KanjiOzeki's eternal source of motivation [yet another study log]

Japanese Language Study Logs (Public)
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Hi There! It’s me, KanjiOzeki. Welcome to my study log.
I’ll be talking mostly to myself here in the hopes that this log will help to keep my motivation high, but you are certainly welcome to read along!

Where to start? I kinda started my Japanese journey on a whim, and very recently. But unlike other projects that come and go, I kinda want to stick with this for a while. I’m currently enjoying the learning journey and would like to end up able to have some basic reading comprehension. Bonus if it includes enough to have some basic Japanese conversations for a holiday trip to Japan (next year? :crossed_fingers:)

As you might guess from my username I like to watch Sumo wrestling. I got into watching Sumo since NHK started putting their videos on Youtube in 2024. For those of you who don’t watch Sumo wrestling: Ozeki is the 2nd highest ‘champion’ rank, just below the great champions or Yokozuna.
The broadcasts are in English, but there’s a lot of jargon with the kimarite (winning tactic), ranks, etc. and I couldn’t help but want to learn more about it.
Japan has a fascinating culture. Definitely a mixed bag of good and bad, but either way distinct from the general western culture I grew up in.

So, I started with Wanikani March 26th just to check out some Kanji, and it got me hooked. The gamified SRS system works really well for me. It became immediately apparent that it would be hard to progress without learning Hiragana and Katakana. So I picked that up pretty quickly thanks to the Tofugo site. I rarely have issues with hiragana now, 3 weeks later. Katakana there’s still some characters I get confused about sometimes, but it’s mostly fine. I have a little kana cheat sheet for when I need it.

After level 1 I started looking for more resources to round out the WK experience. Mostly grammar, but also some conversation exercises.
I settled on:

  • MaruMori: mostly for the gamified grammar stuff, but also added vocabulary.
  • Genki: grammar
  • Irodori: mostly conversational Japanese, but it’s free!
  • NHK Easy Conversation lessons
    Of these I’ll mainly be focussing on WaniKani + MaruMori to ‘spearhead’ my learning and then go through Genki + Irodori a bit later to consolidate my knowledge. My first impression is that Genki is a good method, but MaruMori works better to pick up the concepts for now. Genki seems to assume you live in Japan as a foreign exchange student and are familiar with the student / class lingo.

I also found a bunch of reading material. There really is no shortage of this, only thing I might add to it on the short term are graded readers if I feel I lack material.

  • Tadoku.org has some really basic japanese picture books
  • NHK web easy
  • Various manga I bought (mostly to motivate me because I look forward to be able to read them. I realise most will remain far above my skill level for a while.)
  • Yotsuba
  • Polar bear cafe
  • Dragonball
  • Death Note
  • One Piece
  • Naruto
  • One Punch-Man
  • Neon Evangelion

Other than that I turned on Japanese subtitles on Netflix where possible. It’s kinda fun to see more and more recognizable in the subtitles. (for now mostly the katakana and the odd Kanji-based word)

Long term goal:

  • :fast_forward_button: Wanikani level 30
  • :pause_button: MaruMori N3 complete
  • :place_of_worship: Be able to (mostly) read the manga I bought. Dragonball, One Piece etc.

Short(er) term goals:

  • :white_check_mark: WaniKani level 8 to get the full N5 Kanji coverage. (23 may 2025)
  • :pause_button: MaruMori N5 complete and decent grasp of the N5 grammar points.
  • :white_check_mark: 1000 words (9 june 2025)
  • :downwards_button: Maybe start on some basic manga, or graded readers. Maybe Yotsuba will be doable?
  • :pause_button: No firm goals on Genki, Irodori etc. I’ll work on them if I feel like it, but I don’t want to overload myself.

Current status (23 days in):

  • Wanikani level 4 just started
  • MaruMori 40/138 in Fledgling Forest (N5) and 16/40 grammar points ‘guru’ status
  • Irodori: Halfway through lesson 2
  • Genki: chapter 1 started
  • NHK Easy Conversation lessons: lesson 1 finished.

So yeah, loads more to do. But I feel like I’m on the right path to eventual progress.

