A Pineapple Learns a Language (And Talks About Roller Coasters)

Japanese Language Study Logs (Public)
1

Hello everyone! My name is Pypeapple (or Pineapple if I could ever get to a platform early enough to snipe the username (or pype if you’re short on time)), and this is going to be my spot for cataloging my progress!

Longer Introduction/why I'm here

woooooaaahh, you clicked on this? Good luck!

I live in the United States and have only spoken one language my entire life. As of writing, I am in the middle of my college education for things that have very little to do with language; I am out of my depth the instant I start learning anything related to communication, even in English.

“So pineapple, why in the world are you trying to learn Japanese?” I hear no one ask (my computer volume is very low). I have a silly answer, a much sillier answer, and unfortunately, no real answer to speak of.

Silly reason: I got bored. I’ve always liked anime and manga and have wondered just how hard it would be to learn to read/listen to another language. About two weeks ago, as of writing, I didn’t have anything better to do, so I sat down and memorized all of the kana and immediately got hooked on Wanikani. I’m now determined to see this all the way through because…

…Sillier reason: I love roller coasters! It’s a genuine obsession! I’ve ridden over 250 different coasters all over the US and soon to be Canada, and Japan has some of the most unique rides ever built. A Japan trip for me was inevitable even before I got into anything related to Japanese media, but now I have a chance to be more than prepared for a coaster tour in the far future.

My goal is to give weekly (or at the very least twice a month) updates on my studies. Right now, it’s simple, Wanikani/bunpro, and what Genki 1 I can understand for the foundation, but who knows where I’ll end up. I’ve just finished my second week of wanikani and can feel the grind start to set in, so why not leverage some peer pressure to spark some motivation?

As mentioned previously, I love roller coasters, so I’ll end each of these with a coaster fact that will sometimes also be Japan-related!
Thanks for stopping by!

Hollywood Dream: The Ride at Universal Studios Japan is a massive 144-foot-tall coaster that’s packed with swooping hills and features a second train that faces backwards. You’ll never see the first drop coming!

16 Likes
2

Welcome! There are a lot of us here who love to read people’s logs and encourage your learning! I think your reason for learning Japanese is a great reason. Why not?

I also love roller coasters, but have never gotten my fill. Hollywood Dream likes like my kind of ride. I’m eager to see more roller coaster fun facts.

Please keep posting.

8 Likes
3

Welcome! So, what happens when you run out of coaster facts?

5 Likes
4

Welcome!

Honestly I love your “sillier” reason for learning Japanese! I feel like having an intense and niche interest is quite common in Japan, so when you visit you should be ready to tell people about it. I think you’ll find it’ll be a fantastic conversation starter! :roller_coaster:

6 Likes
5

By that point, I’ll be fluent so it won’t be much of a problem :wink:

5 Likes
6

Welcome to the club, that’s a very common reason around here, mine at least xdddd

Ahhh, come to Europe, Mirabilandia in Italy is great!

Looking forward to following your coaster journey then C:

4 Likes
7

Welcome to the study log gang!

What a rollercoaster of a study reason
Roller coasters are pretty great though, I hope you live your dreams and go on every coaster in the world :raising_hands:

5 Likes
8

Hello everyone! A week ago I knew less japanese than I know now.

I started this log whiout giving any thought to format, structure, or content (a solid parallel to my decision to learn japanese in the first place but I digress). I’m sure I’ll end up with a pretty consistent pattern for how these get put together, but for now it’s slightly better than haphazard.

What I am sure of is that I like to hide walls of rambling text, so my thoughts are usually in the dropdowns.

The bit that matters:

Current numbers:

WaniKani Level: 4

Grammar: Lesson 4 Genki

Vocab: idk how to put a value to this

Goals for this week:

Clear WK reviews as they come in

Get a functional understanding on adjective and verb conjugation

Clear the daily anki study every day

Thoughts/analysis

I made it to level 4, and with that officially paid to burn turtles! At this rate I’m slightly over one week per level, so it’ll be a sad day when it lines up just right and I don’t get to celebrate a level up in a week’s log.

