Thanks for this. I took a look but based on the guide using the Google Translate app seems to be a better workaround for Kindle than Copyfish. And I gave it a test run and it works well enough!!
Thanks for pointing me in this direction.
I have just learned that the English release, which I mistakenly thought was discontinued at some point, is actually still going. I don’t recall seeing a digital release when I looked a few years ago, but all recent English releases have included digital, and the earlier releases also started getting digital releases. I haven’t been reading English-translated manga much lately (except for the very occasional continued reading of Detective Conan, Honey and Clover, and Oh My Goddess), but I’m definitely going to add Hayate into the mix.
I’ll still finish up volume 1 in Japanese (under 30 pages left!) before buying it in English, but my chances of reading volume 2 in Japanese have hit 0%.
Let’s see, 36 out of 52 volumes are out in English, leaving just 16 more to the end of the series. At a rate of two volumes released per year, it looks like the English translation will conclude in 2036. So, I should take my time with the series.
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I’ve worked out a framework for October. The goal of October is to be more intentional.
WaniKani Routine
My WaniKani routine has fallen apart this past month. Insomnia has left me with no time to review before work in the morning. Laziness left me not completing my reviews some days mid-month. I need to figure out how to properly utilize the reviews timeline, and aim to not have 80+ reviews waiting every time I go to reviews.
I’ve also had extra poor performance on reviews. I’m 55 days into level 24. I’ve done barely any lessons this past month. I’m at 96 apprentice items. I have 471 leeches.
Daily task:
- Do a write-up on a few failed items.
Hopefully that will help me remember them.
Grammar Learning and Reinforcement
Option A: I need to pick one of the following to do each day:
- Watch a Cure Dolly video
- Read a Mangajin chapter
- Read a Japanese the Manga Way chapter
…then do a quick write-up on it if I learned anything. Sometimes I’ll read a chapter that covers something I already know, so I can skip a write-up.
Option B: Write an entry on a grammar point to add to my Japanese language notes web site, or improve my notes on an existing page.
Reading
I’m well ahead of my manga/picture book reading goals, so I’m putting a few upcoming items on hold until November:
- ARIA 第２巻
- 異国迷路のクロワーゼ 第２巻
- かぐや姫の恋人（セーラームーン）
- そんなわけで名探偵
This should keep my daily reading goal down around 25 pages, so I can focus on grammar more.
As a daily task, do write-ups on the grammar found in the following:
- One manga panel where I have no idea what’s going on.
- One manga panel where I know the material, but parsing and understanding was slower than I’d like.
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You have quite the daily plan: dealing with WK, multiple write ups, and reading 25 pages… I know how WK works, but are you spreading out the rest of your studies throughout the day??
My Japanese reading/studies tend to fit into a five hour span after work/dinner and before going to bed.
Once I finish volume 8 of 「三ツ星カラーズ」 (very easy material), my main reading will be book clubs, which will be closer to 20 days per day to keep up with all four of them.
I’m hoping the reading-time reduction (compared with August, September) will allow me to fit in the grammar learning and write-ups.
October Day 1
WK Reviews
The first day of any effort is always the most “motivation” day. I managed to get up a little earlier so I could complete my reviews in the morning. I also did all my reviews during my lunch break. And I cleared out my reviews on my afternoon break. And I got to all my reviews after I clocked out. And I made certain to get to the available reviews after doing my scheduled book club posting. And I did more reviews after reading. I’m looking forward to having only about 20 reviews shortly after posting this entry.
WK Lessons
With my Apprentice having dipped below 90, I went ahead with a few more lessons (one kanji, two vocabulary):
| Lesson | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 載 | publish | Can I remember 𢦏 is pronounced さい, and is also in 裁? (Unlikely.) |
| 可燃ゴミ | burnable garbage | I was able to guess the meaning and the pronunciation. Should make for a quick and easy burn. |
| 不燃ゴミ | nonburnable garbage | Although the meaning and pronunciation were easy to guess, I have a feeling this one won’t burn so easily. |
These vocabulary words of course go counter to what Fuuka taught me:
Where do I place my trust? In Fuuka? In the Crabigator?