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Welcome to WaniKani and this community! catwave
We have a very nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaice commeownity and I really hope you’d like it here! love2

Coincidentally, I’m currently reading this free manga which you might find interesting:

Might be a bit too advanced for your current level, but who knows…

You might also find this thread interesting:

In any case, best of luck with your studies! wricat

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A sumo manga. That’s cool. I’ll put it on the list of stuff to check out once I get the first 1000 basic words and see how far I get then :slight_smile:

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Check in ~2 weeks after my opening post:

Current status (35 days in):
:smiley: overall feeling

:smiley: Wanikani level 5 first half almost all in apprentice 4 waiting for the second half to unlock.
:slightly_smiling_face: MaruMori 48/138 in Fledgling Forest (N5) and 43/60 grammar points ‘guru’ status
:slightly_smiling_face: Tadoku Graded readers: 1/18 level S books finished.
:neutral_face: Irodori: Halfway through lesson 2
:face_exhaling: Genki: chapter 1 started
:sleeping_face: NHK Easy Conversation lessons: lesson 1 finished.

Vocabulary
Really happy with my WaniKani progress. Currently spending about 10-11 days on a level. I’m really happy if I can keep it under 2 weeks. Since level 4 the WK pace has definitely picked up and feels like I’m learning new words at a good pace.

I started looking at all the MaruMori stud lists as well and added a few hundred words. Mostly easy katakana words and ‘very common’ hiragana words. Probably up to ~300-400 extra words that don’t overlap with WK. Not the most useful to learn all those katakana words since almost all are basically the (butchered) English word. Then again, I now am a lot more confident on reading katakana. I can now mostly understand when it’s h/f or r/l and only rarely confuse レ/フ or ソ/ン/シ/ツ.

Grammar
I’ve (mostly) been slacking on MaruMori, Genki etc.
I do need to start using the WK ‘holding pattern’ times when you are waiting for new stuff to unlock to work on MM grammar, get some Tadoku reading in etc.
MM felt really tough with a lot of new concepts combined with new words. I’m starting to catch up with the MM vocabulary. Now that I’m getting caught up I really want to push to get at least to lesson 57/138. I think it’s not a super bad thing to take a little more time on the grammar and do it at a time when I can focus mostly on the grammar. That said, I do want to hold myself accountable to keep making progress.

I don’t mind too much putting irodori & Genki on a bit of a pause for right now and come back to it a bit later to ‘solidify’ the grammar I learnt primarily through MaruMori.
NHK Easy Conversation was a little ‘extra’ I tried. I might come back to it when I feel like it, but I won’t make it a goal.

Reading
The main new thing is starting with the graded readers. I like it and it wasn’t too bad at all.
Tadoku recommends that you don’t use a dictionary and just skip over stuff. I might give that a try as a first pass. But I definitely plan to keep looking up all words I don’t know so I can learn them! I can see the sense in the advice for actual stories, articles etc. But the only point to reading these (very easy) graded readers is acquiring the basic vocabulary & grammar!

Question: What’s your approach to Graded Readers? Skip over stuff, or dictionary?

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For me, the problem with the “learn all the things while I read!” approach was that it wasn’t reading anymore. It was… learning all the things. And it made reading a real dragging crawl of an affair.

I found more benefit from the tadoku approach, but not so strict that I’d look up nothing. If the topic is [bla], and I have no idea what that is, I’ll keep reading a bit to see if I can work it out from context before looking it up.

Especially in the beginning, I had my dedicated grammar studies, and I had my dedicated vocab studies. It turned out best for me to let reading be reading, without also being those two other things. Spotting the words I was learning. Getting used to sentence structure. Absorbing grammar by looking up the most frequently recurring things.

Everyone learns differently, of course, but that worked most sustainably for me.

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Hello and welcome! I started the day after you and am doing… not quite as well as you but I’m enjoying the journey. :slight_smile:

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Thank you! And for what it’s worth: To me it sounds like you are doing very well!

Comparing pace is unavoidable, but I think not very helpful in the end. Everyone has their own personal journey. The two things I want to focus on above all are keep making progress and have fun with it. There are a lot of factors which make comparisons invalid. I can’t help but look at people who ‘speedrun’ WK, but they could have advantages like: infinite time, actually living in Japan, it could be a reset from a higher level, maybe they had already studied Japanese in school, or already know Chinese characters. It’s also very possible that they just have a better memory, scheduling and motivation than I for learning this.

