<3 Thank you!!! And thank you for the marshmallows.
Wanna hear something wack though?? I’m allergic to marshmallows.
No. Really. I have something amazing called alpha gal allergy (a digestive allergy to alpha galactose – a unique sugar that’s found in mammal products – and carrageenan and magnesium stearate can also trigger the allergy for some people) and I can’t eat marshmallows anymore. At least, I think I can’t. I guess I could try, but I’m so concerned about triggering the allergy that I avoid almost all mammal products now. My sole violation at the moment is that I seem to tolerate Coffee Mate. It’s got some kind of milk derivative, but it doesn’t seem to trigger the problems! yay!
I read a little bit today in GUNNM (Battle Angel Alita) and really enjoyed getting to know the actual words Kishiro sensei wrote. What was translated as The Scrapyard is originally “Scrap Iron Town.” I really love that. I’m a big enough fan that looking up each word I don’t know feels like some kind of prayerful devotion to me…at least that’s what it felt like today. Hopefully it will continue over the long haul. Thanks for writing me here, FireFairy! It’s very inspiring to see your current level!!!
I gave you a lifetime supply of marshmallows! You’ll have to let me know what you’ll like in replacement, see it as motivational support!
Well done for making that move reading GUNNM! It’s quite a feeling when you read something and you translate it in it’s real form! I think it’s all about keeping in check in how you feel each day and not being too hard on yourself.
From level 1 I was very excited to start, I missed the yearly sale so level 4 ended up being my longest time! 9 to 21 I think I had a mix of illness, struggling to find balance and getting demotivated… I tried getting back into it again and then I had time’s of being very demotivated, from 40 I think I started to get more into it again and for now I’m feeling more in balanced and in more control.
Having others to motivate and having others you admire can help as well. So I’ll celebrate your goals as well! Every 1 level up is a big thing!
This is amazing!!! Thank you so much for sharing your chart. It’s very motivating! You have a lot of very fast levels on here, and quite a few really long ones, but there you are, just going with it and continuing. Very very inspiring!!! Thank you!
I think, instead of marshmallows, strawberries is what I’d like as my motivational encouragement gift! So save me up all the strawberries!!! And I’ll definitely mentally eat the lifetime supply of marshmallows as well!
And thank you especially for encouraging me with GUNNM. I’m wayyyyy too low level to be reading it, but I love it enough to read it like, hundreds of times, so I know I’ll keep reading it and get more out of it each time as I go through the levels and increase my grammar in Bunpro. Hopefully I’ll also eventually learn some of the vocab. Everything seems so advanced. Honestly, I feel like a fool for trying to do this without hope of fluency, but whatever. I’ve learned too much to stop now. Every bit of reading is kinda like a miracle, so I’ll let that pull me along for now.
I’m thinking I’ll also get myself Tadoku Level 0 off of Amazon. Because my mom offered to reimburse me for Tadoku – what a huge gift. But I’ll just start off with Level 0 to prove to myself that I’m able to complete it before I get Level 1. I’m reading it online from someone’s Reddit post, so it seems only fair to actually get the actual thing. Besides, maybe it’s different from the free books? I don’t know!
The long levels were tough but I’m glad now I’ve managed to find my feet! I can’t remember preciously when but about late 20’s I noticed I could read more better and the more I went up the more better I could read and that was the pure magical moment for me which really helped my motivation - the hard work had started paying off!
Don’t worry about reading at a low level! The only thing is if it makes you feel frustrated then it’s best to take a break. I think getting used to seeing words is still good - I actually read all of Chihayafuru manga despite I couldn’t understand enough to understand what was going on most of the time but I had more solid understanding on what I could read.
There is easier manga like Chi’s sweet home and Yotsuba is popular but Tadoku level 0 is a great start! I’ve got quite a few, they have cd’s with them though my they’re all downloads rather than cds. I think it’s great to have that kind of support for your studies.
Oh and other reading material… NHK’s News web easy is good if you like to read some news, I used it with rikaikun but as you get a higher level you’ll find yourself needing it less and less.
Ichi.moe is something I use very often as well, it’s very useful!
I gave up on 文法が弱いあなたへ. I showed it to a Japanese who just looked at the first page and said questions didn’t make much sense and it didn’t look very good. My quest to improve my grammar still continues!
Strawberries it is then! Hope you like cute kittens as well!
Awwwwww! Thank you for the basket of strawberries and adorable kitten! I love strawberries and kittens!!!
Thanks for the information about the grammar book. I was intrigued by the title, so it’s good to know it’s not a superb resource that helped your grammar. Nor does it make much sense, even?!
Thank you especially for telling me about the magical treat that awaits me sometime in the late 20’s levels!!! The Level 0 Tadoku Graded Readers just arrived today from Amazon and when I peeked at the first booklet I was actually surprised by how advanced it was compared to the stuff at Level 0 online, which started with single word sentences. So I’m still working my way through the Level 0 online Tadoku, but I’ll begin reading the new paperback booklets this weekend! Maybe even right now…let me check for reviews and make sure I’m all caught up first!
