ChristopherFritz's Study Log

First 名字, now this… Now I actually think we might be soulmates… :thinking:

2 Likes

The video is a brilliant idea. It would be cool to have a collection of these where you can hear certain words in different contexts. Too time-consuming though…
For 名字 I read the WK mnemonic and I pictured Felix from Re:Zero right away. The picture of him going 「みょう」in an irritating way stuck far too well in my brain to ever forget the spelling.

October Day 21

WaniKani

Mid-day, I’m at 78 apprentice, 105 reviews due in the next 24 hours.

  • Apprentice: -2 (good)
  • Reviews: -5 (good)
  • Difference: -7 (good)

I’ll add in three vocabulary and one kanji:

Lesson Meaning Notes
質問 question This one should be an easy one.
品質 material quality
良質 good quality 良 as りょう always gets me for some reason.
shadow

Somehow, 品質 and 良質 don’t seem to be represented in the anime I’ve watched…

I know of 影 as かげ, so I just need to learn the えい pronunciation. (That, and to recognize the kanji.)

Reading

Material Goal Read
アオハライド 0 pages
おじさまと猫 1 page 4 pages
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 2 pages 1 pages
ふらいんぐうぃっち 0 pages
美少女戦士セーラームーン 9 pages 11 pages
Total 12 pages 16 pages

I spend a few minutes trying to remember 更 before giving up and looking it up. Turns out it’s a level 45 kanji. No wonder I couldn’t remember it…

Grammar

Getting back on the grammar bandwagon, today’s Mangajin is lesson 10, on ばか. Since this is the Japanese equivalent to a series of English words that I never use and pretty much never hear, so it was a useful read for the English side of things. (English is only my native language that I use every day.)

The next chapter in Japanese the Manga Way is lesson 17, on question words. More review (and a long chapter’s worth at that). There’s some minor details on what can be used when, but since I’m not speaking or writing Japanese, I’m not worrying about that.

3 Likes

The afternoon nap isn’t a typical thing for me =)

I wouldn’t mind getting in eight hours of sleep after work, as I’m a night owl. But I can’t seem to sleep for more than two hours in the late afternoon/early evening. Maybe if I got some of those curtains for my bedroom window that block out all the light…

I was surprised at how relatively quickly I was able to get the clips together, but it’s still a fairly time consuming =(

I think I at one point saw a web site where you can see clips of a word being said in various anime. Projects like that always have to be careful of copyright lights, though. (Even though just quick clips for education purposes, one would hope copyright holders would let slide.)

2 Likes

I know what you’re talking about, but I can’t find the name of it again :slightly_frowning_face:

@ChristopherFritz, @smarts47

Someone found it!

1 Like

This is great either way! It looks legit too since it looks like it just scans YouTube subtitles for the target word.

It depends on how good the subtitles are (especially those autogenerated ones), but I’ve used it for English before and had a lot of fun playing around on it.

October Day 22

WaniKani

I was getting a bit worried as this morning my apprentice was getting near 90 and my next-24-hours reviews was getting close to 120. By late afternoon, apprentice is down to 78 (goal: 80), but next-24-hours reviews is up to 128 (goal: 110).

  • Apprentice: -2 (good)
  • Reviews: +18 (bad)
  • Difference: +16 (bad)

I think anytime my “difference” calculation is over 0, I’ll hold off on any radical or kanji lessons. And the higher the number, the fewer lessons overall. That means one lesson today.

Lesson Meaning
特質 characteristic

I was able to correctly guess the reading, which is good. Don’t know how well I’ll do on remembering the meaning. Zero matches for this word in subtitles for anime I’ve seen.

Reading

Material Goal Read
アオハライド 0 pages
おじさまと猫 1 page 0 pages
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 2 pages 5 pages
ふらいんぐうぃっち 0 pages
美少女戦士セーラームーン 0 pages
Total 2 pages 5 pages

The goal will be back up again tomorrow with new chapters of the three series currently at 0 pages.

