But if I write about my Apprentice going up by 20 cards in one day, and staying up for nearly a week, I might lose all motivation =D
I do have it down by 10 thus far this morning, but I still have 60 more reviews to boost it back up or drop it down lower.
Edit: In those last 60 reviews, my Apprentice went down by one more =D
will this help…? woke up to this today
and if it’s any consolation…I haven’t done any new lessons in 119 days and it’s finally starting to come down to where I can add lessons again…I think…might need one more week but we’ll see…(almost all at or under 40… as long as i don’t screw up too much more)
the only sad part (in my mind…is it’s taken 4 months to get this far w/o lessons…all due to leeches…oh well at least I still haven’t reset 
I’m constantly torn between the ebb and flow of:
(This is where I wish WaniKani had an option to turn off their level order for lessons, and instead queue up words, and have prerequisite radicals and kanji auto-queue up for my next lessons.)
Here’s what I’m looking at:
For leeches, I (randomly) figure I can add at least 60% per day (cumulative), so I calculate the actual reviews will be:
| Day | Listed | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | 64 | 102 |
| Monday | 58 | 127 |
| Tuesday | 75 | 210 |
| Wednesday | 36 | 122 |
| Thursday | 26 | 104 |
| Friday | 22 | 101 |
(Now I kind of want to try to remember to check back in a week to see how I did on calculating…)
For lessons, since I keep breaking my daily streak (that is, missing a day here and there), I’m transitioning away from “at least one lesson per day” to “do vocabulary lessons as soon as possible” to help me retain this level’s kanji. Some words I learn easily right away, but others become new leeches right away.
My current goal: Apprentice at around 50.
That brings up my second WaniKani wishlist item: the ability to suspend leeches. It can be limited to leeches that meet a certain criteria (age; how far they’ve gotten before returning to apprentice, or such).
If I could suspend the cards I’ve been struggling with for over a year, my apprentice would be below 50. If I could suspend the cards I’ve been struggling with for over six months, maybe I could get it down to 25. That would allow me to start learning new kanji and new vocabulary without wasting so much time on the ones I just can’t get.
Maybe I need to spend more time on BishBashBosh. But I’m finding that when a word comes up on BBB, many times I recognize the reading and meaning without a problem. But when they come up a day later to review on WK (either the site or the Flaming Durtles app), I can stare at it for a minute and I don’t even recognize having ever seen the kanji before in my life =(
For other leeches, I do think it’ll help to make more disambiguation cards in my increasing-not-getting-new-cards-added-to-it-because-I’m-so-lazy Anki deck. I only have one disambiguation card, but it’s allowed me to come up with a memory aide so I don’t get these two confused anymore:
And there I was just recommending this approach. 
Doing my taxes this weekend, and I’ve decided that a portion will go towards some more Japanese resources (of which one can never have too many 
) and I am finally going to scoop up JTMW. I was on a good roll with my current stack of texts (including the sentence patterns book, and particles), but I got off track (as you do).
I am hoping that this new incentive will get me going again to finish an initial read through.
If I hadn’t missed a couple of days, and still had my high (for me) daily review streak, I’d probably keep at the one lesson per day. But since that’s been broken, I’m more ready to accept another break.
But! If someone is doing a lot of lessons, and is getting swamped and wants to cut back, I do recommend keeping up at least a minimum of one per day. And on the other side of the coin, if someone’s not moving forward and has a small number of daily reviews, I recommend starting up one lesson per day to get into the habit of it.
I actually have 14 vocabulary lesson sitting and waiting for me, so I’ll probably start doing at least one lesson per day, or more if they are words I already know.
For kanji, though, I’m going to take my time while I try and figure out ways to get these leeches under control. I mean, I have had zero luck at getting the leech count to drop (and not got back up) in the past four or five months, so it’s not like I think I have a good tactic. But presently I’m doing the BBB thing (not as frequently as I should be), and I’m trying to get some disambiguation cards written up (when I see a kanji, and I’m not certain which or two or three it is).
Ah, I need to finish mine. I pretty much just need to click a few buttons and it’s done. Guess I should go get to that right now…
One tax payment later.
Hey, I owed less than I thought I would. That means some of the money I set aside for paying taxes, I can use for other things.
I need to work out my upcoming manga spending. Since Flying Witch is on hiatus, and I’m about to finish 「ひとりぼっちの○○生活」 with the intent to hold off on volume two (since this series doesn’t have furigana), I’ve gotta fit some things in. Although, I have been slacking on 「わんわん探偵団おかわり」 and I don’t think I’ve even started volume 2 of 「おじさまと猫」, so maybe I shouldn’t be buying anything just yet…
I told myself I was going to read this one all the way through finally, and was doing a fairly good job at it, then I replaced my JTMW reading time with leech training, and then I replaced that with increase manga reading. (Why yes, I do get off track.)
