Krt100's Study Log 🤖

[krt100]

Week 23 report (June 3rd - June 9th)

Just like last week, i didn’t do much. As it turns out, being responsible for more things at work because you’re substituting someone that’s on vacation makes you more tired than usual, which makes it harder to study in the evening. I’m way more likely to take naps that last at least one hour after I get home as well.

Fortunately, I managed to finish lesson 4 in Genki I and started learning things on WaniKani again. Due to the current limits in life, I’ll keep it simple and just learn vocab and maybe learn a few grammar points on Bunpro during the week. I already studied level 10 radicals, so I should have every Kanji available before Friday when I’ll be liberated from work for a while. Only a few more days until then …

[krt100]

Week 24 report (June 10th - June 16th)

This week was a bit worse than the previous one because I was getting more and more tired, so my Japanese studies suffered as a result (didn’t have enough time and/or energy to study at all for two days straight). At least I managed to recover during the weekend and did all of the pending reviews.

My vacation started, so now I can get back on track with my studies and try to improve my studying routine as well. What I’d like to work on is:

1. start reading something on a daily basis even if a little bit,
2. stop neglecting grammar.

If all goes well, I should be able to study a bit of everything much more consistently.

[krt100]

Week 25 report (June 17th - June 23th)

The first half of the vacation did wonders because I was able to rest properly and gradually return to learning new items on WaniKani again after nearly a month. At this rate, I should be able to reach level 11 and therefore the “Painful” part of WaniKani. I also looked at the level 1 items I learned back in January and my first burned item(s) should happen in 20 days.

I’ve started learning grammar via Bunpro as planned, but I ended up studying too much and got overwhelmed after studying ~30 new grammar points in a span of three days. As a result, I had to stop and do reviews until I got it under control. As for Genki I, zero progress.

While I still have time, I need to start reading and get used to it doing regularly. I already made an account on Natively and I’ll gradually test myself and determine at what level of difficulty I should focus for starters.

As you might’ve noticed already, I also included a screenshot of my Bunpro dashboard as well. Because I don’t feel like making a second study log on Bunpro, I’ll list everything here instead because writing for one can already be very time-consuming and I’d rather not waste too much time.

P.S.: I already have so many levels on Bunpro because I synced every vocabulary item on WaniKani that I learned so far with Bunpro (the “set as Master” sync).

[krt100]

Week 26 report (June 24th - June 30th)

While I did manage to level up on WaniKani (and thus enter the pain zone), I took it easy for the most part and simply enjoyed my vacation while it lasted because I won’t have one for months. I still did my reviews, so that the SRS kept going forward. I don’t have anything else to say for now.

[krt100]

Week 27 report (July 1st - July 7th)

I was a bit too busy last week to do any actual learning, so all I did was keeping up with all three SRS systems that I currently use, including Anki. On the other hand, I’ll start burning items very soon on WaniKani.

My reports are also slowly getting out of sync because I’m writing them a bit later with each passing week. Despite that, I don’t think I ever skipped a weekly report so far.

[krt100]

Week 28 report (July 8th - July 14th)

The burning has finally started and I’m slowly gaining motivation to study again as a result. What I’d like to do is to go back to learning at least 15 items a day minimum on WaniKani with 3 batches of 5 items. Previously, I had 30 minimum with three batches of 10 items. That worked for a while, but it ended up being too limiting, so I reduced it to 21 items (3x 7 items). That didn’t help much, so now I’m back to 15 items, which is what I initially had months ago. Now that I started burning items, I’d like to start learning new items every day consistently to keep things going.
In case I’ll ever have enough time, I’d like to learn additional 15 items, which will definitely speed things up.

Now I’d also like to focus more on grammar and reading from now on because I got myself an annual subscription for Satori Reader and I don’t want it to go to waste because it seems like a great resource for anyone interested in reading untranslated books or written media in general.

I’ve also managed to set up Masayoshiro’s wallpaper generator on my PC and now I can periodically see my latest progress with two clicks. Very useful for when I’ll start burning Kanji items.

This is also the first report in a very long time that I managed to write on a Sunday like initially intended.

[krt100]

Week 29 report (July 15th - July 21st)

While I did some progress in WaniKani, nothing special happened. I plan on getting serious with WaniKani next week so that I can reach level 20 as soon as possible. When it comes to grammar, I did 9 lessons on Bunpro and every textbook exercise in Genki I for chapter 5. I didn’t have enough time to do the ones in the workbook yet.

