For this week, the ABBC readings really emphasized the need for learning grammar. I had some trouble right away, in the first few pages where it was like:
闇の力を秘めし「鍵」よ！
So I understood the “power of darkness” bit. But then I couldn’t understand the function of を like, I know it’s making the “power of darkness” the object, but who/what hides it? I was looking for the が and は markers until I caved in and looked at the English translation - which indicated that it was “the key”. but…but there’s no は or が *screams * The よ I knew that it was a sentence ender, so it couldn’t be it.
And loath the textbooks, I do. Or it’s just that I’m too lazy. So I checked out Cure Dolly’s videos and oh man. I should have watched this earlier! I found her lessons easier to understand and I even made my own little notes (like the vocab sheet, but this time for the sentence forms) so I could remember it well.
You can even see the Cure Dolly video on the bottom right
So I decided to just change the Genki bit to Grammar. So it could be Genki or Cure Dolly at this point.
Anyhoo! On to the next week!
This Week’s Summary (6th Week on WaniKani)
Weekly Activity Tracker (Oct 7 - Oct 13 ‘24)
Type
月
火
水
木
金
曜
日
WaniKani
Grammar
Bunpro
Listening
Reading
Watching
Reflections
Oct. 13, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening
Bunpro review today~
Did only 10 lessons for today because I had my laptop’s battery replaced
Listening for today was Japanese versions of English songs again
Didn’t do readings for today because we got home late from the technician’s place and I had to do the recalibration for the battery
Kana Quiz - I feel like the kana reading is getting better at least for this week
I just realized my level 7 0/0 streak post was not a true 0/0 since I still had the “Advanced” button in the lessons. orz I should fix it before I level up on Wednesday.
Oct. 12, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening
Did some bunpro reviews today - although I don’t track bunpro’s timely reviews, like in here in WK… maybe that’s bad…
Unlocked the rest of level 7 Kanjis today!
Listening for today is both N5 listening practice and Japanese versions of english songs
Read the last 2 pages of week # 2 of ABBC, and 1 page of week # 3 ABBC without looking at the grammar sheet for now. For the vocabulary I didn’t understand, I just skipped it since I will go over it again some time next week
Re-watched some Cure dolly episodes, particularly on the adjective ep one cause I really couldn’t wrap my head around it at this time
Oct. 11, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening
Did some bunpro reviews today
Did ~20 lv7 vocabulary cuz I’m anticipating a kanji unlock tomorrow afternoon.
Skipped reading in favor of watching cure dolly episodes
Listening consisted of Japanese version of some english songs, and 1 episode of N5 listening practice
Oct. 10, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening
Did some bunpro reviews in the morning
Skipped reading and listening today cuz it was quite a busy and exhausting day at work - not proud of that
Learned 20 vocabs tonight (mix of lv 6 vocabs, and some kana vocabs of lv 7) to compensate for that
Watched one episode of cure dolly (and re-watched the ep for the Te and Ta forms, since I still get them interchanged in bunpro reviews lol)
Oct. 9, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening
Leveled up to 7 this morning!
Went ahead and tackled the radicals and initial set of Kanjis right away
Listening for today consisted of Japanese covers of english songs
For reading, I re-read the first four pages of week #2 of CCS ABBC. Surprised to see some familiar kanjis of Lv 7 in there. Though I haven’t gotten to its vocab counterpart.
Didn’t have bunpro reviews today so I thought I’d add the past tense and non-past continuous verb forms.
Re-watched some ep of cure dolly - it feels like I’m cheating my way into learning because she explained it in a way that sounded so simple like that.
Oct. 8, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening - I actually went on a birthday party for one of my colleagues today and I sneaked in some reviews here and there
Listening for today is still the Japanese versions of english songs. Sorry, N5 listening practice! I’ll get back to you on the weekend.
In Spotify, they have lyrics in Japanese, too, and I was able to recognize some vocabs and it made me a little excited. I suppose that will be for the reading today.
Watched an ep of curedolly, I think EP 6. I wanted to get the basic grammar structures out of the way first before continuing on with ABBC.
Bunpro reviews for the day!
Conquered the Lv6 vocabs that were initially unlocked today as well. It was a correct choice to do it after lunch because I didn’t have time tonight lol
Oct. 7, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening
Did around 20 level 6 vocabs today and I think I like this round of vocabs because of the 国 kanji. Just need to remember when to use ごく and こく.