In the end I can only set my own goals and see how I do.
I think the one thing that gives me a big boost at the moment is that I’ve felt that I’m no longer making progress in my job. I’ve been looking for something where I can feel like I’m learning and for whatever reason I latched onto learning Japanese to fill that need. I’m also lucky in the sense that I don’t have many obligations and can spend a few hours per day on it.

For me to stick with a project long-time is rare though. I’ve often started things fast and then quit only for other people who are making steady progress to overtake me. I would like to become a bit more like that latter type of person. Sticking with this daily for over 30 days is a big deal for me.

I really want to give myself every opportunity to stick with this long enough to be able to read some basic manga. That’s why I try to set up as much ‘help’ for myself while motivation is still high. I may sound like I have it all figured out, but underneath I’m worried for the inevitable motivation drop. I don’t mind a slowdown, but I really hope I can at least keep doing a couple reviews daily when that happens so I can get back in it later and not have yet another abandoned project.

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Could quote the whole thing because they are wise words indeed, but to keep it short (for once)… agree totally! I think the comparison was more an appreciation of your progress so far. :slight_smile:

That’s one of the things I love about this community is the reinforcement of motivation that comes from the open sharing of study logs and progress, and just how wonderful the people here have been so far. I have similar problems where if I’ve got something long-term that I want to do but am not really driven to do, if I have a day or two where it breaks I can totally stop. I like these study logs as a way to self-police. :slight_smile:

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Another 2 weeks have passed. Time for another check-in!

Current status (49 days in):
:smiley: overall feeling

:star_struck: Wanikani level 7, about one third in (started all the lvl 6 vocab and first half kanji. Didn’t do all the available level 7 vocab yet.)
:grimacing: MaruMori 57/138 in Fledgling Forest (N5) and 40/60 grammar points ‘guru’ status
:sleeping_face: Tadoku Graded readers: 1/18 level S books finished.
:sleeping_face: Irodori: Halfway through lesson 2
:sleeping_face: Genki: chapter 1 started
:sleeping_face: NHK Easy Conversation lessons: lesson 1 finished.

Vocabulary
Still really happy with my WaniKani progress. It actually sped up to an average of just under 8 days for levels 5 and 6. I’m learning new kanji and vocab at a breakneck pace, but it does come at the cost of everything else. I just don’t have the mental capacity to also do the grammar etc. with 150+ reviews a day and a bunch of lessons on top.
I didn’t really plan for this to happen. I wanted to take 10-14 days per WK level. I think it’s fine for as long as I’m still highly motivated to do so and still find it fun.

Grammar
I did do a few lessons on MaruMori, but not nearly as many as I planned.
I also have definitely been slacking with the Grammar SRS, focussing on the easier vocab SRS :face_with_peeking_eye:. I even managed to make negative progress on the guru+ SRS status on the grammar side. I think the main reason I’ve been avoiding it has been that I find it rather challenging (apart from less time due to the WK SRS load).
I think this is ‘OK’ for at most a few more WK levels. It’s not bad to get to a 1000 words on WK first I think, but I don’t want to unbalance my Japanese learning too much. Hopefully my appetite for grammar will come back naturally. :pleading_face:

Reading
Did next to nothing in this category. There’s a few reading exercises on MaruMori I guess, but even those I felt I didn’t do too well. (~80% missing vocab, ~20% misinterpreting grammar).

Short Term Goals

  • WaniKani: lvl 8
  • MaruMori: get back on the grammar SRS train and get to lesson 65 minimum (72 ideally)
  • Tadoku: get back on the Tadoku lvl S books!!! Last one I read was 22 april :face_with_crossed_out_eyes: And I don’t know why, because that one was kinda fun to read.
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Current status (63 days in):
:smiley: overall feeling

:racing_car: :dashing_away: Wanikani level 8, about 75% in (guru’d over half of the kanji and even started 70% of the lvl 8 vocab. It’s nice when a lot of the kanji unlock early.)
:sleeping_face: MaruMori 57/138 in Fledgling Forest (N5) and 40/60 grammar points ‘guru’ status
:sleeping_face: Tadoku Graded readers: 1/18 level S books finished.
:sleeping_face: Irodori: Halfway through lesson 2
:sleeping_face: Genki: chapter 1 started
:sleeping_face: NHK Easy Conversation lessons: lesson 1 finished.

