LoL
Since they don’t have a “lifetime” offer like Wanikani, I think it’s best just to read the free stuff until that moment you want to crank Satori for a time
5 Likes
@mitrac I love how we wrote our posts about Satori Reader at the same time and yet spoke about different things, really goes to show how good the service is 
Important point too 
Yes it’s nice that the first episodes are free for every series, so you have time to see if you find anything at all that you like
6 Likes
April 18th, 2025
- 134 reviews on WaniKani
- 15 lessons on WaniKani
- 43 reviews on Bunpro
- 3 lessons on Bunpro
- 1 lesson on Duolingo
- 3 stories on Satori Reader
- Misc: キミが吠えるための歌を第６話
- Misc: ささやくように恋を唄う第５４話
- Misc: 映しちゃダメな顔第１３話
Might sound like a completely random set of mangas today, but noo, I’m digging down my A4-sized, 500-page long 百合姫２０２５年３月号 and let me tell you, yearning is strong with this magazine xddd
After Lost Records (which I still haven’t finished) and Class of '09, I’m very much in a toxic yuri mindset, and 映しちゃダメな顔 does deliver in that mindset xddd
I’m not a huge fan of things like Yuru Yuri or Yuru Camp or most of the vanilla yuri-baiting things (well, Hibike I love quite a lot xdd), so by having more demanding tastes, it’s hard to find the right thing even in 百合姫, I’m a bit zoning in and out on some of the sentences and not even trying to understand them if I didn’t get them the first try, but hey, キミが吠えるための歌を had a bit of the Hibike energy with 上手くなりたい-like messaging, the chapter of ささやくように恋を唄う had a double date that was fun to read and the illustrations are GORGEOUS, and the chapter of 映しちゃダメな顔 was like “tfw this will never happen to me” “btw have you even tried” “no and i wont 
” xddd
And on Satori Reader, listened to Yuyu’s Japanese Podcast intro and it’s adorable that he’s recording special episodes for Satori Reader right now, both of those were easier to understand than his regular podcast and I finally understood what was the deal with him talking about Mexico in his podcast xdd
Also, the second story for Four Seasons: Winter.
I’m still not subscribed yet, but I’ll try to consume a few other things ^^
Life:
Still shook after the fact that nobody on this forum uses their real first names, especially people that use first names in their usernames xdddd
Today the city was really dark and only partly so because it was raining… it’s Good Friday, so everything was closed down xdd 
Didn’t do any shopping and spent a lot of money for food today because didn’t prepare myself in advance for it xd
That made me spend a bit of time at home, as you can see above and Shannon:
yeah, that one was just right in terms of difficulty level for me xddd
Also, Minecraft movie in German!
Was AMAZING, I can’t point to a single flaw to this movie that wouldn’t have been caused by the current geopolitical climate in America, so in isolation this movie was perfect for what it was doing and both me and people in the audience had a lot of laughs watching it xddd
Natalie spirit animal definitely <3
And yeah, Easter is drawing closer, normally I’d be spending it with my family, but this year I’m stuck in Berlin…
…it shouldn’t be that bad though, because I’m going to a Lord of the Rings Director’s Cuts marathon tomorrow with a Japanese friend, 12 hours back to back, I can’t wait to waste my whole Saturday at an intellectual property I’m not even passionate about, but you know, it’s vibes xddd
I’ll be looking for the queer undertones and having a very long rant to the friend that the Scourge of the Shire is the best part of the books and it never got adapted into a movie xddd
But nah, really looking forward to it, should be fun!
See you tomorrow! C:
8 Likes
looks nervously at the opening for my study log, where I’ve recently added my real name 
It’s probably fine one way or the other. Wanikani is a small enough community that getting followed is unlikely. So I’m not worried about that. I’ve seen some people start out sharing their first name. My first and last together used to be my username.
I’m glad to hear that the Minecraft film is tolerable. I don’t have high expectations for it, but it seems like the kind of movie that would be at least a little funny.
