A Certain Bidoof's Multi-Language Travel & Friends & I'm A German Citizen Arc 🇯🇵 🇩🇪 🇨🇦 🇵🇱 🇨🇳

August 11th, 2025

  • 159 reviews on WaniKani
  • 15 lessons on WaniKani
  • 40 reviews on Bunpro
  • 3 stories on Satori Reader
  • Manga: 超深宇宙より愛をこめて第2話
  • …japanese TV? xddd

who would win (very importante)

i have the spoilers because i watch this and i know that

who won

カラコテリウム did xddd

it was weird that they even had life bars on the animals fighting one another and there was another woman in the studio, the man was behind… this brown thing, and the woman was behind the polar bear thing xddd


i also tuned to a night material of travel in spain, pretty wholesome, i wonder why europe is such a big thing on this channel xddd

Either way though, since we’re doing culture exchanges already:


THIS IS HOW YOU KNOW THERE IS A POLISH PERSON ON THE CONTENT TEAM OF BUNPRO

ICONIC LINE

there are some other small jokes sprinkled around Bunpro too, but this one is one of those that everyone around my age knows and it originated from the polish dubbing scene, precisely this one xddd

To translate the monologue, DeepL:

What is it like to be a scribe?

In my opinion, it’s not a matter of good or bad. If I had to say what I value most in life, I would say people. Ahem… People who gave me a helping hand when I was struggling, when I was alone. And interestingly, it is chance encounters that influence our lives. The point is that when you profess certain values, even seemingly universal ones, it happens that you don’t find understanding that, so to speak, helps you grow. I was lucky, so to speak, because I found it. And I thank life. I thank it, life is singing, life is dancing, life is love. Many people ask me the same question: how do you do it, where do you get this joy from? And I answer that it’s simple, it’s a love of life, it’s what makes me build machines today, for example, and tomorrow… who knows, why not, I’ll devote myself to social work and I’ll just plant… carrots, for example.

The most common comment under those videos are variations of the theme of “oral exam in Polish with a score of 100%”, so this one is iconic, also, I strongly agree with Otis’s stance on life as well xdddd

Also, on the same note, I’m on chapter 55 of 狐の嫁入り on Satori Reader and I have absolutely no idea what is the story about. Granted, my reading comprehension isn’t perfect when I read the chapters, but even with シークレット I knew more or less what was happening, I have no idea what’s happening in 狐の嫁入り xdd
It feels so episodic and so disconnected that the next time I start writing again I have absolutely no recollection of the previous chapters, and maybe it’s not that bad regardless, because the story will focus on something else regardless

I wonder if it’s me just vibing through the story and not getting it right, or it is the story’s fault :thinking:


Life

New nails!

'Product placement? Inside of Bidoof's study log? Isn't that, like, pro-capitalist?'

‘Shut up nerd.’

xdd

waiting for the day Paulaner Spezi decides to sponsor my study log. That might take a while xdd

But yeah, it’s back to summer in Berlin, we had 27 degrees, 30 tomorrow, I wanted to have some more summery nails and what’s more summery than everyone’s favorite Coffeinhaltige Orangenlimonade mit Cola, not sponsored btw xdd

But yeah, I got my library card renewed!


There is a language learning app as a part of the library card that works in a similar way to Memrise or a very blocked-down version of Anki, where the tracks follow textbooks from a specific language, but German is capped at B1… Which, still, I struggle with the Genus of B1 vocabulary, but I wonder if it justifies spending dozens of hours on reviewing flashcards ^^

Since the topic is culture exchange today, my library had birthday recently!

They made an exhibit to show how the library looked like throughout the ages, the first iteration of the new one got opened in 2006 and this is how it looked like:


20 years since, some new floors have been built ^^

apparently, the library has been going through multiple rounds of expansion throughout the years, and I hope that my contribution to the library card today will help them add cool programming to their program for a while ^^

On the same note, remember when they had the night of the libraries and they had plushies come over and stay the night in there? They did something similar, but for the adults, to celebrate the birthday of the library xdddd

KIDS DONT READ

Also, tHE FAMILY IS MOVING AAAAA

Anyway, see you tomorrow ^^

I’m amazed at how the script seems to be a near perfect translation of the french (the original language of the film) this particular scene has a cult following in France too.