Thanks for the reading recommendations. I should read NHK News Web Easy more, but I admit that I’m avoiding discouragement and sticking with stuff at a much lower level. Except for GUNNM.
I’m still using Bunpro. I like it, kind of…I have to get something wrong at first and then it turns into a Ghost and I get to drill it until I “know” it, but it’s not very satisfying. I guess that’s how it is for a bit. Eventually things will start to click, but hopefully for now it’s ok that grammar points are still kinda just a rote thing for me. I’m guessing that actually reading is what’s going to help. Tadoku Level 0 here I come!!!
Strawberries and kittens it is then!
I’m lucky to have a Japanese to check books out for me, I used to get as much books as I could very early days and it’s amazing how many I was told had mistakes or sounded unnatural.
I find NHK news web easy a bit mixed in difficultly… but I think it’s good to work on Tadoku for now and GUNNM - as someone who got demotivated I found it’s better to have a mix of something you can study on and something you can enjoy!
Massive mistake I did was just studying textbooks all day and I fell asleep quite a few times while studying and nothing was sticking! I only could remember N5 level stuff but come to N4 grammar I just didn’t understand. I got more demotivated then it’s only because of Riya (Riya had the most amazing JLPT N3 and N2 score!) I thought “hey it’s ok to play games in Japanese and read manga” so I just decided to go for it, relax more, and not study textbooks so much - so mixing in fun more with a bit of textbook studying I found I’ve been learning far more better!
But don’t worry you can only keep improving! There’ll be a time you’ll be surprised looking at those books again and notice how much more easier it is compared to the first time you read them!
I should really get back into Bunpro but I keep being pretty busy lately. Oh that reminds me I had an app “Bunpo” (very similar spelling… ) which has been pretty good for grammar and also has hiragana and katakana! I did pay for lifetime on it but now they have AI tools on it which seems to be subscription (I haven’t paid for this so can’t comment on it). The main app has been pretty worth it for me though I found the odd bug, grammar description is good though!
nice! I have the Bunpo app on my phone but for some reason I didn’t latch onto it in my study routine. I’m thinking for me the initial reviews weren’t frequent enough to help me remember stuff.
Speaking of which, it’s time for me to do some reviews! Woo-hoo!!
It’s hard to keep things up when you’ve got a lot of resources. For me I’m doing WaniKani everyday even if it’s just reviews and no lessons it’s my main focus. I’m also working on TRY!N3 and Minna no nihongo II every week (focusing on grammar), when I have time to spare I’ll read Case Closed.
I guess after I finish one of these I’ll go back to Bunpo, I want to tick everything off!
Good point about having a lot of resources. I like the fact that in Bunpro I can study Genki decks, and it’s tempting to add even more decks but I’m going to stick with the three decks I’ve chosen: Bunpro path N5 grammar, Bunpro N5 vocab, and Genki. I have Genki I but I hadn’t done much in it because I didn’t really know how to get the vocabulary into myself, but Bunpro will do it for me! xD Overwhelm is a real threat though, so if I start faltering, I’ll scrap the Genki deck.
I did this morning’s reviews and lessons! Yay!
I read another online level 0 Tadoku from this list on Reddit - Dive into anything and I also read the second booklet in volume 1 in the Level 0 graded reader set. It was about だいず (大豆) - soybeans! I wish I could keep on reading at this level infinitely, with all the pictures and labels, and just magically learn Japanese that way, but…
…What I want, in my magical dreams, is for there to be a setup that’s all reading. Basically, extremely high volume reading with lots of pictures that just gradually adds in new words and new grammar structures with tons of repetition and I could just read my way into familiarity and fluent comprehension. I don’t know if anyone else read picture books by Richard Scarry when they were little but that’s what I want. I want a deluge of Japanese Richard Scarry books!!!
So if anyone knows of something like that, I would love to know details. (I’ll try looking online for something like that and if I find it I’ll definitely share it here!)
In the meantime, I guess I need to stop diary-writing and start my reading! Informally I’m thinking Sunday is my “big reading” time, where I do my heavy lifting and try to read in Points and Lines (点と線 てんとせん) by Seichou Matsumoto (松本清張) and GUNNM by Yukito Kishiro (木城 ゆきと).
Well! I wish you the greatest satisfaction in your studies! Thanks for reading my log!
I’ve got the same set! I remember the first book was about sakura 桜. If I remember correctly (I’m getting old!) I think there was only grade 1 and no 0 so I started straight to 1.
There is some Japanese Richard Scarry books funny enough!
Problem is with children’s books they’re normally all in hiragana so not the best for kanji practise, that’s what makes it difficult.
There is a youtube channel of someone going through Yotsuba and NHK easy news… I guess there’s others out there but maybe this could be helpful for you?
I think the more you see the same kanji and vocab in use the more it’ll likely stick. It depends as well if you’re a visual person, audio person etc. Sometimes you need to actually use it to remember by writing or speaking (I find typing useful for me!)… listening to certain music with the words or even a scene in some anime/film can help.