Vocabulary
After taking a couple extra days on lvl 7, lvl 8 looks like it’ll be done in ~8 days again. Approaching 800 vocabulary items and 300 kanji.
I’ll keep focussing on WaniKani for the next 2 weeks. It’s starting to become a lot of reviews, but I still manage for now. I want to keep the pace up for now before slowing down later and start focussing on other stuff again.

Grammar
Haven’t done anything on MaruMori, even lost my streak :downcast_face_with_sweat:

Reading
Nope, nothing here either. :grimacing:

Previous Short Term Goals

  • :white_check_mark: WaniKani: lvl 8
  • :cross_mark: MaruMori: get back on the grammar SRS train and get to lesson 65 minimum (72 ideally)
  • :cross_mark: Tadoku: get back on the Tadoku lvl S books!!! Last one I read was 22 april :face_with_crossed_out_eyes: And I don’t know why, because that one was kinda fun to read.

New Short Term Goals

  • WaniKani lvl 9 (nearly) finished
  • Tadoku: start reading damn you!

I’ll give up on grammar for now to not pile on too much while the WK load is heavy.

Wife
Suprise item, my wife surprised me by also starting to learn Japanese. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:
Her approach is completely different though. She subscribed to the JapanesePod101 method. I’m focussed more on reading. She likes to listen to podcasts and is focussed on conversations so I think it’s a great fit for her. I won’t be tracking her progress, but it’s great to share this journey with her.

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You’re really sailing through WK, though! I’m about the same number of days in and I’m hitting maybe 10-12 days per level. I would be concerned if something I was trying to do was falling by the wayside, though - it sounds like you want to do the grammar as well. What I ended up doing since I started MM so late (like I literally did the whole intro island in a few hours because none of that was new), was that after maybe a week to ten days, decided that I wasn’t going to do the vocab on MaruMori at all and use it strictly for the grammar. So far that seems to help, since the struggle on the vocab there was real for me.

That’s awesome! Closest I have gotten is that my younger son will listen to a Rocket audio lesson or a Tokini Andy video wish me when we drive somewhere.

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I’ve stopped with the vocabulary on MaruMori almost as soon as it wanted different meanings for the same kanji. That tripped me up on both platforms for a bit.

I will use it for the grammar. I’ll just be kind to myself and not force myself to do it, it’s not a necessity right now. I know myself and I’ll have a lot more appetite for it if I come back to it naturally, than having to force myself to do it.

And yeah, I’m over the moon my wife is learning Japanese as well. I think it was the prospect for a big holiday next year that did it for her. She wants to be able to speak the language enough to have a basic conversation. (order some food, ask where the toilet is etc.). She has also done the podcast route years ago for a long trip to China. I would never force her to do it. You can only learn something when you want to learn something.
It’s fun to hear her practice pronunciations and discuss what the some of the expressions might mean. It’s written out in kana / romaji only, no kanji, which makes it quite hard. I already find myself wishing they’d use kanji! :face_with_steam_from_nose:

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Current status (77 days in):
:smiley: overall feeling

:racing_car: :dashing_away: Wanikani level 10. All of the early lvl 10 radicals, kanji and most of the early vocab at a very ripe Apprentice IV stage. Just waiting to fall in the Guru basket and make room in the crowded Apprentice area.
:sleeping_face: MaruMori 57/138 in Fledgling Forest (N5) and 40/60 grammar points ‘guru’ status
:sleeping_face: Tadoku Graded readers: 1/18 level S books finished.
:sleeping_face: Irodori: Halfway through lesson 2
:sleeping_face: Genki: chapter 1 started
:sleeping_face: NHK Easy Conversation lessons: lesson 1 finished.

Vocabulary
Reached my goal of 1000 vocab items on WaniKani!