For now, I used my extra reading time to get in extra pages of ぼっち. If I can keep up at least one page per day, and get in an extra the start of each chapter (which has one 4こま rather than two on a page), I may just be able to complete the volume by the end of the year. I’m about 40% of the way through in 50 days. I should be able to make 60% in 70 days.

Big achievements:

  • Remembering the meaning and reading for 支える (without furigana). Only had to think it over for about 30 seconds to remember the reading for 支.

  • Likewise for 増える, which also took about 30 seconds.

Context via scenario + manga artwork were vital to my figuring out both of them.

Grammar

I’ve just about finished all of CureDolly’s grammar videos through May. (I’ll need to download any from since then.) I have 11 videos left sitting in my “to watch” folder, and it looks like most are not related to grammar. I did watch a few videos, though, which took up my grammar-reading time.

I feel like I do need to try harder tomorrow on looking for grammar to focus on while reading. It’s all right to have low numbers of pages read if I’m focusing more on grammar, as I’ll clearly still be able to finish book club reading on schedule.

2 Likes

October Day 23

WaniKani

At 71 apprentice and 118 reviews in the next 24 hours:

  • Apprentice: -9 (good)
  • Reviews: +8 (bad)
  • Difference: -1 (good)

I think I’ll focus on vocabulary only for today’s lessons.

Lesson Meaning
述べる to mention
記述 description
上述 above-mentioned

I finally have an anime scene for a lesson again. Here is for 述べる:

I should be able to read and understand this whole line, but 感情 was always a weak one for me (even though I managed to burn it).

No subtitle matches for 記述 or 上述.

Everything Else

Pokemon Sword/Shield update came out today. No reading. Will catch up over the weekend (hopefully).

I did get in watching another CureDolly video that didn’t cover grammar, so that doesn’t count.

3 Likes

October Day 24

WaniKani

Numbers are looking pretty good today. Apprentice is still 71 (goal <=80), but the next-24-hours review count is 81 (goal <= 110).

  • Apprentice: -9 (good)
  • Reviews: -29 (very good)
  • Difference: -38 (very good)

I don’t know what to make of such a high combined number… It certain doesn’t mean I’m about to do 20 lessons or anything. I think I’ll lean on lessons as I can without going over 80 apprentice or 110 reviews for the next 24 hours. In this case, it’d be 9 lessons, the most I’ve done in one day in a long time.

I’d like to get in a radical and a kanji, but WaniKani says I have all vocabulary among the next 9 lessons, so I’ll go with all vocabulary.

Lesson Meaning
提供 offer
備える to make an offering
子供 child
展示会 trade show
発展する to develop
展開 unfolding
親展 confidential
販売 sales
自動販売機 vending machine

Today’s anime lines for these words:

image34

I think I learned ていきょう from iKnow, but of course never learned the kanji from it. Hopefully this will help with learning the kanji.

Now there’s a movie I need to re-watch sometime. Or at least buy and read the screenshot manga. I feel like this would actually be a good movie to force have my nephews watch with me (as the movie has a good amount of action, this or Porco Rosso) next time I’m able to see them.

I don’t know 稼ぐ yet (although I’ve encountered it at least a couple of times in Colors), but who can resist a scene with the twins?

No dialogue screenshot for 子供, cause it’s one I know. No dialogue search results for 展示会, or 親展, 自動販売機. No good scenes for 発展 (only part of long, complex sentences).

Reading

Material Goal Read
アオハライド 5 pages 8 pages
おじさまと猫 1 page 0 pages
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 2 pages 0 pages
ふらいんぐうぃっち 5 pages 10 pages
美少女戦士セーラームーン 8 pages 8 pages
Total 21 pages 26 pages

Once again, Flying Witch is bringing up my recently learned vocabulary:

I won’t be learning 怪 and 奇 for a few levels, though. A couple of others that showed up were 域 and 量, which was nice to see.