OMG I DIDNT KNOW THAT THATS SO COOL

found this one just in case xddd

the tone seems a little different but the subtitles imply the same qualities xddd

:heart_eyes::star_struck::smiling_cat_with_heart_eyes:
    

omg I lovee the nails! :heart_hands:

I second that! love2
Those nails are meowgnificent! :nail_polish:

August 12th, 2025

  • 160 reviews on WaniKani
  • 19 lessons on WaniKani
  • 54 reviews on Bunpro
  • 3 stories on Satori Reader
  • Manga: きみが死ぬまで恋をしたい第1話
  • Manga: 夢と恋ではつり合わない第6話
  • 2 episodes of JELLY JELLY RADIO podcast, 1h20m
  • Made an account on 一迅プラス and farmed a few points
  • Shopping in a Japanese sticker shop
  • Did a part of a mock N3 and N2…

…and things aren’t looking good on the planet Bidoof JLPT xddd
I didn’t do the whole tests, for N3 I ended up doing just the first two parts and ended up scoring 65% from it and I was like ?????? xddd

For the N2, I only did the first few exercises and had a 40% accuracy rate, which rings a pretty strong alarm bell in my head aS THOSE TEND TO BE THE EASIEST EXERCISES (WaniKani and Bunpro will do it for you xddd)

Thanks to a random person on the internet, I stumbled upon a Vietnamese site called Migii that does exam prep to different sorts of exams and not gonna lie, it looks really sketchy xdd

My favorite part of the website though is when you go through the menu and click JLPT Document menu at the top, you will land at a…


…section of illegally photocopied textbooks to study for specific levels of JLPT xdddddddddddddddd

At least the selection is large ^^
They do exam prep from every exercise that can appear on the test and also provide mock tests, and this is where I did the JLPT ones, and, ehhhh.

I knew this was a case for a while already, but between me and passing JLPT N2 in December there are at least a few hundred hours of active study

Doing just one chapter of a manga a day and an hour of SRS won’t really do it at this point, it feels like I’m preparing for N3 more than N2 really xddd

I genuinely don’t know how to bridge the tremendous gap between where I am right now (probably middle of N3 studies) towards finishing the N2 level, so I’ll just keep blaming myself for being lazy and hoping that I’ll be able to do the Malinkal and just replace my hobbies with Japanese one by one until December xddd

That being said, until December I still might have to pass a German exam, at any level, I was originally thinking C1, but B1 or B2 also could fly, if I end up prioritizing Japanese more, C1 will most likely not happen. So just leaving this buoy here: :ring_buoy: and think about ways how I could transform my studies.

Maybe I should subscribe to Migii and just do the exam question prep rather than learning the actual language xdd
Also, I bought Chase Colburn’s Kanji Study a while back and if I ever decide to have a huge grinding session in the future, I could significantly step up my N2 kanji game.

Aaaanyway, less dense things xdd


I was looking for a video game podcast in Japanese I’d vibe with, but accidentally I found a podcast about board games from a board game cafe in 池袋, that’s actually a chain of cafes and the second episode had them connect with an owner of a cafe in 渋谷 and talk about his hobbies xdd

At first I was like “meh, but I can put this on”, but they started yapping about life and hobbies and I was like “uu, i like this more than the board game bit” xdd

They have a segment about board game news as well and in the second episode they spoke about German contribution to the board game scene: spoiler, in Essen, there is a huge board game convention, maybe even the biggest one in the world, called SPIEL that I was attending every year, but won’t make it this year though ^^


I’m probably attending MEX Berlin with friends at that time instead :sob: xdd

And yeah, きみが死ぬまで恋をしたい, completely different than what I expected, I got 15 points on Ichijin Plus for having read it, I need to save them for a cool series xdd

