April 2nd (Calendar Post)
私の拳をうけとめて! => 104 pages (137 min)
Almost finished volume 3 of my current manga. Looking forward to how things wrap up in the last volume!
Some fun panels:
!!?
でか～
ふぁ？
Also ran into this interesting expression:
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Triangle makes reply look smol peepoHappy
I haven’t read all the replies (I should be studying right now anyways… 
) so sorry if it’s just a repeat of or direct contradiction to someone.
But to me, this sounds like you need to change the way you’re mining/srs’ing, not that you should drop SRS. If you want to have the context because you feel it’s important, try copy pasting the entire paragraph on some field on the back of the card so you can glance over it. If you don’t like a sentence, don’t add it.
Personally when I mine, I have these sentences with uncommon words where I’m like “Woooh, this is such a nice sentence/word, I really wanna add that :3” and sometimes I have some sentences with really common words that I just don’t care for.
I feel like this can help with both the things you’re hoping for, as you get to read more because you’re mining less of the things you read, and it can bring the joy back into mining/srs’ing. For me, mining has turned into a tiny little treasure hunt to find the sentences I really want to add c:
I’ve also learned English through basically no formal study and only immersion (at first from watching anime with English subtitles funnily enough. They always came out a day earlier than German sub 
), so I know the sort of doubt you’re feeling. But personally I don’t think you can beat a properly set up SRS in terms of efficiency. That efficiency does come at a price though, having to sit down every day and doing them flashcards instead of procrastinating by giving strangers advice you’re probably not qualified to give. Now, if you want to pay that price… 
(Or maybe I’m just strange for wanting to SRS. Damn those unknown words 
)
Whoops, didn’t actually hit the reply button.
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I had another light reading day. Today was セメント樽の中の手紙 (~7 pages, published 1926) which gave me lots of “wtf did I just start reading” feels. Someone on Bookmeter compared it to 人間椅子 and I can see it, but this one was more trying to drive home an overarching message whereas 人間椅子 just wanted to give you the heebie jeebies. I do love me some heebie jeebs
I suppose as far as content warnings go, just ‘death’ would cover it. Mildly graphic but mostly just weird.
I requested it on Natively but I’m puzzling over how to rate its difficulty. The start and end “caps” of the story are significantly more difficult than the larger middle portion.
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少年H
I’ve been reading 1 chapter per day. The chapters seem to be episodic, each about its own incident or theme. I’m about 1/3 through this book (volume 1 of 2) and it’s still the late 1930s. Mostly it’s still about the ordinary life of H as a young boy in the Kobe of the time, but here and there something happens to remind us that a war is happening and it’s not going as well as official government stories want everyone to believe.
More about this book
There’s a lot of of new vocabulary. Because this book is written to describe things that happened a lifetime ago, the author includes a lot of details and explanations which an actual old book from that time probably wouldn’t have bothered with. There was a section where the protagonist makes some pocket money by selling glue to his fellow students, which came with an explanation about how there used to be a glue shop, which sold nothing but glue, every type of glue, and people had to buy it frequently because glue wasn’t made with preservatives back then so it would go bad. This last chapter was about a huge flood that happened in Kobe, so there were many new words about floods, water, and objects that were soaked or had to be stored away. Also nearly everyone speaks Kansai-ben.
It’s interesting and educational, and definitely a challenge. I’m learning a lot, but the sheer amount of new vocabulary is daunting and I’ve been feeling discouraged some days because it feels like no matter how much I learn it doesn’t make a difference. I hope I can find something easier for my next book.
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Started to read the 「五色 爆発！合宿クライマッス！」event in Idolmaster Shiny Colors today. Its broken into 8 chapters with each one being around 1-2k characters it looks like so I will try to read it throughout the week.
First chapter was simple enough, looks like Kaho saw heroes in her tv show go to 合宿 so she wants to go with everyone herself now.
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May 2
Shhh… don’t look that this is being posted on May 3…
I missed May 1 cause I was out with a friend in the afternoon looking at cherry blossoms. It’s still so cold. I’m surprised as many bloomed as they did. Negative I want to say it was fun, but between the weather and hearing that my friend was at a convention two days prior (and thus potentially exposed to covid and didn’t tell me before we met), I’m feeling resentful for leaving the house.
This evening I went back to Spy x Family Chapter 1 to start puting together a book-club style Spy x Family vocab list. Please feel free to contribute if you’re so moved. Or point me to any existing lists because I couldn’t find any through search.