Reading
Here are my day’s reading goals and actual number of pages read:
| Material | Goal | Read |
|---|---|---|
| アオハライド | 6 pages | 16 pages |
| おじさまと猫 | 1 page | 1 page |
| ひとりぼっちの○○生活 | 2 pages | 1 page |
| ふらいんぐうぃっち | 5 pages | 5 pages |
| 三ツ星カラーズ | 3 pages | 3 pages |
| 美少女戦士セーラームーン | 8 pages | 8 pages |
| Total | 25 pages | 34 pages |
I don’t think I’ll be finishing volume 1 of ひとりぼっちの○○生活 by the end of December, but I don’t mind extending it into 2021 if I can keep up one page per day. (In reality, I’ll probably miss a lot of days, and it’ll extend into 2022…)
Grammar
I’m skipping reading/watching grammar material for today. Sounds like a bad start to the month, but there is a reason.
I failed to factor in my Thursday レンタルおにいちゃん comparison thread. And I didn’t prepare any of it in advance!
Thankfully (for my October plans), this was the last comparison for volume 1 of the series.
And, I’m still doing grammar reviews for today’s read material.
Difficult Panel
I was going to write here my working through a difficult panel from アオハライド, but I failed miserably, so it instead went into the appropriate アオハライド thread for outside assistance.
Review Panel
As a review of something I know, but I don’t process fast enough, I’m highlighting this panel from 三ツ星カラーズ:
Context: Yui and her friends previously recorded a film about their neighborhood, and posted it online. Sacchan wonders how many views it’s had by now, and Kotoha suggests it may have had about 10,000,000 views. Yui checks, finding the video has only had 83 views.
「全部知り合いだと思います」
“I think it’s all people we know.”
と思う remains one of my weakness.
I should be able to simply read it as “I think”. The problem lies in when I first learned about と as marking a quote. I read this like she’s quoting what she thinks (which may very well be the case), but that doesn’t align with how I process my English counterpart of this sentence.
It doesn’t help that English typically begins a sentence with “I think” and Japanese ends the sentence with 「と思う」.
I’ll have to work more on quickly understanding と思う. I think.
As a small victory, when in the next panel Sacchan asks about the 広告収入, I was able to recognize the kanji (after reading the furigana) and know she’s asking about the “ad revenue” thanks to having learned the words from WaniKani.
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Perhaps it would be easier to think of it as “I think that”? It would work for most English translations and it’s also just dropped from the translation you suppled, “I think [that] it’s all people we know.”
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Whenever I see the と思う, I mentally add quotes. It really is the quoting と particle (or at least that’s my understanding).
全部知り合いだと思います
“It’s all the people we know,” I think.
It would be weird to actually say it this way in English, but it helps me conceptualize the sentence and focus on the actual thought without と思う getting in the way, if that makes sense.
I’m excited to see your progress this month! 
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What WK is teaching you is what is written on the signs at the neighbourhood rubbish collection points, but I expect Fuuka reflects how people actually talk about it.
Nice one, it took me an extra second or two…
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This is a good distinction to know. Thanks! Now I’m trying to recall if I’ve read any manga or watched any anime that actually shows something being placed in a trash area, so I could check if for the signs. I’m sure I have, but can’t recall any offhand…
It makes me feel pleased when I see stuff popping up in real life. Though it’s usually a reminder that reading is imperative otherwise you forget stuff.
Meanwhile an oft repeated complaint in the forums is about vocabulary (amongst other, well, everything about WK). Vocabulary is vocabulary. It’ll pop up somewhere, eventually.
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October Day 2
WK Reviews
I set my alarm for a little earlier, to ensure I’d have time for morning reviews. Except I accidentally set the wrong alarm, one that’s currently disabled… My morning reviews became my lunch break reviews. I managed to complete my after-work reviews as well, so I’m currently keeping on top of it. It’s nice having only 30 reviews to do at a time.
Worst review of the day:
Card: 裁
Me: “Oh, I know this one! It’s さい!”
Correct!
Me: “And it means publish!”