6 Likes
This kind of disinterest seems a bit like burnout so maybe look to see if something in your routine is especially dreadful for you and either stop doing that or take a break. For me, I take breaks from wanikani whether I mean to or not when I just get busy enough not to keep up with reviews sometimes. I usually try to have at least one book I come back to. But last year around May I did no Japanese for about a month while reading in English more. I think that was more helpful than I realized at the time because I had just done a big stretch of Japanese grammar on MaruMori (which I do recommend and I bought the lifetime sale of when it was earlier in development) so while I may have forgotten some patterns completely I still retained a lot after that break when I got back to reading. I still haven’t completed a prose novel for adults but I keep trying either manga that are interesting or books a club starts so I think I’ll eventually be able to keep up. But I think there’s value in going away and coming back again sometimes. Burnout for a long time isn’t productive but small breaks can be good for when you aren’t feeling it. That’s my two cents at least.
7 Likes
Nonono, it’s not tolerable, you misunderstood, it’s genuinely great xddd
All this elitism on Letterboxd and rating movies 3/5 to be a snob on the most pretentious productions just to realize that it takes something like Minecraft to restart the industry xdd
On one hand, it’s a typical Midwestern family movie, on the other, it’s a typical 2005 Midwestern family movie, and those are at a huge deficit those days xddd
I’m already doing that, luckily ^^
yappin and complaining
unfortunately, that’s because the most dreadful thing for me is native media consumption and understanding every word and every grammar but not understanding what the sentence says, and then it snowballing into one paragraph misunderstood, and then one page, and then what were you reading? xdd
my current regiment is really nice though, because I’m not seeing many dreadful things in it at all and it comes mechanically and is rewarding, the only question is, is this actual language study? xddd
But you know, scrolling up, I realize I simply like complaining, even though it feels real and is real, getting shit together is one skill I regularly struggle with. Or maybe I don’t, because the comparison scale doesn’t involve people that never have to and never try to get their shit together? xdd
Also yeah, another note to myself, I need to start actively following study logs of people that actively follow my study log, might try to do it later this Easter break xddd
April 19th, 2025
- 152 reviews on WaniKani
- 15 lessons on WaniKani
- 42 reviews on Bunpro
- 3 lessons on Bunpro
- 1 lesson on Duolingo
- 3 stories on Satori Reader
Haaa, would you look at that, I’m buddies with Satori Reader now xdd
Still don’t know for how long, but I came back home today after midnight and the Short Stories: Spring was just perfect for my mushy brain xdd
On the other hand though, I also tried the first episode of Koibito and that was a different type of a workout, where I understood every word and every grammar, but the sentences wouldn’t come across to me (something something, spoiler above xdd), but I’m interested in giving it a different shot when I have more energy, because it felt like I was so close away from getting it that I should probably eventually just get it xdd
Also, I thought I would get some burns today on WaniKani because there was a wall of reviews, but nope, Enlightened only.
I’m going to be flying to the East Coast in a week and I’m thinking whether I should just do double reviews on the flight days and then just continue shifted by 6 hours until I’m back? I suppose that makes sense, but I need to make sure my 24h reviews do get made in 24h and not 30h later, because that would slow down my level ups. Or maybe I should delay them? I’ll give it a thought ^^
LIFE:
YEEES LORD OF THE RINGS
So Bechdel test, 0/3 xddd
Wilhelm Scream, at least 3 times xdd
We made it to Mordor and back xdd
I was optimistic thinking that maybe it would only be 12 hours with credits and I’ll be home by 22:30, nooope, I was back home by 0:45 xddd
Because of that, the reviews today were a bit funny, but I didn’t break any streaks, so still good xddd
I idetified every quote from this clip in the movie xddd
Of course, because it was fREAKING 13.5 HOURS LONG, I smuggled all sorts of snacks to the cinema and traded some with my friend, I was able to provide myself the usually expected 2500kcal with snacks and a dinner over the long break xddd
But yeah, I’ve said before I’m not a huge fan of Lord of the Rings, but trading trivia and shouting out quotes to one another really makes the experience different, and I’m looking forward to the inevitable Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy marathon in, eee, I don’t know, to see Orlando Bloom be handsome again in a different environment xddd
