Lemmy's study log (and other funny things)

[bakugames]

(Second time making one of these, hope it’ll stick lol). Name’s Lemmy (any pronouns) and this is where I’ll put my funny studying logs for anyone who likes to check it out. Warning that I do not know how to format things in this forum so this will not look pretty (other than art pieces I might add later).

Alright nerd why are you doing this
I’m a Japanese person who was never taught Japanese and never had the opportunity to connect to the culture in my country, as the Japanese community in my region had a very “assimilate” way of thinking, unlike other areas.

Ok cool do you have any resources or are you pulling this outta your ass?
My current resources are:

• Japanese classes: Every Saturday. Portuguese-Japanese so not sure how much I’ll be able to share with y’all about it LOL. We’re using the A1 Marugoto books currently.
• Wanikani: Pretty niche site, not sure if y’all ever heard of it.
• Elementary Japanese: Yes I have two textbooks. No, they’re not redundant I promise.
• A Basic Dictionary of Japanese Grammar: The title is self-explanatory.

What’s the schedule king?
Lol. Lmao. Rofl even.

• For Wanikani, I actually stayed like 4 months without doing lessons and just burning stuff and I’m still only level 9 with 600+ burns so whoops LOL. I plan on doing 15 lessons a day and whatever reviews there are for the day. It does not matter the size, I did a 300 item review like two days ago in 25 minutes I fear no god.
• Japanese classes, I’m just following the teacher right now. Do all my homework immediately because otherwise, I will forget about it. I was doing homework in advance at first because we were looking at katakana and hiragana and I was like “Lol this stuff easy” but now we reached grammar and I feel like a clown because I do not understand anything. So I’m not doing that anymore my ego is very fragile ok.
• Elementary Japanese, I did like a super big pause aka I got lazy and dropped it for 6 months but I’m back. I plan on doing one lesson per week and reviewing the lessons I already went through. I will probably need to redo all of them except the first one because my memory capabilities could fit into a Gameboy cart.
• Other: Idk I want to do reading/listening specific exercises in the future. I’ll put it here I guess.

Current progress (if I don’t update this you have permission to beat me up)

• Wanikani: Lv 10
• Elementary Japanese: Finishing lesson 2

What the hell is that creature on your banner
That’s a Pinnochio lizard they’re very funny you should google them out.

Ok thank u for reading this I’ll update more later.

[bakugames]

Update 1

Wanikani

Doing pretty well right now. Did 15 reviews yesterday and +15 more today. Both have been pretty easy and I haven’t gotten a single one wrong (!!). It seems I’m planned to hit level up by Saturday (if I get at least 12 kanji right), so I have to decide between doing all these lessons tomorrow or doing 20/16 on Friday and Saturday, which will end up on me leveling up without doing any new kanji for the level up day. I will probably do the former, but we’ll see.

Here’s my current progress! Not sure what else you guys share to show progress in Wanikani lol.

Elementary Japanese
As I expected, I remembered pretty much everything from lesson 1, so that was a fortunate skip.
Of course, can’t say the same thing about lesson 2. While xはyです xはyじゃありません, the particles か, の, and も were all things I both remembered and reviewed in my class, I got stuck on demonstratives.

(Sorry for the bad pic, my phone isn’t that advanced and it’s pretty dark right now)

I had to do a mini-review and ask things around in the forums to fully understand this topic. Despite having seen it before, I only really understood everything now LOL this is so sad.
I’ll do the exercises tomorrow, to see if I fully grasped this. When the topic comes in class, I’ll probably ask some questions around.

Two days absent?
I’ll be visiting a friend this Friday. I’ll be leaving early and then coming back home early Sunday. They have internet, and I’ll be bringing my stuff with me, but I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to do lessons there. Doesn’t help they’re going to drag me to the beach LOL.

It’s not a big deal if I can’t do much there, I’ll catch up when I come back Sunday.

[IzCreature]

I like your banner.
Keep up the good work! がんばって!
And enjoy your time with your friend.

[bakugames]

Thank you!!!

[bakugames]

I decided to do all lessons today. Might bite me in the ass but I don’t think it’ll be too bad.

I would have waited for night time to post a new log, since there’s still reviews to come, but I wanted to rant a bit:

I’m visiting my friend, and they mentioned a place where I could study. Well, I go there, do all my lessons, and then come down to take a break. Soon after, I find the place leaking and all my materials soaked!! Including both my notebooks and my elementary japanese book. They didn’t warn me that their water container (not sure if you guys have them where you live, but it’s where our houses store the watee) tends to overflow and leak.

Frankly, I’m pissed. I’m not sure if drying the pages out in the sun will help, and so many pages already look like they’ve bled into each other. The book is fine for the most part, but I’m afraid the paper has weakened and could tear up.