Elsewhere, みょうじ shows up just to make sure I get it right when it comes up for reviews. Except…looks like there’s an alternate kanji for it (WK level 51):

Looks like 慣 is coming up for me soon (during my current level).

Everything Else

Aside from watching another non-grammar Cure Dolly video, I spent too much time playing Pokemon.

3 Likes

October Day 25

WaniKani

Apprentice is 67 of goal 80. That’s 13 under.

Next-24-hours reviews are 111 out of 110. That’s 1 over.

Normally I would do a bunch of lessons due to my apprentice being low, but I also don’t want a bunch of reviews coming up tomorrow. So I’ll keep the number of lessons lower today, with three vocabulary.

Lesson Meaning
通販 mail order
stock
株式 stock

I’m quite pleased that I’ve managed to keep up with doing new lessons for 25 days in a row, which is the longest number of consecutive days doing WaniKani lessons for me ever.

Today’s WaniKani lesson anime screenshot (for 通販):

Due to spacing, I decided to try vertical text. It’s a bit hard to convey that the left dialogue balloon comes first here (as Japanese text to go right to left). I don’t really see this positioning of dialogue balloons in manga, probably for that reason. This scene does take place in the source manga, but the panel with this dialogue has no artwork on it, allowing the positions of the dialogue balloons to be shown right to left.

(It really bugs me that I want to read the dialogue out of order when I look at this. I’ll be sure to do better on placement in the future.)

Reading

Material Goal Read
アオハライド 5 pages 7 pages
おじさまと猫 1 page 3 pages
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 2 pages 4 pages
ふらいんぐうぃっち 3 pages 0 pages
美少女戦士セーラームーン 9 pages 5 pages
Total 20 pages 19 pages

Almost hit my goal, but ran out of time for today.

5 Likes

October Day 26

WaniKani

Apprentice is 64 of goal 80. That’s 16 under.

Next-24-hours reviews are 95 out of 110. That’s 15 under.

Today’s lessons: two radicals, two kanji, and eight vocabulary.

|Lesson|Meaning|Notes|
| — | — | — | – |
|交|mix|This one should be easy enough…
|冓|lifeguard|
|況|condition|I should be able to remember this one, as I learned it in 状況 reading GochiUsa back in 2018.
|渡|transit|
|指差す|to point at|I first encountered this one reading Saint Tail last year, so that should help me remember it.
|本質|essence|
|燃料|fuel|
|両腕|both arms|
|限界|limit|
|限定|limit|

I’ll have to slow down on vocabulary the rest of the week so I don’t run out.

Anime Dialogue Screenshots

With the different “limit” vocabulary, I decided it was time to finally start using Sanseido to look up simple definitions to help me learn different words (especially since I watched Cure Dolly’s video on the site yesterday). As it turns out, the web site has closed as of last month…

For that reason, today’s screenshot focus is on limits:

限界

If a clone can clone itself, there’s no limit on the number of clones that can be produced.

More 限界 screenshots

image2897

The more I go through scenes from this series for screenshots, the more I want to re-watch it. I’ve watched through it twice (going back and forth between watching an episode in Japanese then English) some years ago. Due to length of material, I think watching through it one more time will be my limit for the series. For that reason, I’ll hold off I know more vocabulary and have improved my listening skill enough to enjoy it without relying fully on English subtitles. (Hopefully I reach that point in my lifetime!)

Recently, I’ve tried to pay more attention to unknown kanji in theses screenshots, specifically as to what their WK level is. If I put a minimal amount of effort into reading up on the kanji I should be learning from WK by the end of this year, that should help me when them come up in lessons.

This scene uses the word 覚醒 (かくせい). Checking WaniKani, I see 醒 comes up on level…it’s not there! Well, so much for that idea… I do see it has 星’s pronunciation, and Wiktionary only lists 覚醒 and a derivative as using this kanji.

