Daisoujou's Study Log - šŸ¤·

Japanese Language
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Iā€™m really happy to say I finished Octopath Traveller 2 today! Finished it comfortably before I was aiming for, though admittedly Iā€™ve been playing a lot most days haha. Clocked about 120 hours ā€“ definitely not actively playing for every moment of that, but itā€™s not too bad considering this is a rather long game. Playing in Japanese added time, but not terribly.

The game was extremely good! Best JRPG Iā€™ve played in a long time, and I think I learned/reinforced a lot through its writing too. Feels like another big step in learning Japanese for me to manage this. Still not quite ready to do much Japanese without a dictionary on hand, but itā€™s easier than ever to get through even if I have to manually look things up. Iā€™m feeling a lot more comfortable recently. Thereā€™s no one point where you suddenly flip from ā€œnot knowingā€ to ā€œknowingā€ a language, and all the stuff Iā€™ve worked through up to now wasnā€™t nothingā€¦ but I feel like Iā€™m passing that line from ā€œworking throughā€ to simply ā€œusingā€ the language. Totally subjective, moving target thatā€™ll change based on material and everything, but Iā€™m really starting to feel it these days and Iā€™m really happy about it.

Just donā€™t ask me to say or write anything myself :wink:

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Oooh, congratz on feeling that! Yeah, it is a great feeling. I have that the most while reading slice of life-ish manga (unless it was sf slice of life or something like that) to the degree that I have some manga I can read without using a dictionary and still feel like most of the time Iā€™m close to comprehending it fully. Except a chapter here or there where they decide to hit a topic which vocabulary I havenā€™t had a reason to learn yet. xD

Anyway, wanted to celebrate with you, because Iā€™ve recently come to that feeling to (only with reading for me xD). :smiley:

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Thatā€™s great! Really glad to hear it. Based on Loopers and whatnot, seems like youā€™ve been making big strides in reading ability. I should really revisit that kind of stuff; Iā€™ve been marching on deeper into novels / videogames / visual novels so much that I probably havenā€™t appreciated just how much easier some old stuff has gotten for me. If nothing else, I loved Yotsubato so much, maybe a reread of some of that would be nice sometimeā€¦

Iā€™ve never gone dictionary-less really but I probably COULD at times, especially later in this game when I had all the vocab down and I was just getting hit with a random obscure adjective or something. Iā€™m a little too particular about always making sure Iā€™m getting readings right and looking up everything I donā€™t know. Itā€™d drive most people crazy but itā€™s just how I like to do it.

I think most people who follow what I post are pretty far along, some of you are probably better than me, but I like being able to talk about how much better it feels because I remember points where it was hard enough that I almost questioned how it ever could. First time language learner problems. Come to think of it, after this month itā€™ll be the 2 year point for me. Time flies! I donā€™t think I expected to even reach where I am without taking about a decade, haha.

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I do read it a lot quicker now. Some of that is lowering my standard for comprehension, and the rest of it is definitely getting better.

For me, it kinda comes naturally. Because I keep joining book clubsā€”well, technically I am starting most book clubs I am joining so that is a bit misleading, but anyway xDā€”I keep reading multiple things at once. And I found for me, I need them at different difficulty slots, because some days I prefer to read something easy, another day I feel ready to tackle something harder. And especially the harder category should only have one thing in progress, is what Iā€™ve learnt.

So like right now. Loopers is my hard read because it is a lot of lookups, even after lowering my standard from looking up everything to looking up ā€œonlyā€ 90% or so. Girl Friends, a story focused every day school yuri manga, is in a kinda middle slot; rather easy for me, but Iā€™m reading it for the story and really want to get the nuance, so I am looking up the things I donā€™t know but those arenā€™t that many. And then Flying Witch, which Iā€™m reading without a dictionary so Iā€™m definitely missing things, but I figure I can reread it in 2-3 years and then understand everything, and Iā€™m getting the gist and anything I donā€™t get is usually talked about in the WK book club so I get it after the fact.

I canā€™t always read at the edge of my ability, so I kinda have a hard read, a nuance one, and an easy one going. And yeah, it drives me a bit crazy to try to get it all if it is a hard read. And honestly a lot of stuff are hard reads still, Iā€™m just sticking with a lot of easier ones so I can have both experiences. ^^

I feel like this is so important with most things, but definitely language learning, because it can sometimes be very hard to notice how easy something has become because by being easy you donā€™t become aware of it.