I realized I remembered almost everything from The Fellowship of the Ring and progressively less and the movies went, to the point I melted in my chair having realized that there are THREE battles in the trilogy, and not just one, for some reason my brain blended them all into one, and most likely will do it after today as well xddd
Merry and Pippin absolute MVPs though and iT TURNED OUT MY FRIEND WAS EVEN MORE INTO SCOURGE OF THE SHIRE THAN I WAS XDDD
she even thought that it must have been a director’s cut scene for Return of the King, well it wasn’t xddd
Ahhhhhhh xdd
And now, in 9 hours from now I need to be at Tegel for a hike at a Tegeler See, so I’m jumping off to sleep and see you tomorrow! C:
9 Likes
I did it. I crossed from Study Logs (Public) to Study Logs (Private) xdd
Of course, yall are having way more fun in there and somehow posts average so much more comments from other people, but I imagine that a part of it is the fact that yOUR STUDY LOGS ARE ON TOPIC AND HELP OTHER PEOPLE LEARN LANGUAGES as opposed to just yapping about language study (wink wink, mitrac xdd)
There is a lot more emotional labor involved in catching up on study logs of other people than I thought it’d be, there is a beautiful tumblr neospeech term that describes this feeling pretty niftly, sonder:
It’s always so wild to realize that behind every heart that somebody gives me on my study log there is a person who knows how to play clarinet, or has a dad who wants to learn how to play the bass, or is spending their spare time getting great at watercolors, like it’s so easy to forget that people have rich inner lives and then you turn on the yearning mode and go like “I WISH I WERE AS COOL AS THEM” even if i’m aware that someone can just take the Uno card and go the opposite way and go like “i wish i were as cool as you”
I’m really tired of socialization today, including catching up on you guys’s study logs, but I had fun reading through those too ^^
I don’t know if I’d be a good person to hold all of your hopes and dreams at a high esteem and celebrate your every success and make sure no thought of yours gets underrepresented, so no hard feelings if I don’t, but I’m curious, so let’s keep the ball rolling xddd
April 20th, 2025
- 110 reviews on WaniKani
- 15 lessons on WaniKani
- 43 reviews on Bunpro
- 3 lessons on Bunpro
- 1 lesson on Duolingo
- 3 stories on Satori Reader
So here I’d like to talk about two concepts I identified from a study log that did speak about Japanese language learning xdddd
I think Mitrac minutes are a fun way of looking at reading comprehension and they might become easier with Satori Reader, I think I need to adopt something similar to my SRS study sessions for the target amount of focus time I’m spending on reviews a day: I think aiming for 40 minutes of focus study time with SRSes a day is something I should be striving for, and I did something similar to that today, but it took me 60 minutes because I was completely zoning out many many times xdd
Also, concept two: I can’t find it now, but I’m 100% sure I saw a post somewhere along scrolling (in Mitrac’s? in Akashelia’s?) study log about “baby Japanese” vs “adult Japanese” and that’s a bit of a vibe of what I’m seeing on Satori Reader: I understand the reason why the stories are so simple, but I think I memed myself to the level of only enjoying content that uses rich and sophisticated vocabulary in any language, and reading a sentence like:
茶色のねこはモカだ。
and going like “really??? seriously???” xddd
So it’s an endless fight between “boo that sentence is boring” and “i have literally no idea what I’m reading”, and gets horrible in German, will also hurt in Japanese as well xdd
Kona Episode 1 and 2 consumed ^^
Also, read Koibito’s second chapter and it’s a bit more difficult, but still has some of the sentences like:
しかし、その男を見た瞬間、京子は息をのんだ。
so, you know, i just need to shut up and start consuming content unconditionally xdddd
LIFE
YES WENT FOR A HIKE
the friend I met at bouldering is like, the most sane, the most neurotypical person i currently have in my friend circles, and good for her, she seems responsible and grown up and well put together, but it’s just so bizarre when she asks me questions about something a wire in my brain being tripped and my neurodivergent friends are like ‘ayayayayya that’s a tough predicament you’re in’, but she’s like ‘…but why?’ and i’m like ‘…you know what? stop asking difficult questions, i haven’t asked myself that one yet’), and it’s like GRRRRR XDDD
but yeah, having her ask me questions that she doesn’t understand the brain connections of specific things has been enlightening and i hope that i was able to inspire her from the approach of wires being crossed in the brain and seeing the patterns she wouldn’t have seen otherwise, if that’s the case, then it’s an equivalent idea exchange, right?