At my level (thanks to all my manga reading), JTMW has been review of what I already know all the way through thus far, and I don’t expect that to change, so it’s not a loss if I take my time getting back to it. But I still wish I gave it proper attention back what I bought it some many years ago, because it teaches so much material in a great way.
This. So much this. I had a pretty good six day system going, rotating between the three resources, but something tripped me up. I don’t remember what but I’ve been fumbling ever since when I could have been done already. Maybe I need to take a lighter approach, and just read more with a casual mindset of building awareness versus learning. This stuff is dry enough as it is, and I haven’t come across anything that I want to get stuck into reading that makes use of all these bits of grammar that fill these small books.
How much do I wish that I could turn to the library, or had a Japanese book store “close by.” Not that I really want to be browsing anywhere inside right now… but the idea of flipping through a book would be really helpful. I guess I can sample something through google books or Amazon?
I wish I could remember why I failed at reading JTMW back when I first bought it. Now that I pretty much already know the material in it, it does come off as fairly dry reading (which is unfortunate, as I love the format). I like to imagine I’d really enjoy it if I were learning the grammar for the first time, but it’s hard to say.
Well, that sounds like a ringing endorsement for the book. To be a bit nicer to the book, it presents the material in a way that’s more accessible for me. Even though there’s really not a whole lot of difference between getting a sample sentence in a textbook, and a sample usage in a manga panel, the latter makes it much easier for me to grasp. I think it’s because there’s context. Each example includes a brief background of what’s going on. Textbook sample sentences are often out of context. And manga panels, you can see everyone involved in the scene, so it kind all kind of sticks better (for me).
For those that have them. Older textbooks (including reference books, and grammar books) often don’t have e-book versions available, so there’s no preview available.
But for novels and manga, typically there’s a preview available.
After this next round of buying, I don’t think I need to buy any more grammar style books unless I want to take an exam or something. I’m not a big manga reader anymore, but you posted a few pages sometime ago and I like the idea of a visual alongside the grammar. We’ll see.
The thing is, I have a small library of craft books in Japanese, but those just require specialized kanji knowledge versus serious grammar skills. Not so helpful from a laddering standpoint. I do actually have some mystery authors bookmarked but those are challenging from a grammar AND vocabulary standpoint.
As it turns out, there aren’t always previews of novels but maybe I should check Amazon Japan… In any case Amazon US charges a lot more than Kinokuniya so I could just buy a few for stretch goal purposes. And just battle through? I dunno.
Maybe I’ll keep an eye out for an upcoming book club that’s a mystery.
I like to imagine that there’s actually a fairly small number of kanji you’d have to learn within the domain of crafts you have books for, but I bet it’ll feel like they referenced WaniKani’s kanji list, and packed in as many kanji not covered by WaniKani as they can.
On the “children’s picture books” side of things, we’re in the middle a detective series right now:
I’m in trouble if I ever start reading the
I do want to try reading some Japanese mystery novels when I’m ready, but I have a bunch of English series I need to make the time to finish reading first!
Maybe? I mean yes, in some regards, but not in others but that’s my level limitation and I don’t have any way to check until I reach the higher ones. I guess I should clarify then and say specialized vocabulary since it’s all about how the kanji are grouped together ultimately.
I’ll take a look at the club!
Here’s to so much to read but so little time (and not quite the +++ skill yet). Which is not a bad problem to have!
Partway through chapter three of reading 「君の名は」, I didn’t feel like continuing. My goal was to at least complete reading chapter two, so that was accomplished.
I’ve seen the movie three times (twice in Japanese, once in English), and I’ve read the book in English. I really like the story, but reading through it in Japanese wasn’t grabbing my attention.
I don’t want to start a lot of things and leave them unfinished, but I also don’t want to restrict myself to something that feels like work. If I’m going to be looking up a lot of words along the way, I want it to be something where I enough looking them up.
I anticipated this, which is why I gave myself the goal of completing through chapter two.
With that set aside, where do my attentions go?
To “Breath of Fire”.
I’ve played this SNES title numerous times in English. In the past couple of years, I started playing it occasionally in Japanese, but being without kanji, I knew I was missing a lot. Mostly I was letting my memories of the English script fill things in for me.
I had fully planned to play through the end of the game in Japanese, but my manga reading took over everything else soon after, so I had only made it about 7/10 of way through the game.