Honestly, it shows your dedication and follow through that youā€™ve gotten so dang far in 2 years!!! :tada: Iā€™ve been doing this longer than you, and you are definitely reading more advanced stuff than I am. :smiley:

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Yeah this is very sensible. I used to really look for the same, especially when I was mining words and that could be the main thing I really studied hard with some stuff on the side that I preferred to have coming at least a little easier. Right now I think I donā€™t think itā€™s on my mind as much because itā€™s been super motivating to almost entirely put difficulty out of my mind while doing the thing I want to the most ā€“ but it says something about how far Iā€™ve made it that I can do that. And no doubt plenty of things are out there that would be really challenging. But I think Iā€™ve really broken open the sort of ā€œaverage writingā€ where I can keep up with videogames or anything without having to worry so much.

More than anything it seems to me like you have a really good understanding of what works for you and how to account for differences day by day, so, sounds great.

Yeah that really isnā€™t lost on me! Like I always have to say though, itā€™s a function of time. Iā€™ll take half credit for being able to keep myself focused and stick with it, but learning this much in 2 years or 10 years says more about the state of my free time than anything else.

Alright, a few more thoughts. Language learning has been going well for me!

I think Iā€™m noticing now that my listening comprehension has made some big leaps. I really credit the way visual novels give me everything for that. I do some focused listening practice occasionally, but it really has slipped into the background, and eventually itā€™s like I just realized I largely get it now. Reading over and over and internalizing words more has a big impact too of course, but reading along with the voice acting has given me a lot more practice with feedback and corrections, I think? Feels good anyway. Revisiting old videos and podcasts and the like has felt really good.

Almost makes me wonder if I want to start practicing to speak sometime. I guess italki is the way to go if I did that. I donā€™t expect to start on it anytime soon in actuality because the initial speaking barrier is going to be painful. Iā€™m really slow at coming up with Japanese on my own right now (naturally) and I know Iā€™ll be self conscious and awkward about it even though thereā€™s no reason to heh. I can only have a better basis whenever I do finally do it so no rush. But this is about the first time it has popped into my mind as something Iā€™d consider working towards. It doesnā€™t seem totally distant and hypothetical anymore.

Iā€™m still reading with the two VN clubs right now, but since I finish those in about 3 days, Iā€™m back wondering if I should add another thing after tearing through Octopath. Despite the spotty use in reading/listening and probably annoying item descriptions and whatnot, Iā€™m leaning towards playing Tears of the Kingdom in Japanese. Why not, really. Itā€™ll make me feel productive when I spend a few hours exploring and reading nothing :wink: Still, do I want more proper focused practice? I should pick up the Flowers VN series again, since I finished the first a little before I went on a short hiatus (I didnā€™t totally forget @AzusaChan :eyes:). But that might be a little later, not entirely feeling it at this moment. A little while back I picked up a pretty new VN called Paranormasight (yeah that sure is a title), checked if I could texthook and was disappointed when I couldnā€™t get it to work so I sat it asideā€¦ but maybe Iā€™d be fine? I feel more confident to try now than I did then, for sure.

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I was hoping to hear an update on that :joy: If I remember correctly, Erika was one of your favorite characters? I think youā€™ll like game 2 a lot once you get back to the series because of that.
Thereā€™s a new drama CD coming out soon for Flowers that looks really good but my listening skills are awful so that and the other 5+ drama CDs theyā€™ve done is something to look forward to in the future for me.

Glad to hear your Japanese is going well too! I hadnā€™t heard of that Paranormasight game before but I looked it up and it seems really interesting. No texthook is always a bummer but if you end up playing, Iā€™ll be interested in what you think of it and how hard it is without a texthook.

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Yep, Erika was fantastic. Itā€™s not even so much that Iā€™m not in the mood for Flowers right now but I think I want a little more space to focus on it when I do it? Iā€™m thinking maybe once I get back down to one club, but weā€™ll see how those whims go. As for the drama CDā€¦ itā€™s always surprising to me just how many adaptations and add-ons Japanese media gets. Itā€™s also surprising every time I am reminded that drama CDs are a thing haha. Thatā€™s cool though! Iā€™ve been thinking I want more listening material so some day when Iā€™m done with the VNsā€¦

Yeah Iā€™ll let you know about Paranormasight if I do it! Heard good things and it looked like it would fit my tastes really nicely. The amusing thing is, the way that I learned about it was through someone complaining that Square Enix is terrible at marketing the games they put out, using the at the time brand new Paranormasight as the most recent example. Andā€¦ yeah. Iā€™m relatively tuned into this stuff, this game is exactly my thing, and it took someone about a week after it came out talking about how no one knows it exists for me to discover it.