I read one story on Satori Reader and realized that my grammar is still lacking, which is concerning due to the fact that I’m still interested in playing the Japanese version of (nearly) every Armored Core game ever released. Considering what the games are about, I’d need at least N3 level of knowledge or better to begin understanding them on my own. I need to figure out how to focus more on grammar while still maintaining all three SRS systems that I’m currently using. Maybe I should study it first thing in the morning and also get up really early?

Speaking of Armored Core, here’s my latest blog about it.

Talking about giant robots

I finished Armored Core 3 this week and it was pretty good. Gameplay was better than ever and the story was okay. Since this one is now on a different timeline, the story went back to the beginning. Nothing wrong with that, but it felt like FromSoft reused a bit too many elements from the first game in my opinion. At least no one was trying to assassinate me for being too good at my job. The ending at the very least had a twist that I didn’t expect and took the story in a new direction. Now I’m playing Silent Line and I like where things are going.

As for my build, I ended up going for something lighter this time and I enjoyed the increased mobility. I even bothered to fully upgrade OP-INTENSIFY because I actually never got to experience Human PLUS in previous games. I’m also very lazy at naming my ACs and I’m content with just increasing the number when a new generation starts.

I also discovered that weapon detaching doesn’t work at all in AC3 and Silent Line if you drastically changed controls within the game. Good thing this can be fixed in PCSX2 via button remapping and macros.

[krt100]

Week 30 report (July 22nd - July 28th)

This one took me longer to write because I either had thunderstorms in my area on Sunday or was too busy on Monday, so I’m just now being able to write this around 6am on the Tuesday morning in my timezone.

Anyway, I leveled up on WaniKani and I finally managed to complete lesson 5 in Genki I . The latter took me waaaaaay too long to do. I noticed while doing workbook exercises that you’re slowly required to use concepts you learned from previous lessons, like time intervals, so you need to start paying more attention to the sentences. Those exercises used to be very simplistic, but now they’re becoming a bit more elaborate as time goes on, which I appreciate.

I hope that the remainder of the book won’t take me as long as this specific chapter did .

[krt100]

Week 31 report (July 29th - August 4th)

While I did manage to Guru every level 12 radical, I decided to focus on vocabulary from previous levels instead because I still have 177 words to learn from levels 10 and 11. When I’ll be done with that, I should be able to learn every new lesson really quickly and therefore level up a bit faster.

As you can see in the screenshot of the Bunpro dashboard, I managed to learn the 100th grammar lesson in Bunpro, but I also learned five times the amount of grammar on Sunday. I know that this can cause problems if you don’t consistently do reviews, but I wanted to get closer to completing the N5 grammar deck, so I decided to take a risk.

I also did a bit of lesson 6 in Genki I, but only the て-form sections in the textbook and notebook so that I would be able to understand it for some of the Bunpro grammar. I’ll try to finish the lesson in the following week.

[krt100]

Week 32 report (August 5th - August 11th)

Due to having a lot of stormy weather during the week, I wasn’t able to study as much as I wanted to. I do most of my studies on my desktop computer at home and I didn’t want it to get damaged, so I had to completely turn it off and unplug everything electronic in my room on several different evenings, which prevented me from doing any major work even with my phone.

Despite all of this, I tried to keep up with Bunpro where I easily had 20+ reviews every day just because I studied five times the amount of grammar I usually do in a single day. It may not have been the greatest idea, but I was focused more on grammar this time around, so at least it wasn’t neglected yet again.

I was barely able to study new items in WaniKani, but I eventually managed to learn every level 10 vocab item . Other than that, nothing noteworthy in that regard. Level 11 vocabulary is next.

As part of actually getting into reading for real, I decided to return to Tadoku once again because its reading material seems to be good at testing yourself and it’s reading material is easy to get into. I just need to make sure I don’t try vocab mining again because it’s very tedious to do it if the text is in the .pdf files.

Mecha talk

I managed to finish Silent Line: Armored Core during the week whenever I could play and it was a blast. Nearly every aspect of it was superior to AC3 and I especially liked how the missions were structured this time. A lot of them would have alternate outcomes depending on how well you performed. They also get much harder later on because you end up fighting multiple ACs much more often and without any warning. As a result, you end up spending lots of money on fixing your AC and replenishing ammo at the end of missions, so you’re much more often at a loss.

The story was also very good even if the plot twist at the end was rather familiar if you played one of the earlier games, so you might realize what will happen even before everything is revealed. The final mission even features the PTSD inducing vertical shaft room similar to the one in AC1 where Nine-Ball is waiting for you. I was fully alert when I entered it and descended to the bottom.

As always, I mostly stuck with one AC design for most of the game:

If needed, I switched to hover legs in case I needed either more mobility, a mission had deep water, or both.