Lot of people use Anki as well but strangely I just never could get on with it but for others it works well!
Most of all don’t worry about it! For myself I relax read as I remember better that way. Best way is to relax and enjoy!
One more link! Here’s a list of book graded at N5 level on Natively in case you like to have a look (unless you’ve seen it already!)
Apparently they’re calling that Level 0 now, and there’s another Level 0… xD (Also re: turning old – I just turned 45! Are we in the same ballpark?? Either way, you’re totally the cool senpai!!! )
Regarding the book thank you!!! Actual Richard Scarry in Japanese is perfect for me learning up some charming and random vocabs! Thank you so much!!! Thank you for the other reference recommendations as well. I feel like Anki for me would be a mistake because I would just become overwhelmed… I’m using Bunpro and WK instead, and then trying to read. I mean, yeah, Anki would be very efficient, but I’m just not that organized. I’m doing this in a playful sort of way, in other words, I’m making it up as I go instead of doing the most effective study method. (I’m still super interested in corrective comments on effective study methods though! )
Did my reviews and lessons today! I’ve had a huuuuuuge (26) amount of ghosts (Bunpro version of leeches) in the grammar app, but I stopped taking new grammar points for a few days and focused on trying to clean up the leeches. Turns out that getting them wrong over and over again and doing a lot of review sessions that are only or primarily composed of the ghosts is helping my brain wake up to the patterns that it has a hard time absorbing through text. I’m just not very conjugate-y yet, but seeing the way the root is getting transformed over and over is seeming to help me out a bit. Drills - yay!
I have done more Tadoku reading – read three volumes so far! – but I haven’t done my reading in GUNNM. Especially avoided Ten to Sen by Seichou Matsumoto (I’m honestly kind of embarrassed, but I know it’s due to the overwhelming level of the grammar and vocab. Maybe I ought to try reading over again what I already read?? gah. lol)
The big kicker here is that it didn’t even occur to me to try searching for Richard Scarry in Japanese, even though some of the Japanese children’s books I was looking at were clearly translated from English…
I’ll be 39 this year! Actually my husband will be 45 very soon. It’s so great and encouraging to have someone else learning at a similar age! Funny enough I’m learning far better now then when I was much younger, there’s more resources but I’ve learnt to study better!
If you don’t mind children’s songs I recommend Super Simple Nihongo songs as you can really pick up a lot from those - I picked up words like ふきげん from their 5 pumpkins song! There is English subtitles or you can choose Japanese which has hiragana plus romanji.
No don’t be embarrassed at all! I’ve got a Fuyumi Ono Ghost Hunt book which I’ve yet to read, it’s bit advance for me, I’ve read a few pages and decided I really need to study more before tackling it. I’m just seeing it as a big goal to reach because I really loved the anime (it is old though) so I’m looking forward to getting to read it! We will get there in the end! There’s no harm in re-reading as long as you enjoy it, sometimes you miss somethings during the first read and it only helps reinforce what you’ve learnt!
Wow you got to level 3 already! You need strawberries and cats!
Awwww thank you!!!
I’m doing 15 lessons per day – I hope it is sustainable. So far so good! I’m actually glad I did a full reset because WK added so much in the way of new vocab and altered mnemonics. Very good feeling! <3
Thanks for the encouragement and advice regarding my reading. And thank you for the recommendation of the Super Simple Nihongo Songs! Sounds sweet and fun.
Just did a 40-item review in Bunpro and reduced my number of ghosts from 26 to 17. Stopping the lessons for a while and just focusing on my ghosts was definitely the right call! I am delighted to be doing lessons again. But I’ll be careful to keep my eye on the number of ghosts so I don’t become overwhelmed again. I definitely don’t want to go too fast.
Sounds good so far! Wanikani has moved some kanji to different levels as well so I think you’ve done the right thing.
Thanks for the sharing that music! I’m always on a look out for new music to listen to while studying, reading and drawing so I’ve bookmarked it.
Thanks. I think my brain tells me it’s still 14 but my body says it’s 103 now. It really makes me happy to see other older learners!
Yay!!! You’re so welcome! I hope it hits the spot! I feel like finding correct study/focus music is pretty tricky…not just anything will work. Do you have any recommendations?
I like this particular album: Orbus Terrarum. Here’s a sample track, but the vast majority of the album is exceptionally focus-friendly:
Thanks for writing me here, FireFairy! It’s very inspiring to see your current level!!!
I gave you a lifetime supply of marshmallows! 
I think it’s great to have that kind of support for your studies. 
(I’ll try looking online for something like that and if I find it I’ll definitely share it here!)
Funny enough I’m learning far better now then when I was much younger, there’s more resources but I’ve learnt to study better!
I am delighted to be doing lessons again. But I’ll be careful to keep my eye on the number of ghosts so I don’t become overwhelmed again. I definitely don’t want to go too fast.