Although I’ve considered getting back to it, there’s been this nagging feeling that I wasn’t getting as much as I wanted out of that play-through. I was able to glean enough from the Japanese to see where the English release skimped on some dialogue (understandable considering all the limitations translator Ted Woolsey was working under), but I still had a lot of questions. There are so many areas where you just feel like there should be more being said, or where you extra details have been left out.
Going through the start of the game in Japanese and English and comparing the two side-by-side, I must say, it’s quite the comparison!
By the end of the first scene, I think Woolsey must have been running out of space:
The fun part is working out the kanji for everything (especially when there are cases where a word has two possible kanji, used in different situations). And then from there translating into English and comparing with the official translation.
It’s far from perfect, but my translation is:
I’m not absorbing any new vocabulary I encounter, nor am I taking notice of any kanji that I don’t know, so it’s not productive from a learning standpoint. But it’s been a fun (albeit very slow) process thus far. I don’t expect to keep at it for very long, but that’s okay. Once I’ve gotten my fill of doing this, I’ll find another project to toy around with.
I’m experimenting with something I may move into its own thread later. Or maybe I’ll abandon the idea due to laziness. If I do follow through with it, I’d have to ask for community help finding/providing sample panels (in adherence with certain guidelines) to add in as examples.
A common question by new learners to Japanese “When can I start reading?” The actual underlying question is, “What knowledge do I need to be able to read?” It’s probably obvious that you need to be able to effortlessly read ひらがな and カタカナ, but what else?
The WaniKani Community forums have an Absolute Beginner Book Club, which gives a starting point:
The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) is an organization which provides certification of knowing certain amounts of Japanese. The N5 level is their lowest proficiency test.
There is no official list of what the JLPT considers to be N5 grammar rules (often refered to as “grammar points”). This leaves learner to rely on third party lists of about 800 to 100 grammar points that are expected to be part of any given JLPT N5 test.
Below is a list of grammar points considered “N5”, along with manga examples. This is not a guide to learning grammar, but rather a supplement. When learning grammar from another source, this list can be referred for examples of the grammar as it appears in actual manga.
Each grammar point includes manga panels showing examples of the grammar. Each panel includes a brief mention of what is going on (to provide context), a loose translation of the dialogue in the panel, and an explanation of the grammar point’s usage in the panel.
(If this girl comes to mind when you think copula, chances are you’re in the right place.)
One of the first things learned in grammar is the copula. In Japanese, the copula is used to define one noun as being another noun. Examples of this in English include:
The noun being defined is the subject, marked by the particle が. However, when the subject is known by context, it is not spoke. This includes when the subject noun has already been used as the topic, marked by the particle は).
In casual conversation, the copula だ appears after the group noun.
Yotsuba dreams that her father and neighbors are all dressed to go to the office for work. This includes her friend, Ena.
In Yotsuba’s outcry, the subject (unspoken as such, but clear from context) is えな. The copula だ links the noun (name) えな with the noun こども (child). This means that the group こども includes えな. えな is a こども.
Panda gets a job playing the part of a panda at the local zoo. While on his shift, he notices a group of children in school uniforms approaching.
The subject is unspoken, as it is neither stated directly nor indirectly. Context makes it clear that the bunch of children are the subject. The copula だ places these children in the group
Makoto returns to her relative’s home for the first time in many years. Her younger cousin Chinatsu doesn’t remember her, so her older couson Kei uses the opportunity to have some fun. He tells Chinatsu about Makoto:
In the group of people who are お
Waking to her first morning since arriving on the planet Aqua, Akari looks outside to see a girl in uniform.
The unstated subject is the girl Akari sees outside. The copula だ is putting that girl into the group ウンディーネ. When considering all the ウンディーネ that there are, the girl Akari sees is among them.
In cases where it’s obvious that the copula is intended, it may be left out in casual speech.
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When a noun used to be in a group, but is no longer in that group, the った is appended to the copula, producing だった.
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The prior forms of だ covered when a noun is within a group. But what about when the noun is not in a group? The grammar for this is a bit more complex, but initially it’s fine to simply memorize the two forms: ではない and its more colloquial counterpart じゃない.
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These negative forms of the copula act like adjectives: they describe the noun as not being in the group. For this reason, the past-tense forms follow the grammar rules for adjectives.
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In polite speech, the だ found at the end of a sentence is replaced by です.
As Akari begins her training as a gondola-piloting Undine, another Undine, Aika, shows up. Akari’s boss, Alicia, knows this girl.
Context gives the subject as “Aika today” (as opposed to Aika any other day). Filling in as the polite copula, です puts “Aika today” into the group
In Yotsuba’s dream mentioned earlier, her father and neighbors introduce themselves by means of trading business cards.
There are a few です used here.