From what I was able to gather from a few people around the fourms/on YouTube, There’s three parts to learning Japanese at the stage I’m at. Memorizing kanji, learning grammar, and memorizing vocab. With that in mind I’m using Wanikani for kanji and a little bit of vocab, genki to learn grammar and bunpro (for now) to practice it, and an Anki deck for more vocab. I think it’s a good way to start but I feel like there’s definitely better systems out there. (If anyone knows a good way to practice grammer other than bunpro I’m all ears)

random thoughts

This section is reserved for whatever I want to say, I’ll usually drop something I’m thinking about over the week here.

It’s insane to me how… simple this is. From a finding recourses standpoint at least. Every piece of material Ive seen is readily available or even optimized for being used on a phone. It’s crazy that I can wake up and decide to learn Japanese on a whim and immediately start using incredibly useful tools like wanikani. The internet sucks for a lot of reasons, but you have to admit this is pretty cool

That’s all for this week! Thanks for stopping by!

The first roller coasters to attempt a vertical loop were built in the 1800s. They were so poorly designed that parks had to staff nurses at the exits of the ride to treat inevitable injuries.

9 Likes
9

We’re back with another week! This marks the one-month mark of my studies!

Over the last week, I hit a few personal milestones. Level 5, my first items in the master category, and over 120 kanji learned on WK. I also made it through the first 9 lessons in remembering the kanji. This was also the first week when the review and lesson pile got a little intimidating, but I used the ancient forum knowledge “don’t try to do everything in one go,” and it was all a lot more manageable.

My goals for next week:
10 lessons in RTK
WK Level 6

ramblings

I spent a lot of time this week finding out about the infinite ways people have come up with to learn languages. Luckily, no one agrees on anything, and they’re extremely adamant that everyone else is not only wrong but maliciously trying to trick you. I realize I started that last sentence with “luckily,” that was my mistake.

What I gathered is (big shock), studying Japanese is the best way to learn Japanese. Everyone tries to make their system new, shiny, and different, but it all boils down to putting stuff into an SRS as you learn it, and then reviewing it as you add other stuff into an SRS. It just takes a lot of time with constant effort, and that’s something people are (read “I am”) bad at dealing with.

I’m extremely impatient, one of the reasons I started RTK on the side. WK’s system is great for preventing burnout, but sometimes I have a lot of free time to burn and I want to keep learning about Kanji. Eventually, I can get to grammar and sentence mining and all that junk, but for now, I need to get familiar with these funny little pictographs and that’s my plan moving forward.

The longest roller coaster in the world (for the next year or so) is Steel Dragon 2000 in Nagashima Spa Land. This coaster is so unique that I could talk about it for the next few months, but I’ll start with the numbers. It’s a massive 318 feet tall, reaches 95 miles per hour, and travels over 8,133 feet of track!

5 Likes
10

Yep, it’s the end of week 5 of learning Japanese. yep, end of the week, the weekend, some would say, not a day later, that would be absurd.

I had a bit of a busy week that didn’t let me spend a lot of time doing reviews or RTK. I’m not super happy about it, but it makes sense that a project of several years can’t always be in good spirits and pace. All I can do is get back to it and enjoy the process. Still made it to lvl 6

Last week’s goals
10 lessons in RTK
WK Level 6

*shhhh* there's a paragraph hiding in here

I only did about 5 lessons in RTK, and I have two almost-good reasons: I essentially started over because my flashcards were backwards, and I played in a two-day ultimate frisbee tournament, which left me deeply needing sleep. Looking back, I’m not that broken up about it, it was a rough week to juggle everything I care about.

Next week’s goals:
10 lessons in RTK
WK Level 7

ramblings

The more I even dip my toes in Japanese, the more I notice about english and the more I realize language is friggin impossible.

Like, how do people even know one language? We have the same sound to mean “falling over” and “going somewhere for a weekend or so” and just expect everyone to know what sort of “trip” we mean? What in the world? How has the world not devolved into anarchy, fires, and other things people associate with Detroit?

At this point, I usually remember that it’s actually easy and comes down to time in the language and just being used to the patterns that people use, just like every other skill. Something I’ll work up to and eventually understand with time. It’s not impossible, people do it every day.

November 10th, 2024 was the first time in history where the record for “world’s tallest roller coaster” went down in height, after the previous tallest coaster, Kingda Ka, was suddenly closed without warning. It was imploded about two months later

3 Likes
11

I never got a chance to ride it :sob:

1 Like
12

Tragic :sob:
I was lucky enough to get several rides on it over a couple years and it (along with the original top thrill dragster) was truly special

1 Like