The missiles I had were surprisingly effective at either dealing lots of damage or keeping some of the Arena opponents away from me. There was only one Arena opponent (Nameless) where I had to completely change my weapons to stand a chance.

I already tried out Nexus and now being able to use analog sticks for real feels very cursed. Seems promising so far, but I’ll put it on hold for now.

[krt100]

Week 33 report (August 12th - August 18th)

I’ve finally managed to learn every item before level 12!

While I could’ve tried to learn Kanji again, I decided not to do it just yet because I currently have over 100 Apprentice items and I learned 50 of them on Sunday. Doing that would’ve easily overwhelmed me like it did two weeks ago with Bunpro. After I Guru most of them, I’ll try to go for 0/0 streaks until level 20 to try to reach at least one of my goals for 2024.

I’ll also join the Absolute Beginners Book Club in September when Cardcaptor Sakura starts. Even though I’m not a fan of content aimed mainly at actual little girls, I’ll need to start somewhere eventually, so I may as well start with this one. I also need a good reason to learn grammar more seriously since that aspect is currently rather neglected to no one’s surprise.

When the book club begins, I’ll add a section to my original post where everything that I’ll be reading (and then eventually watching, playing etc.) will be listed. I also need to update some of the text since many things changed, including my reward system.

[krt100]

Week 34 report (August 19th - August 25th)

Got my first 0/0 for the first time in months.
I’d like to maintain a streak at least until level 20, so that I have enough motivation, discipline, and reason to plow through the remaining Painful levels before the end of the year.

I also learned 10 new grammar points in Bunpro and I’m very close to finishing the N5 grammar deck. I think I should be able to finish it and do some of the N4 grammar before ABBC starts in ~2 weeks.

I finished the textbook portion of chapter 6 in Genki I. Extremely slow progress as usual and I only have the workbook exercises left (I only did the first two ones that cover the て-forms so far). Unless I get motivated by ABBC or something else, Genki’s progress remains slow for now.

Speaking of motivation, I changed my bed mattress and the slats on Thursday after using them for over 10 years. It cost me ~600€ with several discounts applied that cut the price by nearly 50%. However, my sleep quality increased immeasurably because the previous mattress was completely worn out and I was slowly getting less and less rested over time. After using the new one along with the new slats for a few days, I feel great and it seemed to also boost my motivation and productivity in learning Japanese among other things. I’ll give it another week to see how much of a difference this makes.

[krt100]

Week 35 report (August 26th - September 1st)

Finally reached level 13.
This was the longest level up so far (33 days, 10 hours). Levels 10 and 11 were also one of the longest so far. I hope I’ll be able to level up quickly again like I did initially.

The bed mattress and slats I bought a while ago significantly improved my overall mood. I feel much more rested now and my motivation to do anything improved as well. As a result, it’s much easier to get up early in the morning and do my Japanese studies before going to work.

As for Genki I, I started studying it regularly in the early morning shortly after my quality of sleep improved. I’ve been able to do one page in the workbook or textbook so far every morning during the week (didn’t do anything Genki related on the weekend). When I’ll get used to it, I’ll try to do more in one day eventually. I’ve also added both books to my Natively profile to encourage consistency, but I already forgot to update a few pages so far . I only have three workbook pages left for chapter 6.

[krt100]

Week 36 report (September 2nd - September 8th)

Chapter 6 of Genki I and the Bunpro N5 Grammar deck completed!

The former took me too long to finish and since I plan on participating in the ABBC, I’ll need to change my priorities around and focus more on grammar. This could potentially slow down my progress on WaniKani a lot because leveling up takes a while even without doing much else, but it has to be done because things are starting to stick less and less the longer I don’t do any immersion.

Speaking of immersion, I read a bit of Cardcaptor Sakura for Week 1 and the first few pages I tried to read/decipher were tough. There is a surprising amount of archaic words used and while many people won’t like them, I don’t mind them because I plan on watching samurai movies and TV shows when I get much better and having some exposure to archaic Japanese already at this point should be helpful.

I’m concluding this entry with a silly video that I stumbled upon a while ago and I feel like sharing it on here. Vinny does a good job in it.

don’t ask where I got it (ft. @vinesauce)

[krt100]

Week 37 report (September 9th - September 15th)

Aside from reading week 1 of Cardcaptor Sakura and only having 53 items on level 13 left on WaniKani, nothing special happened. Maybe having a 500th burned item after ~ 3 months of burning and having my first Expert items on Bunpro would be something? Still a pretty unremarkable week. Oh, well …

Next week (or rather this one since I’m posting late yet again) might turn out the same because everyone around me is getting sick and I might be next eventually - I even started feeling odd on Monday, but nothing happened so far. In case I actually do get sick, my productivity regarding Japanese will get even worse. That’s all I have to say for now.