but we took an instax picture together, we sat on this branch of the tree in the picture above (very slippery, dont do it at home kids xddd), and i think i had a great time all things considered, so today, tons of walking, tons of cycling, tons of oversharing on a whatsapp server with the other bouldering friend and i’m feeling drained in every way imagineable, and with the other bouldering friend tomorrow we’ve agreed to meet up in a park at 6pm and just, do NOTHING but enjoy our mutual company tomorrow until the sun sets, i’ll bring my japanese reading and I’ll try to read something over the time when we’re being silent together and, yeah, tomorrow sounds promising too ^^
im both overstimulated and extremely happy to be surrounded with so many people and maybe friends that care about me and share their life stories, and if you add up catching up on the study logs on WaniKani today, it’s literally
i’ve become a junkie on the human experience, and then the human experience was provided to me in amounts of content i could barely handle, and that grew my social batteries, and now i crave for even more human experience, and now even more human experience is provided to me xdddd
i will definitely slow down and take a break and socialize with people and study logs less, but for as long as i can, let me float in this cloud of “never have felt so connected with people, never have felt so much as a part of something bigger than myself, never have i felt as if i’m living through so many different eyes and experiences” 
i-im sorry for yapping and ranting xddd
See you tomorrow either way!
13 Likes
Lmao that’s so sad, I kind of expected more from that feature
Played 
(and lost socially) that was funny, I don’t know what I was expecting but fun idea
Maybe there’ll be future writing groups you can meet with
That’s sort of what put me off satori personally, which then I feel bad about when many people here love it (cough @mitrac ) but I’m like aaaa I can’t keep paying for subscription services when it feels like everything seems to use them now
Also thanks for reminding me of marumori I meant to check it out a while ago 
it looks like it has a lot of potential
Ummm probably nothing too helpful, I feel motivated looking at other people’s logs (which you’ve done XD ) and book club discussions cause it makes me want to join in , anddddd then I’m not sure, I really like making lists so when I make a good list of Japanese things to do I’m like omg I have to check those off lmao
Brilliant
And on that note, I’m sorry to deceive everyone, my name isn’t actually weeb
Yessssss glad you enjoyed it 
I liked that it was stupid but knew it was being stupid and played into it, it was very fun
Goes to a 13.5 hour long marathon
I KNOW I had the same realisation when I was trying to get more into replying I was like man this taking hours but I’m sucked in because it’s interesting hearing people’s daily lives and thoughts and stuff 
I do wish I were as cool as you 
I wanna go to a lotr or pirates marathon 
Aw that’s so nice, wallow in this lovely feeling 
5 Likes
Yes!
that is a really special thought. Everyone has such a different approach to their log. You do you! And other people will value it for something you might not expect 
or ever really know about for that matter.
It was so fun to see your comments on various logs (and mine) catching up - good effort all at once wowzers!
10 Likes
Today is the only day when you’re legally allowed to spam your Polish friends with messages containing a single word “2137” and get some funny points as a result of that ^^
I belted Barka with my friend from India in a park today, so, you know, part of a cultural exchange ^^
April 21st, 2025
- 138 reviews on WaniKani
- 15 lessons on WaniKani
- 39 reviews on Bunpro
- 3 lessons on Bunpro
- 1 lesson on Duolingo
- 3 stories on Satori Reader
- Misc: Book Club, 葬送のフリーレンの第４０話も第４１話も第４２話。
The chapters 40 and 41 of Frieren were harder to follow than I expected, mostly because I wasn’t in flow mode yet and I was seeing the same words and they wouldn’t persist in my memory, but by the time I got to chapter 42, I found it a bit easier to understand what was going on.
