Poor pup! They are so lucky to have such a dedicated dog-parent 
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For 三日ぼうず, some etymology about the idiom: ぼうず means “Buddhist monk” and of course 三日 is “3 days” so it literally means "3 day monk. " the implication of course is that someone who quits after only 3 days of being a monk is someone that can’t stick to anything.
Also, one would probably see it written 三日坊主. But since it was a children’s Kanji book, the third Kanji wouldnt be expected to be known.
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This is a fantastic saying 
Another interesting saying I think I translated correctly
Four and eight kinds of suffering. 四苦八苦。Buddhist term meaning to be in dire distress.
One saying I hope I translated incorrectly because it makes no sense!?
二重まぶた。 The closest I could get was double edged eyelid?
I might add to this post later with useful vocabulary terms used such as: brief comment, threefold, crossroads, fragment.
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Oh right! I have heard about that before! It is a really popular cosmetic surgery, right? Thank you, my brain was stuck on the English ‘double edged sword’ 
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Oh no! I started playing Stardew Valley and forgot to set an alarm for my lessons 
I might be fine to stay up an extra half hour/hour for the four hour review? Well, I can easily stay up but hopefully my accuracy doesn’t tank…
Today I went through all my homework and noted any mistakes made. Spelling errors get an Anki card, grammar gets something appropriate, depending on how well I understand why I was wrong 
One CureDolly video (lesson 17/video 19 in playlist)
I am not yet ready to play video games in Japanese. I will come back to that in a month or three.
Tomorrow, it would be wiser to not complete any lessons as I will be quite distracted.
But. I want my 0/0 streak so I am going to try my best to manage it! 27 lessons to complete before 7pm!
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I am pleased to say, everything is progressing smoothly this week. (Overall of course, there are always small kinks.)
Class last night was incredibly fun. We started topic six, hobbies, and I noticed that there was a marked difference in the depth and detail of our discussion. As a class we have become comfortable with hiragana and the flexibility word order. We have a small pool of vocabulary that is quickly remembered. We often make mistakes with particles, but their role is not so foreign as it once felt. As a beginner, I feel the significance of each tiny step forward, as at this stage they are a each a significant improvement on what I could do before.
Level six is going well. My accuracy is staying high 
reviews are increasing in number, however! Although at first I think to myself ‘53 reviews?!? I am not sure I am ready for this 
’ once I get into the flow it all goes far easier than I feared. The next time my review pile grew to that size I was less intimidated, and I am sure the next time it happens I will again feel a little more confident. It’s a little like being a frog in a pot of water being brought to the boil 
Today’s lessons have fallen to the wayside a little, I only felt like learning five this morning. This afternoon, I went to my craft circle which was at the same time as my afternoon reviews, and tonight… I might do some lessons. I will take them three at a time and just see how far I go.
Tomorrow night is a social gathering, which may result in less progress then too. I’ll find out tomorrow
Grammar: I am still dipping my toes into the water here. I took another look at the Tofugu guide to learning Japanese and noted they recommended WK level 10 or equivalent vocabulary before moving on to learning grammar 
I will still take it at my own pace but I do see their point. I find my grammar study far easier when I have near instant recognition of the vocabulary used in the examples. There is only so much processing room in my brain.
(On the other hand, recognising the common endings of self move/other move verbs, or adjectives, or verbs, and so on, would make learning vocabulary easier too. 
)
I have watched an episode of Cure Dolly here and there, I look up particles in the Basic Dictionary of Japanese Grammar when my homework confuses me, and I read a blog post here or a list of useful resources there.
Other study: I have hardly touched Anki in weeks mostly because my past two classes have been focused on review of the first two terms, and I have not had new vocabulary to learn. Partly because the review intervals are not quite working for me, so I will likely tweak the settings at some point.
I went through all my homework and made a list of any mistakes I made (have I logged this already? I think I have) that need to be studied/added to Anki as appropriate. We also covered a bunch of vocabulary and sentences in class yesterday that are not in my Anki deck and also need to be added.
Computer games: Okay. This is a thing I do. I start playing and just… keep going. So I am swimming with the tide, not against it! While I play, I will practice any relevant vocabulary. If I want to look something up, or note something down, I will write as much as I can (or have patience for) in Japanese. If I don’t know the word, and I am not confident looking it up, it’s a great chance to practice katakana.
Speaking of, I am going to do some of that right now
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A brief update!
