Having done my language studying for the day, I’m now off to the tech store to buy a new tablet pencil since the second-hand one I bought in Japan years ago has finally gone kaput — a fact I learned only after I went to the coffee shop for the sole purpose of drawing hahahah. I got my pencil out like let’s do this thing!!! and then was humbled when the pen didn’t work. I’d like to do some digital painting for an upcoming birthday gift, but the birthday is RAPIDLY approaching and I haven’t even started so I’m feeling the プレッシャー for sure loool wish me luck y’all. On the bright side, the pen breaking meant I could write more of the letter to my friend in Japan and also do some language studying sooo not a bad cafe visit <3
I ended up doing a physical not digital piece on canvas! 今週想像的な力を使ってる忙しかった！月曜から木曜日まで、毎晩水ペイントで大作の絵を描い続けた。この絵はお兄さんの三十歳の誕生日のプレゼントで、大切なので、頑張った！The painting is a portrait of my brother and the likeness is (not to toot my own horn lol) good enough that I actually feel a little odd about posting a photo of the painting here unfortunately haha! I don’t know if any of y’all do art and can relate to this frustration: but I think my initial composition/planning rough sketch turned out better than the final piece ahahah which is a little annoying. But I’m happy enough with how it turned out and excited to give it to him next time I visit the UK as a belated present.
As always it seems , I’m in a coffee shop while I write this post and I just did 215 wanikani reviews and finally finished the letter I keep yapping about on here ! I’m excited to post that tomorrow; before I do, I’m going to print some photos of me and my friend to attach in the letter which I think he’ll like <3 Russian reviews I’ll admit haven’t been daily but they have been consistent enough - this week, the priority was working on the painting so I’m not too fazed, but next week I’ll return to daily reviews/study, starting from today!
ロシア語の勉強
土 March 7th
About an hour on the Mango App : 39 Russian vocab reviews and Lesson 7 of Unit 1 completed right before posting this! Today’s lesson was about days of the week so here are my new words and silly mnemonics:
До встречи, See you!
Sounds like: dav-stri-chi
Dave’s string cheese; saying goodbye to your friend Dave who’s always eating string cheese: See you dav stri chi!
понедельник, Monday
Sounds like: pane-dil-nick
On Mondays, you panné your friend Nick with dill-flavored breadcrumbs; he’s delicious
вторник, Tuesday
Sounds like: Vtor-nick
On Tuesdays, your friend Nick dresses up as the god Thor
четверг, Thursday
Sounds like: chit vyerk
On Thursdays, let’s chit-chat about work
воскресенье, Sunday (my boyfriend said this word comes from ‘of the resurrection’, unfortunately that didn’t help me remember this word and I actually couldn’t think of a mnemonic for this one so I’ve just been brute repeating the sounds!)
Sounds like: voss-cree-see-nya
Now I can say phrases like “До встречи во вторник = See you on Tuesday” which is cool!
A personal sad update for those interested (CW: 死)
I’m afraid my dad passed away at the end of last month. It was peaceful and my siblings were with him, which I’m glad for. It’s very very very hard living so far away, most of all during these times But I will be going back home to the UK this weekend for the funeral next week. And I’m really excited to be with my family and mourn with them.
So, needless to say, my “doing Japanese and Russian every day” goal turned into a “let’s get through every day with kindness and see how it goes” goal. But, for the first time in two weeks, I logged into wanikani this evening and just did 20 reviews. Baby steps.
Wishing everyone love on these forums! It’s a lovely community and I’m grateful to have a place here.
My dad — quite the polyglot himself, having spoken Norwegian, French, Latin, Hebrew, and Greek — would be glad for me to not give up on my studies
I’m sure the long lay overs at the airport this weekend will spark some wanikani and/or mango reviews ! Will keep y’all posted <3
I’m sorry about your dad You’re right though, he’s definitely proud of you and your language learning journey. Unfortunately I don’t have a magic button that will make you feel all better, can I offer you a hug instead:
Today I did 100 reviews on wanikani (and levelled up to lvl 8! haha not that the levels matter so much as I reset from lvl 40 or so mainly just as a fresh start).