Watched 1 episode of Cure Dolly - Japanese from scratch and I think it’s an ep where she discussed the -te and -teiru form. I re-watched some of the earlier episodes again just to drill in the concepts.
I’m starting to grow tired of the N5 listening practice because of the sound cues lol so today was just listening to Japanese versions of english songs. I found a playlist on spotify, put it on, and did some meal preps for the week.
Bunpro reviews as usual.
For reading, I just went over the speech bubbles with sentences for week 1 of ABBC. Just want to check if I could understand it fully before moving on to week 2’s pages.
Goals for this week:
Level up WaniKani to Level 7
Finish vocab for WK Lv6
Guru the Kanjis of Lv6 - second half
Guru the Radicals of Lv7
Guru the Kanjis of Lv7 - first half
Finish reading Week # 3 of CCS Bookclub!
Daily Bunpro reviews
Learn new grammar (Genki or Cure Dolly)
Weekly hiragana and katakana Quiz (Sunday)
Did around 20 level 6 vocabs today and I think I like this round of vocabs because of the 国 kanji. Just need to remember when to use ごく and こく.
Watched 1 episode of Cure Dolly - Japanese from scratch and I think it’s an ep where she discussed the -te and -teiru form. I re-watched some of the earlier episodes again just to drill in the concepts.
I’m starting to grow tired of the N5 listening practice because of the sound cues lol so today was just listening to Japanese versions of english songs. I found a playlist on spotify, put it on, and did some meal preps for the week.
Bunpro reviews as usual.
For reading, I just went over the speech bubbles with sentences for week 1 of ABBC. Just want to check if I could understand it fully before moving on to week 2’s pages.
There’s just no way I’m waking up at (or staying up until) 2am in the morning just to do reviews. Nuh-uh. I’ll take them on 7am, or maybe ~6am if I wake up that early on.
Okay hold on, the reading for Venus is a bit strange. WK teaches it as 金星, but when listening to the context sentences, it reads as きんぼし- which checks out since ほし is valid reading for 星. Also, ほし → ぼし due to rendaku. Bーbut whyyy… Is this a bug on the userscript?
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening - I actually went on a birthday party for one of my colleagues today and I sneaked in some reviews here and there
Listening for today is still the Japanese versions of english songs. Sorry, N5 listening practice! I’ll get back to you on the weekend.
In Spotify, they have lyrics in Japanese, too, and I was able to recognize some vocabs and it made me a little excited. I suppose that will be for the reading today.
Watched an ep of curedolly, I think EP 6. I wanted to get the basic grammar structures out of the way first before continuing on with ABBC.
Bunpro reviews for the day!
Conquered the Lv6 vocabs that were initially unlocked today as well. It was a correct choice to do it after lunch because I didn’t have time tonight lol
Tomorrow, I’m going to level up to Level 7! Hopefully I won’t fail any Kanjis.
If you’re a Firefox user, it can only make use of the “dumb” TTS voicing which, more often than not, will screw up readings. I understand Edge can use the Microsoft 'natural ’ TTS voicing which is supposedly better at using correct readings. Haven’t tried myself as I couldn’t be bothered to switch WK from FF to Edge
In any case, it’s not the userscript’s fault, it’s Billy’s (Bill Gates)
Up until now I didn’t even think it was possible And like you, I can’t be bothered to switch from FF to Edge either; even if Tampermonkey is supported in it.
Thanks though! It was so weird. And now I’m starting to wonder which vocabs will get the incorrect readings, too. I usually don’t bother to play those context sentences unless I’m interested in the other kanjis in that sentence.
Looks like most (all?) “AI” TTS will make mistakes in sentences… I’m going through vocab decks in Bunpro (they’re using Microsoft Azure TTS for vocab) and those often mess up the readings in context sentences too.
At this point, I only trust human recordings, everything else requires double-checking
(WK’s official readings, Bunpro grammar, NHK Easy recordings, Satori Reader…)
Went ahead and tackled the radicals and initial set of Kanjis right away
Listening for today consisted of Japanese covers of english songs
For reading, I re-read the first four pages of week #2 of CCS ABBC. Surprised to see some familiar kanjis of Lv 7 in there. Though I haven’t gotten to its vocab counterpart.
Didn’t have bunpro reviews today so I thought I’d add the past tense and non-past continuous verb forms.
