Something I learned from Season 0 Abridged. (At this stage I’m not sure I’d recognise the actual voice actors over the abridged one)
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Since I’ve got a dark soul myself, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem 
I doubt that I’m already good enough to watch it in Japanese, but I will definitely do that at some point!
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give me that thing, your dark soul
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Never hehe 
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Time for two more chapters!
サプライズ (19 / 22)
帰り道の途中で、マーカスのブレスレットが震えました。
(Markus:) メッセージ？誰だろう？
アリガトウ
チュッ
セレス
On the way back home, Markus’ bracelet shivered.
(Markus:) A message? I wonder who it is.
Thank you
Kiss
Celes(tina)
そのあと (20 / 22)
マーカスとセレスティーナはルーンハンティングによく出かけるようになっていました。
二人はルーンストーンを売って大金を稼ぎ、マーカスはルーンクラフトの、セレスティナは薬草の勉強を続けていました。
そんなある日事故が起き、生活は一変してしまったのです。
Markus and Celestina started to go out for hunting runes often.
The two sold the rune stones and earned a lot of money, Markus continued studying rune crafting and Celestina continued studying medical herbs.
On one such day, an accident occured and changed their lives completely.
And these are actually the last actual chapters, meaning I’m done with the first part!
The 21st chapter is only a manual on how to type with the runes, which is not important for the story (at least I think so), but an extremely cool addition!
The 22nd chapter is the thanks and credits page.
I’ll rate the story after I read through all parts, but I like a lot it so far 
And I absolutely love that @drdru included a manual for the rune stones!
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Yes you’re done with the first part. Congrats ! The best is yet to come
The reason I made a manual is because I needed to have a mental model of how they work and what they look like like the minimum number of buttons they can have and how things are displayed on their ‘screen’.
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Since February is over now, it’s time to see what I was able to accomplish last month!
MJJ - Monthly Summary: February 2024
Feb 3rd, 2024
- Leveled up to level 11
Feb 9th, 2024
- Finished Aryn’s Rescue, my first story ever in Japanese
Feb 10th, 2024
- Leveled up to level 12
- Starting reading all NHK Easy articles every day
Feb 12th, 2024
- Finished Aryn’s Wonderful World
Feb 14th, 2024
- Started with handwriting practice
Feb 17th, 2024
- Leveled up to Level 13
Feb 18th, 2024
- Started N3 Grammar
Feb 19th, 2024
- Finished The King’s Birthday
Feb 24th, 2024
- Leveled up to level 14
Feb 29th, 2024
So, this month was mainly practice, but I also started new grammar, handwriting practice, and continued with WK at my usual pace! If everything goes well, I might be able to finish everything up to N1 grammar on Bunpro by the end of April of beginning of May, before I get my first burns lol, but we’ll see how it goes!
Another thing to note is that I was able to read Japanese on every single day this month, so yay! 
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Time to start the second part of Markus’ Ascent! Here we go!
丘から洞窟へ (1 / 19)
マーカスとセレスティーナはダリンガムの丘の南側に着きました。
(Markus:) 洞窟の入口はこの丘の上だ。長くて危険な旅になりそうだな。
(Celestina:) あそこには特別なルーンストーンがあるんでしょう？
(Markus:) そうさ。
(Celestina:) じゃあ、行かないとだめね！
Markus and Celestina arrived at the south side hill of
(Markus:) The entrance of the cave is on top of this hill. It will become a long and dangerous trip.
(Celestina:) There are special rune stones over there, right?
(Markus:) Yep.
(Celestina:) Welk then, we have to go!
狭くて滑りやすい道 (2 / 19)
狭くて急な坂道を歩いていきます。
(Markus:) 滑やすいから注意しよう。くれぐれも気をつけて。
(Celestina:) 心配しな…
あっ …
あっ …
ちょっと滑るわね。
(Markus:) ほら、言っただろ！
They came to walk on a narrow and unexpected hill road.
(Markus:) It’s slippery, so let’s be careful. Be very careful!
(Celestina:) Don’t worry…
Ah…
Ah…
I slipped a bit.
(Markus:) See, what I said!