Yesterday I also did some reviews on Mango in Russian and remembered a lot more than I thought I would. However, I didn’t realize that only the first chapter is free through my library …. monthly is $11.99 and an annual subscription is $119.99. Usually with these types of things I like to make one big purchase and have it forever e.g. buying lifetime on Wanikani and Bunpro was such a great decision given how many years I’ve been using them both now. But this app doesn’t offer a lifetime purchase, the scoundrels. So we’ll see if I cough up the money. Mango’s the best app I’ve used for Russian so far and it seems like their AI policy is better than apps like Duolingo, so I probably will haha
ま、I’m taking each day as it comes. When I went back home to England, I was determined I’d come back to the States and QUIT MY JOB bc my bosses are money-grabbing bad peeps and I am losing my self-respect working for theeeeeeem So I returned to work on Tuesday this week after a travel day staying awake for literally 24 hours on a frenzy, telling my work friends I’d be handing in my two weeks on Friday (tomorrow). But alas, a phone call and some worried texts from my mum deterred me, and in all her mama bear wisdom and fretting she quite rightly told me it’d be safer to just push myself to apply to other jobs while staying at this job. BOO. Tho she is of course right, it was disheartening. But on the plus side, I’m telling myself that since I don’t respect this job anymore, I’m just going to try and do wanikani on the clock hahahaha and in fact 今日漢字と単語を150つぐらい復習をしてしまった heh heh.
This month, I’m both moving apartment and running a 25km, so who can say when the next raindrops update will be !!! But I love you all dearly
Also this was a great idea on my part hahaha and meant I did one big sesh over my shift today and another after work, getting my 350 or so wanikani reviews down to 0 for the first time in months!
I also did some Russian today, including about 50 Russian reviews on my Mango app, and practiced some writing!
I found an app creatively named “Cyrillic writer and dictionary” which will convert any Russian into cursive !!! Super cool and helpful for me practicing cursive and noticing trends naturally with example sentences
Completed my wanikani reviews and did some more lessons at a coffee shop this evening. I also, following yesterday’s lead, practiced more cursive in Russian I’m attempting to combine Japanese into my Russian language study bc the idea of having trilingual study notes seems so dope to me
Learning 2 languages at once is seriously impressive, hats off to you. I want to learn Spanish one day (essential for California) but I fear I’ll get burnt out trying to do both at same time. Trilingual study notes is quite dope.
Daily reviews in Japanese and Russian have been going well! I even got to 0:0 for reviews and lessons today which hasn’t happened in what feels like forever!
I’ve also been continuing my Russian cursive practice and think I’ve improved quite quickly!! What’s awesome is my partner can check everything and give me immediate feedback (for example, the M in the first time I write Aмерики below didn’t go down far enough and looks too much like the cursive Ч). I’m so thankful to have a native speaker who’s able to check my work!
It’s also been really cool writing the Japanese next to my notes so hopefully in time, the Japanese and Russian words will associate one another!
On a final note, I think I’d like to add one more component to my Japanese studies in the coming month or so (as soon as life isn’t so busy honestly, probably after I’m done moving apartments). Whether it’s doing Bunpro reviews, translating Akira again, or being more diligent about writing/posting my 日記, it’d be cool to try and add something extra to just wanikani reviews!
Anyway, hope everyone’s having an okay week so far! Please enjoy this little koala friend I drew who’s saying Я из Австралии “I’m from Australia” hahahah
ahahah which is a little annoying. But I’m happy enough with how it turned out and excited to give it to him next time I visit the UK as a belated present.
, I’m in a coffee shop while I write this post and I just did 215 wanikani reviews and finally finished the letter I keep yapping about on here ! I’m excited to post that tomorrow; before I do, I’m going to print some photos of me and my friend to attach in the letter which I think he’ll like <3 Russian reviews I’ll admit haven’t been daily but they have been consistent enough - this week, the priority was working on the painting so I’m not too fazed, but next week I’ll return to daily reviews/study, starting from today!
: 39 Russian vocab reviews and Lesson 7 of Unit 1 completed right before posting this! Today’s lesson was about days of the week so here are my new words and silly mnemonics:
But I will be going back home to the UK this weekend for the funeral next week. And I’m really excited to be with my family and mourn with them.
You’re right though, he’s definitely proud of you and your language learning journey. Unfortunately I don’t have a magic button that will make you feel all better, can I offer you a hug instead:
…. monthly is $11.99 and an annual subscription is $119.99. Usually with these types of things I like to make one big purchase and have it forever e.g. buying lifetime on Wanikani and Bunpro was such a great decision given how many years I’ve been using them both now. But this app doesn’t offer a lifetime purchase, the scoundrels. So we’ll see if I cough up the money. Mango’s the best app I’ve used for Russian so far and it seems like 
I’m attempting to combine Japanese into my Russian language study bc the idea of having trilingual study notes seems so dope to me