Level seven concluded smoothly, and I approximated the same pattern as last time through the majority of level eight. Having applied the lesson pacing plan once with exacting attention to detail, I now feel quite comfortable winging it
Right now, I have learned all but one of the required kanji to level up. However as these past few days have been highly lethargic (I keep planing to leave the house but I have stayed in bed instead) I am just reviewing roughly twice a day (some nights I just leave my reviews for the morning. Some mornings I wait until midday.) Lessons are taken as the mood strikes, I plan to do a handful of vocabulary after this post, in fact.
This morning I reached my first enlightened reviews, and 500 mastered items! 
Taking notes on Stardew valley has worked out really well, I am practicing my katakana, and I have covered likes, dislikes, and daily schedules in Marugoto which is the majority of what I need to note down about the NPC’s. The rest is improvised
Class this week was as fun as last week, although so many new words!! SO MANY!! 
Anyway. That is all for now. I hope to have the energy for a more thoughtful post later 
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Ahhhhh this time has been lost to my book addiction 
A little dramatic perhaps, but true. I have been reading and reading and sleeping off headaches in between.
So be it.
Complaint over.
This morning I reached level 8
Yesterday I was this close to going to sleep without clearing my review pile for over 24 hours. I managed it by doing ten reviews every time I finished reading a chapter.
I have been taking a page out of @ChristopherFritz’s book and set a goal of completing one lesson a day so I am at lest moving forward a little.
I plan to tackle this level by doing at least one lesson a day, and at minimum clearing my review pile at some point. On days with a little more energy, I will aim towards 5-10 lessons and three review sessions, and a little leach squashing. I will take as many days as I need.
Outside of WK, I was not well enough to attend class on Wednesday (actually only one student attended, so I will not be alone in trying to catch up!) and I did not manage to complete my homework either (I think two questions were left blank?). No other study comes to mind 
I believe last week I started rewatching CureDolly videos while taking notes with the intention of studying the concepts presented a little more in depth, I would like to continue doing that. I also want to ask my library to order the book by Jay Ruben that she mentions - I have heard that there is little to learn from the book compared to her videos, but it is good to use more than one source regardless! (That is why I want my library to purchase it rather than buying my own copy however!)
Oh, I am still taking notes in Japanese when playing Stardew Valley when I can, not that I am playing terribly often (see complaint re headaches and reading.)
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Now if only I was keeping at that =( I’ve had so many reviews coming at me (I zero them out three times a day, but have had low retention lately), so I’m actually trying to get my Apprentice down to maybe 50 rather than around 100. But seeing as I’ve been on the same level for nearly two months, I really really really need to be doing at least one lesson per day so I know I’m making progress. (I’m no speed demon.) And those vocabulary lessons will probably help with my retention…
Okay, I’m gonna to go do a vocabulary lessons (although really I’m procrastinating manga reading…)
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Go, Go, Christopher! 
I was thinking about accuracy rate over the last week, specifically: if you have reviews available and time to do them, but you know that you are not in the headspace to do your best (because it is late at night, or you just can’t focus, or you are distracted), do you think it is better to just do your reviews anyway and cop the mistakes you would not have otherwise made, or is it better to wait until you will be able to study at your best?
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I wonder that myself. I think the most “dangerous” thing I can do is miss a review session, because the next review will be that much bigger, and the time between reviews will be that much greater. Granted, getting reviews wrong means they’ll still turn up in the next session anyway, but at least any that you get correct won’t be right back.
My policy is to do the reviews if I am able to. If I don’t think I’m able to, I still force myself to start doing reviews. So long as I’m sitting in front of a review, as long as I’ve made it that far, if I really cannot do any reviews, I allow myself to stop there. Just getting that far is enough to keep up the habit.
…as opposed to how I was watching CureDolly videos daily for several months, but I missed watching for just one day, and now it’s probably been a few weeks since I last watched one =( Gotta get back to that…
And if I do poorly on reviews, the worst that happens is they come back again sooner, so I get more exposure to them. So long as I’m not also pushing to do a lot of lessons, I don’t mind if I do reviews of the same items more often. (But I do want to reduce my daily reviews to below 200, so I can try to put more time into re-reviewing mnemonics.)
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Sunday:
Today was a more productive day, I have been on top of all my reviews, and I learned ~15 items today (most were familiar vocabulary items such as ‘this week’, ‘wind’ etc) bringing my apprentice items back above 50.
I have not done anything related to Marugoto or CureDolly. One step at a time
Monday:
I did not do a morning review session, but I did manage afternoon and evening.
When I opened up my lesson queue, it was very interesting to notice that because I found the first word to be a little… dull (Hull: 船体) I was rather disinclined to take the lesson. Interest = ease of recall = not a problem to learn. Words that I find dull? they are a little harder.
However, the item would need to be learned sometime, so filtered to learn just two items so that tomorrow, my lesson queue will be a little more enticing.
