishing in something like 10*12+5*18=210 days, I might slow down for a bit or take some time off, but there’s a decent likelihood I’m finishing WaniKani (again) in 2025 ^^

March 18th, 2025

Japanese Block:

• 128 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 52 reviews on Bunpro
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo
• Misc: XENO…

German Block:

• …BLADE X, I’m still in love with the definitive edition xdd
• 4 hours of a seminar in German
• something like 1.5 hours of talking to people in German
• A video about Berlin’s dying club scene, making ways to the gentrification instead

So, yesterday’s high, at least for now, simply turned out to be an unexpectedly good mood, and it still continues xddd
I’ll have a block about it at the end of the post, but whew, let’s get through the other things first xdd

First, what’s this sentence xddd

this is like THREE LAYERS OF NEGATION, wtf xddd
Loved writing the answer to this one though xddd

Second of all, there’s this YouTuber that travels around Europe a lot whose handle is “hello erika”, love her content, she used to live in Hamburg for a while, one of her video thumbnails looks like this

best city to live in Germany

…and would you guess what, I went exactly in that frame today C:

Also, found this adorable meter in the city, look how cute it is saying that the UV reading after the sunset sits at a perfect zero xddd
I didn’t even need an SPF or anything xddd

But yeah, seminar, tons of things to learn, tons of people to meet, my introductions in German keep getting better, the “Seid ihr” grammatical construction even works sometimes and today was a really good day in terms of German, thought something like 7-ish hours in German alone, would recommend ^^

I bought a ticket for tomorrow for a German musical of Hercules and I’m curious how it’ll turn out, would love to get earwormed by a German soundtrack xddd

Okay, all the bases covered, it’s finally time to talk about Xenoblade X xdddd

I’ve got an interesting rant that connects four different topics at the same time, so don’t go out yet xdd

Feminism, politics, Chappell Roan, Xenoblade X, contamination zone!

Topic number one: new Chappell Roan song, The Giver:
https://youtu.be/DubtPdXXjew
I think it’s such a badass aesthetic in 2025 to have a woman that just gets everything done, and I’m really envious of that aesthetic and I think Chappell nailed it…

Topic number two: this one will be a bit controversial, but under the soviet regime, I remember my grandma working in what would be called now a “male dominated field”, but she wasn’t dominated by men in that field. Of course, soviet regime was bad in a ton of ways, and I wouldn’t like to return there directly, but it’s funny that the idea of “moving towards gender equality” simply didn’t exist there - it was simply that women needed to get things done at that time: engineers, plumbers, detectives, astronauts, women used to do those things too.

Topic number three: I’ve mentioned Works Council a few times in my thread, and there’s no point hiding the fact that the seminar I’m doing right now is for the Works Council: I am a politician, a publicly elected official, and I like to have something to believe in. The idea of Chappell Roan showing those things resonates with me strongly, and I know I don’t have enough power to make a dent in those topics, but maybe I can inspire other people?

TOPIC NUMBER FOUR: YES XENOBLADE X xddddd
I realize now in retrospect that one of the reasons I like Xenoblade X so much is that, eee, this is a slice of a society where the topic of “gender equality” doesn’t exist - women simply just get everything done. Like Lin, doubles as an aerospace engineer, and an electrician, and a cook, it’s just so cool that this society allows me to roleplay being next to someone that does those things.

Well, it’s not a world that we live in though, so I’ll engage in escapism for a little more, but man, this definitive edition is great xdddd

See you tomorrow!

[GolyBidoof]

March 19th, 2025

Japanese Block:

• 128 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 52 reviews on Bunpro
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo
• Misc: I in fact haven’t played Xenoblade X today xddd

…but this word is really silly to write, why is it requiring those precise five words to be used? xdddd
Think I might just write “omakase” from tomorrow on xddd

German Block:

• 6 hours-ish of a seminar
• 1.5 hour-ish of talking with people in german
• 2.5 hours of a musical - Hercules in German

And you know what? Those days where I get to get myself to study for 10 hours in a day are perfectly great xddd
Of course, my energy levels fluctuated like wild today, zoning in and out attempting to grasp things, I think I understand a huge lot of the labor-related topics, but there are some times when we get into a scenario i’ve never heard before and then it becomes wild for the first 10 minutes when i try to piece out what do “Betrieblische Angelegenheiten” consist of xddd

In Hamburg today finally managed to visit the holy site… Hamburg Altona, the station where trains going all across Germany start their course, and where they terminate too xdd

It’s basically like a small shopping mall connected to a train station, but there are no trains going from it until March 21st, so missed big time on this one xdd

Aside from this one, went and saw Hercules in Neue Flora, a music theater

And fun story: I was at the exact same place 3 years, 1 month and 11 days ago to see Wicked, also in German, but my German was ages apart between then and now xdd

Though, I can’t say that the acoustics of my seat were the greatest, because it felt to me like some of the songs might have been sung in the Nier language, I simply couldn’t tell with so many voices overlayed from so many speakers xdd
But when the music was down, was able to get it just fine ^^