I know the manga was recently proposed for the Intermediate Japanese Book Club, but I’m impatient, and I think there’s enough of us reading it now to make some decent headway if it does become the next book club pick.
Progress on Tadoku graded readers
44 / 44 level-zeros
12 / 12 level-ones
10 / 10 level-twos
x / 18 level-threes
Are you playing on Switch or PS4? I’m thinking of picking it up on Switch.
If you’re playing on Switch, did you buy it through the eshop via a Japanese user account? I’m wondering if I buy the US shop’s version, if it’ll switch to Japanese language because my system’s in Japanese.
I love the 花すけ series. Hanasuke is so cute!
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Yeah I’m playing on switch! You have to buy through the Japanese eshop or import it as the english language version only has Japanese voice, not text options. Setting up a Japanese eshop account is pretty straight forward but I couldnt get any of my usual payment options to work so had to buy eshop vouchers from playasia and purchase that way. I’ve previously ordered Japanese switch games from amazon.jp which is another option (but I was too impatient to play 13 sentinels lol)
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…and I’m back, after taking a rest at the end of April due to covid recovery.
I had a look through my books and decided to try こんにちはウーフ which is another 1960s elementary school book. It has some very cute illustrations and what it lacks in kanji, it definitely makes up for in onomatopeia!
[Excuse chipped nail varnish!]
I’m working through the Minna No Nihingo Intermediate books with my tutor at the moment and I’ve already seen a fair few of the grammar points in the first chapter so it’s definitely good reinforcement.
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Day 32 
Read: 夜カフェ
Time: 19 minutes
Finished: Chapter 5
Read: ふらいんぐうぃっち、ホリミヤ、よつばと！
Finished: Volume 1 of each (was already half finished most of them)
Did my book club reading for the week (those waffles sounded so cute) and continued in my effort to go through some of the books that have been on my shelf for a while. I think I’ll continue to do so but slow it down to maybe a chapter or so at a time, I’m realizing the reason I haven’t read most of them is because I don’t have much motivation to. Other than that I’m hoping I can finish my ジャックジャンヌ novel this week before finals start and my free time evaporates.
New Vocab
合カギ （あいかぎ）duplicate key
どっと in a rush; in a surge; flooding in; pouring in
下駄箱 （げたばこ）shoe rack (in an entrance); cupboard (for shoes and clogs)
粗品 （そしな）small present; trifling gift
嗜好 （しこう）taste; liking; preference
ブランコ swing; trapeze
チクる to tattle; to tell on; to inform a superior of someone’s actions
育ち盛り （そだちざかり）growth period (in children)
レトルト retort; sealed plastic pouch typically containing ready-made sauce or stew; boil-in-the-bag
絶交 （ぜっこう）breaking off a relationship; permanent breach of friendship; rupture
じょうろ watering can; watering pot; sprinkling can
新米 （しんまい）novice; beginner; newcomer; new hand
がてら on the same occasion; at the same time; coincidentally; along with; partly (to do, for)
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SRS discussion... more like my story in language learning but anyway...
So I’m gonna tell more of a story of my discovery of SRS with love at first sight followed by… well, let me start the story instead of giving you a plot summery.
Before WK, I don’t think I’d heard of SRS. I’d tried Duolingo briefly but found it lacking in the words it choose to teach me. (Maybe it makes sense to teach a kid the names of all the colors, but as an adult I don’t find those are the first words I need to know. 
)
About my journey to get fluent in English without SRS and with help from regular obligatory school, feel free to skip because it makes my post even longer. lol
Instead my experience with language learning came from learning English as my second language. In Sweden, back when I was at school (it might be different now!), we started learning a bit in grade 1-3, but it really kickstarted in grade 4 (10ish years old) and from there on it really built.
When I was about 14 years old, I realized my closest friends were so much better at English than I was. They played computer games in English (mainly that was why), and I didn’t enjoy not understanding things they did, so I decided enough was enough. Also I didn’t want to wait a year after the release of Harry Potter 5 for the Swedish translation. So I dived head first into reading all those (translated) fantasy books I loved in their original language (aka English).
Boy, was that a trip! This was before internet in your pocket (2003!), and I had a physical, paper Eng-Swe dictionary. And now imagine that a paper version have to be selective in its choices of word to include due to length, and now remember how many words are used in fantasy (even set in our modern world) that are not common—not to mention made up words.
And well… I understood everything that happened in the book, but there were definitely words I was very confused by. Definitely a case of maybe not the best picked book, but school had given me a good enough base that I could understand words from context even if I couldn’t look them up.