I am vaguely concerned that I will not be able to maintain the required pace to reach level 21 before 2021 (I joined the group goal thread thing), however I wont be looking any closer at that until I am out of this slower time. No need to add pressure when I am already at my limits.
No other study today, again. Tomorrow is when the homework is due, I hope I will complete at least some so I don’t miss another chance for feedback.
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This week I have been managing two review sessions a day. That means the nice 4h, 8h, 12h, pattern is completely shattered, but I am still moving forward! I focused entirely on learning vocabulary, clearing out level seven and most of level 8 vocab items, as the last thing I needed this week was more lessons unlocked via radicals or kanji. This afternoon I learned all 13 radicals in one go, and I plan to push through the remaining 25 lessons (20 kanji, 5 vocabulary) before the radicals guru in order to get that sweet 0/0 I am not sure that the 0/0 club is necessarily great for my lesson pacing, but it does keep me committed to finishing each level and not just filtering for radicals and kanji.
Class was fine this week, I don’t have many reflections there. I am slowly picking up other aspects of my life but I still feel rather unproductive 
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Well. Hello. It has been a little while. I will just get right to it.
August, my health crashed and getting my momentum up again is a gradual process that must match my capacity. Having a good friend in my face to face Japanese class was priceless in supporting/encouraging me to attend every week, although I was not able to attend once or twice. To reduce the pressure from my overachieving nature, I spoke with my teacher and let her know what I expected to be able to do, and that it would be some months before I would be back to normal. I put all my homework in a file to come back to when I was ready (Sensei was happy to mark it whenever I completed it, which was very very appreciated.) and stopped pretty much all independent study. Sadly, WaniKani was the first thing to be dropped as the thrice daily pattern - actually even a daily habit was out of the question during this time.
Come October, I was able to increase my activity a significant amount and I worked through my missed homework and picked up a bit in other areas of my life too, however I was still operating at maybe 70%.
November: this month has been much better. In class we completed our textbook and began a summer revision term. For 1/4 of the price, we are individually working through the online lessons for Marugoto A1 Rikai. When we finish a lesson we send send Sensei a screenshot of our progress and she sends us a sheet of homework.
As I work through these revision lessons I am taking the time to significantly expand my related vocabulary. The Marugoto course comes with ~100-200 words (and a sprinkling of phrases/expressions) for each topic (a topic consists of two related lessons) in a bonus workbook. I am making these into Anki cards. From English to Japanese I type the answer to check my spelling/pronunciation, from J to E it is just a basic flashcard. On the Japanese side of the card I have included an example sentence from the Marugoto website.
Last week I bought a small A6 diary where I will write a little every day in Japanese, this will also be a great tracker of consistency of my study. (Note to self: if I ever go back a day or two to fill in empty space, do so in a different colour from now on so that in the future I can see how much was, in fact, consistent daily practice). So far, so good.
I plan to buy the lifetime sub next month… I can already feel the large price tag nerves, but as I have been studying Japanese for most of a year, and it has survived one significant health dip (one where I never actually suspended my subscription (so wasteful!)), and I have spent a comparable amount on my face to face lessons, and I know that this is a useful tool… gosh does that list show how I feel about that kind of decision or what
Well, that’s me. I’ll be back… later.
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I did wonder if something came up, as you vanished from the レンタルおにいちゃん threads. Hopefully you can pick it back up when you’re ready, but do take your time!
The nice thing about having a lifetime subscription is if you don’t have to worry about wasting money if you need to slow down or take breaks. Granted, I’m a bit biased, being on day 41 of being on level 25, with no plans to level up probably until day 60 to 70.
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Nice to see you back! Our womples were woefully under Coddied.
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How to defeat 1000+ reviews and 144 days of inactivity: Plan A
- Install WaniKani Reorder Ultimate 2
- Order reviews by level, then by type (level 1-9, Radicals - Vocabulary)
- Optional: Once items have been reviewed (pass or fail) in an honest, official manner, practice my mistakes via the Self Study Quiz so that when they return I will do better.
Plan: By starting with my oldest items I should have the highest success rate. Success feels good, and increases motivation. These should also be the quickest to answer, reducing the mountain of reviews as fast as possible, and making it less foreboding. This breaks my mountain of reviews into discreet, manageable piles of less than 200, giving regular rest points and smaller goals to accomplish. Finally, by renewing my understanding of the simplest items, used as building blocks for later kanji, I hope that later levels will be easier to remember/understand/handle.
Plan B: Drop some levels. Maybe. Lets see what I learn from Plan A first. Although I am aware that the later levels are where my accuracy will tank, and I may need to just relearn them bit by bit.