While I could copy what I wrote onto my first notebook (that one is for my classroom notes and self study), I had every single kanji and vocabulary written on my second one, and there’s no way i’ll be able to copy that from scratch.

Anyways I’m tired and using this thread to cope. Thank u for reading

[IzCreature]

@bakugames

I decided to do all lessons today. Might bite me in the ass but I don’t think it’ll be too bad.

How many lessons was it? I did 75 all at once and really regretted it.

@bakugames

Soon after, I find the place leaking and all my materials soaked!! Including both my notebooks and my elementary japanese book.

Oh man this really sucks! I’m glad the book is okay but your notebooks (´;ㅿ;｀) Did your friend apologize at least?

[bakugames]

@IzCreature

How many lessons was it? I did 75 all at once and really regretted it.

36, only vocab. Didn’t feel too bad since many didn’t have any readings so the only thing to memorize is their meaning, so I just pushed through.

@IzCreature

Oh man this really sucks! I’m glad the book is okay but your notebooks (´;ㅿ;｀) Did your friend apologize at least?

Unfortunately not, they’re just downplaying it and acting like its no big deal, which is souring my mood a lot unfortunately. The notebooks are still really damp and look too unstable to write on again but they keep repeating it’ll be fine and it’s pissing me off, can’t even enjoy the stay like this

[fallynleaf]

@bakugames

I’m visiting my friend, and they mentioned a place where I could study. Well, I go there, do all my lessons, and then come down to take a break. Soon after, I find the place leaking and all my materials soaked!! Including both my notebooks and my elementary japanese book. They didn’t warn me that their water container (not sure if you guys have them where you live, but it’s where our houses store the watee) tends to overflow and leak.

Frankly, I’m pissed. I’m not sure if drying the pages out in the sun will help, and so many pages already look like they’ve bled into each other. The book is fine for the most part, but I’m afraid the paper has weakened and could tear up.

Here’s some advice on salvaging wet books. It’s aimed at libraries, but the section on how to air dry wet books should also work for you!

[bakugames]

After 200 days, I finally reached level 10! Pretty cool.

Now, while my notebooks are saved, I won’t be able to use them anymore, so I can’t do any lessons.
Well, not in the proper order at least. I am tempted to use the advanced options on the flaming durtles app to be able to clean the radicals first for today, since I don’t write them down, and then put it back normal and do the normal order tomorrow, when I’m back home and received my new notebooks.

What do you guys think? I know changing the ordering can affect the SRS, so I’m not sure how to proceed.

[IzCreature]

@bakugames

Now, while my notebooks are saved, I won’t be able to use them anymore, so I can’t do any lessons.

I’m glad they’re readable at least!

I don’t write anything down from lessons, but everyone has their own process.

@bakugames

What do you guys think? I know changing the ordering can affect the SRS, so I’m not sure how to proceed.

I would just skip writing the new stuff down for the first time. Maybe take screenshots so you can write them down when you get a new notebook? But otherwise I don’t think using reorder once will mess things up.

[bakugames]

@IzCreature

I’m glad they’re readable at least!

I don’t write anything down from lessons, but everyone has their own process.

I usually write down kanji/vocab, meaning, reading and any mnemonics. I dont do it to radicals though since they’re only useful to remember in the kanji itself, and doing the normal srs is good enough for me

@IzCreature

I would just skip writing the new stuff down for the first time. Maybe take screenshots so you can write them down when you get a new notebook? But otherwise I don’t think using reorder once will mess things up.

I might do this, but I’m afraid it’ll affect my srs at the start, might write it down as soon as i finish a review of it so it doesnt affect it as much

[IzCreature]

@bakugames

I’m afraid it’ll affect my srs at the start

I don’t think studying outside the srs will mess it up

[bakugames]

I decided to not study yesterday, as I preferred to wait to get a new notebook to write down my stuff.
I also didn’t use the reorder script. Frankly, I don’t understand how it works, I’m too stupid for that kind of script lol. I’ll just do the intended order.

Today I did 20 vocab lessons. I decided to change the way I did vocab lessons: Instead of just doing a flat 15 lessons per day, I’ll be doing vocabs until I hit 5 items that need mnemonics. This is because many vocabs are easy to remember and can be done pretty quickly, but those who need mnemonics may be a bit troublesome, and I don’t want to fill my brain with too many of them in a single day. This should accelerate my vocab lessons somewhat.
(For context: when I’m done with the vocabs at the start of a level, I do all the radicals and open kanji. Radicals aren’t written down so they go by really fast, so I don’t count them as my daily lessons.)

I didn’t mention it, but yesterday was professor’s day, so that’s why I didn’t have class (and why I could stay over a friend’s).

I’m a bit tired, so I won’t do any Elementary Japanese studying, but I plan on picking it up tomorrow. I also started using Torii and Bunpo as extra side apps. Mostly as an expansion rather than a main study source, and something I can do quickly over at my phone.