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Well, coming from someone whoā€™ve probably had a similar amount of free time: nope. Time makes a difference in whether it is possible or impossible. But how you choose to use that time stands for more than half of the credit. Basically, donā€™t sell yourself short, not even a little. :wink:

Huhā€¦ So potentially, if I just keep reading VNs, my listening comprehension will go up? I hope that happens for me too :pray:, because I donā€™t really spend time listening to podcasts in any language, and my listening comprehension is low enough that without text help, I miss so much. :sob:

I actually started replaying BotW earlier this year to see if I might enjoy playing Tears of the Kingdom in Japanese, and realized that no, I wouldnā€™t. One thing was the item descriptions that unless theyā€™ve really upgraded those for TotK will be simple descriptions of items that Iā€™ll be annoyed I struggled my way through (I wonā€™t have a lot of the vocabulary). Then there are some old timey speak (but I figure youā€™ve seen that a lot more than I have, in Octapath and other places), and the shrines had old timey text that was also only on screen for a short while.

So I decided for the ability to skim item descriptions for the actually funny/interesting ones, and with the ability to read quickly enough for temporary text, Iā€™ll play it in English. Feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, but Iā€™m not about to wait to start playing it so I can do it in Japanese. SO EXCITED TO PLAY NOW. xD

I have a feeling youā€™ll have a good time with it. Especially the ability to claim Japanese learning/time on top of fun gaming. :joy:

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Alright, point taken, I try not to brag about speed but Iā€™ve also never been good at not minimizing the things I do :melting_face:

I hope so! I do somewhat idly watch some Youtube videos and the like and I have a lot of past listening practice (though a lot of my improvement seems to have happened when I stopped haha)ā€¦ the way language learning works it gets so difficult to pin down exactly what did and didnā€™t help. Once you learn all those basics you kind of just use the language for a long time and eventually you look around and things are better than you remember them being. I really think all the voice acted stuff has to help at least somewhat though, as long as you make some effort to pay attention to what theyā€™re saying.

Yeah, what youā€™re saying makes a lot of sense. Itā€™s the whole reason I debated doing it; I donā€™t think itā€™s going to be the most beneficial or even enjoyable reading practiceā€¦ but I think Iā€™m starting to reach the level where I can fumble my way through most things sufficiently enough. And at this point I just like the idea of lots more passive exposure in whatever Iā€™m already doing. You also absolutely called it, above all else I get to feel as if Iā€™ve accomplished something more while playing videogames haha.

SO EXCITED TOO THOUGH. BOTW was so amazing.

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@AzusaChan Well, I already started Paranormasight because I canā€™t help myself haha. I was very encouraged by seeing it listed as only around 12 or so hours. But itā€™llā€¦ definitely be taking me longer. I love the art and the opening has been cool.

Difficulty-wiseā€¦ so the dialogue and normal in game writing really isnā€™t so bad thus far. Thereā€™s kind of an opening narrator whose stuff is a little trickier than the normal character interactions, but I also read it way too late and was forgetting things I shouldnā€™t. It feels pretty doable with a little patience, though Iā€™ll definitely update you.

ā€¦your experience will depend on how particular you are about reading files though. Itā€™s one of these games that gives you a lot of bios on characters and descriptions of places, things, etc. Itā€™s cool that theyā€™re real places so I guess Iā€™m learning! But in a foreign language they feel like big text dumps. So far Iā€™m reading all of them because Iā€™m not very nice to myself, but weā€™ll see as I continue.

A couple examples, though I spared you the worst ones full of place names and discussions of name origins that I couldn't quite follow haha.

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Honestly BotW is probably my favorite game ever. It has its faults, like any game/book/etc. But the thing that clinched it was the fact that it really felt like you could go anywhere. Saw an interesting ruin at the top of a mountain, then you can go there. Wanted to climb a sheer cliff, doable with the right stamina food and persistence. None of those weird invisible walls everywhere.

Obviously it didnā€™t go forever, but within those limits, anywhere was possible and I adored that. It was what I had been seeking in open world games for so long. And you know, just casually being able to climb anything. Remember when that (mostly) wasnā€™t a thing? :joy:

So yeah, Iā€™m probably too hype for TotK. Iā€™m trying to not set my expectations too high, because that is often why sequels disappoint. ^^

I also struggle with this and have spent the last couple years trying to get better without, you know, moving over into the boasting portion instead. xD

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BOTW isnā€™t quite my favorite (Iā€™ll find the opportunity to gush about Pathologic 2 here some day :wink:) but it is really up there!