Funny story in general: this is another attempt at localizing Disney’s Hercules to German, the 1997 film went wild in localization, and this stage play was trying to keep the songs a bit more close to the source material. As an example, one of the most popular songs is “From Zero to Hero”, and it got translated to German as “Von Zero auf Hero” for the show, while the original Disney film had it as “In Sekunden auf Hundert”, which is 100% a better localization but I’m 200% convinced there is a vocal group of people that just hates it xdddd

Hercules german songs In Sekunden auf Hundert ( Zero To Hero )

Also, @taiyousea made this Q&A post in the study logs master list and it was fun to answer the questions, waiting for someone to finally call out that MY study log is fun xdddddd
But same as araigoshi, if you find something fun or not fun in here, let me know and I can adjust the Cultural Offering of this study log to be more interesting. Want more stuff about labor law in Germany? Sure can do. Curious about sightseeing in Hamburg? Will write it! Want more Japanese? Wellll, that part might be tough, at least until Friday xddd
I’ll do some more Japanese on Friday though ^^

But yeah, my brain is slowly turning into a mush and right now I’m hoooorribly tired and will probably just jump in the bed and wake up for Day 3 tomorrow, so my final message…

xdddd

[Akashelia]

How did I miss your study log for so long
Naprawdę, dżiwne to jest!
Cieszę się, że będziesz czytać Fatą Morganą z nami

[GolyBidoof]

@Akashelia

How did I miss your study log for so long
Naprawdę, dżiwne to jest!

Bo są dwie kategorie, Private i Public i się dowiedziałam mniej więcej wczoraj, że nikt z Private nie wie o Public i vice versa xdddd
Ale nasza kategoria jest sporo mniejsza, więc musimy lokalnie ją dopatriotyzmować ^^

---

I’m working on rewriting the OP on and off over today when I need not to think in German for a bit, want to highlight that German is an important part of this thread too, absolutely not inspired by zero interest in yesterday’s post xdddd, so you might receive a few odd pings over the day, I hope it’ll look nice when it’s done ^^

[GolyBidoof]

March 20th, 2025

Japanese Block:

• 130 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 52 reviews on Bunpro
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo

German Block:

• 6 hours-ish of a seminar
• 1.5 hour-ish of talking with people in German
• 3 hours-ish of sitting at the table and listening to people talk German

Aaand reworked the OP! Should be pretty and キラキラ now C:

In terms of Japanese, a friend of mine and my WaniKani’s friend joined our family on Duolingo and I added her to my Duolingo streak, still getting good returns from Duolingo, so I’ll play for a little longer ^^

Bunpro narrowing down N3 level is becoming progressively harder, there are some forms that I was supposed to have Adepted by now, but went a couple levels lower, and on WaniKani am trying not to push kanji that fast, first radicals and then we’ll do all the remaining kanji.

Life:

No burritos today, but man, I came back to my room after a looooong day of listening to German and I put up my first YouTube video of the day in English to rest up, and the accent of the person sounded funny and I was like “WOW WAS IST DAS FÜR EINE HEXEREI?” xddd

I don’t know what are the sufficient words that can be used to describe the intense brain mush that happens after being out on a mental workout for so long: it’s like when you say “fine, that’s enough”, but then you keep pushing yourself, and again, and again, and again, for hours on end xddd

I hope that it contributes towards my German being better, but I could hear my accent completely dropping by the end of the day, I couldn’t find the right words and I just started using der-die-das at random, aaaas one does in German xddd

But yeah, we had a private bus today to pick us over and drive us to a place where we were supposed to be integrating, chatting and eating, and I didn’t take a single picture there for some reason, so here’s the bus xdd

There’s an older non-binary person at this seminar who saw me being queer and they were like “okay, it’s high time to tell her an entire story of my transition”, and I listened picking up queer words I could use in my vocabulary somewhere in the future, I find it really sweet that they made breaks for me to catch up with my thoughts in an attempt to speak my mind, I was able to say a few simplified queer stories of mine, but after a while I simply had a block and I couldn’t anymore xddd

But they were very sweet, and they added me on Whatsapp, checked up on my recharging after I basically made a doorslam towards people interacting with me today and offered to watch Germany’s Next Top Model sometime in the future, sweet xdd

They sounded like they’ve been through a lot and it was interesting to listen to them, it’s not often that stories of non-binary people that are older get shared with other people ^^

Also, the coordinator of this seminar chatted me about my relationships and I had a more intimate conversation in German than I imagined i’d have that night, making it two intimate conversations in a single night in a language I don’t know xddd

And then, I was watching some YouTube videos today of interviews of people that have been from outside of the US and for some reason a few of them reminded me of me speaking in German, I wonder how far along I’ve gotten already.

But yeah, it ends tomorrow, and then I’m watching Severance, going to Berlin, playing Xeno X on the train, slamming the door behind me, going for a book swap with friends, slamming the door behind me, and then going to sleep at a reasonable hour to make it for bouldering on Saturday, I could still try to do it ^^

Should be fun!