Grammar
Haven’t done anything here

Reading
I actually did start to read a tiny bit.
I did the first spring story on Satori reader (way too hard without translating everything)
Also ‘read’ a NHK easy news article about the Fukushima power plant incident. Also way too hard, but at least I can start to make out words.
On top of that I couldn’t resist buying some more manga. Got the Ghost in the Shell 1-2 and Frieren pt. 1 on BookWalker (the Japanese site)

Previous Short Term Goals

  • :white_check_mark: WaniKani lvl 9 (nearly) finished
  • :red_question_mark: Tadoku: start reading damn you! (Not Tadoku, but sort of started some reading)

New Short Term Goals

  • WaniKani lvl 12 reached
  • Tadoku: I do want to read the S books.

I’ll keep my main focus on WaniKani for the moment. Looks like the coming levels will unlock a ton of grade 3/4 kanji which probably are among the most useful ones for reading / actually useful words.
I do want to do the Tadoku Graded Readers eventually. Reading random articles / manga I’m more interested in is good, but I don’t think I learn that much when it’s still way too hard.

Miscellaneous
We will be going to the Japanese Market in Utrecht for the first time. Apparently the crowd / food had some issues in previous editions: very busy; food ran out quick. Let’s hope it’s better managed this time.

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Current status (91 days in):
:smiley: overall feeling

:racing_car: :dashing_away: Wanikani level 12 just started.
:sleeping_face: MaruMori 57/138 in Fledgling Forest (N5) and 40/60 grammar points ‘guru’ status
:sleeping_face: Tadoku Graded readers: 1/18 level S books finished.
:sleeping_face: Irodori: Halfway through lesson 2
:sleeping_face: Genki: chapter 1 started
:partying_face: Wagotabi Started playing a bit, just for fun. Not sure how to track. 64 mastery points?

Vocabulary
1250 vocabulary items in the rotation on WK. It ‘burden’ does start to feel heavier every week I’ve got to say. It’s just not easy to keep all of them in your head. Lots of mix-ups too when I get words back after they have lounged in Guru 1/2 for a couple weeks. Have to really force myself to do the reviews before going to bed some nights. So far so good, but a late night 200+ review pile when you know there’s all the new kanji mixed in as well is rough.

Grammar
Wagotabi technically counts. Hmm it’s all pretty easy so far. But I’m surprised how hard the app goes with grammar, kanji etc. After the first couple areas it’s suddenly not trivial anymore. It also is more gamified than Genki and even MaruMori. Maybe that’ll help me do the actual excercises and get to enough of a level where I can go back to MM & Genki to solidify the knowledge.
It’s not fantastic, but hey. It’s some sort of progress. And keeping motivation high is my number one priority.

Reading
Naturally didn’t read any of the stuff that was available to me. But Wagotabi sort of counts in this area. It’s really short sentences so far, but it does test your reading comprehension to advance with the quests.
I also played around with Google Streetview in Japan for a bit and tried to decipher random stuff found on the street. Construction in progress, large vehicles not allowed beyond this point, some businesses. They really like to plaster every surface on kanji in Japan, so it’s not hard to find stuff to read here. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

3 month Special stats dump

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Previous Short Term Goals

  • :white_check_mark: WaniKani lvl 12 reached
  • :cross_mark: Tadoku: I do want to read the S books.

New Short Term Goals

  • WaniKani lvl 13 first kanji set & radicals Guru’d
  • Tadoku: I (still) want to read the S books.
  • Wagotabi: just play a bit more. Have fun with Japanese.

I’ll keep my main focus on WaniKani. I still want to do the Tadoku Graded Readers eventually. Play some more of the Wagotabi game maybe. Keep it light & fun. Keep making progress.

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I’ve tried the Kanji Match app (v1.3.0) by @Divin

It’s a simple app that helps distinguish visually similar kanji. It takes no time at all to go through the entire review pile and it has great potential to avoid confusing the newly learned kanji with already known kanji that look similar. I only tend to notice those similarities when the Guru II / Master reviews come in and I fail them. This will hopefully spare me some review grief. Not to mention that it’s just an easy way to see the visually similar kanji side-by-side so you can hone in on the differences.

My plan is to incorporate it in my study routine and do the reviews 1-2x per week.

Thanks Divin for making this wonderful tool, and taking the feeback & feaure requests on-board!