The current arc in Frieren makes it really hard to follow who is who, and is a bit less of a character-driven study, I definitely prefer the banter between Frieren and Fern than tournament arcs, but hey, if I learn those words, the more touching scenes might be a bit easier when we get to them, so that’s flowing naturally ^^
I picked up the ジャム屋さん on Satori Reader and aww, so cute C:
I also had the clothes shopping dialogue and that wasn’t necessarily my favorite, but hey, it’s something ^^
Today I had a good flow with reviews and wasn’t getting much distracted, but even then, they took me 55 minutes, so the 40 minute target still has some wiggle room ^^
my personal annoyance of the day is the word 結構です
like come on, i know it’s also
but it’s also “i’ve already had enough, thank you”, please accept my first one xddd
And life: first part of the day was me attempting to recover after yesterday’s multiple layers of fatigues, at 2pm a friend of mine wanted some help with reverse engineering a file format from Mario Golf: Sugar Rush and i was like “uuuu” and got lost mapping the file in a Hex Editor, but i didn’t finish it because at 6pm my friend wanted to read a scientific paper in the park and I decided to read Frieren as he’s doing that, we found a really cute place by the exactly one sakura tree in the park:
and then we were off to the races ^^
We caught up on things every few (dozen) minutes and when we both were done, him with article review, me with gasping at the Polish localization of Frieren, he had to endure me singing Barka and we went for Georgian food today, Khinkali and Khachapuri, didn’t take any pictures, but they look like this respectively:
Over the last few years, after Sochi olympics, a lot of Georgian refugees and migrants decided to go to Poland and for every Turkish place that exists in Berlin right now, there is a similar amount of Georgian places in Warsaw, they’re really tasty and I’m glad I was able to show my friend something that’s become a part of my culture of Poland too xdd
And yeah, he showed me what Substacks he follows, I showed him my YouTube algorithm, his invitation to the church of Former NASA Intern, Former McDonalds Worker, Angela Collier, PhD is still pending, I hope he eventually amends his way and replaces his opinions on the topics of science with whatever the hot banger video of the week Angela Collier cooks up ^^
Tomorrow is finally going to be a day to just disconnect and shut down, so I’ll see how my energy levels shape up ^^
Me on Wednesday when I go for another D&D session xddd
There might be a twist to this Wednesday’s one though, I’m ruminating about this Wednesday slightly xddd
I SWEAR
I’m considering doing something like Netflix and subscribe for a month and then consume all content I’m interested in and then don’t look back for a long time xddd
Aaa thank you very much I appreciate that
See you tomorrow! C:
7 Likes
Mmmm thats a good idea maybe I’ll do that too 
3 Likes
hello fellow human beings
April 22nd, 2025
- 141 reviews on WaniKani
- 15 lessons on WaniKani
- 33 reviews on Bunpro
- 3 lessons on Bunpro
- 1 lesson on Duolingo
- 3 stories on Satori Reader
No big highlights today, Bunpro still fairly easy at N4, crossed 256 days on Duolingo (0x100, we overflowed the counter!), words starting with 見 still keep causing problems xddd
I could try to workshop them one day, because I saw one of them in Frieren yesterday and I was like “wait which one was that one” xddd
I did the Wedding of the Fox on Satori Reader and I was like “oh that’s more like it, I like those sentences, I like those words 
” and then proceeded not to understand the sentences without looking it up xddd
The line really is narrow between having fun and being able to understand things, in the past what helped me out was grinding 30 minutes of Japanese I didn’t understand until something clicked and I started understanding it, but here’s hoping that Satori Reader will help me narrow down the barrier to switch to thinking in Japanese from 30 minutes to like, 5 seconds xdd
I saw the post today in Mitrac’s study log by @soggyboy claiming that consuming more easy things could unlock more difficult things in the long run, which of course makes sense, but my takeaway from that is that if I end up hearing stories for 5 minutes a day, then Atomic Habits might get me where I want to be in only 274 years from now, so I probably should do something to just bombard myself with input, ehhh xddd
The current values I hold towards life and energy levels I balance out make it a bit hard to immerse myself in Japanese, so I’m really glad I do SRSes at least, because they confront me with this issue and dilemma every single day and I have some gears spin in the background and force me to think about this in more detail.
Anyway though, in terms of switching into flow mode, there’s a German YouTuber that does general Nintendo videos, like here:
and I realized that I switch into flow mode listening to her videos in like, LESS THAN A SECOND?