Re-watched some ep of cure dolly - it feels like I’m cheating my way into learning because she explained it in a way that sounded so simple like that.
Did some bunpro reviews today - although I don’t track bunpro’s timely reviews, like in here in WK… maybe that’s bad…
Unlocked the rest of level 7 Kanjis today!
Listening for today is both N5 listening practice and Japanese versions of english songs
Read the last 2 pages of week # 2 of ABBC, and 1 page of week # 3 ABBC without looking at the grammar sheet for now. For the vocabulary I didn’t understand, I just skipped it since I will go over it again some time next week
Re-watched some Cure dolly episodes, particularly on the adjective ep one cause I really couldn’t wrap my head around it at this time
As I was lurking around, I found this post by Tofugu which made me rethink my way of studying. Currently, it’s like this:
Study only radicals in 1 session.
Study only Kanjis in 1 session.
Study only vocabs in 1 session.
Which, I think is going great for me. Because I am going on full speed currently, and conquering lessons is one of the things that motivates me to move forward. Another thing is because I can separate the readings in Onyomi category and Kunyomi category. However, the readings for vocabs lately have been a combination of onyomi-kunyomi, or kunyomi-onyomi, or full kunyomi.
But after reading that post, it seems there’s a more effective way to learn. It’s something that I have been doing with the vocabulary - which is to group together the vocabulary that uses the same kanji. That post suggests to interleave the lessons when studying - meaning a mix of radical, kanji, and vocab. Ironically, it was the one I have been avoiding lol.
Suffice to say, I have been convinced by that post to try it out this coming level 8. It is said that it’s better to feel some sort of difficulty when doing studying/reviews rather than having some sort of highway hypnosis - but for learning. There were times where I was doing reviews while holding a conversation with someone and thinking nothing of the review session. As a result, there were 1-3 items I would forget at Guru 2 or Master stage. If I just misread it (meaning, I forgot to use the onyomi reading and vice versa), I would redo my answer to correct it. But lately, I really fail that item if I got the reading wrong. I was unconsciously getting too focused on the accuracy rate that it was missing the point of the SRS.
I really should embrace my mistakes and treat them as part of the learning process.
Did only 10 lessons for today because I had my laptop’s battery replaced
Listening for today was Japanese versions of English songs again
Didn’t do readings for today because we got home late from the technician’s place and I had to do the recalibration for the battery
Kana Quiz - I feel like the kana reading is getting better at least for this week
I just realized my level 7 0/0 streak post was not a true 0/0 since I still had the “Advanced” button in the lessons. orz I should fix it before I level up on Wednesday.
This week, I had not been good with consuming Japanese materials outside of WaniKani reviews and lessons. I wasn’t able to finish the Week # 3 of CCS ABBC. Although I was able to do some bunpro reviews to compensate, and some Cure Dolly episodes.
The good thing though is that I was able to have my laptop battery replaced which significantly made the performance better. It doesn’t take 10 mins for the laptop to boot up and load my Firefox tabs anymore Though I need to go back to the technician because, while the laptop can run without the need for it to be plugged in AC, it doesn’t charge the battery somehow. It was fine while it was in the technician’s shop… I also already tried to check every outlet in my apartment, and the same results.
Oh well.
This Week’s Summary (7th Week on WaniKani)
Weekly Activity Tracker (Oct 14 - Oct 20 ‘24)
Type
月
火
水
木
金
曜
日
WaniKani
Grammar
Bunpro
Listening
Reading
Watching
Reflections
Oct. 14, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening - today, my review pile was around ~150 ish and without any new lessons, it’s a calm day
I had a grand total of 1 bunpro review today - I seriously need to add more grammar points orz and I’m also considering subscribing on the 16th to force myself to use it
Listening for today was Japanese versions of English songs as usual
Checked out Satori Reader today and picked a random story - Turning Leaves and Wintry Winds
I took a look at the first paragraphs of the first episode and checked to see if I could read the sentences without the audio. If I was in doubt, I would play the audio recording to check.
Re-watched the な-Adjectives ep of Cure Dolly.
Oct. 15, '24:
Today marks my first year here in WK (well, this account is 1 year old), and I have a lot of feelings like maybe if I did it last year, I would have been at Level X by now and so on, but I’m just glad I picked it back up.