I wish Ichijin Plus had a mobile app, but the web app is really, really nice. It’s apparently a new one, got opened on August 8th and now all of the people that make their accounts get 330 points (equivalent of 330 yen, 2 manga chapters) for free in addition to all the chapters that are free regardless ^^

Also, LEVEL 46 WOOO :DDD


Life

It’s the season for birthdays and suddenly all of my friends are having birthdays at the same time… eee, including me, spoiler for later this week xdd

One friend organizes a birthday party when I can’t make it and I at least wanted to make her a nice card and pass it through a different friend, so I went over to a brand new Japanese sticker shop in a shopping mall called BIKINI Berlin ^^

AND LOOK HOW CUTE IS THAT WHATS THE SELECTION




AAAA

They even have mystery boxes, though no labadus come out of them xddd

And they have a very nice window outside, you can’t buy those things, but the decor does put you in a specific mood ^^

But yeah, I heard the woman at the cash register speak Japanese to a person she called her mom, so I asked her in Japanese for スティッカーのおすすめ and introduced her to the one true character of ビッパ, Bidiza, Bidoof xddd

Now I’m just down to making the actual card ^^

Also, Asian store right next to me had a discount for edamame, so I decided to give it a shot and attempt to boil mine and then compare to how good it is to the restaurant/izakaya edamame aaaand

…it’s like pretty decent? xddd
I mean, for the price of €1.19 for 400g, it’s incredible, but it was my first time actually boiling edamame, so that was fun xddd

Also, somebody in Berlin made a poster for the Labor Day on May 1st in the style of 美少女 for some reason, but it pretty xddd

Today’s day definitely was Japanese-themed, but I won’t be able to match it up tomorrow, so, hey, had fun today ^^
See you tomorrow!

Happy birthday (don’t read this until then, though, in case I don’t make it on to the forums that day). I then realize how poorly thought out asking you to not read something by writing it out in the same post is, but it’s late and I’m tired so please forgive the clumsiness and just pretend I typed the happy birthday message on your birthday at the appropriate time. :slight_smile:

Alternately, you could just choose to study in whatever way helps you learn the language the best way you can to accomplish your long-term goals, and if you’re already registered for the test just take it, do your best, and if it’s not a passing score this time, that’s fine - you’ll get it in time if you decide you still want to. :slight_smile:

Gorgeous card you’re making, and I hope you have a great birthday yourself!

Ooh, what’s it called, I wonder if my library does this, although they don’t list anything like it on the digital resources page

In every universe you pass B1, I promise! Plus you can knock it out free with the local sonething-Amt right?

phase6, there is a 7-day trial even if your library doesn’t have it, the datasets are pretty fun ^^

Offer
Instruction for setting it up
Link to the app

its less about passing B1 and more about not going to either a written or a spoken section of an exam and fully committed going with the bit of “mit die Name” and then asking myself why have I lost points for both Genus and Kasus if I’m so good at both xdddd

Summary

Just to say, as a general rule I wouldn’t trust non-official past papers/mock papers to provide any kind of accurate guide to whether or not you’d pass the JLPT. Had a quick try at the first bit of the N2 mock on the site you were talking about and I’d say the first 20 or so questions which I looked at were harder than the N2 in July (and probably the 10 other actual past papers I did) so don’t fret too much about it! Nothing wrong with using this type of stuff for practice, sure it’s good for that, but I’m not sure about using it for stuff like estimating and calculating percentages. Also a website trying to sell you a JLPT study platform has a vested interest in making you think you need to study more when starting… just saying…

Also I don’t think you’re middle of N3 studies! You’ve passed it twice! And have been studying daily for like 9 months since passing it last time! You already know (at least to some level) basically all the N2 grammar, and are easily high enough WK level to pass through kanji without too much trouble.