Bzzt!
I…may have gone a little too fast on that one. Otherwise, I’m certain I would have gotten it right. Well, it is what it is. I’ll get it right next time. It’ll be back soon enough.
WK Lessons
My apprentice dipped again. As much as I don’t want to add to my daily reviews just yet, I did some more lessons.
Once again, one kanji and two vocabulary:
| Lesson | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 層 | layer | Somehow, the mnemonic for this one has me thinking of secrets rather than layers. I’d better be careful. |
| 狭い | narrow | It took be quite a while to learn the reading+meaning through iKnow.jp. Now it’s a matter of learning the kanji. |
| 肩 | shoulder | Vocabulary version matching the kanji. |
Maybe I can get Zoicite to help me remember 層 as layers:
超高層ビル… Very high layers building.
Reading
Today’s reading goals and actual number of pages read:
| Material | Goal | Read |
|---|---|---|
| アオハライド | 6 pages | 10 pages |
| おじさまと猫 | 1 page | 2 pages |
| ひとりぼっちの○○生活 | 2 pages | 1 page |
| ふらいんぐうぃっち | 5 pages | 8 pages |
| 三ツ星カラーズ | 3 pages | 7 pages |
| 美少女戦士セーラームーン | 8 pages | 14 pages |
| Total | 25 pages | 42 pages |
Reading was relatively quick and easy today that nothing stood out as something I wanted to review. That’s probably a sign that I’m being too comfortable when I read a panel that I don’t know 100%. Although, I think any time that came up today, it was due to unknown vocabulary rather than difficult grammar.
Grammar
I decided to read the first chapter of Mangajin today. Now, where did I put it…
Ah, right, my webcam for work meetings doesn’t reach the top of my monitor, so I built a stack of books to place it on… If I remove Mangajin, the top of my head will be out of frame in Monday morning’s meeting. I’m fine with that.
The first chapter covers 「よろしくお願いします」. As the book says, I learned it as “please to meet you” back in high school. Since then, I think I got a feel of its wider array of meanings/usages from over a decade of watching anime. I considered skipping this chapter, but it was a good read, with nice examples from various manga showing off numerous uses of the phrase, and variations.
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do you think it would be easier if you thought that japanese words don’t have an english equivalent? i often can’t translate japanese into english but that doesn’t mean i don’t understand it. i usually see it as something completely different than anything that would exist in english. it feels like you are always testing your ability to translate from japanese to english when the whole point is to experience it in japanese, right? i might be missing the point tho 
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Ultimately, yes, that’s where I will want to be. と思う is a case where the concept maps one to one with English, but the implementation differs. That makes it too easy for my mind to try and map the implementations.
At the very least, it’s not an issue with understanding. It’s just that I need to slow down and process it whenever I see it right now, and that’s what I’m hoping to get past.
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October Day 3
WK Lessons
My apprentice was around 80 went I went to bed, was up to 96 late in the morning, and then by noon was at 78. It’s hard to tell if I should be doing lessons or if I’ll suddenly find myself over 100 apprentice. (It doesn’t help that I 100% did not recognize 載 at all, even after working out which radicals were in it and trying to figure out what the story for it may have been.)
On more time, one kanji and two vocabulary:
| Lesson | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 型 | model, type | |
| 腰 | waist | Single-kanji vocabulary with the same meaning are always welcome. |
| 触る | to touch | I learned this one on iKnow.jp years ago, but still need to work on recognizing the kanji. |
I looked up usage of 型 in episodes of the first season of Sailormoon, and it looks like every use is pronounced かた or がた. I couldn’t find a single one pronounced けい to help me mentally put the kanji and sound together.
Instead, it’s up to the twins’ explanation of why Haruhi’s
(Spoiler: When this kanji came up for its first review, I didn’t remember it at all until I saw the reading.)
Reading
Over-reading the past two days has lowered my daily goal a small amount.
A bit on how my daily goal is determined.
My reading goals are based on these variables:
- Deadline: How many days until my target date to complete the volume?
- Remaining pages: How many pages are left in the volume?