Hopefully I will be on track on my projected schedule and look back at this post, same time next year.
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening - I overdid my lessons again. I didn’t have any lessons for today so just crashing my review pile for a level up tomorrow
I subscribed to Bunpro finally and I hope this helps me remember those grammar points better - in case I do not encounter them in the wild
Listening and Reading for today was Satori Reader - finished an Episode of the same story, Turning Leaves and Wintry Winds
Oct. 16, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning (for the level up) and in the evening
Overall, I was able to do a total of 45 lessons done in batches throughout the day
Watched EP 07 of Cure Dolly again and continued to EP 08 cause I didn’t watch Cure Dolly yesterday
Okay so mayyyybe I don’t know what story to read yet so I picked up another new story from Satori Reader - Sakura and Suzuki’s LDR
I also noticed just today that the stories in Satori Reader have an Easy version. I feel like this length of EP would suit me at this level that I am now (Level 8). So that would be my reading/listening for today.
Oct. 17, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and in the evening - interestingly, I find myself kind of “guessing” the readings of some vocabs, particularly the one with the 年 kanji. So I know it could read as 年 (like 年下
) or 年 for (~年来* ) and if the script detects I’m using the wrong reading, I would just undo my answer and retype the correct reading. Not sure if it will have negative impact, but maybe encountering it in the wild will help reinforce it.
Did 20 vocab lessons - they’re easier for today’s session which leaves me around 9 vocabs left for level 7. I could have taken everything today but I didn’t want to have one day of no lessons. It’s the lessons that make me come back to WK I realized.
Listened to Yuyuの日本語Podcast again and I found that I could recognize some of the vocabulary properly, and could even distinguish the borrowed english words better than the last time I listened (around 3 weeks ago)
Watched EP 09 of Cure Dolly and re-watched to な-adjectives ep again, hoping to understand it better.
Bunpro reviews and maybe I will pick up the bunpro lessons rather than using the Genki deck since I’m not actively doing Genki again at this time
Read the last free EP of Sakura and Suzuki’s LDR, EP02 on Satori Reader
Oct. 18, '24:
Not much reflections today but here’s a cockroach dance crew:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and in the evening - today, I almost forgot the reading for 不明. I kept remembering the 明るい reading. So I’m logging it here.
I put 2 new lessons in bunpro N5 level
Didn’t do much active listening but I did listen to some Japanese music while working
Didn’t watch Cure Dolly today - I was too immersed with the latest current affairs of the country, considering there’s a midterm election by next year and I wanted to stay informed
Did read one page of Week #3 for CCS ABBC! I haven’t looked up the vocab sheet but will do tomorrow
Went back to Turning leaves story in Satori reader because I consumed the free EPs of Sakura and Suzuki’s LDR
WaniKani reviews in the morning and in the evening - today, I unlocked a few kanjis from the second batch but I think I’ll be able to Guru the radicals by tomorrow!
Wasn’t able to do extensive readings/listening since I had to help my father with some tinkering around the house. The bright side was that I was able to Mokuro some new manga that I got from the high seas
Read 1 page of CCS ABBC Week #3
Bunpro reviews - but no new lessons yet
No Cure Dolly either. I’m beat.
Highlight of my day was playing animal crossing again after 6 weeks Inb4 I fall asleep after I write this log entry
Oct. 20, '24:
WaniKani reviews in the morning and in the evening - today, I unlocked all kanjis and got the radicals of level 8 to Guru
Watched, well more like listened to 2 EPs of Bungo Stray Dogs. I encountered these known vocabs from the two episodes. There were some more but more or less the personal pronouns, kana vocabs like pointer nouns.
Vocab
Meaning
先日
the other day
今回
this time
全く
truly
ビー玉
marble
出来る
to be able to do
Kana Quiz today
Didn’t do reading today cause I’m about to fall asleep in front of the laptop
Bunpro reviews
Goals for this week:
Level up WaniKani to Level 8
Finish vocab for WK Lv7
Guru the Kanjis of Lv7 - second half
Guru the Radicals of Lv8
Guru the Kanjis of Lv 8 (first half) - Interleaving the radicals/kanjis/vocab
Finish reading Week # 3 of CCS Bookclub!