With Japanese, it takes a bit to even recognize the fact that somebody speaking at me is speaking Japanese, with her, the very first word she says and my brain immediately is in German detection and understanding mode, that’s the goals with Japanese
…though frustratingly enough I have a feeling her videos don’t teach me anything new and I go like 
“your online persona is super cool and I vibe with Nintendo things but why would I watch your channel” xddd
It’s the trap where your brain tries to make up excuses not to watch things because they’re in a language you’re not 100% comfortable with under the guise that it’s not stimulating enough, while at the same time you’ll watch the whole Air Crash Investigator Answers Aviation Accident Questions even though you don’t care about aviation xddd
I really don’t know how to fight with this brain trap, grrr. Just sit down in front of your computer and keep watching Mimimoli until your German skills allow for you to develop a parasocial relationship with her?
I most likely will find a solution to this issue in German before I do so in Japanese, so just highlighting it’s on my radar ^^
Life: somehow today felt extremely short. It does if you don’t have all sorts of crazy adventures, but I don’t feel as if I have rested today all that well, I went on a bike to a breakfast place and after that, stopped at a few places and went back home… and it was 5pm and I was like WTF xdddd
Then did my nails (European Union? Ukraine? ENA? Vattenfall? You decide, it can be all four of those ^^), plucked my eyebrows and I realized it’s 9pm and I haven’t even started packing or putting up laundry for my big trip on Friday. G-great, proud of myself, keep it up xddd
Also, started journaling at 9pm and I think I’ve started coming to terms with being okay with being a killjoy for generative AI xdddd
I think the song that @trunklayer composed today is an absolute banger and I want to be a person that killjoys people around the topic of generative AI by producing my own art, and this is a perfect representation of what I should be doing, so I need to workshop ideas in terms of how I can be creative in terms of fucking over generative AI xddd
Also, D&D rant
Tomorrow, D&D session, and, <shock>, I’ve DMed my DM to let her know that I’d probably like to… leave the campaign and start doing other things instead ^^
We’ll do tomorrow, and then a Graduation Party or something, and then I’ll probably focus on channeling my creativity in a different way. I think my DM was doing a great job at running the campaign and I’ll definitely thank her tomorrow and we might have some fun together, it’s just that I don’t really like fantasy or isekai, and the best parts about D&D are theorycrafting between sessions and getting to know people that participate in the group, and there hasn’t been much of it recently, so how did I get myself into this one in the first place xdd
I also had some baggage that I needed to work through, I don’t think it was getting in the way of individual sessions, but it was about how I felt about the idea of me being a part of those sessions, so, hey, I’ll have more time for them now.
But I’ll let my campaign members know that they’re really welcome at my place if they wanted to test out Switch 2 or we could go for any film festival or something and I’m down for food at any time, so, we’ll see, maybe leaving the campaign is not the end of the world.
having decided to leave the campaign was one of the hardest decisions i’ve taken in a long time, and a part of me already screams that I will regret it, but I have a feeling I have some mental load related to it that I have to work through, so I probably might need some distance, like, a month, a year, 20 years, to work through it xddd
I think… grief describes my feelings well. Both with staying, and with leaving.
I wish I had an adult tell me what to do, but I don’t even listen to adults telling me how to study Japanese, ehh xd
See you tomorrow! C:
13 Likes
Bwa ha ha ha!!!
On a more serious matter
I guess ya gotta do what ya gotta do
“grief” fits
Trunkieくん, very creative!
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I don’t know what your reading level etc. is but I would say that one of the biggest asterisks on my statement about low level extensive reading being beneficial is that when you’re still trying to move from the upper beginner → lower intermediate level reading is still super difficult, and it’s hard to find any ‘easy’ reading at all, especially with prose/non manga reads. So you do have to kind of keep grinding through the challenge of reading at that stage, which is one of the biggest challenges of breaking into reading in Japanese. It’s also a stage where I’ve observed a lot of people seem to lose motivation and drop off. But more reading = more comprehension so you just gotta keep at it and enjoy the process along the way! 