@drdru When I tried to look up 滑やすい (second chapter, first word that Markus says) with Yomitan, I didn’t get any results. After putting it in Jisho, it returned 滑りやすい, which would make sense in this context. The first one might be just a colliqual shortening that I’m not aware of, but I definitely want to point that out 
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Google seems to agree with you. I’ll check with my friend before making changes though.
Good spot ! Thanks for letting me know.
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Time for two more chapters from Markus’ Ascent!
茂みのある平地 (3 / 19)
二人は茂みのある広大な草地を進んでいました。
(Markus:) やっと平地だ。足が痛いな…
(Celestina:) 私のもよ。大変だったわね。
カサカサ
(Markus:) シーッ
(Celestina:) ?
(Markus:) 見たかい？茂みが揺れた。やるぞ。
The two people moved forward in a huge grassland with bushes.
(Markus:) Finally, flatland! My feet are sore…
(Celestina:) Mine too! That was terrible!
Rustling
(Markus:) Shhh
(Celestina:) ?
(Markus:) Did you see? The bush shaked. It moves.
取り出された盾と剣 (4 / 19)
二人は盾と剣を取り出して、ゆっくりと静かに茂みに近づいていきました。
(Markus:) 茂みの中にいるのはわかってるぞ。３つ数える前に出てこないと攻撃するからな。1… 2…
…
(Celestina:) キツネ！？
(Both:) ほっ
The two took out a shield and a sword and approached the bush slowly and quietly.
(Markus:) I know that there is something inside the bush. If it doesn’t come out before I count to three, we will attack then. 1…2…
…
(Celestina:) A fox!?
(Both:) Phew
The translation of the TWC is probably the most consistent part of my study routine lol
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Your translation is all good.
My texts are written in simplified Japanese but I would not say they are easy. Given you’re really putting the effort into it trying to understand everything, at the end of it you’re going to have a serious vocab and grammar base to start reading manga or play JRPG. Congrats for that !
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Another week has passed!
Before I say anything else, I have to make a quick note: I’m currently making sort of a “cheat sheet” for 大, because it’s starting to get really annoying with its on’yomi readings (たい vs. だい), even worse than 日… I’m not sure how many of you would find that helpful, but I planned to make a thread in the tips and tricks category with it. I also plan to do the same for 人 and perhaps also 日. Let me know what you think :3 These aren’t rules that are always applicable (at least I assume so), but only patterns that I found within the WK vocab, so that’s why I call it a cheat sheet.
Anyway, let’s see what happened:
The most important change is probably my pacing in grammar: After going with 5 grammar points per day for quite some time, the speedster inside me decided to take the lead again and doubled the amount of grammar points, which means I’m now doing 10 grammar points per day! If I’m able to maintain that pace until the end of N1 grammar, I should be finished with it by the end of April or beginning of March, which would mean that I’ve gone through every single grammar point on Bunpro in four months after starting it… Heck yeah, that’s what I call speed! 
Regarding handwriting practice, I decided to stick to a pace of 2 days per level until I catch up. I’m currently at level 4, so it shouldn’t take me too long (at least I hope so lol).
Then, I managed to do something for production: I made a Japanese-only thread on the Bunpro forums because of a request of a forum user there, and I mean, something like that can’t be missing on a language learning forum, right? I also plan to make one on the Natively forums today or tomorrow. Yes, I am EVERYWHERE!
My listening really sucked this week, I didn’t do any practice for that… Feel free to punch me in the face for doing that.
I guess that’s already it… I’m not even nearly as productive as Fallynleaf 
Btw, I got History and Latin exams on March 20th and 21st, so I’ll probably be offline almost the entire day there. I might not be able to do my usual two chapters from the TWC there, as I’ll try to do at least the bare bare minimum (WaniKani and Bunpro), but I’ll try my best
Alright, time for some STATS!
See ya! :3
| 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WaniKani | |||||||
| jpdb/iKnow/??? | |||||||
| Bunpro | |||||||
| Reading | |||||||
| Listening | |||||||
| Handwriting | |||||||
| Production |
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The story continues! Two more chapters from Markus’ Ascent!