Daily Bunpro review
Learn new grammar
Weekly hiragana and katakana Quiz (Sunday)
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening - today, my review pile was around ~150 ish and without any new lessons, it’s a calm day
I had a grand total of 1 bunpro review today - I seriously need to add more grammar points orz and I’m also considering subscribing on the 16th to force myself to use it
Listening for today was Japanese versions of English songs as usual
I took a look at the first paragraphs of the first episode and checked to see if I could read the sentences without the audio. If I was in doubt, I would play the audio recording to check.
Re-watched the な-Adjectives ep of Cure Dolly.
Just want to say that I am incorporating this disgustingly cute gif of cockroach from @taiyousea in my study log posts lol
Today marks my first year here in WK (well, this account is 1 year old), and I have a lot of feelings like maybe if I did it last year, I would have been at Level X by now and so on, but I’m just glad I picked it back up.
Hopefully I will be on track on my projected schedule and look back at this post, same time next year.
WaniKani reviews in the morning and evening - I overdid my lessons again. I didn’t have any lessons for today so just crashing my review pile for a level up tomorrow
I subscribed to Bunpro finally and I hope this helps me remember those grammar points better - in case I do not encounter them in the wild
Listening and Reading for today was Satori Reader - finished an Episode of the same story, Turning Leaves and Wintry Winds
I’m not proud of today’s Japanese learning. It was quite rushed because I had to go to a client on the hour of my level up. I rushed 10 lessons (a mix of radicals, kanjis, and vocab) before I left for work. Then I tried to study while in the taxi but I was only able to do 5 out of the 10 I planned. At the client’s office, I tried to study 10 items again during lunch time, and I was forgetting some items I learned in the morning. Overall, it wasn’t effective. So I had to give up and had decided to just start on the lessons when I got home. It would definitely impact a bit my full speed rn but I didn’t want this journey to affect my work life as well. Currently running on fumes. I have been awake since 4am today cause I had to travel to the city.
WaniKani reviews in the morning (for the level up) and in the evening
Overall, I was able to do a total of 45 lessons done in batches throughout the day
Watched EP 07 of Cure Dolly again and continued to EP 08 cause I didn’t watch Cure Dolly yesterday
Okay so mayyyybe I don’t know what story to read yet so I picked up another new story from Satori Reader - Sakura and Suzuki’s LDR that I totally didn’t read from Akasheila’s study log, that I am surely not reading everyday.
I also noticed just today that the stories in Satori Reader have an Easy version. I feel like this length of EP would suit me at this level that I am now (Level 8). So that would be my reading/listening for today.
I mean, comparing the two, this one looks more doable
Hehe I remember going through that too at the beginning. I really didn’t want to not be going at full speed, when I had so few lessons / reviews available! But of course in the long run it settled down. Good for you that you are already learning to balance that now!
I would definitely recommend sticking to the Easy version. You can always revisit the harder versions later, but I think the “Easy” versions will give you plenty of things to learn while the harder ones will be too hard to parse and demotivating (the +1 principle, learning is most effective when you meet the learners’ current level and add one level of difficulty, like the next rung on a ladder)
Yeah, it just so happened that the level up day coincided with an onsite client visit at nearly the same time. I remembered yesterday I was this close to choosing between Japanese and work hahaha My only issue was that I would level up on Wednesday night, as opposed to a level up on Wednesday morning. It does feel motivating to level up as soon as I wake haha kind of like sets the tone of the Japanese learning for that day
Yeah I totally didn’t know there was an easy version. I picked the story that is on the top part of the page. When I started on Turning leaves, I was overwhelmed by the amount of texts in an episode. Haha So I referred back to your study log to see if you mentioned any other Satori reader stories. Glad I was able to find Sakura and Suzuki’s LDR!
Btw, do you have a subscription on Satori reader until now?
Yes I still have it and still use it! I still have 3 stories to read I believe.
The other stories that I recommend for beginners is Akiko’s American Foreign Exchange and Hole in the Wall.
Thanks a lot for the suggestion! I’ll check them out when I get my Satori Reader subscription. Right now, I’m planning to get the WK lifetime and well, that’s a lot of money to be spent haha
Listen Every Day Challenge - Autumn 2024 
And like you, I can’t be bothered to switch from FF to Edge either; even if Tampermonkey is supported in it.
Though I need to go back to the technician because, while the laptop can run without the need for it to be plugged in AC, it doesn’t charge the battery somehow. It was fine while it was in the technician’s shop… I also already tried to check every outlet in my apartment, and the same results.