13 Likes
I choose IKEA
Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, and hey you know you might not regret it cause you could be like ah I really did need some time to work through my stuff at that point and I made the choice I thought was best for me at the time
5 Likes
Me neither xddd
In 2020, when I was doing WaniKani, I beat Origami King and Pokemon Shield start to finish exclusively in Japanese, and my level of Japanese feels better than it used to be at that time, but brainrot caught up with me and I can no longer stare for hours at characters pretending to be doing character recognition from them (it sometimes works!!!) xdddd
But I think I’m pretty serious about attempting The House in Fata Morgana, so at least trying should get my character recognition skills back up ^^
Yep, that’s exactly the challenge I’m going though: hope that I’ll swing the swing in my favor though ^^
perfect choice <3
Ahh, so that’s what smart and well functioning people do xddd
Live and learn, fail quickly, or whatever they call it xdddd
April 23rd, 2025
- 160 reviews on WaniKani (29 burns!)
- 15 lessons on WaniKani
- 41 reviews on Bunpro
- 3 lessons on Bunpro
- 1 lesson on Duolingo
- 3 stories on Satori Reader
Actually a reeeeally good session today on Bunpro, I think I got 96% and I was just flying through grammars, going down to N4 does wonders ^^
I still have 45 N4 grammars to do, and then haven’t thought of what I’d be doing next, maybe 2 lessons of N2 a day or something?
By that time I’ll be really close away from being back in a Japanese language class, so that might restart my curiosity in higher level grammars once again 
The more difficult story on Satori Reader with Akiko’s Adventure in Seattle felt really well suited to me in terms of difficulty today, sentences felt constructed in a nice way, but also I was able to follow, maybe Satori Reader is slowly helping me with picking up the contexts behind the sentences?
Life: Had the penultimate session of D&D today and hey, it was fun! I think my bard was out there even more than usual, having a real deadline when you know it’ll be over is making you cherish the moments more, so we’ve had plenty of fun interactions between characters ^^
Look at our trail of destruction, huehuehue ^^
My character is one of those bird-brained ones who always jumps first into fight and is absolutely paper, so today I fell down like three times and needed potions/healing/saving throws in order to stand up, but I didn’t die… yet xddd
The stage for the final session has been set, we still don’t know how things will end up for my character, but we’ll get to see it ^^
I only left the DM’s place after midnight, so my review sessions were really late today, but hey, tons of nice conversations, managed to overshare and connect on a deeper level with the DM and one of the players, I love oversharing, I love hearing other people overshare ^^
Waking up in 7h30m, so I’m going to sleep now, take care and see you tomorrow! C:
11 Likes
I did the same thing with Pokemon Shield last summer! When I started I was almost definitely at a lower level than you were in 2020 but it was so useful. I think (simpler) video games you have prior context for are a really really great form of immersion for every level, including relative beginners like I was, and especially Pokemon.
Although I’m half-playing through BD at the moment, alongside finishing off the last bits of Violet, and BD is so much easier in terms of Japanese level, it’s crazy. The newer games have so much more complexity of language, variety of places and names of things, it feels like. Plus there’s just a lot more dialogue in the newer ones, I think. Night and day difference.
6 Likes
ok today will be really short xddd
April 24th, 2025
- 161 reviews on WaniKani (36 burns!)
- 15 lessons on WaniKani
- 35 reviews on Bunpro
- 3 lessons on Bunpro
- 1 lesson on Duolingo
- 3 stories on Satori Reader
I didn’t expect how dark would 狐の嫁入り turn out so quickly, whoa xdd
Enjoyed that story though, was nice ^^
Did reviews starting 0:30 today until 1:30am, so my SRS is allll over the place right now, but I should try to stabilize it tomorrow ^^
Sad I didn’t burn 疲 today, but I’ll get it next time C:
Life: Went to an Arabic Film Festival with some Arabic friends for a screening of a film called Gazan Tales, that was shot just before, uhhh, should I spoiler the social events? So NSFW and politics coming in: just before the newest Gaza War started, and it was a slice of life movie about people living their lives in horrible conditions and trying to make something out of the life: people getting along with one another not because they’re similar or they agree on things, but out of necessity, not making much money, living their lives day to day, and since editing of the movie took place after the strikes on the Gaza strip, the credits sequence has photos of people who willingly took the camera and recorded stories of life and the filmmakers were like “oh yeah, by the way, those people are dead now”
It was a very tender and touching story and nothing big happened in that movie, just people living their day to day lives, which was really beautiful in its own way ^^
There was a PSA before the movie that some culture centers in Berlin didn’t want to show the film because Germany is in the process of misunderstanding what “NICHT WIEDER IST JETZT” means, but just in case, Free Palestine 
and so that we’re all on the same page:
IMPORTANT xddd
Afterwards, we went to a leftist bar to talk about the movie and also share intra-country traumas, with the token British friend (love her btw xddd) talking about Princess Diana, me talking about 2137, American friend talking about 9/11 and Arabic friends from Syria and Egypt talking about different approaches towards Arabic Spring and the certain family dictatorship regimes.