I’m sure there probably is a bit of a gap though. What I would say to you or anyone else is that the answer for N2 is simply more prose, I know it’s easier said than done and that just being like “go read novels” is a very very tall wall so I won’t say you need to do that, but interacting with any kind of prose regularly and frequently ties everything together, the vocab, the grammar, reading speed, everything but listening. For N2 obviously the actual study bit of what I did was important, but it was more studying the grammar a couple months in advance followed by lots of immersion which really made it all sit together. You can exclusively study your way to N2, and people do, but it’s harder to sink time into it compared to immersion

August 13th, 2025

  • 127 reviews on WaniKani
  • 28 lessons on WaniKani
  • 46 reviews on Bunpro
  • 3 stories on Satori Reader
  • Manga: きみが死ぬまで恋をしたい第2話
  • Another 2 episodes of JELLY JELLY RADIO podcast, 1h20m

Mission failed today xddd

Just going quickly today because I have to wake up early tomorrow and I don’t have much time:

  1. I messed up on WaniKani and accidentally did the wrong lessons, so I had to overcorrect myself and do the remaining 18 kanji lessons, the timeline for level up stays the same as usual but tomorrow will be funny moments :sob:

  2. Reading the second chapter of きみが死ぬまで恋をしたい did not give me more points on 一迅プラス, I feel ripped off xdd
    But I think my idea is going to be that if I like the free chapters of a manga, might as well buy the physical volume of the manga to finish reading the story I’m currently in ^^

  3. The second episode of 歳月の門 on Satori Reader has a cool vibe, it’s completely different than the original story, but I enjoyed it as well ^^

  4. The podcast, JELLY JELLY RADIO, has a new guest each time and today they talked about one of my favorite board games as well with a guest from a different cafe, Carcassonne, and it was fun to listen to the game explained in Japanese, even though I would’ve used completely different words and expressions to describe the game xdd


Life!

The first longer destination of my September trip is going to be Seoul, and I’m going to admit, the only thing I know about Korea is that Hangul is the best alphabet ever invented and that NewJeans has a turbo banger called Super Shy that was shot in Portugal xddd

So today I went to a k-pop store and was trying to catch up on the culture…


…but I’m still like, I understand people that aren’t into yuri or yaoi or something, it’s the same mechanism of me not being into k-pop, I simply don’t get it xddd

So if anyone had any recommendations for Seoul or things Korean culture I could be interested in, let me know!

Aside from that, the German publisher who is a part of the Issho magazine, Altraverse, released a new small book called Einfach Japanisch…


…that goes pretty detailed into the Japanese culture and the basics of Japanese language, including cultural conveniences, and I was surpised that they even had a section for rendaku and onomatopaeias, it really is an almanach of all things Japanese culture :eyes:

If I were a bit earlier in my studies, I’d probably love this book, but for now I can only recommend it to other people and tell you to get interested in it ^^

And then, queer book club, the organizer of that event sadly can’t make it for my birthday party (foreshadowing), and they felt bad about it, so they decided to get me a gift in advance, and… this was one of the most personalized gifts I’ve gotten in a while :eyes:

It’s a Japanese magazine called Brutus, an issue about people collecting things in Japan and their huge otaku hyperfixations, and yeah, plenty of pictures, a lot of text, they hit the right spot on a gift for me and I might post some of my learnings from this magazine when I get around to reading it ^^

I showed this magazine to people over the book club today and people seemed to be interested, so if they ever read my thread here, thank you very much, you made my day!

And yeah, great talks today, 1984, Hunger Games, How to be an Anti-Racist, a lot about life, I’m a huge fan of the club, even though I needed to bail out early because of Works Council tomorrow xdd

Definitely coming next week though, and my birthday party is on Saturday, so hope that they also come: and DRAGON SLAYER will!


Ahh, all of the momentum I’ve built up pretending that this is a Japanese study log, and I have to ruin it again by it being my public diary xddd

Either way, see you tomorrow!