I started calling myself fluent in English somewhere between 18 and 20 years old, because I no longer had to translate English in my head to Swedish to understand it, and I could communicate quick and easy, and I had no trouble with any books I choose to read.
So I never did SRS with English and I’ve considered myself fluent for almost a decade and a half.
Now, I tried to tackle Japanese several times without getting very far. A new writing system (well three, but anyway), plus grammar so very different from my own, and barely any natural exposure—those things make it a lot harder to get into.
Then eventually I stumbled on WK, and I consider that a god send for my Japanese. I fell in love with SRS as I worked through the free levels. I couldn’t understand how this wasn’t used in school when it made it so easy to learn words. Just words and words and words, and in Japanese’s case kanji.
I was blind to its flaws. Mostly due to not enough experience (and I don’t mean review piles or how the work builds and builds).
Then about when I started I read this post: The end game… quitting the SRS. And I was all O_O O_O O_O
Why ever would I quit SRS? It was the best. Ah, the naivety was adorable. 
Then I continued. Started coming up in the teens of WK, and later into the twenties and I started to realize that there were words that would not stick via SRS for me. That learning words in isolation like this made it very hard to understand them. How some leeches were created due to similar kanji that wouldn’t happen at all if I read them in context because the meanings were so different that there would be no way I’d wonder if it meant A or Q.
In fact, my leech strategy is to mostly correctly my mistakes and let them move into burned, because I figure I will either understand them in context or eventually find such a good sentence that suddenly I just understand the word forever more. (Honestly that second case have happened a few times.) More SRS only leads to frustration and extra meaningless work.
And somewhere in figuring out that there were things SRS with isolated words couldn’t teach, the amount of work required that isn’t that fun, and the fact that I managed to learn English without SRS… Suddenly eventually quitting SRS made sense.
In fact, I realized that once I had a good basis in Japanese, consumption would take care of expanding my vocabulary and slowly but surely make my understanding clearer and clearer without any focused studying. I occasionally look up English words, either because I’ve never seen them before (tends to be scientific/field of study specific vocab that a layperson don’t tend to know) or sometimes I look up definitions to more clearly understand words I might have encountered many times but can’t clearly define. (These tend to be adjective like nouns, if that makes sense. Words like うらなり weak-looking fellow; pale-faced man; pasty-faced man; pallid man (since I couldn’t come up with one in English).)
Anyway, I can’t tell you exactly when I will stop SRS, but I don’t see myself picking up any new SRS after WK. (Because I got my base vocabulary from 1 year in Japanese language school.) I will probably/maybe finish WK, and I might get back into Bunpro to get clearer on more grammar. And maybe I will pick up a bit of SRS after WK if I still feel like there are too many common words I don’t know.
The only way to know if now is the time to quit is probably to try it. What does it feel like not to do SRS for 3 months or 6 months? Weighting pros and cons could also be good, and with that I mean your own personal ones. How irritating is SRS? How much effort/energy/time does it take to add new words to SRS? How much do you get out of it? Can you clearly point to SRS things making YOUR GOAL WITH JAPANESE easier? (I don’t know why you are learning Japanese.)
SRS is a means to an end. If you’ve gotten what you needed from it, then quit. If you are unsure if you are there yet, put things on vacation mode/equivalent and try it. Experiment, and don’t feel like whatever you choose to do is something you have to stick with. Maybe it only takes two weeks of no SRS to realize that: no actually, SRS is still right for me.
Or in a year’s time you’ll look back at this and go: huh, I really didn’t need SRS anymore.
I look forward to the day I feel done with SRS for Japanese.
It is a wonderful tool and I will probably use it when/if I learn a fourth language in the future. And once again, I will aim to get to a strong base in the new language and then abandon formal study for expanding knowledge through reading/speaking/listening/writing (whichever combo of those I learned the language for in the beginning).
Sorry for being so verbose and still mostly repeating what others have said… 
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Day 32-33 / Calendar
Another double day, because I had a test this morning and had to study for it, but I still read some (excellent time management skills, you see).
These two days I’ve finished this week’s 夜カフェ chapter. Most of this was done today, around 70% of the whole chapter I’ve read last night (time management, again) and just now. I’m impressed at how quikcly I can read, though not sure, which part of reading got easier (and I hope to god it’s not just the one where you find out most things from context).
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3rd of May
Day 33
Thanks for the birthday wishes @Zakarius @windupbird @natarin!!