[bakugames]

Decided to make this log a more weekly thing, just so my posts have more substance.

Wanikani

I’ve been at a pretty good place rn. If I get 14 kanji right, I should be leveling up this Wednesday, which means a 10-day level up. This level has been fairly easy, nothing sticks out as a possible leech, but time will tell how this will hold up.
I still have 20 lessons to do, but I’ll be finishing them tomorrow since I already did 20 today. Not a lot of plans after that, since it’ll just review until I level up. WK is good because I don’t have to plan around it, I can just save 30 to one hour a day for lessons, and the reviews can be done anytime, no matter my schedule.

Trouble items: 運 - keep forgetting the reading of this one. WKs mnemonic didn’t help, so I’m making my own: Carrying an umbrella (うん) when it’s not raining brings bad luck.
開 - I’m putting hear instead of open. This one is just my lack of patience to deconstruct the radicals and differentiate between lantern and ear radicals.

Some stats:

You can see where I took a big break from lessons and then of WK in general. This level will be one of my faster ones, being the third fastest, just behind levels 1 and 2, so that’s impressive.

Grammar

Slowly chipping at this. I wrote a bunch about demonstratives, as it was something I got stuck on. Not a lot after that, simply due to being busy. My goal this week is to start the NI and NO particles, something we saw briefly in class, and maybe finish demonstratives.
Side note: Does anyone knows how to set up that little checklist some people use in their comments? Looks useful.

Class

We’ve been doing good progress. The teacher finally finished hiragana, so there’ll be more time for other things. Right now, we’re in the family chapter, and WK helps here because I know most of the words.
Learning the nuance between them (e.g haha vs okaasan) is really cool.
I already finished all of my homework, so I’ll probably study things related to it (this is where the NI particle grammar study comes in). I’m also writing down the kanji versions of the words I know in each chapter, which reinforces my kanji studies and also helps me understand what’s going on.

Reading?
Right now, I feel like my grammar is too barebones to start reading. I’m only just learning some basic particles. But once I understand some of them I might start trying to read things. I was recommended satori reader, do you guys know how good that site is? The ability to pick kanji interests me since I have trouble reading hiragana-only texts that aren’t super basic.

Goals for next week:
WK: Finish level 10, tackle 15-20 vocab lessons each day when the pile inevitably comes in the level up.
Grammar: Study NI and NO particles, finish demonstratives. If I get this done, I’ll study the counters we’ll be learning in the future.
Class: Nothing, already finished all homework because I’m poggers.

Drawing
I’m an artist first and foremost, so I wanted to decorate my posts with an art piece. Make it more visually interesting and more enticing to follow my log lol.
This week I didn’t draw much, here’s my favorite piece I’ve done though

Small edit: would anyone be interested in seeing my annotations of the week for wk and grammar stuff? They’re in cursive, so I don’t know how many would be able to read it.

[ChristopherFritz]

@bakugames

Does anyone knows how to set up that little checklist some people use in their comments?

Type two square brackets like:

[]

This will produce a clickable checkbox:

Any checkbox you create, you can check/uncheck it by clicking/tapping the checkbox, without having to edit the the whole post.

[bakugames]

Oh thank you!!

[ChristopherFritz]

I forgot to mention, if you’ve seen someone do check boxes in a table and you want to try the same, tables are formatted such as:

|header|header|
|--|--|
|content|[]|

This results in:

header	header
content

If you’re not familiar with creating tables, you can check out this table generator.

[bakugames]

Goals 25th-31st

Wanikani

Reach level 11
Do all reviews per day/end Sunday with no reviews
Do 15-20 lessons per day when available

Grammar (Goal is to do at least two per week, not all of them. I just have multiple options so I don’t feel stuck in one topic)

Finish demonstratives
Study particle の (noun modifier)
Study particle に
Study particle と
Go deeper into が and は. Their uses, differences, etc.

Long-term goals (might stick this in the op?)

Start reading beginner things like graded readers and satori readers
Do a JLPT N5 mock test
To add later :]

[Fripi]

Really impressive to see your progress. How much time do you spend on average per day?

[bakugames]

Depends on the day. I study on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays (sometimes Sundays, but it’s wishy-washy) for around 2 hours per day, sometimes three. Every day I do 15-20 wk (radicals and kanji I do in two days, even if exceeds the 20 limits, so I might have days where I finished 15 vocabs and do 20 extra radicals) lessons, which averages from 30 mins to an hour, and I do reviews as they come in, so probably 30 minutes spread across small pockets of the day. The only days I don’t do lessons (other than just having none) is when my apprentice count is too high, to not keep too many items constantly falling on me.

So at worst? Usually an hour. At best? 4 to 5 hours. I also have Saturday classes from 3 to 5 pm. I try to study only one or two topics per day, other than review days (mostly for exams lol), so it’s more chill for me.