Observation Desk 1 at Level 35!! I’m so glad I made it to this milestone because it’s getting tough for me.
Vent and request for advice within
I’m at almost max speed, so my guru count usually runs high, but I told myself that if it ever reached 1000, I would have to completely stop all lessons until some undetermined number of guru… I’m worried I may be hitting that before level 40. I’ve been slowing down. I haven’t been zeroing out my reviews every night as I usually do. But I persevere because worshiping the Crabigator is worth it. It’s just becoming the hell that I am in (hey I will learn that word this level!)
Any advice for reading? I know that the general idea is to start branching out and reading a ton at level 30 but I… haven’t. I kept telling myself that I was busy with school and work, but when finals ended and I had two weeks of free time, I avoided reading the books I have. Perhaps I needed a break to avoid total burnout, not just from Japanese. But I’m also in the terrible, terrible stage where I can read a sentence, understand all of the words and/or kanji in it, and still have no clue what it means. It’s really defeating. Once I see an English translation, it becomes clear, but it doesn’t make sense until I see it in English. Am I using English as a crutch too much? Should I fully embrace tadoku where I read even if I don’t get it? Will things magically start making sense or is it a waste of time? It feels like I’m in the middle of a level – the easy content is too easy, but the next stuff up is too hard. Would it be better to keep reading easy stuff I can understand (but am bored by) or read harder stuff (which I might not understand even if I can muster the motivation to read it)?
I think a big part of it is learning to come with reading at the speed of a preschooler again. Every time I pick something up in Japanese, it takes me back to the frustrating days where I was taking so much time to gain so little information (except this time, even when I make it through a sentence, I don’t have the knowledge of the spoken language to back up comprehension).
Learning this language has been so fun and exciting, and I have no plans to give up. It’s just (once again) sinking in how much work it really takes.
One of the biggest projects i ever did in my life. These level are going to be alot of fun “not” 地獄 i personally recommend slowing down at some point because it will only get tougher at 40 (from what i heard) so it is better to get rid of them leeches (to make room for new ones)
Good luck and 無理しないでください
Leveled up to 39 in 19 days and 3 hours.
It is great feeling to level up🥳
And i am finally close to 天国
P.s: also realized it is my 20th level up since joining this thread.
Finally on level 8 after about 2.5 years spent on level 7. I ended up having 972 reviews to push through when I started again in the beginning of June. Feels like my (mental) shackles have been broken, and I’m finally ready to climb again!
reached level 23 today, after 7 days 13 hours. this felt like the most difficult level so far - been really struggling with remembering the kanji, been struggling with punctuality. been struggling with brain-fog overall. i do think it’s mostly hayfever (and meds against it), and it ought to get better in a week or two. but it feels like a slog currently.
i’m definitely still moving forward though. both with japanese, and with WK. two months ago a review pile of over 100 was scary, and i used to split them into two sessions. now 100 reviews is … it’s not easy, but i just work my way through them. and it works.
dunno how the next level will go: i’m travelling for three days, and might be a little busy to keep up with everything. but i’ll hopefully have enough downtime too, i’ll just have to see.
and first burns coming up on friday! i was thinking i’d be doing well if i reached level 20 by the time i got burns. i’m still kind of amazed that i’m managing to climb this fast
fast levels… very fast. I’m going to continue this speed but will probably do a slow catch-up level in a month.
I think what helps is that I recognize at least half the kanji I’m learning now either from reading or just from living in Japan lol, so it feels more like I’m just collecting the ones I’m missing + vocab mountain.
Well, I got back from my weeklong vacation today and I was a few hundred reviews in the hole. I did reviews every day, just not all my reviews every day. I also tried to pack light and therefore brought just my phone and not my laptop with me. So, I was forced to only do reviews on my phone. Trying to type on the tiny screen combined with not having the doublecheck script on my phone resulted in a greatly decreased accuracy as I made a LOT of typos and failed items that I actually knew quite well but didn’t type correctly. It was disheartening. Also, the bug where user entered alternate answers were counted as incorrect hit in the middle of this and compounded it all.
So, I’m 17 days into level 37 and still haven’t done the kanji lessons yet. Now that I’m at 0 reviews I’ll try to start doing at least 5-10 lessons each day to get back on track.
Doubt if I ever see it in future again, so just wanted to snap the image this button looks like with lesson amount > 500 (I guess?). Not like it’s often to see, neither any normal - but since I’m here, guess I should cherish the efforts artist put into this piece.
EDIT: ah, yup, the threshold was 500. Now the picture above is the part of history:
I’m now in Hell, as of last night!
Time to focus on grammar a bit more and WK less.
I should be learning N3 grammar by now. Just three more chapters of Genki 2 left…