崖登り (5 / 19)
道を進むと行き止まりに着きました。目の前には小さな岩があります。
(Markus:) この落ちている岩に登ろう。
…
(Markus:) ヨイショ、簡単じゃないな。
(Celestina:) 左足を少し高くかけて。
(Markus:) おお、ここの足場が見なかったよ。
They advanced on the road and arrived at a dead end. In front of their eyes was a small rock.
(Markus:) I’ll climb this fallen stone!
…
(Markus:) Huff, that’s not easy!
(Celestina:) Please raise your left foot a bit higher.
(Markus:) Oh, I didn’t look at the scuffold of this place!
平らな場所 (6 / 19)
マーカスは、平らな場所で、休んでいます。
(Celestina:) 上への道は見える？
(Markus:) えっと 、難しくて危なそうだな。無理だと思う。
(Celestina:) 残念。他の道を探しましょう。
カサカサ
(Markus:) この音は何だ？
Markus was resting at a flat place.
(Celestina:) Can you see the top of the path?
(Markus:) Well, it seems to be difficult and dangerous. I think that it’s impossible.
(Celestina:) That’s unfortunate. Let’s search for another road.
Rustling
(Markus:) What is this sound?
I just noticed that the number of chapters here seems to be odd, so I’ll probably do the last chapter as well when I get to 17 and 18
Yeah, they’re definitely not easy, there are quite a few lines where I have to think twice about their meaning. But, if it is difficult, but still doable for me, that means that I’m practising efficiently, which should help me to improve! 
Thanks! I couldn’t do that without the TWC, so thank you for writing them! 
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I’m also a lot older than you and have spent a lot more time on Japanese, going a lot slower 
. It has taken me three years of work to get to a point where I can read 6.5 volumes of manga in two weeks, much less do that on top of translating the backstage comments from two pro wrestling shows plus a press conference, and while keeping up non-Japanese hobbies like writing.
I spent my first year as a fan translator constantly crying from stress from trying to meet a bunch of deadlines, and didn’t have time to read much of anything else, because the translations basically monopolized my time and energy. Managed not to burn out through the power of being autistic and having a special interest in the thing that I was translating, though there were a few points where I came very close to quitting…
But I did get through it. I plodded along at my consistent but slow pace long enough that a lot of things that used to be hard for me are relatively easy now, and engaging with Japanese in general takes so much less energy than it used to, which means I can do a lot more and get a lot further.
So I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself! Just do what you’re able to do each day and don’t overextend yourself too much, and one day you’ll be there, too. It’s more important that you’re able to keep going tomorrow than it is to get as much done today as humanly possible.
I guess to live up to my gimmick on this forum as the person who always shows up to warn people against going too fast with SRS, I caution you a bit here…
I think it’s totally possible to get through the beginner grammar super fast and have that work out for you, since you’ll reinforce it a lot through exposure, but once you get into the N3-N1 material, individual grammar points start to become a lot less common and are also often very similar to each other, with only slight nuances differentiating them, and you’ll likely have a much harder time learning those in a SRS vacuum.
You might find it a lot more pleasant and also more effective to just learn them as you encounter them in media, or learning them alongside a textbook where you can get them reinforced in reading passages and such, or trying Satori Reader, or some other tool that helps you learn grammar as you read.
You’re doing a whole lot of SRS, and they’re each going to keep ramping up, so I’d be careful with adding new cards so that you don’t reach a point where you’re doing like 4 hours of SRS every single day and have no energy for anything else. If you’re going full speed on WaniKani, it might be a good idea to find a non-SRS way to study grammar. SRS should be supplementary to immersion and interacting with Japanese speakers, not your main exposure to the language.
I chose to forgo grammar SRS entirely, and I think it was a good choice because if I’d had another SRS going during those times when I almost quit, the extra pressure from those reviews might’ve pushed me over and caused me to burn out. Your tolerance might be stronger than mine, but everyone has bad days, so you want to be kind to your future self on those days and make sure you aren’t trying to do too much now that will lead to piles of work for future you.
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For English, I would tend to select the rock-climbing vocabulary meaning, “foothold”.
I didn’t see a foothold here.