I won’t worry over it beyond that, as I’m not concerned about learning kanji outside of WaniKani until I reach level 51. After all, I do have my limits.

I think by now I have the general gist of 限界’s usage. It’d say the best way to think of this is “reaching a limit”. (Or in the case of a 分身 creating more 分身, not reaching a limit.)

限定

With just this, I’m already starting to get a feel for the difference between the two “limit” words. Here, the special menu item is limited to Christmas only.

More 限定 screenshots

Here, it’s a limited number of items available to buy in a day.

image3452

A set of professional anime artist pencils a limited item for sale.

The common theme for this limit seems to be a limited time for selling something (Christmas only) or a limited amount (three only, today only).

Reading

My reading time for today mostly went into screenshots for 限界 and 限定. Spending over an hour on two words probably isn’t the best use of time, but I feel that I’ll have a clear understanding of these words going forward. There are other “same meaning” words I’ve gotten wrong constantly for months on end, and I still don’t know the different in meaning/nuance between them. I don’t expect that to be an issue with these two words.

Grammar

My month of grammar focus has thus far shown me I’m bad at focusing on grammar. I don’t know if I’ve made any substantial progress in grammar. Just a little here and there.

The big takeaway as been that my grammar knowledge, meager as it may be, is enough to get me through most of what I read. (That is, simple manga.) I’m not ready to explore more difficult reading material at this time, because that’ll just highlight how much more vocabulary I need to learn.

4 Likes

October Day 27

WaniKani

Apprentice is 67 out of 80. That’s 13 under.

Next-24-hours reviews are 119 out of 110. That’s 9 over, with 14 potential burns coming up.

Looks like I want a light review session today. One radical, one kanji, one vocabulary.

Lesson Meaning
both
echo
限度 limit

Unlike the other limits, 限度 only has one subtitle match for me.

This one unfortunately takes some leading up to, and even then the usage of the word isn’t the best for understanding its meaning. But, I do get a sense of how it differs from 限界 and 限定. I feel like 限度 may be more of a “there are limits” type of thing, but that’s going based off of only this one scene.

Reading

Material Goal Read
アオハライド 4 pages 0 pages
おじさまと猫 1 page 0 pages
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 2 pages 3 pages
ふらいんぐうぃっち 5 pages 10 pages
美少女戦士セーラームーン 11 pages 12 pages
Total 23 pages 25 pages

Just yesterday I encountered the word 分身 while looking up dialogue including the word 限界, and here’s what this week’s chapter of Sailormoon brings me today:

i_0245x

My half-achievement for today is being able to pronounce 段差 (new word for me) when I saw it. It’s only half because I looked up the meaning rather than trying to figure it out on my own.

i-059x

I probably could have figured it out by context, but alas I did not give myself the opportunity. Still, it’s a step up.

Grammar

Today’s grammar reading was Mangajin Lesson 11: 失礼. This is one where I’d already discovered the “meaning” of the word (beyond just its use as in an expression) due to having learned the kanji via WaniKani. It was nice to see it in a variety of uses. (And I even found a typo on page 72.)

4 Likes

October Day 28

WaniKani

Apprentice is 64 out of 80. That’s 16 under, quite good.

Next-24-hours reviews is at 97 of 110. That’s under by 13, good as well.

Looks like I get to do extra lessons today. One radical, two kanji, and two vocabulary.

Lesson Meaning
greenhouse
ballot
scene
限る to limit
時限 time limit

Listening

I haven’t really gotten into listening practice, as 1) there’s always a lot of vocabulary I don’t know, and 2) a lot of things I have trouble understanding what’s being said even if I have the words written out in front of me.

Today, on a whim, I decided to play the audio to the anime series 「陸上防衛隊まおちゃん」 in the background during work today. With 26 episodes at about ten minutes each, and thanks to a meeting being canceled, I was able to listen to the whole series.

