My name is raindrops (she/her) and, after a long break, I’m back on wanikani!
In August 2024, I left Japan after living there for 2.5 years and moved to the States. Settling into another new country, getting a job, and learning to drive all kept me occupied for the last year and a half, but I think I’m finally ready to jump back into my Japanese studies!
Since starting to learn Japanese all the way back in 2021, I got all the way to level 40 on here, which I’m super proud of! Buuuut I’m craving a fresh start. So I’m resetting wanikani all the way back to level 1. It may seem extreme going back to the beginning despite remembering a lot — after all, I even travelled back to Japan in September of this year and spoke lots of Japanese. But I’m a big advocate for keeping learning fun and cozy, and not shying away from taking my time! So, today I did my first set of reviews for the first time in over a year, starting with the radicals. It felt nostalgic and good.
The only other change in my life worth noting is that I’m now also trying to learn Russian because it’s my partner’s first language. So, this study log will document my journey in both!
Followers of my first study log will know that for Japanese, my studies consisted of: a) wanikani b) writing a daily Japanese diary and c) writing out and translating manga I like. Eventually I’d like to return to that trifecta! For Russian, I’m using a) Rosetta Stone b) an online textbook called между нами and c) my partner correcting my pronunciation lol.
I’m feeling excited! I’m not sure what this next chapter will look like, but I’m finally ready to start it!
As someone who has done several resets in my past, I know how hard it can be, but it’s better to do a reset and start moving again than to keep trying to muster the strength to tackle the evergrowing pile of accumulated reviews! And I also totally agree with you that it’s best to study at one’s own pace!
I’m a slow learner meowself – it took me more than 8 years to reach level 60, but I got there and so would you (and hopefully much faster than I did)!
Anyway, best of luck with your studies and other cativities!
Thank you everybody so much for the warm welcome !!! I’m excited to catch up on what everyone’s been doing/studying on their own journeys <3
I seemingly strategically did this reset at the end of the week, so the ease back into the world of streaks is a casual one hehe so just logging the week from yesterday onwards…
Friday Dec 5, 7AM : ずっと寝られなかったから、後で仕事で今日はきっと難しい。。。ハハ。けど、今朝 （早すぎた時間の間に）、大好きな喫茶店に行って、タブレットで漢字を勉強した。キレイで白いクリスマス木の前に、うまいコーヒーを飲み頼んだ。始めてにこのカフェの クロワッサン＊ を食べてみて、これも美味しかった。これから、仕事に行かなきゃことの前に、ロシア語のオンライン教科書を勉強してみよう。眠くても、今日はよく始めた。
＊Not me initially thinking the word for croissant would end in a ト hahaha … shows my internal English butchering of the French oops
Saturday Dec 6 : 今日はクリスマスマーケットに行って、色々な食べ物を食べた。例えば、エッグノッグ味ペストリー。今月しかこのマーケットがあって、行けて良かった。それに、日の終わりに彼氏の母の家に行って三人一緒にゲームをやった。だが、毎回彼しが勝った！Boo!
Sunday Dec 7 :「Now You See Me」という新しい映画を見るために今日映画館に行った。真面目じゃない映画で、魔法が好きで、見やすかった。けっこうだったと思う。けど、私と見る人こそ、この映画があまり好きじゃなかった。「バカ映画」と言った。皆んなは違うね！
As far as studying this weekend went… of course, back at WaniKani level 1, it’s been easy keeping on top of reviews and lessons. Writing the diary entries is humbling in a satisfying way, making me aware of the gaps in my memory/knowledge. I’m excited to see my progression as I continue my journey back in Japanese!
I did also manage to do some Russian today, completing a chapter of my online textbook. The chapters are very short, so it’s not as impressive as that would be for Genki or Quartet haha! However, a few days ago, I read a particularly blunt paragraph in the textbook:
where all the letters seemingly look the same, as well as frustration with some of the letters personally; I’m looking at YOU, Mrs.‘T’ who looks like an ‘m’ in lowercase despite there being a visual M in Cyrillic!
But after reading that paragraph in my textbook, it’s time to finally put childish aversions aside and jump into writing my notes in cursive too! So, I also began practicing that today too:
Ooh! I’ve spent most of the past 2 years in the Russian Mines (actually, I postponed starting Japanese to the end of the year in order to do a final 6 months of Russian… to improve my reading comprehension before starting in earnest in another, more difficult language). And ahahaha…. Russian cursive… my enemy….. especially т! I’m a lot better at reading it now than I used to be, after plenty of practice reading italics, but it’s still a bit slower than regular block text. Best of luck with writing it! Your handwriting already looks lovely
@owlsong74 Oh wow !! After two years, do you know what your favourite resources are that you’d recommend to a novice hehe? I think it’s inevitable block text reads easier than italics, I even feel that way in English with certain fonts! Maybe when I learn new vocab in Russian, I’ll try writing it twice (once block, once cursive!) But I’m sure in the early days I’m gonna get lost in the loopty-loops of it all more than a few times!
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Monday Dec 8, 11PM : 今晩はオンラインで新しい仕事を探した。疲れた！！実は現在の仕事が大嫌いで、毎日新しい仕事をapplyしてみるとする。でも今、とうとうベッドに行く！ (I couldn’t remember the word for apply and I’m pooped haha! お休み皆んな！
After two years, do you know what your favourite resources are that you’d recommend to a novice hehe?
