Gratitude - An Ode to the Wonderful Durtles

Hah, nice connection to my bio!
Will you be giving yourself a durtle?

8 Likes

Thanks, Kumirei san :slight_smile:

Haven’t thought of that. Maybe I can ask that question to myself after I complete an year of thanking :thinking:

8 Likes

Thanksgiving is only supposed to be twice a year!

11 Likes

Every day is a thanks giving for me :slight_smile: There are so many people who support me. Life is too short to let go of a chance to thank. I want to tell people how awesome they are and how much of an impact they had on me. There is more than enough love to go around :heart: And I want to make them feel special too, hence I limit to one person per day.

To quote Stephen Chbosky’s “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”
“I just want you to know that you’re very special”

14 Likes

All Pokemon fans know how Mr.Mime helps and supports Delia (Ash’s mom). One fine day in May, 2020 I stumbled across a thread called “Level 21 before 2021” with the creator of thread featuring a Mr.Mime image. The mere presence of Mr.Mime gave me a positive impression. And what I didn’t know at that moment was this would turn out to be the most important thing I did after signing up for Wanikani.

I joined the thread and relished the part of being a community. This is the first thread in the community that made me feel at home. The credit goes to @Marifly :slight_smile: for creating and fostering a nurturing environment. Marifly took time out of their schedule to encourage and cheer every single person in the thread. It is a textbook definition of “Gentle Strength” that supports you from behind and pushes you forward.

Despite being a part of multiple clubs, maintaining multiple threads (Marifly is also the creator of “Let’s climb Skytree” thread), doing Wanikani reviews/reviews, handling their personal life, I am still surprised Marifly devoted such a large chunk of their time to cheer all of us up. When things get difficult and self-doubt occupies your mind, all you need is one person to believe in you. For a lot of the folks from the “Level 21 before 2021 thread” that was Marifly.

Thank you for believing in us Marifly. Thanks for all your support and love :slight_smile: We appreciate it. For the kindness you have given to all of us, I bestow upon you the title of Yasashi Durtle

16 Likes

One of the recurring themes in “Naruto” (which I will be referring to a lot :slight_smile:) is that giving your best encourages others to do so. I chalked it off as another one of those anime things.

Learning Kanji is HARD. Wanikani and the scripts try to make it easier but it is still difficult. You need to spill sweat, tears (a whole lot of them) and require a perseverance that regular humans do not possess. A lot of people quit and it is normal. And there are a few who embody the spirit of “Fall down seven times and get up eight”. Tetra san was one of them. I met @tetraflu0ride san on the Level 21 before 2021 thread.

Tetra san reset twice and came back again and again, each time a little stronger than before, a little more prepared than before. When I followed their journey I understood that Naruto reference. Just watching Tetra san devote their all again and again to move forward filled me with inspiration and vigor. The nature of their hard work made me want to give my best.

Thank you Tetra san for not giving up and pushing ahead :slight_smile: For your undying curiosity, I bestow upon you the title of Kininaru Durtle

15 Likes

Thank you so much, @KyokaJiro! For this thread, for my mention, and for your presence in the threads. You are the reason why the threads and this community keep being such a great place to be. Thanks for everything you do and for everything you are!

10 Likes

Thanks for your kind words Marifly :slight_smile: I deeply appreciate it :blush:

5 Likes

One of Wanikani’s greatest delights is the Tsurukame App. If you are a mobile heavy iOS user, I request you to try Tsurukame. David Sansome’s creation is a thing of beauty that stands at the delicate intersection of Art and Technology. I have completed half my levels (12) on a mobile browser and another half (12) on Tsurukame, the ease and improvement in quality of life is tremendous.

There is a Japanese story behind the origin of the word “Tsurukame”

Japanese of the ancient times believed that by uttering bad words they would bring about bad omens. But if the inevitable happened and the taboo words were to be pronounced, the repetition of the names of these two auspicious animals: tsurukame , tsurukame , tsurukame (crane-turtle, crane-turtle, crane-turtle) could ward off the evil.

And I know, I am uttering “Tsurukame” thrice when I make unintended errors in WK and correct my mistakes through Tsurukame App :slight_smile:

For enriching the lives of countless durtles, @davidsansome, I give you my heartfelt thanks and wish you the longevity of a Tsurukame. I bestow upon you the title of Tsurukame Durtle

12 Likes

きょかちゃん、書いてくれて本当にありがとう. 気になるです!

I am beyond touched and I’m starting to tear up. Naruto is THE REASON that I started learning Japanese. When I first heard “Haruka Kanata” at age 12 I became obsessed with Japanese music, and over a decade later my playlists are still 99.67% Japanese. I’ve seen Asian Kung Fu Generation, Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, m-flo, Hiromi Tosaka, CRAZYBOY, CAPSULE, Teddyloid, ALL OFF, and Hatsune Miku live. Japanese music has always been my passion for learning Japanese, but specifically it all started with wanting to know what the Naruto op 1 guy was yelling about. A college minor, some WaniKani, and two study abroad experiences later, I’m disappointed in myself because I feel as though I’ve been stuck in intermediate じごく for years. I need to stop beating myself up and just continue to study hard and be proud of what I’ve accomplished. Thank you for calling me out and giving me a reason to do that.