[GolyBidoof]

Happy spring everyone!

March 21st, 2025

Japanese Block:

• 146 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 50 reviews on Bunpro
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo
• Misc: Spring Equinox Reading Marathon! Two chapters of ちはやふる!
• Misc: Xeno…

German Block:

• …blade X ^^
• 3 hours-ish of a seminar
• 1 hour-ish of talking with people in German
• Severance 2x10 COLD HABOR with German subs C:

…for ten years at least xdd
Too bad the ten years finish tomorrow at noon for bouldering, but oh well xddd

The seminar is over! Look at all of the materials you get for it, you get a backpack to fit all of those in, but even with the backpack it hardly all fits inside. The book on the left, Arbeitsgesetze is over a 1000 pages long, if you’re looking for a scale ^^

I think the word that kids use these days is a “stoked” day, so that was mine, getting the certificate from the seminar, going to Hamburg Main Station, walking around, I went to a place called Jupiter where pop-up stores get set up and it reminded me of Japan, those were popular installations there ^^

It looked wooden and relatively sustainable, so I spent like half an hour walking around and looking at DIY pins, upcycled clothes and the lines of it ^^

And then, on a train to Berlin, watched the final episode of Severance and, damn, that was An Episode, for sure ^^

In Berlin, filled in an expense report for the seminar, jumped on a bike to the book swap, caught up with people, got myself a copy of I Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokpokki and jumped on a bike back home ^^
Read one hour of ちはやふる, then played an hour of Xeno X, then did over an hour of a review block because oH MY LORD I MADE SO MANY MISTAKES TODAY, but that’s to be expected after what I’ve been through this week xddd

I was so happy to return back to civilization and start speaking English again however, so happy that I even went to participate in the Japanese reading marathon xddd

But yeah, fun time today and congrats me for being certified in Betriebsverfassungsrecht Teil 3 ^^

Also, speaking of Planet Japanese, what a blessed sentence today C:

I forgot for a bit that Haruhi was basically Monogatari before Monogatari was a thing, Koyomi Araragi and Kyon have a ton of things in common xdd

See you tomorrow!

[GolyBidoof]

…you know, from the time perspective, i definitely could’ve gone harder on the read marathon xdd
might catch up in the summer one ^^

March 22nd, 2025

• 146 reviews on WaniKani
• 15 lessons on WaniKani
• 66 reviews on Bunpro (;_____; )
• 3 lessons on Bunpro
• 1 lesson on Duolingo
• Misc: Xenoblade X something something xdd

First things first, after ranting uninvited in Shannon’s study log yesterday (xddd) I realized that Berlin got to me and I no longer know how to dress in a way that would be both cute and elegant instead of focusing on just one, so i went off on a search today to look for the fem lesbianest fem lesbian outfit i could find, and yeah, a few hours later, I looked at myself in the mirror and I think I went to like, “damn, I would date myself” xddd

I feel like I’m appropriating the aesthetic slightly because I still sit with one and a half leg in the “aroace lesbian” camp and I don’t know if your mode of attraction is “this girl just kept varying her voice getting more and more excited as she spoke for eight hours straight” counts as a normal experience for a lot of people, but maybe, eventually, I might need to step up my rizz game

Ironically enough this outfit felt so fitting that when I took the dress off I immediately thought I lost like 50 rizz points, so I think that dress is great, but okay, enough with the narcissism xdddd

Japanese!

First up, how did they know? xddd

Funnily enough, this sentence showed up at 11:03pm on my clock according to Discord timestamps, so just perfect xddd

Second of all, it was a very hard session today:

I’m thinking of stopping new lessons at Bunpro after N3 is done (in a few days) and allowing myself to fail sentences immediately if I don’t get them right within like, 5 seconds or something

This will require a lot of focus, and focus is a deflationary currency seeing how both Bunpro and WaniKani keep increasing difficulty and scaring me with

Obligatory, to make it easier, I could read more in Japanese or something, but I’ve already spent a few hours reading Japanese this week alone and even then I felt I was pushing myself, so I’m wondering if I have the capacity currently to deal with this spike in Japanese.

But that’s why I have this study log for, to keep me energized and accountable, so, we’ll see

Also, Duolingo added a new grammar today: stem form of a verb + な, like 食べな, I know it’s a simplified form of “食べなさい” and I knew this one before, but it was fun actually making sentences with it today ^^

In Xenoblade X today managed to finally get a cat into my base! C:

And in terms of German, searching for different outfits, one guy in a shoe store was German and with how far I’ve gone with German recently, I diiid slightly try to talk German to him for a bit, but then I realized that my tongue and my production haven’t recovered yet and I got my pronunciation and grammar all twisted after a while, so that might need a proper rest xddd

Different stuff in life: went bouldering with a friend today again, met a couple of new people there; cycled faaar across the city to complete the outfit, this was definitely a good day and I’m glad to have been having a LOT of those this week ^^

See you tomorrow then!