[krt100]

Weeks 38, 39, and 40 (September 16th - October 6th)

Sickness and demotivation happened. I got COVID for the first time since 2020 and it wasn’t as bad as I expected. The worst that happened was on the first day when I couldn’t fall asleep at all, so I was forced to rest while being partially conscious. Barely any coughing, but then again the virus itself gradually became less harmful over time from what I remember, so I had it easier as a result, but was still contagious to everyone around me.

As a result of the sickness, I lost the motivation to study. Fortunately, I managed to enable vacation modes on WK and BP in time while being sick (the latter will remain active indefinitely, though). After getting better, I disabled it on WK and studied, but I eventually realized that I lost the motivation for studying pretty much completely after a few days. I couldn’t get myself to do anything at all, so I managed to get way more reviews than I’d usually have.

At the very least, I managed to level up to level 14.

This kind of situation is nearly the same to the one I had around December 2023. At the time, I still tried studying Kanji via RTK, but it didn’t work and that demotivated me. What helped in the end was to completely change my ways of studying. This time around, I think the Sakura book club is causing the problem because I wasn’t very interested in reading it in the first place and I’m waaaaay behind now, so I’ll have to drop it.

For now, I’ll just focus on Satori Reader because I haven’t touched it in weeks and I paid for the yearly subscription in the summer, which I don’t want to waste.

[krt100]

Week 41 report (October 7th - October 13th)

For the most part, I’ve been doing reviews on WaniKani and Anki. Other than that, I Guru’d every level 14 radical and read two stories on Satori Reader. Once I get used to studying regularly again, I’ll start working on other aspects as well, especially on Genki. On Bunpro, I’ll keep the vacation mode active until I finish the first book at the very least.

[krt100]

Week 42 report (October 14th - October 20th)

The most notable achievement this week was finishing a story that I started months ago on Satori Reader titled “Spring”. Rather simple to follow even if I didn’t understand completely everything on my own and just tried to “decipher” the text like ChristopherFritz would call it. I also didn’t try to do any vocab mining for the chapters I read this week and I enjoyed the process much more because there was less work to do; I do plan to reread the whole story in the future, so I might do the mining at that point if needed.

I’ll be changing the way I study vocab from now on. For now, I’ll focus on the Genki deck on Anki and WaniKani until I finish the former (I still have ~1500 cards left, but I’ll probably need to learn less because of duplicates). The Genki deck contains very common words and they tend to appear in WaniKani’s lower levels, so I don’t need to do any mining for the time being. This should make it easier to focus on WaniKani again like I used to a few months ago while still be able to read and study whatever I need to at the moment.

[krt100]

Weeks 43 and 44 report (October 21st - November 3rd)

Had to skip a weekly report last week because I was too busy to write it. Then again, nothing particularly special happened.

I read three stories on Satori Reader from the “Kiki-Mimi Radio” series. Noticeably more challenging than “Spring” despite reading the easier edition. Because of that, I decided to temporarily put reading stories on hold to improve grammar, but I ended up being too busy to do much. I did keep up with reviews at the very least.

During the weekend, I learned everything I had available on WaniKani and I should be able to reach level 15 during this week. At the same time, I started listening to Japanese radio stations via Radiko, so I have something to listen to while studying. The amount of available stations is more than enough for me and I enjoy listening to them; I’m liking “LuckyFM” in particular so far. The biggest downside of Radiko is that you need a VPN service that has multiple servers in Japan because it’s blocked for anyone outside the country.

I’m 75% done with Chapter 7 in Genki I. All that’s left is a few pages in the workbook to complete, then I’ll move on Chapter 8. In the meantime, I’m gradually learning the vocabulary of future lessons.

[krt100]

Week 45 report (November 4th - November 10th)

A few achievements:

• got a 3rd 0/0 streak on WaniKani
• reached level 15 (25% done)
• finished chapter 7 in Genki I

I’m planning on just doing reviews on WaniKani and Anki for a while to keep the SRS going and finish Genki I as soon as possible. After that, I’d like to do as much of Genki II as possible before 2025 arrives. I highly doubt that I can keep leveling up and do everything else with less than two months remaining and not burn out in the end, so I’ll just stop leveling up altogether.

Grammar became a bigger priority now because I plan on traveling to Japan next year for my 30th birthday. Even though I’ll have my birthday in January, I’ll most likely travel a few months later because it will be very expensive and having some extra cash and Japanese knowledge wouldn’t hurt. I’d also like to see the cherry trees blossoming in person if possible.