lol, I’ll keep that in mind for sure! It’s always messy when new vocab clashes with older vocab, one of the most frustrating parts of WK for sure (not sure if its a WK issue or just how language works though lol)
Yeah, I think it’s a bit of both! Like, the more you learn, the more traps like that there are just going to be. But there are some confounding effects from learning similar things too close together. I appreciate that, because of that, Wanikani at least spaced out the transitivity pairs. But it’s baked into the way learning kanji like this works in a way I just don’t think they can totally prevent. Like, when you learn multiple words with the same cluster of new kanji, all of that stuff is going to kind of get associated in your head, and there definitely some inevitable dangers from that.
That said, if at all possible, I think it would be great if they didn’t teach 命 and 令 side by side. I don’t tend to have THAT many problems with similar kanji, sometimes only realizing they’re similar later because I learned them separately… but I’ve always confused those two, and I think it’s in large part due to Wanikani not spacing them.
God don’t get me started, not only are they super similar, their readings are similar too! Only changing the consonant sound, and it’s not even that distinct (m and r use the same area of the mouth, just in different ways). I think the only reason I didn’t constantly get them confused was because I made extra work to notice the difference in handwriting, which is more pronounced than your michou font
One day I’ll update this log in time, but today is not that day.
Wanikani
Taking my time was a good choice. While it means I level up way slower, the items stay fresh in my memory for more time, and I have time to do other stuff, like Bunpro and art. It’ll take me a couple of weeks to level up, and I’ll have to deal with taking a lot longer on vocab, but hopefully, it’s for the best. This means a 1-month level up might be the new standard.
It also helps me stay focused and not burn out, which happened a lot when I went full speed lol.
Bunpro
Cannot overstate how much Bunpro is helping me out. I’m someone who needs a lot of structure, but Marugoto is hard to use without a teacher going over the lesson first, and while I like Elementary Japanese, two textbooks are too exhausting for me. Bunpro gives me the structure and is a great supplement for my classes’ grammar topics.
However, I still don’t know if I’ll buy lifetime or not. On one hand, it is really good for someone like me and I’m enjoying it a lot, plus I’m only doing 1-2 items per day, which means it’ll take me a couple of years to finish the entire thing.
On the other, how long will it be useful? Unlike kanji, which I don’t see a great substitute for in classes (until maybe 3 years later where I’ll have to take private classes to continue studying LOL) or with other applications (self-study is hard, and I’m bad at self-moderating with Anki + I’m tech-stupid lol), grammar could become easier to learn as I go through the language. Something to think about for sure.
JPN classes
Going nicely as usual. Seeing things I already knew but are good to reinforce, but as we go through, more and more topics are stuff I had no knowledge about, which is really exciting! Haven’t finished my homework yet though lol.
As the year ends and the semester gets closer to the final exam, we’re seeing more people drop by the minute. It’s a natural thing for language classes, as people lose interest or get bored, or just lose time to dedicate to it, but the rate at which our classmates feel was very abrupt today. Well, at least it means we’ll get to fuse the classes, and go from 1 pm to 5 pm hehe.
Almost forgot to share some art whoopsie
Goals 13th - 20th
WK
End the week with no reviews left
Do 30 lessons this week
Study some of my leeches (!!)
Bunpro
End the week with no reviews left
Do 5 lessons this week
JPN class
Finish homework
Read the pamphlet that the teacher gave us to read in our own time.
!! NEW !! Art
Finish 3 commissions
Finish 2 adopts
Draw art for headworld
Haven’t had time to update because these two weels killed me, but tomorrow I hope to make a summary of these weeks and a year recap.
Happy holidays for those who are into that. I got so many books lol
Ok, I promise me not updating yesterday wasn’t on purpose, I just got sick (still am help).
Wanikani
Not a lot to say here. Been doing my reviews and catching up on lessons really well. Leveled up to 14 a week ago, and I think my rate is for a 15-day level up. I failed some burn reviews, but for now, I’m not putting those items on quarantine, see if the SRS works its way.
Bunpro
I’ve been doing my reviews and lessons on Bunpro fairly consistently. As for results, I’ve noticed that some items are appearing as leeches (or ghosts I guess) because I get them wrong a lot. Today, I thought of what I did differently from WK to have worse results (I know kanji and grammar learning are different beasts, but it was worth a shot), and I realized I didn’t do anything akin to the self-study script on Bunpro, so I didn’t quiz myself right after the item was learned, or right after I got it wrong.
I decided to use the Cram feature for this, though the fact I only do 2 lessons per day makes cramming a bit more ineffective vs a 20 item quiz on SSQ (so 120 questions). Still, it’s worth a shot.
I’m also thinking of grabbing sample sentences from Marugoto, Elementary Japanese, and Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar and using the self-study feature to train them too. Still haven’t checked the feature out, but I’ll tackle it soon.