First, Fuuka is saying she (as the unspoken subject) is こういうもの (this sort of thing). The polite copula stand-in です links the noun
Fuuka’s second line completely omits the subject, either directly or indirectly. In this case, the action of her holding out her business card is the context. This shows that in her second sentence, the small card in her hands is the subject. Fuuka is saying in the group めいし (business card), there is the object she is holding. The object in her hands in a めいし.
Yotsuba’s father and Asagi use a similar sentence, stating that the paper they each hold is in the group of めいし.
For polite speech, でした is used in place of だった.
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These negative forms of the copula act like adjectives: they describe the noun as not being in the group. For this reason, the past-tense forms follow the grammar rules for other adjectives.
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Japanese is a topic-prominent language, wherein sentences will commonly state a noun as the topic, then make a comment about that topic. Topic nouns are marked by either the particle は or the particle も.
The more common topic particle is the exclusive は. This is used when stating that the comment is exclusive to the given topic. This differentiates it from other topics, for which the comment does not apply.
After discovering she learned how to row a gondola the incorrect way, Akari tries rowing the correct way. She finds this to be difficult. Her employer, Alicia, watches over Akari’s attempts.
The topic of Alicia’s sentence is
The exclusivity of は marks this comment as being for
Miura visits her friend Ena. She finds Ena and Yotsuba playing telephone using two cups attached by a string.
The topic of Yotsuba’s sentence is みうら (Miura). The comment, which is in the form of a question, is 「けーたいもってるか」 (“owning a cell phone?”)
The exclusiveness of this は is probably because Yotsuba and Ena do not have cell phones. If they did, Yotsuba would be using も to ask if Miura also has one. But since they do not, Yotsub uses は to find if the comment of owning a cell phone applies to Miura (whereas it does not apply to Yotsuba or Ena).
During a visit to the zoo to ensure the animals are well fed, Sacchan, Yui, and Kotoha find the tiger chewing on a large bone. Thinking a bone that size could only have come from the tall shopkeeper in their neighborhood, the girls prepare to take down the tiger and save the shopkeeper.
Here, the exclusive は is used to provide a separate comment for each topic. When the topic is さっちゃん (Sacchan), the comment is 「
If Yui were instructed to do something as well, her name would be followed by は if she were given unique instructions, or も if she were tasked with going either either Sacchan or Kotoha.
The inclusive topic も is used to state that a comment is inclusive of the topioc. The comment applies to one or more other topics, and the same comment applies to this specific topic as well.
Lying in bed, Panda realizes he has nothing to do.
The inclusive particle も marks the noun
When Makoto visits to her relative’s house after a few years, she greets her young Chinatsu with a polite お
The topic, チトさん (Chito), has the comment 「
In some sentences, the comment being made contains its own topic-comment pair.
With time on his paws, Panda heads over to his friend Polar Bear’s café.
The first topic is シロクマくんのお
The exclusiveness means that this comment (about the shop being busy again today) applies only to the topic, Polar Bear’s shop. It does not apply, for example, to Panda’s home where he just came from.
Within the comment is a second topic-comment pair. Here, the topic
The inclusiveness means that the comment, about it being crowded, applies not only to today. This means the comment has applied to one or more prior days, suggesting that Polar Bear’s shop was crowded the last time Panda come over to visit.
In a sentence, the subject is a noun marked by が. It may be unspoken if clear from context.
The subject of a sentence is generally paired with a noun (which defines the subject), an adjective (which describes the subject), or a verb (the action the subject is performing).
Because Japanese is a topic-prominent language, not a subject prominent language, the subject is often unstated. Below include examples where the subject is stated, and where the subject is not stated.
Waking to her first morning since arriving on the planet Aqua, Akari notices the calendar in her new room. The month isn’t what she was expecting it to be.
The subject is カレンダー (calendar). It’s being described as being ８月 (August).
After his wife and son brought a stray kitten into their home, Kento brings home a shopping bag. The wife, Miwa, takes a look at the bag’s contents.
The subject being defined is unspoken. It’s clear from context that she’s defining the items in the bag as being
Yotsuba joins Fuuka and her friend Shimau in baking a cake. However, they all find mixing the batter to be painful labor.
The subject of Fuuka’s line is
Before class, Sae shows off the new keyholder her mother bought her.
Here, there are two subjects being described by adjectives. However, the particle が is not spoken by either of the classmates. This is because the subject is clear from context.
For the first classmate, the adjective かわいい (cute) is describing
The second classmate doesn’t state the subject. Contrary to the translation given above, the subject is actually Sae’s keyholder. The adjective うらやましい (enviable) is used to describe the keyholder as inducing envy. The keyholder is enviable.