I didn’t manage to set aside time yesterday for reading — and today I have to work on my assignment for Japanese class. If skimming Japanese search results and reading blogs (in Japanese) about tourism counts as reading, I did a bit today
I may read a bit of かがみの孤城 before going to bed later if it’s not too late. I’ll have to sleep early since I only got 4 hours last night though lol.
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Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220503 
Tanuki Scroll XXXIII: あめ屋と子泣きじじい 
Read today’s hyakumonogatari, about Konaki-Jijii.
A travelling trader is lost and starts to hear the cries of a child in the mountains. He finds the child but when he picks it up he sees that it has the face of a grandpa. It won’t stop crying nor will it let go no matter how hard he tries to get rid of it. Luckily this guy is a sweet-seller by trade and pops a tasty candy in the baby’s mouth, it stops crying but demands more. He tries to flee but seems to black out.
When he awakens he finds that his entire sweet-stock has been eaten.
Japanese found in the tall grass
New Things
何処からともなく「どこからともなく」ー Randy Orton Out of nowhere; from who knows where
How to cry like a baby in Japanese:
エーン、エエーン！
The “I didn’t know you could stick a repeater on the end of that to make it a thing” category
恐々「こわごわ」ー Fearfully; timidly
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May 3rd
・薬屋のひとりごと (79% → 84%)
Finished chapter 27.
Low brain juice Redglare decided it was a good idea to read a 30,000 word fic until 3 in the morning. That was fun.
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Well, do you count it as reading? It’s all up to you, init
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Today I read this week’s section for Week 5: 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん 👵🏼. The book isn’t really grabbing me, but it’s a book club so I think I’ll stick with it because the discussions can be interesting 
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Oops I missed @ekuroe Happy belated birthday!
I’m reading kinda slowly today. Another tired day. Made it a little past 6000 characters and I’ll call that good, still managing to treat that as my new minimum. Things weren’t that hard but at the same time the new word density was just abnormally high (and, you know, it’s always high to begin with). It didn’t take long beyond the 1000 character mark for me to have 20 mined words, and they were basically all common, useful ones. There are so many words!
I realize now I even forgot to grab a screenshot at all today. It’s just a sleepy day. Probably doesn’t help that my reviews are coincidentally piling near their upper limits recently. Which means they’re about to go down but yeah, I have had upper end times in Anki and WK together. You know what, have this cropped image of angry Tsumugi I took ages ago, and imagine this is how I look when thinking about what I forgot to do:
This route is really holding Shiroha’s whole story at a distance, so I can tell it’s still going to be a while most likely. Just having more summer adventures. Although, I had one moment of bringing back terrible personal memories, heh.
So, two characters were discussing being able to handle bugs, and one mentioned that the exception that freaks them out are かまどうま. Those being camel crickets (or cave crickets, spider crickets, whatever you prefer). Now, I used to live somewhere where these would show up in the house, and they are the worst bugs I’ve ever dealt with. They get pretty big for bugs, but what’s worst, is they jump. Like a lot, and a few feet high. Directly at things that they find threatening. So you’ve got these giant bugs erratically, aggressively hopping at you. Truly the worst. キモイ 
Interesting new word: 傷心旅行 (しょうしんりょこう) - “travel to relieve heartbreak”
Oh, right, and I’m also still slowly making progress (alongside the audiobook listens) on スマホを落としただけなのに . Since I’m reading 2 books and the VN at once it’s not getting a ton of attention, but I finished section 8 (of 60…) last night, so that at least shows some continued forward progress. It’s indeed a mostly relaxed read.
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I feel like most people wouldn’t say that about a book about stalking and murder but I think we’re on the same wavelength
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May 3rd!
Earlier today, I read 6 pages of ふしぎねこのきゅーちゃん.
On Tuesday’s I often have a call with a friend to read together. Previously we were reading Fullmetal Alchemist, but after completing the first chapter we decided to move on to something that uses more everyday vocab. So today we started reading the Tsubasa Bunko edition of 君の名は together. We read the first page - we only read a little each week so that we can really dig into understanding the grammar …though part of the reason for the slow pace may also be that we keep on getting sidetracked and chatting. 
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I just finished the Graded Reader on Japanese weddings, and I learned about wedding customs. Very interesting!
When the family got home, they realized they had accidently received the envelopes with the wedding money in them!
One more book in this set of Readers!
New Vocabulary:
もら
貰う to receive, to accept, to take
かし
菓子 sweets, candy, cake
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