Fun, I really enjoyed the day, tons of very intimate and very close conversations! I’m really glad I’m finding those completely new and unrelated places thanks to people taking me there C:
So it’s 1:45am and tomorrow at 11:20am I’m setting off for a 2.5 week trip, including going to America for two weeks ^^
…I haven’t even started packing yet. Not even a single bit. Moreover, I haven’t even finished laundry.
Oh, the night will be fun ^^
I hope that tomorrow’s update will be wild, so look forward to the next one!
10 Likes
April 25th, 2025
- 118 reviews on WaniKani
- 15 lessons on WaniKani
- 35 reviews on Bunpro
- 3 lessons on Bunpro
- 1 lesson on Duolingo
- 3 stories on Satori Reader
- Misc: something like 6-8 hours of Xenoblade X with German interface and Japanese dub?
ah yes, trains. what a concept xdd
There is something about the fact that somebody right next to you pulls a book right next to you and you feel unproductive if you just scroll the internet, so you decide to do something, and I binged a ton of Xenoblade X today in German, which… a few hours in I actually kind of forgot I’m even playing it in German/Japanese, I was just consuming content and going like “damn that’s a cool story instead”
Admittedly, I played this game in English on Wii U back in 2015, so I knew everything from the context already, and there have been a few new sidequests that have been introduced to the 2025 release, those ones were a bit more difficult for me to understand, but the localization of the game follows the a similar trajectory across the whole localization: tons of German idioms and loose localization instead of just translating things, and relatively simple, straightforward and very direct sentences in Japanese, so when the localization team is getting a bit too creative for my level of German, understanding stuff in Japaneseができる。
I’m so weirded out by the fact that today’s Xenoblade X studying didn’t feel like studying, but that’s the goal, right? I just need to make it feel automatic, and then stuff will follow.
Also, thoughts on the game until the end of Chapter 11!
Up to chapter 11
I looooooooved that chapter back in the Wii U version because it literally was drama kids will save the world, but I almost choked on my ice tea when I noticed how much I started disagreeing with Elma and agreeing with Lao over the last 10 years xddd
Lin absolutely did the right thing and I’m really happy my avatar joined in to block Elma from shooting Lao, but like, WTF Elma xdddd
I suppose the political system from Old Los Angeles is also leaking into New Los Angeles as well xddd
I’ll be on a plane on Sunday and I might finish the base campaign of Xenoblade X back then, and I’m thinking my next game might be full in Japanese: whether it’s finishing Emio (will I be able to???) or just The House in Fata Morgana, we’ll see. B-but I really want to use my newly learned skill of understanding stuff in German, grrrr xdd
Life: I took a train from Berlin… to Paris xddd
That’s the first stop of the journey and I thought I’d have a super exciting update today, well, here’s Karlsruhe:
Spent two hours there today because the train got delayed and of course I missed the connection xddd
It’s a really pretty place regardless, and with the weather today, spring has fully sprung ^^
And then I arrived in Paris, 2.5h behind the schedule, but at least made it through xddd
Immediately went to the hotel, stopped by Monop along the way and noticed that they have a Japanese food section that’s really similar to Rewe, it feels like a waste to be in Paris and eat Japanese though xddd
I’ll spend the whole tomorrow in Paris and I intend on walking around quite a lot, so I hope tomorrow’s update will be a banger, but until then, I’ll take a shower and soothe myself to sleep in this 2x4 meters prison cell that serves the purpose of a hotel room xddd
See you tomorrow! C:
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Ooh! I’m so impressed with your multilingual Xenoblade experience! Living the dream! (cut to Karlsruhe 
I love how you just roll with it
Enjoy Paris! Wow!
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