There are several new words for me
…足場 (あしば foothold)
…行き止まり (いきどまり dead end)
PS FallynLeaf is wise
Just to say: I also dropped the SRS of BunPro and KameSame fairly quickly (and my SRS of vocabulary for my reading with Book Clubs)… Just to get through my Wanikani and life
Good luck with your exams, Neo!!
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According to Jisho 岩 can mean crag (‘a steep, rugged rock, or part of a rock that sticks out’). I did not know that word in English but I checked google image and it matches what I meant and what’s on the illustration.
I would be a better translation than rock in this instance.
(Celestina:) 左足を少し高くかけて。
(Celestina:) Please raise your left foot a bit higher.
Your translation would work better for
左足を少し高くかけてください
I think ‘Raise your left foot a bit higher’ works better here.
And @Shannon-8 is correct about that one :
足場 (あしば foothold)
which is a rock climbing term.
I find these words interesting because while they are not common they are easy to understand since they they use common Kanjis.
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そうですね～
They are nice, because the meanings can be guessed from basic kanji and context
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I guess this is a question for @drdru , but shouldn’t this be 見えなかった？
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I see what you mean, and I thought about this a lot already myself, especially regarding the SRS. But (of course I have to pull out a “but”, otherwise I wouldn’t make my stubborness proud lol):
I think that if I can power through all the grammar in two months, I will probably avoid the peak of the workload. As you might know, Bunpro has 12 SRS stages, and by the time I’d finish N1, I would be doing reviews for items up to Seasoned 3. However, since I won’t add any new grammar points, by the time I get Expert 1 items to review (which should happen about one month after finishing N1), my Apprentice and Adept item count will (hopefully) be very low, which means I’ll nicely dodge the peak of the workload.
And to avoid spending all of my time for SRS, I limit myself to a certain number of sessions per day, which works out. I do most of my reviews in the morning and in the evening, but sometimes also during the day when I feel like it (except for level critical reviews, of course). As for KaniWani, I only do that once per day, and the review sessions there are a lot faster because I have no kanji and radicals, and I only have to input the reading, instead of reading and meaning.
My thoughts were that if I can get through the grammar more quickly, I have more access to Japanese media, as grammar won’t limit me anymore. And, I can also practise grammar passively this way, in addition to my production practices.
And while it is true that I encounter N3 to N1 not as often as N5 and N4, I do encounter it even in the NHK Easy articles (just a few days ago, I had to ask because there was an N2 grammar point in one article, so much for the “easy” part lol).
As always, thanks a lot for the corrections! Regarding 足場: I was thinking about using “foothold” actually, but I gotta admit that I didn’t know this word before I encountered it here, and I didn’t want to use a word that I don’t know (yes, my English vocab knowledge is trash lol)
True, they actually make sense, other than, for example, 都合 
Thanks a lot!
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More than the peak workload, you have to think about the opportunity cost: Any time you spend doing Bunpro and KaniWani reviews, you are not spending on other things. How many hours is it going to take you to learn and review all those N1 items? How many new words could you have learned in that time instead?
Looking at the big picture: What is going to make you fluent in Japanese? Using the language. A lot.
All the SRS in the world isn’t going to get you there, it’s only the stepping stone that enables you to use the language. So the goal should be to get to the point where you can watch shows/read books/listen to audiobooks/… a lot and actually understand things.
What is going to get you there? Core grammar and core vocabulary. N1 grammar is so infrequent that it barely makes a difference in your understanding. The top 2k most frequent words appear all the time, learning those makes a giant difference.
I’d love to continue with a rant on how English → Japanese quizzing (like KaniWani) is also much less useful than one believes when starting out and is probably time better spent elsewhere, but I think I’ll cut that short by borrowing someone elses words 
TL;DR: Any time you spend on something, no matter how little, is time you could be spending on something else. Every time you choose to spend your time on one thing, you’re also choosing not to spend it on something else. An insane goal like N1 (or even just N2) in a year is going to require more than just a lot of time spent studying.
(Sorry for the unsolicited advice, after years of learning Japanese I’ve developed some pretty strong opinions. It’s hard not to jump into these kinds of discussions )
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