I’ve watched the through whole series in Japanese (and English) maybe over a decade ago. I don’t recall if I ever rewatched the whole series, but most of it I seemed to remember just by listening through, so I had that as context to help recognize words.

This is the first time I’ve actually felt like I understood a majority of the dialogue spoke in an anime. Most of the characters seem to speak very clearly, and some characters have very distinct word patters (such as Misora ending everything she says with a form of であります) which make it even easier.

I don’t expect this relative ease to translate to any other anime, but it was nice to be able to follow along with the audio so closely.

Reading

Material Goal Read
アオハライド 5 pages 12 pages
おじさまと猫 1 page 0 pages
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 2 pages 0 pages
ふらいんぐうぃっち 1 pages 0 pages
美少女戦士セーラームーン 10 pages 0 pages
Total 23 pages 12 pages

I’ve been waiting since August 27, 2019 to encounter 共通点 to get a better feel for it, and that day finally arrived:

Coincidentally, it’s up for review in three days. Hopefully I get it right!

Everything Else

I normally don’t play much in the way of video games these days (due to lack of time due to putting so much into Japanese learning), but a demo for the new Hyrule Warriors came out, so…

I’d be nice if the game had an option to add a black border around the cut-scene dialogue text letters. (Likewise for Breath of the Wild.)

5 Likes

October Day 29

WaniKani

Apprentice is 65 out of 80. That’s 15 under (good).

Next-24-hours reviews is at 111 of 110. That’s over by 1.

Since I missed my lunchtime reviews and my after-work reviews, leading to doing a 76 card evening review session, I think I’ll go light on the lessons, and lean in on all vocabulary.

Lesson Meaning Notes
期限 term Hopefully this will help with 期, which I’m weak at.
無限 infinite I finally get to learn the kanji for this one. I’ve known むげん since Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire’s Japanese release, with the むげんポケモン Latias and Latios. I suspect this one will help me with the pronunciation for 限.
吸収する to absorb
割れる to be divided
割引 discount

Being busy Thursday and Friday means not getting much reading done. I may just fall a little behind on book club reading until the weekend…

3 Likes

October Day 30

WaniKani

Apprentice is 67 out of 80. That’s 13 under, good.

Next-24-hours reviews is 85 out of 110. That’s under by 25, very good.

I’ll try for the final radical, two kanji, and five vocabulary.

Lesson Meaning
mantis
extract
sue
状況 condition
準備する to preprare
頑張る to persevere
与える to give
賞与金 bonus

I learned 状況 back when reading volume 1 of ごちうさ, so I should be good there. The する words are just rehashes of the nouns, only as verbs this time. I’ll do my best to not fail 頑張る. I feel 賞与金 shouldn’t be too hard.

与える is one I know I’ll need to give extra attention to.

Reading

Material Goal Read
おじさまと猫 1 page 0 pages
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 2 pages 0 pages
ふらいんぐうぃっち 3 pages 3 pages
美少女戦士セーラームーン 29 pages 20 pages
Total 35 pages 23 pages

Limited time today. Hoping to catch up over the weekend!

5 Likes

October Day 31

Study Changes

While I planned to make a lot of grammar progress this month, it seems I’ve made almost none. Instead, I’ve seen just how much it’s unknown vocabulary that slows me down.

I’m sure when I get to reading more difficult material, I’ll encounter grammar I don’t know, but I’ll also find an enormous amount of vocabulary I don’t know.

Vocabulary Plans

My general vocabulary plan currently remains unchanged: use WaniKani as my main source of new vocabulary at least through level 50, as I don’t want to have too many SRS reviews to do each day (Anki, iKnow).

Completing WaniKani level 32 will be the sweet spot where I should be able to recognize at least 90% of the kanji in what I read, which will put me over 90% vocabulary recognition. Once I reach that, I can review whether I want to learn vocabulary through material I’m reading.

At my current pace, I expect to reach and complete level 32 in about…8 to 16 months.