Things that adjust the numbers:
- Reading past the goal.
- Naturally reading extra pages one day means fewer to read the following days.
- Not reading.
- Likewise, if I don’t read one day, then that day’s goal gets spread across the remaining days.
- Uneven chapter lengths. My formula expects the same page count evenly distributed over each day of the reading period.
- This is only an issue with book club reads, which are weekly rather than daily.
- I think a new story arc in Sailormoon (60 to 70 pages rather than 45) is the only time I encounter this.
- Pages with little to no dialogue.
- If a page has very little or no dialogue, I don’t count it in my pages read.
- If multiple pages have very little dialogue, I’ll count them as a single page read.
- This has the same result as “reading past the goal”, as I’m covering extra pages to reach my pages read goal.
| Material | Goal | Read |
|---|---|---|
| アオハライド | 5 pages | 6 pages |
| おじさまと猫 | 1 page | 2 pages |
| ひとりぼっちの○○生活 | 2 pages | 1 page |
| ふらいんぐうぃっち | 5 pages | 9 pages |
| 三ツ星カラーズ | 2 pages | 4 pages |
| 美少女戦士セーラームーン | 8 pages | 9 pages |
| Total | 23 pages | 31 pages |
That finished up this week’s chapter of アオハライド, just three days in. That should leave me with a little bit more time for grammar for the next few days.
Grammar
Lesson
I had considered skipping the first few Mangajin lessons, due to being basic stuff. But I enjoyed reading lesson one, on よろしく, so I decided I’d continue not-skipping.
Lesson two was on 「すみません」.
I learned this word back in high school Japanese class. The textbook said it means “I’m sorry”, but the textbook also said ごめんなさい means “I’m sorry”. Thus we were told (separately from the book) that すみません means “excuse me”, like when you are bothering someone to get their attention.
Since then, I’ve heard すみません many times in over a decade of anime-watching.
And I’ve seen it plenty in the past year and a half of manga-reading. That gave me a broad understanding of the many situations where and how it is used. (At least as much as one can garner considering the source material.)
But I never really considered the etymology (so to speak) of すみません. As Mangajin explains, it’s actually the verb 済む, “to come to an end”. Although I knew it was a polite form, I also never considered that it’s a negative verb. Thus, I further never realized that すまない is the casual version of すみません!
I know I shouldn’t overthink it, but I’m probably going to have 「済まない」 in mind the next few times I encounter a form of すみません in manga.
Review Panel
I read this panel twice without getting it. I had to break it down to figure it out.
Kotoha (left) and Sacchan (right) are walking home from school when they see Yui, the leader of their group “Colors”. Yui goes to a different school, and is with a couple of her friends from class.
さっちゃん：「リーダーがカラーズの時以外もリーダーしてるか確かめ作戦だ」
The main difficulty was getting caught up on the 時以外. It should have been easy, but I think the two kanji-only words being side-by-side made my mind treat is as one long, unknown kanji, the result being that I didn’t process any meaning out of it, even on a second reading.
Looking at all the parts (to refresh myself on even the parts I know), this sentence first breaks clearly into the “topic/comment” model:
Topic: リーダーがカラーズの時以外
Comment: リーダーしてるか
The topic is a clause, with the subject “leader” (the title used for Yui). I haven’t yet learned enough to know if Japanese has dependent clauses the way English does, but I can’t find any way for this clause to be complete. The predicate part is “except for when she’s in Colors”, giving an incomplete “Outside of the time Leader is in Colors.” The topic ends with an inclusive も, suggesting that Sacchan is going to state something that’s the case when Yui is in their group, which she wants to know whether is also the case when she’s not in their group.
The comment portion is, “Does she still (do being) leader?” “Is she still the leader?”
Considering Yui doesn’t do much as “leader” (Sacchan’s often the one behind everything), I don’t know whether she’s looking to see whether Yui is being leader-like, or if she just wonders if Yui acts the same around her school friends as she does in Colors.