Sure! This got a bit long lol.
Grammar
For grammar, I really enjoyed Russian Through Propaganda and Russian through Paintings and Poems . These are a series of four textbooks that take you through roughly the first two years of a Russian college course. I didn’t do the exercises myself since I’m only interested in reading, not writing/speaking, but they seem decent, and I found the grammar explanations and examples useful, thorough, and enjoyable to read. They’re well-written, relatively cheap in the US for textbooks ($20 per book, which includes both the standard textbook elements and the exercises with answer key), and there are free video lectures and extra worksheets for every chapter online. For example, lesson 17 of the first book here.
Comprehensible videos
For easy listening with visual cues, I recommend Sergey Storyteller and Comprehensible Russian on Youtube. They’ve actually changed a lot in the past year or so since I last watched them, but in a good way (looks like more videos are being made). They both have useful complete beginner and beginner playlists. Comprehensible Russian’s complete beginner playlist is usable from day 1: it starts super simple. There are other easy Russian channels, but I found these two to be the most consistently useful.
Graded Readers
Something that was useful for were 4 graded readers (onetwothreefour) that were available in e-book and audiobook formats for relatively cheap. The stories themselves aren’t amazing or anything, but they’re more interesting than most textbook material and they’ll get you to being able to start reading easier native material. The first one is by far the easiest, so I recommend starting there. The others felt around the same level to me.
Intermediate dual-language readers
The author of the Russian Through X books also has a series of dual-readers featuring classic Russian literature (also on the website linked above). Definitely recommend getting ~2-3k words and some grammar knowledge under your belt first, but they’re very well done and useful in that awkward low-intermediate stage where learner material is too easy but most native material for adults (especially anything like the classics) is still very difficult. Each page has the Russian text with stress marking, a straight-forward English translation, and a gloss of every word. I personally avoid the English translation except when I get stuck, but having the glosses right there instead of in a dictionary make reading go much smoother (especially the case for old-fashioned words, or words where the meaning depends on context).
I also used a frequency-based Anki deck for vocabulary when starting, but I didn’t like it very much and can’t recommend it. I only got about 1/5th of the way through before switching to mining my own vocab from what I was reading/watching, and honestly, I should’ve switched earlier.
Hope this is useful!! Russian is an interesting language
@OwlSong74 !!! You are a gem !!! Thank you so much for taking the time to write this ! This all looks so helpful, I’ll for sure explore these sometime ! It’s heartening to see someone talk about actually being able to read in Russian, right now it all feels so far away and unachievable haha! My partner says the learning curve from beginner to intermediate-beginner is waaay bigger than the curve from intermediate-beginner onwards, and that once you‘ve got the basics down, it’ll be fast learning. SO IM BANKING ON THAT and the promise of this being the hardest time hahaha
Tuesday Dec 9, 7:25AM: 他な早い朝ね！彼氏の車が運転できなくて、先週末治すためにショップに置いた 。それで、どこでもに行くために、今週互いが私の車を使う。彼しの仕事は6時午前に始めて、私たちは5時半に起きらなきゃ。これは全部じゃない！今週すごく雪が降って、以上と比べて運転しにくなる 。今朝はちょっと難しかった！けど早く起きたから、私の仕事前に喫茶店に行けた。この文を書けて、一人タイムを頼めて良かった。
I leveled up to level 2 in wanikani this morning too hehe ^-^ watch out world here I come
That might be because I completely made it up Hahahaha I was just practicing those letters and combined to spell bag in English — I should probably look up actual Russian words for next time
Wednesday Dec 10, 9:52PM : これと言えば。。。昨日はすごく大変だった。チーム会談があって、「あなたらはいつも悪くしている」としか言わなかった。ウソ！grr! でも、うちに帰って、彼氏と話して、気持ちがだんだん良くなった。Ventingということさ、問題について話すことは便利だと思う。
Thankfully today was a better day! But gosh, this job sucks! I’m really glad to be jumping back into Japanese at the moment. When sooo many hours of my week are spent at a job that stinks, it’s super cool to wake up a bit earlier in the mornings or stay up a little later in the evenings, to fit some time in doing a thing that’s just for me. Here’s hoping some cool-japanese-time will balance out the crushing weight of lame-work-time!
!!! I’m excited to catch up on what everyone’s been doing/studying on their own journeys <3
! I’ve been putting off learning cursive in Russian because of intimidating photos like this:
For now, I hope everyone had a great weekend <3
Best of luck with writing it! Your handwriting already looks lovely
I think it’s inevitable block text reads easier than italics, I even feel that way in English with certain fonts! Maybe when I learn new vocab in Russian, I’ll try writing it twice (once block, once cursive!) But I’m sure in the early days I’m gonna get lost in the loopty-loops of it all more than a few times!
This got a bit long lol.
。それで、どこでもに行くために、今週互いが私の車を使う。彼しの仕事は6時午前に始めて、私たちは5時半に起きらなきゃ。これは全部じゃない！今週すごく雪が降って、以上と比べて運転しにくなる 
。今朝はちょっと難しかった！けど早く起きたから、私の仕事前に喫茶店に行けた。この文を書けて、一人タイムを頼めて良かった。