The thing for me is I donā€™t even like open world games, as a general rule! I should be someone complaining that they went away from the Zelda formula. But my issue is usually that open worlds feel like busy work, spaces to cross for the sake of reaching the point where something interesting actually happens. BOTW, though, manages to make traversal itself the game. Yeah thereā€™s combat and puzzles and all, but fundamentally the charm of it is following your own curiosity and constantly being rewarded for exploring. Proper exploring where you catch a glimpse of something interesting and start charting a course to it, not following a marked point on a map.

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Nice, glad to hear its not too bad! The files section you posted kind of reminds me of the tips section in the sci;adv games where it lists detailed explanations about lore, locations, slang etc used in the game. I never played that series in jp but I do always like to read those. The files in Paranormasight look to be on the harder side (Iā€™m way better when it comes to dialogue vs that type of content) but if I did read it, I could probably use google lens to copy the text to my computer as an easy way to look things up. Iā€™ve had to do that for sections in some VNs when the text extractor wouldnā€™t pull the text for it.

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Hmm yeah thatā€™s an interesting idea. Iā€™ve just been looking words up and itā€™s slow going but I seem to have a lot of patience for it now, heh.

Oh I totally forgot to mention, unfortunately no voice acting. Thus far (remember Iā€™m still super early) Iā€™ve found the presentation really dynamic and all the movement of the models and stuff has made me not miss it too much in sorta bringing the text to life ā€“ but if nothing else, a little unfortunate from the language learning perspective.

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Iā€™ve been spoiled by text tractor and other tools that my patience for manual look ups is pretty low :joy:

The no voice acting is kind of unfortunate since that is one of my favorite parts of VNs. I decided to buy the game for later (Iā€™m playing the Cartagra remake that just came out so no room for another title right now) but I did test out the game to make sure it ran fine and everything. I was able to get texttractor to hook to it and pull the text. But the start/end of each new line is filled with some random garbage that makes it ugly to look at

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The character count would be way off but can still use it to look up words faster :thinking: Might be able to use the Regex Filter to filter out all the random stuff there and have it look more normal. Iā€™ll look into it some more later on.

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I know the feeling! And honestly texthooking is most efficient for learning and a big reason I always say VNs are as good for learners as they are, so youā€™re certainly not doing anything wrong! Iā€™m just recently feeling very motivated by being able to prove that I donā€™t NEED it. That said, seems a lot of people here are better at getting it to work than I am, haha! I would mostly be super excited if it could be made to work with those file pages, but Iā€™m betting thatā€™s a harder askā€¦

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@AzusaChan Ok Iā€™m curious, do you do a text search to find the hook in this game? When I hook it (with x64 cause 86 canā€™t do it), nothing appears in the list and it gives me that text saying searching for hooks should work. But every time Iā€™ve tried (checking the box about searching for JP characters, typing in half the current line or so), the search returns nothing.

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Yeah, I did a text search with x64 and searched for specific text and it gave me a list of like hundreds of hooks to choose from lol. The texthook has those weird characters in between each line, like for this

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The text comes back as this
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So when you search by specific text, I recommend just searching the top line (ćƒ€ćƒ”ć ć‚ˆć€‚ć“ć‚“ćŖćØ恓悍恧 ꀄ恫åÆć”ć‚ƒć€‚) or just the bottom line (惓惃ć‚ÆćƒŖć—ć”ć‚ƒć£ćŸć˜ć‚ƒć‚“ć€‚) otherwise you might not get results populated.

If that doesnā€™t work, you can try to manually add the hook I found: HQ14+-3C@18B3300

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Thanks for all the help! Maybe going past the line break was causing me to get the search failure. Now it at least finds a few options for me to look through but still none of them seem to be it? Itā€™s a different sort of failure haha. And adding that hook manually returns a failure. Very odd, but I had trouble when I tried to search for text in 999 as well soā€¦ canā€™t figure out what I could be doing wrong, but there must be something.

Oh well, Iā€™ll get by, but I hope eventually I figure it out for the future.

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Did you get a lot of options to choose from or just a few? Maybe searching for a smaller piece of text could help. When I did my text search there were well over 100 options I had to scroll through and none of them were usable ones until the middle-end portion. If searching for different pieces of text still doesnā€™t help then I might be out of ideas since I didnā€™t have to troubleshoot any farther than that :sweat_smile:

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