The final portion is modified by that topic/comment: 確かめ作戦だ. “Confirmation plan.” Everything Colors does is a 作戦 of some sort, to the point you’d think I’d get 作
and 戦 right a little more often in WaniKani reviews…
3 Likes
More information? This sounds like one of those “isn’t there a script for that?” situations. 
Or, if it were me (and it has been) I’d give it a handful of days of just doing reviews to get those apprentice numbers significantly lower (if this in fact your goal). I don’t have that many leeches so I know that my numbers are mostly from lessons, but I stay around 50 regardless to keep burnout at bay.
It’s not unusual for me to go from, say, 88 apprentice to 102 after a 30-card review session. Happens a few times a week. If I’m trying to keep my apprentice count below 100, and I’m at 88 and do a few lessons, I might find myself over 100 by the end of the day, and possible over 110 during the next day.
Maybe I have too many leeches… I constantly see the same cards I’ve failed many many many times and I still can’t remember them. I look at the mnemonic and think, “Oh! How did I forget this? (Again…)”
I’m not certain the best way to get an accurate number of leeches, but I think I have 555.
What does “too many” look like for you? But if you’re thinking about it, and recognize that you’re failing the same cards multiple times, it may be worth it to approach your reviews for these cards outside of WK. Be it a reminder on your phone, or physically writing them out on post it notes, etc…
But you’re a person with lots of strategies so I know you’ll figure something out!
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I have no idea =P
I just need to find something that works for me. As bad as my memory is on remembering mnemonics, I seem to have the ability to associate with anime or manga. In many cases, I can remember what I was reading or watching wherein I first learned a word.
Problem with utilizing that method is it can be a time-consuming process to find matches for WK lessons:
- I can’t text-search all my manga.
- Most of the anime I’ve seen I can’t find subtitles for.
- I can take a while to find a line from the subtitle file in the episode. (Since I buy anime on DVD, often time the timer doesn’t start at 0:00 for each episode, so it doesn’t match the downloaded subtitle file’s timing.)
- The line containing the kanji/word in the the anime isn’t always spoken clearly enough for me to understand it (thus I can’t create an association).
I did try putting anime association with my leeches, but soon gave up due to the time and effort involved:
I’ve had 50/50 success with 層 and 型 (new kanji), though. So long as I can associate the radicals to the scenes screenshots in my Day 2 and Day 3 posts, I’ve been able to work out the pronunciation and meaning by tying them to words that use the kanji.
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October Day 4
WK Lessons
My apprentice was down to 64 early in the day, which is quite the drop. It fluctuates so much, though, that I’m always hesitant to do more lessons. Here’s what my daily review counts have been recently:
| Day | Reviews | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ９月２６日 | 163 | |
| ９月２７日 | 142 | |
| ９月２８日 | 129 | |
| ９月２９日 | 63 | I probably slacked off this day… |
| ９月３０日 | 157 | |
| １０月０１日 | 88 | |
| １０月０２日 | 120 | |
| １０月０３日 | 136 |
I’d say 120 to 140 reviews is the most comfortable for me (on a weekday).
I’ll have to monitor how the daily review counts go up as I’m doing more lessons. (As for apprentice, the day ended with it at 77.)
| Lesson | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 庁 | agency, gov. office | |
| 腕 | arm | Keeping the vocabulary easy. |
| 腕時計 | wristwatch | Ah, I already know this one. |
I haven’t learned 視 yet, but if I can fit Umino into WaniKani’s mnemonic, placing him under the canopy in the street, maybe I’ll still be able to recall the meaning of 庁.
Reading
| Material | Goal | Read |
|---|---|---|
| アオハライド | 0 pages | 0 pages |
| おじさまと猫 | 1 page | 5 pages |
| ひとりぼっちの○○生活 | 2 pages | 1 page |
| ふらいんぐうぃっち | 4 pages | 10 pages |
| 三ツ星カラーズ | 2 pages | 0 pages |
| 美少女戦士セーラームーン | 8 pages | 11 pages |
| Total | 17 pages | 27 pages |
Grammar
I happened upon 「
Mangajin’s third lesson is on feminine speech. Nothing new for me there, but a nice little read.
No panel reviews, as something came up that took the time I would have spent on it.
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