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Current status (105 days in):
:face_with_bags_under_eyes: overall feeling

:melting_face: Wanikani level 13 ~2 days from done
:sleeping_face: MaruMori 57/138 in Fledgling Forest (N5) and 40/60 grammar points ‘guru’ status
:sleeping_face: Tadoku Graded readers: 1/18 level S books finished.
:sleeping_face: Irodori: Halfway through lesson 2
:sleeping_face: Genki: chapter 1 started
:cowboy_hat_face: Wagotabi Kamatsu Japanese Master defeated. 281 mastery points.
:smile: KanjiMatch completed the review pile a handful of times

Vocabulary
Nearly 1500 vocabulary items in the rotation on WK. The ‘burden’ keeps feeling heavier every week. It’s just not easy to keep all of them in your head. Especially the transitive pairs are giving me lots of issues when they return from Guru / Master. Many keep feeling like a 50/50, or maybe slighty better. Still have the fortitude to do the reviews. But on days with little time they do stack up. And that does mean 200-400 review piles. Yikes. It’s also a lot less efficient when you can’t do the lower level apprentice items multiple times a day to get them back up to Apprentice III / IV quickly.

I also started using KanjiMatch. I really like how you can run through the review pile very quickly. It helps me distinguish the visually similar Kanji. Hopefully this will spare me some review grief in the future. I definitely do mix them up. Especially: 礼、札、社 and 地、他、池

Grammar
The only real source is Wagotabi atm. I do like the app and managed to complete the first area and defeat the Japanese Master. I try to keep up with the SRS system in it. I dislike the spelling stuff (give me a normal keyboard input grr). And the kanji items aren’t very useful. But the sentence building is exactly what I need. It also is very useful by getting exposure to simple conversations.
Main thing: it’s fun. I’ll keep doing it as long as it’s fun.

Reading
Again didn’t read any of the stuff that was available to me. I did leaf through the manga again. I’m getting to the point where about half the words start to be familiar. I just need to find the courage to actually start. But when I do I have a feeling I might do better than expected.

Previous Short Term Goals

  • :white_check_mark: WaniKani lvl 13 first kanji set & radicals Guru’d
  • :cross_mark: Tadoku: I (still) want to read the S books.
  • :white_check_mark: Wagotabi: just play a bit more. Have fun with Japanese.

New Short Term Goals

  • WaniKani lvl 15 reached
  • Wagotabi: just play a bit more. Have fun with Japanese.

I’ll keep my main focus on WaniKani. Play some more of the Wagotabi game.
I still want to do the Tadoku Graded Readers, or NHK news / whatever is interesting. But I’m not gonna add it to the goals anymore. I’ll stick to my own advice: Keep it light & fun. Keep making progress. Reading will come when it’ll come.

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Another mini-milestone reached. I now have more items in Enlightened than in any other category :flexed_biceps:

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Burns will only happen by mid-september, so I’ll celebrate Enlightened for now :person_in_lotus_position:

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Current status (119 days in):
:saluting_face: overall feeling

:slightly_smiling_face: Wanikani level 15 almost halfway
:sleeping_face: MaruMori 57/138 in Fledgling Forest (N5) and 40/60 grammar points ‘guru’ status
:sleeping_face: Tadoku Graded readers: 1/18 level S books finished.
:sleeping_face: Irodori: Halfway through lesson 2
:sleeping_face: Genki: chapter 1 started
:sleeping_face: Wagotabi Kamatsu Japanese Master defeated. 297 mastery points.
:slightly_smiling_face: KanjiMatch completed the review pile a handful of times

Vocabulary
Nearly 1700 words on WK. Still picking them up at about ~100 a week. I’m happy with that.
I felt I got a handle on some of the transitive pairs based on the か or け sound. Turns out it works great for some, but mixes me up on others. I see a dedicated training session in my future. But not yet :grimacing:
KanjiMatch is a fun app, just not sure how much it helps. It’s much easier when you see Kanji side-by-side than when you see them individually. Part of it is that I focus on the differences between Kanji instead of what radicals exactly are in it. It’s a shortcut that speeds me up, but also trips me up because it leaves a more shaky foundation. I think it’s a trade-off that’s working well enough though. Definitely don’t want to do writing exercises where I have to write down every Kanji dozens of times.