WaniKani Plans

Tackle my 571 leeches.

I have 455 WK reviews scheduled for the next week. Of those, 244 are leeches. That means 42% of my leeches make up 54% of my scheduled reviews for the next seven days.

I knew I had a lot of leeches. I knew that many of them, upon coming up for their 100th review, I didn’t recognize having ever learned the kanji to begin with. But I didn’t know just how much they were bogging down my daily review sessions.

If I can reduce my leeches enough, I should be able to increase how many lessons I do in a day, bringing level 32 up sooner.

Reading Plans

I’ll keep reading slowed down a bit, so I can use the freed up time to work on leeches.

  • Focus on book/reading club manga:
    • アオハライド
    • おじさまと猫
    • ふらいんぐうぃっち
    • 美少女戦士セーラームーン.
  • Finish up ひとりぼっちの○○生活 volume 1 by end of January, if not sooner.
  • Read one more ミルキー picture book this year to reach my goal of five picture books.
  • Keep the following on hold for the moment:
    • アリア
    • 異国迷路のクロワーゼ

Grammar Plans

Keep watching Cure Dolly, and reading Mangajin and Japanese the Manga Way, but don’t prioritize them.

WaniKani

Apprentice is 73 out of 80.

Next-24-hours reviews is 108 out of 110.

I should go light on lessons today, so it’ll be one kanji and two vocabulary.

Lesson Meaning
lawsuit
含む to include
含意 implication

The word 含意 doesn’t appear in any of my anime subtitles. In fact, every instance of 含 has okurigana.

Reading

Material Goal Read
おじさまと猫 1 page 0 pages
ひとりぼっちの○○生活 2 pages 0 pages
美少女戦士セーラームーン 11 pages 19 pages
Total 14 pages 19 pages

Leeches

I have 45 Apprentice leeches. If I focus on the vocabulary I’ve gotten wrong the most, that gives me a list of 10 to focus on. Once I get a better idea of how I want to do leech reviews, I can adjust the daily number focused on.

Leech Type Score
vocabulary 18
仮定 vocabulary 26
根本 vocabulary 13
計画 vocabulary 13
幸福 vocabulary 21
敗れる vocabulary 21
表す vocabulary 15
資本 vocabulary 19
解決 vocabulary 13
解説 vocabulary 17

Leech 楽

I always get caught up on whether 楽 means “ease” or “happiness”. And I always mix up words for “happiness” and “luck”. As it turns out, the radical, kanji, and vocabulary for 楽 all mean…“comfort”. Well, no wonder I keep getting it wrong. The right answer never even makes it onto my radar.

The kanji also has “ease” as a meaning, which gets us to 楽勝 being “easy victory”. But that’s no help for 楽 as a vocabulary word.

Definition:

  • 「心身に苦しみがなく、(ゆったりして)安らかなこと。」
  • 「苦労するまでもなく、たやすいこと。」

Subtitles

Becoming comfortable:

(Although I don’t remember this character and her story arc at all.)

Making comfortable:

A comfortable thing:

In all, I’ve probably spent over an hour on 楽. I don’t plan to spend ten hours on leeches in a day, so maybe I’d best move on…

Leech 仮定

This is one of those words I feel I should get right. Maybe I go too fast in reviews and that’s why I get it wrong.

Definition

  • 「仮に定めること。また、仮設。仮説。」

Le’t see, I’m surprised I don’t have 仮に in my list of leeches, as it comes up often enough. 定める and 仮設 are not taught by WaniKani. And 仮説 I mostly get the reading wrong.

Subtitles

Technically this is 仮定する, not 仮定だ. But it’s the only result that came up on a search for 仮定.

Leech 根本

I always get tripped up on the pronunciation for this one. Looking at subtitles, it looks like maybe こんぽん is non-tangible, and ねもと is tangible. (But I could be wrong.) I can’t find any subtitles matches for こんぽん, only こんぽんてき.