Note: Japanese and English sentences handle certain uses of adjectives differently. While in Japanese this says “Sae’s keyholder is enviable,” in English we’d say “I’m jealous” or “it makes me jealous.”
Makoto and her cousins, Kei and Chinatsu, take a break from clearing weeds. Makoto uses this time to chase after a pheasant that’s shown up until she tires. Afterwards, her cat Chito readies to give it a try.
The subject here is チト (Chito). The section チト is performing is
After Sacchan and her friends finish eating the cookies from a tin container, Sacchan gets an idea.
The subject is unspoken. It’s clear from context that the subject is Sacchan and her friends. They are the ones that would be turning the tin container into a タイムカプセル (time capsule).
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During a visit to the zoo, Kotoha and her friends find the tiger chewing on a large bone. Thinking the bone must be from the tall shopkeeper in their neighborhood, the girls find a tour guide and inform her of what happened.
The subject トラ (tiger) is performing the action
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PENDING: Examples of を with an object unexpected in English. Examples: Getting out of a car(を), and walking on a sidewalk(を).
Upon learning that her cousin is a witch, Chinatsu gets to take a ride through the sky on a broom. She and her cousin land near Chinatsu’s brother, Kei.
Chinatsu drops the を in her line. If spoken, it would be 「
Here,
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A common grammar used in Japanese is to turn a sentence into a noun by adding の. This changes the sentence to “It is (that) [sentence]”.
This form is used to seek or provide context for an incomplete observation. The observer is unaware of the cause or reason for their observation (making it an incomplete observation). The observer may ask for the cause, or a second party may provide the cause, by making a statement ending with の.
Because this forms a noun sentence, the の may be followed by だ or です, or neither. When followed by だ or です, the の may be pronounced as ん.
If the original sentence is already a noun sentence, the original sentence’s ending だ becomes な before adding の.
On her way home from school, Ena notices a kid in the park pushing an empty swing.
Observed Result: A kid is pushing an empty swing.
Missing Cause: Why is the kid pushing the empty swing?
Because Ena is only thinking her question, and not asking the child, this observation remains incomplete.
Panda arrives his part-time job, and calls over to his co-worker.
This creates an incomplete observation for the full-time panda.
Observed Result: The part-time panda wants the full-time panda to listen to something.
Missing Cause: Why does the part-time panda want the full-time panda to listen to him?
Panda completes the observations by stating why he wanted the full-time panda to listen: because Panda wanted to tell about his receiving chocolates.
This comment presents a second incomplete observation.
Observed Result: The part-time panda says high school girls gave him chocolate.
Missing Cause: Why did high school girls give him chocolate?
Panda completes this second observation as well by explaining that it’s because it’s a Valentine’s Day gift.
Kei sees Makoto preparing to go for a walk. Knowing she’s new to the area, and that she had a bad sense of direction, he’s worried she’ll get lost.
This creates an incomplete observation for Kei.
Observed Result: Makoto, who’s known to get lost easily, says she will be all right.
Missing Cause: Why does Makoto believe there’s no need to worry over her getting lost?
Makoto completes the observation by giving the reason she’ll be all right. However, this creates a second incomplete observation for Kei.
Observed Result: Makoto won’t get lost because she’ll take her cat, Chito, with her.
Missing Cause: How will Chito keep Makoto from getting lost?
Makoto completes the second observation by filling in for Kei how Chito will help.
Observed Result: Makoto says there’s no reason to worry about her getting lost because Chito will be with her.
Missing Cause: Chito knows the area very well, and should therefore have no trouble finding her way back.
Hase finds Fujimiya eats her lunch alone on the roof of the school building. He joins her on the roof.
This create an incomplete observation for Fujimiya. She observes Hase coming to the roof to eat his lunch, but does not know the cause, the reason, for him choosing to do so.
Without being prompted, Hase fills in the reason:
Yotsuba sees a school for the first time, just as students are leaving for the day.
Because people are living/animate, いる is used to refer to their existence.
Yotsuba and her father drive into the town they’re moving to. Yotsuba isn’t used to seeing so many homes.
Because houses and shops are non-living/inanimate, ある is used to refer to their existence.
Heading back to the classroom after buying lunch, Futuba bumps into someone. As the guy continues walking, Futaba is reminded of a boy she knew in middle school. When her friend asks what’s wrong, Futaba excuses herself.
Although she didn’t really forget to buy anything, anything Futaba would buy from the cafeteria would be a non-living/inanimate item, so ある is used to refer to its existence.
PENDING: More forms. (Negative, past, polite, etc.)