Grammar
iu
Reading
Haven’t read anything really. But I did buy some more Manga with the Bookwalker points that were about to expire. And tinkered with getting the Ghost in the Shell manga into Mokuro / extract a frequency list.
I do feel like I’m getting on the cusp of reading. But realistically still a little ways off seeing how I’m between 40-50% known on the frequency lists on Manga Kotoba
I have been playing some more GuoGuessr lately and with Japan rounds it’s fun to try to get the city. The ability to decipher some Japanese definitely helps! Though in fairness, 90% is looking for 市 and then seeing if you can find the city on the map before time runs out. (Turns out there’s a lot of them! :D)

Previous Short Term Goals

  • :white_check_mark: WaniKani lvl 15 reached
  • :cross_mark: Wagotabi: just play a bit more. Have fun with Japanese.

New Short Term Goals

  • WaniKani lvl 17 started
  • Have fun with Japanese.

Overall I feel I’m making good progress with WK alone. I’ve had some days where I didn’t feel like doing my words due to work / fatigue. So far I’ve always come back the next day and 0/0’d the pile though. I also don’t mind it, even with a 300 review pile. Just need to be in the right mindset. So, the real goal is to keep it light, fluffy & fun and just keep at it.

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Another period where it’s hard to keep on top of the review pile. Had 300+ remaining after the weekend, but managed to get back to 0/0 in anticipation of level up to lvl 16 today.

I’m feeling a bit like I’m on the ‘draw the rest of the owl’ stage of my Japanese learning journey.
It’s all fun to learn some words, but actually using my knowledge in Japanese manga / game / whatever is still really hard.

Draw the Rest of the Owl

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</end self-pity>

When the going gets tough, it’s important to celebrate every little achievement. And on that note: I passed 1000 Enlightened items today :partying_face:

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Current status (133 days in):
:slightly_smiling_face: overall feeling

:grinning_face: Wanikani level 17 just started
:sleeping_face: MaruMori 57/138 in Fledgling Forest (N5) and 40/60 grammar points ‘guru’ status
:sleeping_face: Tadoku Graded readers: 1/18 level S books finished.
:sleeping_face: Irodori: Halfway through lesson 2
:sleeping_face: Genki: chapter 1 started
:sleeping_face: Wagotabi Kamatsu Japanese Master defeated. 390 mastery points.
:slightly_smiling_face: KanjiMatch completed the review pile a couple times

Vocabulary
Around 1900 words on WK. Still picking them up at about ~100 a week. Still happy with that.
lvl 16-17 definitely feels more challenging to get out of the low apprentice levels. Not sure what it is. Most likely I half-assed the Kanji learning which is coming back to bite me. No matter: more leeches means more long-term Japanese word-friends paying a regular visit :partying_face:

Might be a coincidence, but I’m getting more and more swamped with reviews. :thinking: 300+ a day is no exception as of late. Case in point: I got 306 reviews waiting for me right now, and that’s after clearing the pile half a day ago.

Grammar

Don’t know why I keep bothering with this section.

Maybe because there should be something here?

:person_shrugging:

Reading

I’m on the cusp of reading. I swear! For real this time!

I did manage to get a new Japanese book. The instruction manual in this new Gunpla kit totally counts, right? At least it does something for my #2 goal: keep having fun with Japanese :head_shaking_vertically:

Previous Short Term Goals

  • :white_check_mark: WaniKani lvl 17 started

  • :white_check_mark: Have fun with Japanese.

New Short Term Goals

  • WaniKani lvl 18 over halfway

  • Have fun with Japanese.

  • Start building my Gunpla

  • Scan more Ghost in the Shell pages to extract frequency list

Overall I still feel I’m making good progress with WK alone. Still keeping up with the grind, just make sure I keep having fun with it. At the end of this 2-week period I’ll go on holiday to Austria. I don’t see why I can’t keep up with WK there, but I won’t be too hard on myself if I don’t feel like it.

RX-78-2 Gundam

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Never built one of these, but I’ve been intrigued by the Warhammer 40K scene. Just not interested in playing the miniatures game, or painting, nor have room to display the stuff really. But building models has always seemed fun as long as it doesn’t involve glue. That’s how Gunpla got me suckered in. Fully articulated joints right from the sprue? No glue needed? Painting completely optional? Sign me up!

Oh, and this totally counts as Japanese learning, because there’s Japanese in the instruction manual! What more do you need to justify ~40 sprues worth of plastic and a couple hundred stickers in a shiny box?

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