Level 1 reviews
Notes: 91% accuracy. I can’t remember what my accuracy rate was with randomly ordered reviews, but it was likely around 60%. 84% of level one items are now BURNED 
Level 1 self study
Level 2 reviews
Radicals and Kanji, 79% accuracy. Vocabulary tomorrow. The next day: Vocab 82%! I am very happy with that!
Level 2 self study
Level 3 reviews
80% accuracy 
275 burned turtles, 772 reviews to go.
The more items I burn the smaller my maximum pile of reviews. So if I have to stop WK again for a few weeks (or a month) I wont come back feeling that all my hard work has been undone. Although, I just added up all my items and if I am away long enough for all my enlightened items to come due… Well, that pile can get back to 1000+. Perhaps, if I get through level four, I will have enough burns to push that down a bit further
Level 3 self study
Level 4 review
81%! I was worried that my score would start dropping at level 3-4, but reviewing the levels in order really refreshes my memory. Although. If I get a radical wrong, I take note of the answer and then get the meaning at least correct when I hit kanji vocabulary - but that would be balanced by needing still to recall the reading with no hints.
P.S. 405 burns
Level 5 review
Radicals and kanji, 72%. Vocabulary 71%.
P.S. Over 500 burns! (513). 417 reviews remaining. Feeling a little more intimidated now, as it feels like each level gets harder and harder…
Level 6 review.
I took this level in two sections too, 81% for rads/kanji (51/63) and 70% for the rest (76/108). Subjectively, I am feeling a little more out of my depth, feeling that my errors are less “I almost had that! Just missed the rendaku!” and more “ummmm…” with a dash of “oh damn, I recognise that as a leach, shame I can’t remember anything else!” (Although, at least I am recognising those.) Obviously I haven’t been keeping track, so it could be in my head/confirmation bias etc.
Aim: to complete levels 1-3 over the next week. 
DONE. IN UNDER 24 HOURS. I was worried that I would be short on motivation, but no! I keep sitting down for another level! Perhaps I will 0 my reviews within the week no don’t jinx it sooner than I thought!
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I am considering changing things up for levels 7-9, maybe sorting by type instead. Trying to do all the vocab of one level in one session is getting to be a bit of a slog. If I set things up so that I am doing ~50 items/100 reviews a session, with clear sections to pat myself on the back for completing, that would help.
51 radicals, 10-20 a level. 102 kanji, 30+ per level. 105, 134, and 36 vocabulary items. However, I only have 251 reviews in my pile, and I don’t know exactly how they are distributed.
Simple goals are simple:
RADICAL RADICALS ARE RADICAL’D.
Level 7 kanji
Level 8 kanji
Level 9 kanji
Accuracy: 73%
Vocabulary:
I will set these when I work out how many reviews there actually are to do.
Note to self: when starting a review session, switch the order back to early levels first, to catch those ~20% of items failed and newly available in this burn through.
VOCAB TIME.
Reviews: 177
Type: Vocabulary
SRS Level breakdown: 43A 71G 63M
I don’t see a way to break this down into categories other than sessions. Time to relearn how to format a table on this site…
| Session | Items reviewed | Accuracy | Date (+Gold Star) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Session 1 | 50 | …51% | 2020/12/30 
|
| Session 2 | 56 | 61% | 2020/12/31
|
| Session 3 | 61 | 57% | 2020/21/31
|
| Session 4 | 18 | 56% | 2021/1/1 |
| Session 5 | 111 | 67% | 2021/1/1
|
Session 1 Notes: Oh my, my accuracy TANKED. And I think I know why too. Many of the kanji for these levels aren’t actually due for review yet. Earlier levels, in answering the kanji items I refreshed forgotten/almost remembered readings. While I could do a ‘self study quiz’ of the kanji, I likely won’t, as I think clearing the review pile takes priority here. The failure rate annoys me, but worse is seeing that all of a sudden I have 53 new items joining the review pile tomorrow, moving the elusive 
0 33% further away.
Session 2 Notes: Finished level seven reviews (for now) and partway through eight. 90 reviews currently on the pile, with 50 more to come due over today.
Session 3 Notes: Oh my head hurts. 43 in the pile, 42 to arrive over today, 41 to arrive tomorrow. I do believe I have an awful lot of leach squashing to do before I can claim I have my items under control again.
Session 4 Notes: Due to family emergency, this review occurred next to a hospital bed. For that, I give myself two gold stars and thanks that I had something to do for a short while over a long day. (P.S. everyone is fine, it was just some stitches that took a long, long time.)
Session 5 Notes: I reached that distant 0! Next, leach squashing and advancing my many apprentice items
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