PENDING: ichidan vs godan
At the park, Ena explains to Yotsuba what a swing is by showing her how it’s used.
The verb
Miwa tries to give a bath to the stray kitten her son found, but the cat runs off through the house. Miwa corners the cat to try again.
The verb
While Yotsuba is out exploring, an older girl, Fuuka, greets her by name. Yotsuba asks how the girl knows her.
The verb
Since Fuuka has come to pick up Yotsuba, the verb くる (in its completed form, きた) is used.
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Alicia surprises Akari with a day off from training.
The verb
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After their planned trip to the aquarium was cancelled, Kanami and her big brother instead draw pictures of fish together. Her brother draws a big fish with a small cleaner wrasse fish inside its mouth. Kanami is concerned for the little fish’s safety, but her brother assures her it’s safe.
The verb
The plate Kanami hands Makoto slips, and shatters as it hits the ground. Kanami expects Makoto will be angry with her, but instead his concern is only that she didn’t get hurt.
The verb
A commotion occurs when Kanami and a couple of her classmates are knocked to the ground in the lunch room at school. One boy claims he saw Sae push Kanami.
The verb
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Fuuka meets her new neighbor, and learns that his daughter, Yotsuba, wondered off. Fuuka finds Yotsuba, and readies to take her back home.
The verb
Due to circumstances, Kanami and her big brother haven’t eaten dinner together in a long time. Kanami learns to make his favorite food, in home of luring him to the dinner table.
The verb
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The same rule applies with the polite (ます) form.
Makoto and Chito spent the last few hours traveling by train and bus, followed by a long walk from the bus stop to their relative’s home, where they will be living. Once in their new room, Makoto sits down to rest a bit.
The verb
Makoto is no longer in the process of becoming tired. She has already completed becoming tired.
Adjectives express properties (cold, soft) and states (happy, lonely). They are used to tell what kind of thing the subject (or noun being modified) is.
An adjective can form a predicate on its own. Then the topic and subject are unspoken (due to being known from context), a sentence may contain only an adjective.
While out for a stroll during the acqua alta high tide event, Akari happens upon the company Aika works for. Aika invites Akari for her first visit inside.
Here, the word すごい (amazing) creates an entire sentence on its own. Likewise,
An adjective can modify a noun. To do this, the adjective appears immediately before the noun being modified.
After encountering a strange kid in the park, Ena is reminded that a family is moving in.
By specifying
In their plain form, adjectives end in the hiragana character い.
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This section is mostly pending.
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Chinatsu tries to get info from her big brother Kei after overhearding their newly-moved-in cousin Makoto talking with a cat. When Makoto joins them in the kitchen, Chinatsu scurries out.
Since Chinatsu (the one being talked about) has left the room, she’s away from both Kei (the speaker) and Makoto (the listener), so あいつ is used.
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The pronoun これ is used to refer to a noun that is near the speaker.
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The pronoun それ is used to refer to a noun that is near the listener.
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The pronoun あれ is used to refer to a noun that is away from both the speaker and the listener.
After arriving in a city for the first time, Yotsuba finds her way to a nearby playground. Uncertain what the swing is, she asks a girl passing by.
The swing is in the playground, and Yotsuba stopped the girl outside of the playground. Because the swing is not near either Yotsuba (the speaker) or the girl (the listener), the word あれ is used to refer to the swing.
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The pronoun そこ is used to refer to a location near the speaker.
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The pronoun そこ is used to refer to a location near the listener.
Yotsuba and her father arrive at their new home with a full truck. Yotsuba helps unload by carrying a small box into the house.
The place where the box can be set is closer to Yotsuba (the listener), so the word そこ is used.
The pronoun あそこ is used to refer to a location away from both the speaker and the listener.
Akari and Aika follow the feline president of Aria Company as he sails off for the day. Akari loses sight of him for a bit, but soon finds him turning into an alley.
Since President Aria’s location is away from both Akari and Aika, あそこ is used.
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After a brief reunion between cousins Kei and Makoto, during Makoto’s first visit in years, the two ready to head to Kei’s house. Although Makoto insists she remembers the way…
Since Makoto is closer to the direction she’s heading, そっち is used.
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Suspicious of her cousin who’s just moved in, Chinatsu keeps an eye on Makoto during lunch. When Makoto looks Chinatsu’s away, Chinatsu quickly turns away.
Since the television is not near either Makoto (the speaker) or Chinatsu (the listener), あっち is used.
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Upon getting off the bus, Makoto notices that there is still snow, unlike back home in Tokyo where it’s all melted by now.
Since Makoto is referring to the mound of snow by her side (and not near the listener, her cat Chito), こんなに is used.