LOL

But… Honestly especially with the can of inspiration (yes, I had to look up Paulaner spezi, sounds delicious btw), that was the best nail picture I’ve seen all week! (And I’ve been looking at a lot, because I’m planning next month’s nails)

Wow! That was so thoughtful of a birthday present!! This friend is a keeper! It’s great that you’re having a party…

I’m proud of you for leaving before the end so that you could rest before work the next day… Good–but difficult-- decision!

Wow, there is certainly a lot of info packed into Einfach Japanisch for a small gratis book!

I haven’t done any Satori in ages
… So I’ll try to read 歳月の門 along with you… I only have to catch up 2 episodes now…(?)

I don’t have the bandwidth for Jelly Jelly radio at the moment… But it looks good

August 14th, 2025

  • 212 reviews on WaniKani
  • 2 lessons on WaniKani
  • 48 reviews on Bunpro
  • 3 stories on Satori Reader
  • Manga: ちはやふる第1。。。巻。
  • Anime: 夜更かしの歌第5夜
  • Misc: マリオカート ワールド online with friends

  • Manga: Erste Ausgabe von Akane Banashi

Yep, I did read the whole volume of Chihayafuru in a day xdd

The rating on Natively for this manga is pretty weird, I imagine the newer series like Frieren have novelty and this one doesn’t, but it’s much, MUCH easier to read ちはやふる than Frieren, even though yeah, the poems are getting a little wild with some of the cards in there. But you’re not supposed to understand everything in the poems, or are you? xdd

The series telegraphs clearly where the poems are starting so you know whether something is story-based or poem based, so hey, fun times C:
So far, we’re still at the main characters being 12 and there’s a lot of lines like “EEEE THATS SO COOL”, but I loved the idea of “you can’t have dreams that involve other people achieving something instead of you” xdd

At the end of the volume there is a wall of text that explains some rules of the Hyakunin Isshu, I wonder if you can get the set with the original poems somewhere :thinking:

ANYWAY I found out that there’s a live action drama of chihayafuru and the key arts look SO COOL


AAA i kinda want to watch it but not now xdd

And よふかしのうた, ehh, great backgrounds, episode 5 was really, really groomy though :sob: xdd


I kinda miss Type-Moon, I should read more Type-Moon ^^

Today’s reviews on WaniKani were true suffering, and the reason why I only did 2 lessons today xdd


They really do make you feel like a pink pony girl dancing at the club (God, what have you done?)

Tomorrow’s reviews are not looking that great either, so I’m screaming in the corner of my friends’ language learning Discord server that the reviews are unfair xdd

The amount of ghosts on Bunpro keeps growing as some grammar points don’t stick with me, I’ll have to cram them one day, but yeah, very, very long of Japanese study today, probably in 3 hours?


Life

So it turns out I didn’t get all of the documents from Szczecin xdd
But for as long as I have a Deutschlandticket, all my trips are already covered for and therefore free now, so hey, I can be on a train every once in a while xdd

I finished Works Council and jumped on a train and worked completely remotely on mobile internet for the second part of the day, I hope I didn’t mess anything up :sob:

Look at this handsome dude from the Szczecin University C:

Today, the temperature rose up to 33 degrees in my part of the world, so authorities of Szczecin installed those mist coolers in the city


And yeah, hypnotizing, you can spend a whole day under them xddd

My biggest “what the heck” moment today was when I found a chain of cafes that has been set up in Berlin, there’s some lore behind it, so listen up ^^
Kaiser was established by Polish confectioners in Berlin by following the French tradition of patisserie, and then they made so much profit that they extended… to Poland xddd
And then they started having more cafes in Poland than in Berlin, and then they sold their cafe brand in Berlin to become a “K Cafe” instead xddd

So imagine my surprise when I see a point in Szczecin!

I got a coffee and a jagodzianka and continued my work as usual xddd

And yeah, on the train back, read a whole volume of ちはやふる, a whole German volume of Akane Banashi (banger jokes btw xdd)

Aaand, back to Berlin Gesundbrunnen ^^

It’s another one of those days where I completely didn’t realize it’d turn out like this when I woke up earlier today, but hey, not complaining xdd

I definitely do need to take it easier tomorrow, I’m reeeeally reeeeeeeally tired, so no big adventures tomorrow, I feel :sob:

Take care and see you tomorrow!