Definition

  • 「物事がそこから出発して成り立っている、一番大切なもと。」

I’ve looked up the words, and I know the grammar, but I’m not quite getting anything out of this definition…

Subtitles

Leech 計画

I should get this one every time. I don’t know how I get it wrong sometimes…

Leech 幸福

Happiness? Good luck? I can never remember which this one is. It might help if I can somehow remember that it’s the opposite of 不幸.

Unfortunately, all subtitle results are from later episodes of Sailormoon that I haven’t watched yet.

Definition

  • 「恵まれた状態にあって、満足に楽しく感ずること。しあわせ。」

Leech 敗れる

I keep mistaking 敗れる for 取れる. That’s the entire problem. When I think I see とれる, I need to slow down and consider if it may be やぶれる.

Leech 表す

I had to look this one up. A lot of these “three hirgana to one kanji” pronunciations seem to be difficult for me.

Definition

  • 「今まで無かったもの、隠れているものを、はっきり見えるようにする。」

Subtitles

Leech 解決

Definition

  • 「問題やもつれた事件などを、うまく処理し落着させること。また、事件が片付くこと。」

Subtitles

Leech 解説

I can’t find any good subtitles for this one. Hopefully I’ll be able to magically get 解決 and 解説 right from here on out.

Definition

  • 「ものごとを分析して、理由・意味などを説明すること。その説明。」
6 Likes

At my current pace, I expect to reach and complete level 32 in about…8 to 16 months

.

This is a great goal… If only I could be motivated to go faster. But I feel that my slow approach is what keeps my leech load low. I dunno. I’ll think about it some more. :turtle:

This makes sense. The more complex the idea, the more you’ll need more advanced grammar skills under your belt. I don’t know a lot about what you’re reading, but I can only assume that if you’re reading manga/graphic novels geared more towards adults (like the equivalent of an Adrian Tomine) you’d encounter unknown grammar faster.

To my point above, do you think this was because you didn’t have to really stretch? Meaning the reading material you’re encountering right now isn’t making you have to learn a bit more.

And I do agree that vocabulary is a HUGE obstacle, and like you I’m not going to introduce another SRS system into my life. Unfortunately I haven’t found a great work around except to keep looking stuff up as I go along, and rereading the same material over and over.

In any case, grammar challenge complete!

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While answering questions for Rental Oniichan in the Absolute Beginner Book Club, I encountered more “unknown” grammar than I thought I would, because the manga volume had been so easy for me to read through before. It got me thinking, maybe because I got the gist of what I was reading with little resistance, I failed to notice unknown grammar along the way.

And if that’s the case for such an easy manga as Rental Oniichan, surely I’m passing over a ton of unknown grammar in everything else I read. Surely I just don’t notice it because my attention is on all the vocabulary I don’t know.

That was my thought going into October. I expected by paying attention to the grammar in everything I read, I’d be stumbling upon unknown grammar left and right. Didn’t quite happen, though… =P

I think this is exactly what it is. I’m mainly sticking to manga which 1) have furigana (so it’s nothing too advanced), and 2) are light on dialogue (the heavier ones wear me down with vocabulary look-ups). This is basically a guaranteed recipe for simple grammar while still giving me new words to look up nearly every single page.

And I’m certainly not complaining! Yeah, I didn’t really advance my grammar any. But I’ve done lessons 31 days in a row (where my prior best was something like 11 days in a row). Plus I’ve put extra time into lessons, which I know has helped me with same-English-word words.

I keep telling myself, I’ll figure out a great method. But if I could do that, someone else would have already figured it out and popularized it. Then again, we’re using a system from the 1970’s (Sebastian Leitner’s spaced-repetition system), so maybe we’re overdue for someone discovering a vocabulary-learning secret!

So far, everything I’ve thought of for learning more vocabulary fails at the first sign of kanji. (Thus, my being here!)

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