Classes
We’re on Christmas-end of year break, so not a lot happening here. The last class was a rush though.
Something more interesting to talk about is that after our break ends, our classes will merge, so we’ll start at 1 PM and end at 5 PM. This will be really good, as we’ll have more time to talk about our lessons and have convos about culture and extras. I’m excited about it.
End of the year recap
This year had some highs and some lows. As you can see, I took a 3-month break from WK due to real-life problems, and then another small break on levels 8 and 13, both from burnout. Hopefully, with a new schedule, these burnouts won’t happen as much.
I’m glad I started with lifetime. I saw these breaks coming from a mile away, and while I’m trying to stay consistent, there’s no telling of what’ll happen next year, and I’m pretty slow anyway.
For grammar, I’m proud to say I’m finally having tangible progress. In these first months, I felt like I was just learning and forgetting and repeating the same starting items again and again. Starting classes and getting bunpro has helped me get on track to actually make progress, instead of going on a loop over and over again.
Next year goals
I don’t take next year’s goals super seriously. Life’s too hectic. But maybe it’s worth throwing some out.
-
Reach WK level 30: I plan on slowing down on WK when I reach the 40s, but I don’t think I’ll be able to reach it in one year, so level 30 it is.
-
Finish N5 and N4 on Bunpro: I’d love to end the year knowing some of the basics. It’d keep me on par with the class.
-
Read?? Something??? Idk I’m waiting to finish N5 since that’s the bare minimum for most but I really wanna read shit. The stuff I actually want to read is probably N1 level so my goal here is to read less for fun and more for learning
-
Update this log timely. Please. Please @ myself that’s all I ask.
Woah this post is big, better finish it now LOL. Thank you for reading all of this and following me on this journey (when I remembered to update this log)
I don’t have any goals for this week because I’m taking a quick break from work/studies to enjoy the end of the year (I’m still doing reviews, just no lessons), so instead, I’ll just write about some more thoughts:
Bunpro has been going well with the cram feature. I still get things wrong, but the nuance of grammar is a bit harder than kanji, which felt more objective and easier to remember.
Even then, I can feel the lack of practice hitting me. Since classes took a break, I haven’t seen many of the new items and didn’t get any assigned homework for them. I might pop up the good old Elementary Japanese and try to do some quick reading and exercises while my classes don’t catch up.
I mentioned earlier that I was going to slow down at level 40, though in practice I’m not sure if I’ll do that. I think the first 30 levels are very good to get you on track and show you relevant kanji, while the later ones feel exponentially less useful. On the other hand, I’m not sure what to do to learn them without WK. It’s not something that’ll happen until the end of 2022, maybe even only in 2023, but it makes me think.
I got a little pocket notebook, so I can slap random sentences and ramblings there to practice things. I just need to get the motivation to do it.
Lots to think about for sure. I’d love input and ideas if anyone likes doing those lol
I’d do an art retrospective, but tbh I don’t wanna show old pieces because they look ugly. Instead, here are some recent pieces to wrap up 2021. Nothing fancy. I plan on making more environmental-based pieces with backgrounds, though I’m not sure where to begin. I was thinking of one illustration a month since it gives me a lot of time to work on it
This week’s back on the grind fellas
Wanikani
Level up to lv 15
Do 30 lessons
Finish week with no reviews left
Bunpro
Do 5 lessons
Start practicing what’s learned on it with Elementary Japanese (already have it, why not use it?)
Make a self-study sentence
Finish week with no reviews left
Class
Survive
Art
Finish a commission that’s been taking me a while
Work on a character’s redesign ref sheet
Write some stuff for my world (cultures and languages)
Hi i’m not dead but I sure am tired. Honestly I’ve been doing most things consistently I just didn’t have a lot of energy to update this log last month, so here I am.
I’ll give a recap later, maybe tomorrow: today is the day where 326 enlightned items came to bite me in the ass.
As you can see, I wasn’t able to do everything, but I only have 59 items left, which I’ll be doing tomorrow. Retention is very good even though I feel like dying.
See u tomorrow
Sorry, I just discovered this thread and my first thought was a different Lemmy which made me think of The Young Ones. Thinking of that sort of “study log” cracked me up. 
You mentioned Portuguese-Japanese, so I’m presuming you’re Brazilian (though it would be cool if you’re actually in Portugal!). When I first worked in Japan, I ran into a couple guys at work with perfect but oddly accented Japanese (and tans!) — made complete sense once I realized they worked for the São Paulo branch.
Apologies for the interrupt!
Its possible they lived in japanese communities. São Paulo has a high concentration of them and the more well off kids usually learn japanese as a second language. We have other communities but they’re smaller and most of us aren’t as in touch with japanese stuff (some completely integrated, others keep some traditions but not others).
Dw about interrupting! I like talking about this stuff