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Chinatsu sets a futon outside the door for her cousin, Makoto, who’s moving in. From there, Makoto can be overheard having a conversation with her cat. Chinatsu hurries to her big brother Kei, and asks how long Makoto will be staying with them.
Since she’s referring to “that” which her brother (the listener) had said, そう is used.
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The adjective この indicates a noun near the speaker.
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The adjective その indicates a noun near the listener.
After moving to a new city, Yotsuba wanders off to explorer. Yotsuba’s father asks their new neighbor Fuuka to bring Yotsuba back if she sees her. Fuuka tries to do so, but Yotsuba mistakes that she’s being kidnapped, and she runs away. Fuuka’s older sister Asagi hears Yotsuba’s cry for help.
As Yotsuba is moving away from Fuuka and toward Asagi, Fuuka uses その to indicate the kid she’s referring to.
The adjective あの indicates a noun away from both the speaker and the listener.
Yotsuba mistook Fuuka as a kidnapper, but soon learned from her father that Fuuka is their new neighbor.
Since the lady Yotsuba is referring to (Fuuka) is standing away from Yotsuba and her father, あの is used to refer to her.
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The combination nounになる is used to state the subject becomes the noun.
Due to Makoto’s bad sense of direction, Chinatsu walks with her the long distance to the department store. When they arrive, the store is larger than Makoto expected.
Makoto is saying (the unspecified subject) will become (なる) the に-marked noun
What happened to your cards? Are you still doing your daily reading practice??
Grammar anything is such a crazy huge project- do you feel passionate enough about it to open yourself up to the many opinions that exist in this community?!? 
Even parsing through N5 grammar points sounds like a minefield. How would you choose what to include and ignore, and what sources would you pull from…
I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t undertake this behemoth task that would surely take over your life, but isn’t this what JTMW does?? I still haven’t bought it yet. Soon!! I also have an adverbs and adjectives book picked out, and verbs. And I am currently still working my way through All About Particles. Would you consider focusing on one topic and fleshing that out, as opposed to grammar in general??
If you want an example for こいつ I know I pretty good panel iirc
I’m still doing daily reviews, although I haven’t been adding as many cards as I’d like to. It’s not always easy to find a +1 card when reading.
The latest thing I’m trying to see if it impacts anything is using Japanese definitions rather than English words for the meaning (in case I forget a word). For manga-sourced cards, this isn’t as necessary, because there’s typically enough context in the manga panel on the back of the card. For anime-sourced cards, it can sometimes be a bit more difficult to discern context to remember the word’s meaning.
Naturally, the issue there is that even definitions out of a dictionary for kids typically include words I don’t know!
(In these examples, the line directly above the image is the simple dictionary definition.)
So far, I’ve missed only three days this year. The first day missed was during a multi-day visit from family from out of town, so that’s fine. The second day missed was yesterday (I kind of started compiling the material for my prior post later in the day when I originally planned to do my reading, so…)
The third day would be today, but maybe I can squeeze in a whole chapter before bedtime if I start reading right after this post, and if I read something with short chapters.
One issue I’m in the middle of is filling out my daily reading.
I started 「からかい上手の高木さん」, but then it was picked for ABBC, so I have that on hold.
I’d been reading “ARIA”, but it finally is getting released digital, and the next volume to read will be out in over a month, so that’s on hold. (I prefer digital over physical.)
I bought the first volume of 「それでも歩は寄せてくる」, but I almost read the entire volume all on Friday evening. I finished it up Saturday.
Looks like I’m about to tackle chapter 36 of ポケットモンスタースペシャル! (I’ve waited for two decades to learn about the character introduced in this chapter.)
I’m considering doing a write-up (either here or in the tadoku thread) after the month’s end on my first quarter reading progress.
Some things in grammar people will have very opposing positions on. (Is です a copula or not? Is です the polite form of だ or not?) Considering I’m intending to focus on compiling examples of grammar in action, and not delve into explaining it (just some very high level information), I should be able to write things vaguely enough to avoid any grammar controversies. And if I don’t, someone can recommend an improvement =D
I’m initially aiming for the kind of things you’d find on any N5 grammar list. That shrinks the list quite a bit. I may also factor in what I know I’ve seen in manga (although that may exclude any N5 grammar that’s a bit more literary).
This is more like having the Genki textbook and the Genki workbook. “Manga the Japanese Way” does a very nice job of explaining grammar in a very small number of sentences. I plan to explain grammar far less than that. I’m more interested in saying: “Here’s this grammar. It kind of means this. Read about it elsewhere if you don’t know it. Then come back and check out these examples from various ABBC and (some) BBC-level manga, and how its meaning applies in each example.”
