I did indeed hit level 60 early this month, and am about to guru the last of the level 60 lessons. But this post isn’t just about my progress in Japanese. If you’ve seen my study log recently then you already know this, but for those that don’t, I made a lot of major lifestyle changes this year, mainly starting online school, meditating, going to the gym, and managing my mental illnesses.
The reason I was able to do all of that was because of this community. I don’t have any role models in my life. I have a lot of anti-role models, people that I don’t want to be, but in my family, friends, and work, there’s really no one that I can look up to. All of my role models, are here in this community. I’ve watched you all get your degrees, stop smoking, learn new instruments, and everyone’s common goal: learning Japanese. The more time I spent with everyone here, the more I wanted to start improving myself.
Thanks to everyone’s influence, I’ve reached several milestones in the last few months, including:
- I just passed my fourth final exam this morning, thereby completing my first set of classes. I’m now 18% done with my degree.
- All of my exercises at the gym have increased in weight by 200-300%. I’m stronger, more confident, have more energy, and can breathe easier.
- I stopped hanging out with my terrible friend group. These were people that did hard drugs and were going nowhere in life, and wanted to drag me down with them.
- I stopped smoking weed. Alcohol is next.
There are a handful of people that have been especially influential in my journey:
@taiyousea aka crazy textbook lady, for getting a Master’s degree while learning Japanese every day. When I was worried about whether I could continue studying Japanese while pursuing a degree and working, I thought about you, and how happy you were and proud we were when you finished your program.
@mitrac for tracking all your progress and compiling your pretty graphs, and practicing your cello. We can feel how much fun you’re having with your cello, and the more you talk about it, the more I want to play my ukulele again.
@trunklayer for quitting tobacco. When my brother came back into my life and offered me his vape again, I didn’t think about the chain-smokers in my family, nor the people that tried to quit and failed. Instead I thought of you and your unbroken streak, and declined weed for the first time in my life. I haven’t smoked or otherwise consumed since.
@raindrops for sharing a single brain cell with me for packing up and moving across the world. You make me think that maybe moving to a new country isn’t impossible. Wherever you are out in corn-and-tornado-land, I hope you’re still continuing to learn Japanese, and that you’ll drop in on us once in a while.
@akashelia the way you help everyone in the mokuro thread is admirable, I’m impressed by your knowledge and patience, and you were one of the big reasons I chose a degree in computer science.
@soggyboy for all the clubs you run and participate in. Back in spring when I was getting ready to host two clubs simultaneously, I thought about all the clubs you host in a year, and realized two isn’t that intimidating after all. Also for running the Casual Quartet Study Group, you guys feel like my younger siblings.
@dunlewy for learning a new language at your age. (Sorry, you must be tired of hearing that) After your struggles in the spring readathon, I was so happy to see you surpass eight hours last weekend!
Special thanks to soggy and mitrac for yapping on everyone’s study logs so that no one feels lonely!
What’s next for me
- Read one million words. I’m at ~250k right now. Sometimes the books I read have a jpdb deck that tells me their word count, but many books don’t. In this case, I calculate an approximate word count using the character count, with a ratio of ~2.5 characters per word for ~level 25, and ~2.25 for ~level 30.
- Turn off subtitles for good
- Leave Wanikani (The website, not the forums) I always knew I didn’t want to wait around to burn everything, but I didn’t want to stop right after level 60 either. I wanted to get those least level 60 items to a somewhat high srs level, but what was a good stopping point? Well I decided, just a few hours ago, that after three years, today will be the last day I do a review on Wanikani.
- Finish my degree
- Get nice arms and shoulders. Strong enough to pick people up.[1]
Do I have any advice?
I started writing this post a year ago, and throughout that time I changed this section a lot, writing new things and deleting some stuff. But the final thing I’ve settled on is this: don’t let anyone tell you you’re doing it wrong. There aren’t very many wrong ways to learn a language. The only one I can think of is if you’re speaking and writing without getting corrected, and in this digital world it’s easy to find native speakers to talk with. If you learned one word today, if you wrote one sentence today, if you did ten reviews today, that’s progress. We will all get there, in our own time, and in our own way.
Now as for the question in the title, in case you haven’t, then you will this weekend, when I finally get my three year old cake!
Sent from my iPad