I have vivid memories of going on this horribly sketchy p2p site called Limewire to download anime songs as a tween, and having to track down and eliminate viruses I had caused on the family computer which was my first foray into “computer stuff”. I ended up getting an electrical computer engineering degree in college years later.

Now, I’m at a crossroads in my mental health journey. It’s been almost 4 years since I graduated from college and I still haven’t worked as an engineer since college internships. I threw myself into my family’s restaurant business instead of following my passions since it was the easy thing to do. I’m finally getting to a place where I can internalize “fall down seven times, get up eight”. I feel as though all I’ve been doing in my life is falling. Falling into addiction, falling off of my friendships, falling off my career aspirations, falling off of my Japanese studies, falling off on feeling alive.

I’m ready to get up, now.

TL;DR: You hit me right in the feels

15 Likes

My Pleasure tetra san :slight_smile:

It speaks to the depth and intensity of your passion. You are blessed to love something at such a deep level of connection. :smiley:

I can understand the expectations being unrealistic when you are feeling that love. YES, you should be proud of what you have accomplished so far :slight_smile: Fill your chest with pride and beam a smile that can light up the room :grin: Feeling proud doesn’t mean we are giving up, it means we are recognizing the labor of years of efforts to have come this far. Give yourself a gentle pat on your back :hugs: Once we savor the feeling, it provides us with renewed sense of purpose and energy on our journey forward. Let us move forward slowly and surely understand one word at a time. It doesn’t make sense to complete 60 levels of WK and think we are done with Japanese when we can’t understand any of the songs, books we love. Learning a few things, looking up things, understanding the beauty of the things we love strengthens our bonds and lasts for a long time :slight_smile:

Hahaha. That’s a good memory to have now :smiley:

Please take care of yourself first. Nothing and no one in this world deserve more love and care than oneself. Only when we can truly love ourselves, we can love others.

There is nothing wrong in doing the easy thing. Every experience teaches us something about ourselves. Only by going through that can we understand ourselves better and take better decisions.

I am glad you are getting stronger. I can empathize with your pain of feeling like falling your whole life. While obstacles can improve our character, endless obstacles without space to recover can make you feel out of control and overwhelmed by circumstances. Please do not hesitate to accept help. Only truly strong people accept help. And you are a truly strong person. You have weathered many hardships in your life and you are still standing, still breathing…As long as you live and breathe, you can pick yourself up piece by piece, improving just one tiny aspect of life before improve another and another after a while. It is okay to fall down, no one in life can go without falling down. It may be hard to get back up, we may need to sit there for a while, take a deep breathe and gather energy before we can get up. But, WE WILL GET UP. We will move forward :slight_smile:

I am glad you are feeling ready :smiley: And if you ever feeling like you are falling, all you need to do is ask and we will happily lend our strength :handshake:

To a brighter and better future tetra san :raised_hands:

7 Likes

What if you could write only one post in Wanikani forum and yet change the entire style of learning on Wanikani, inspire generations of durtles to make major improvements to their study plans and have a resounding impact on thousands of users?

I can think of only one person - THE IRREPRESSIBLE @jprspereira

Pereira san’s Level 60 post titled “My Journey of 368 days (+ The Ultimate Guide for WK open_book )” is probably the most quoted, most read and most visited post on Wanikani. Every single person who posts a welcome message to new durtles (think Kumirei, Joeni, Young Adam etc.) or every time someone posts “I don’t know how to use WK” - the number one suggestion is “Read jprspereira’s guide”. It is hard to measure the exact impact of one post, but I am willing to bet an arm or two to confidently say that this single post levelled up the skills of Wanikani users by a notch or two. It is not an individual improvement, it is a systemic improvement. Just through the impact of this single post, Pereira san easily enters WaniKani Big 3.

I took quite a few relevant parts from your plan and added it to my plans after tweaking them. Pereira san, I thank you on the behalf of all the durtles that have been positively impacted by your post. For the outstanding impact you had on this community, I bestow upon you the title of Phenom Durtle

17 Likes

I know it’s not my thread, but I would like to throw @viet’s name out there too. He’s one of the co-founders and put up with a lot of our less than graceful shenanigans in the dark beta days to get the app to where it is today. I know @koichi gets to be in all of the mnemonics, but I haven’t forgotten you @viet.

10 Likes

No problem at all Ryosuke san :slight_smile: This thread is for everybody not just me. I am happy you popped in and shared your gratitude :smiley: Thank You :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I didn’t know there was someone along with Koichi during the early days. Is there a thread or place where can read/learn about Viet san :slight_smile: ?

4 Likes

Please tell me its the same viet that pops in many of the example sentences :astonished:

とにかく、I would like to thank @ainsley and @trunklayer for their kind words when I posted on Complaining is still a must.

And you too @KyokaJiro san. I was trynna rush through levels to reach level 21 before 2021. I have found the right pace :grin:

I didnt expect a community to be so helpful and caring.

8 Likes

This is so beautiful and so important! It reminds me of this great comic adaption of a beautiful quote by Rachel Carson on “the sense of wonder”.

:green_heart:

7 Likes

Oooo thank you for sharing that comic! It’s so sweet and well-done.

4 Likes

Sure. Viet is everywhere.

6 Likes

Even in your dreams.

20 Likes

Reading this, I am touched (referring to your first line in English).
Your story is moving and I wish for you to one day be able to walk the paths you want to walk.

3 Likes