I watched all the films a couple weeks ago! They’re very good, watch them (at some point) The little animation bits are amazing

Haven’t actually interacted with ちはやふる media outside of the drama, there’s a follow-up drama series on Netflix which I’ll watch soon, and I think I might have spied the manga in my library before I left, but not 100% sure…

Which ones are you thinking of ? I’m down for Fate or Tsukihime (plan to do them after Higurashi in only ~1.9 millions chars :skull_and_crossbones:) !

I have a lot of conflicting feelings about Type-Moon xddd

Original 月姫 has freaking amazing soundtrack and I’m so impressed that with the limited amount of music in the game, they still manage to pump out such bangers

I’m really scared of the terrible writing quality in some scenes, they’ve been spoiled to me and I’m scarred for like even if I haven’t actually played it xddd
But one of my first goals to learn Japanese was to read 月姫 2000, and I still haven’t done it, so wink wink xdd

I’ve played the English version of the Arcueid route in the remake and never got around to the Ciel route
All of the 10 music tracks are really well adapted and the remake soundtrack is huge and grandiose, but not every track hits as much as in the 2000 version


There is one pretty significant content warning moment in the Arcueid route that made me a little disinterested in playing the Ciel one, as much as I liked the Arcueid one until that point

I’ve started playing F/SN like 10 times and it always gets me how good and climactic the prologue is, Rin Tohsaka is such a cool and unique character when you look through her POV, but then there is a POV shift after the prologue and Rin becomes just a usual tsundere and I just can’t xddddd

I know it’s still good, I’ve watched the Heaven’s Feel movies and the ufotable UBW anime, but it’s just Not What I Signed Up For xdd

Fate/Zero, really well written, if a little boring, I’ve already said who my favorite Fate character is xxddddd

F/GO, really comfy, but you need to read like a hundred hours until something happens and I dropped off xdddd

Melty Blood, epic, played the original ones with friends at the dorms at the uni, I mained Aoko Aozaki and my friend mained Arcueid, she didn’t know Type-Moon at all, I knew both characters existed but I didn’t know any of the source media for those two xdd

空の境界 novels are really, really climactic, really dense, if the plot is hard to follow both in Polish and English, but I feel so smart when I’m reading them and the novels aren’t as pretentious as they could’ve been

And 魔法使いの夜 is just… perfect??? It’s just one of my favorite stories I’ve ever read, if anything, I could hold it back on the fact it doesn’t try to pull of a grandiose bigger than the universe plot, it’s very much a slice of life story with low stakes, very comfy setting and really likeable protagonists, it also puts very special value onto the concept of night and Blue Hour is very hugely represented in the game, so if I were to pick any to recommend, THIS ONE, SO GOOD

So I don’t know which one would I be down to reading if I were going back to Type-Moon right now, maybe I should just watch Carnival Phantasm or Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family xdddd

Carnival Phantasm is, like Lucky Star, peak otaku enjoyment.

All ? All !!!

I’ve done all the routes twice and F/SN is nice but vanillia. UBW and HF… are perfect for me, also Rin is a lot less basic tsuntsun in UBW I find.

is it also a hot take that i want for her to be a lot less basic deredere as well xddd

the thing i like about the prologue to F/SN is that you get a glimpse into her family, her manor, her magic, and i love the decorations, i love the setting, i love the backdrops of her story, i really, reeeeeeeally dislike her relationship with emiya xdddd

it’s the curse of a competent character shoved into a harem plot and i will never forgive kinoko nasu and 許せない and OH LOOK THIS BACKGROUND IS SO PRETTY


fate/stay night reading club when

Well not wanting to be a letdown but as Vanilla says “that Chunii shit is harder than the rest”
Here’s Fate/Zero novel (lvl 38 T_T), there isn’t S/N Fate/Zero | L38

But one day…