Continuing with the textbook/workbook idea, this (if I don’t be lazy to quit tomorrow) would be more about having multiple sample panels per grammar point, across various manga series.
That would be a different goal, and one that’s already been done many times, by many people, for many topics.
For me, personally, reading an article focused on a single topic can be a bit boring (even though I enjoy grammar very much). And plain text example sentences tend to be boring for me, and often lack context. That’s one reason I like JTMW: it makes the examples more interesting by using actual manga as sources. But if one example isn’t enough, well, that’s (understandably) all there is.
Also, I like having a way to refer back to grammar I may have forgotten because I haven’t seen it in a while. My post above at the moment is mostly compiling bits and pieces I’ve saved into folders on my computer over time to refer back if/as needed.
I have a feeling Yotsuba uses こいつ quite a few times (although I’m only using material from the free chapters on ComicWalker). But if I don’t be lazy and I actually continue it, and if I don’t find a suitable こいつ to use during the initial population of grammar samples, I’ll check in with you =D
I haven’t formalized my reading schedule for April, but here’s how things are looking:
After a very brief break following finishing reading Sailormoon, I started reading Sailor V in March.
I’m fairly certain I’ve read this series in English (I own the English volumes, after all!), yet so far I’m not recognizing anything from it past for first two pages that I long ago failed to get past in Japanese.
Thus far, the main thing I’m getting from it is that Minako doesn’t feel like the lead character at all (considering she wasn’t in Sailormoon).
I normally read about 45 manga pages per day, but this month I’ll likely have a day for reading multiple manga that have short chapters. おじさまと猫 is definitely one of those.
The second of the short-chapter series. This month will bring me to the end of Red’s story. It feels a bit odd considering how long the series continues after this volume.
(English cover because I haven’t bought it in Japanese yet.)
So far, I’m still in material that was in the anime, and that I’ve read in English.
Keeping up a pace of one chapter in one day each week has gotten so much easier than when I started volume one nearly two years ago. Back then, I had no idea just how much progress I’d be able to make in what has felt like a small frame of time (for me, though I’m sure others progress much faster) by watching Cure Dolly videos every day, and reading reading reading.
That said, it’s nice to still be in the “I own this in English” territory for those one or two times in a volume where I’m completely clueless on what someone is saying.
I can definitely feel this series starting to reach for its end. Last month’s volume had some great scenes, so hopefully that continues into this month’s volume.
I practically read volume one of this in one sitting, so I’ll have to be more careful with volume 2. It won’t help that the actual content is about 114 pages, and many pages are very sparse on text. I’ll include this on my “read short chapters of many series” day to help slow down reading through it.
I’ve decided to more closely follow the book club pace for this one, which means this one will likely go into my “short chapters” day as well. That should help fill up that day each week.
With all the “short chapter” series, I needed something with longer chapters to read.
This series came up as a book club nomination, but doesn’t seem it’ll get enough votes any time soon, so I decided to check it out. I don’t know what it’ll be like, but it seems it should be easy enough.
This one should help pass the time until the next volume of Flying Witch is out. It’s another that will help fill a day in my weekly reading calendar.
(And I still have one day to fill…)
Do you enjoy reading mangas in Japanese or is it more like a chore???
(Forgive my curiosity)
Most of the manga I read in Japanese, I do enjoy very much. Some series I have to limit myself on how much I read, or I’d go through it too quickly.
Things that reduce enjoyment are:
I decided to pick 「耳をすませば」 as my Sunday manga. Upon starting reading, I found there was no furigana. Thinking I might need to shelf it for now and pick something else, I decided to see how far I could get. On the next page, there was (some) furigana. As it turns out, some kanji has furigana and some does not.
This works out very well for me. I know I read furigana when it’s available, to the detriment of getting to know certain kanji better. But I also know it’s too easy for me to get very far reading manga without any furigana. This manga is the perfect compromise.
Also, I’m enjoying finally seeing かもしれない written with kanji:
Even though I’m familiar with what this expression is made up of (thanks Cure Dolly!), I feel like seeing it written with kanji makes my understand feel tangible.
Having finished reading the first quarter in one sitting, I’m now left to decide whether to keep reading, or stretch it out across the whole month.
hey there… thought I had tried everything (you probably already had seen this…but if not)…
[Userscript] ConfusionGuesser - WaniKani / API And Third-Party Apps - WaniKani Community
Gonna see if it helps kill the leech hell that is wk. Did my morning review session and not everything was helpful but there was absolutely one specific vocab that jumped out right away making it seem worthwhile for me…time will tell.
If you have tried it… would be curious about how it has been working for you. (and any shortcomings as well)
