Thank you so much! My memory is definitely one of my biggest strengths, so I was very lucky in that regard when it came to doing everything quickly 
. Good luck to you as well! 
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I always wondered how people could actually get to level 60 in a year.
From what I’ve seen posted it usually involves them being completely immersed in the language.
I sympathize with what you said about German. I spoke only German until I was roughly 5. Afterwards I continued to speak it with my Grandmother until she died in 2008. Afterwards it completely fell off. I can hold a basic conversation but I’ll make grammatical mistakes regularly. Reading is okay but writing is not happening.
As they say, if you don’t use it, you lose it.
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Yeah, unfortunately for me, I can’t even say a single sentence in German anymore 
. There was even a time where my friends from Germany with whom I only spoke German with found me and contacted me when I was living in Canada. It felt so bizarre telling them that I’m sorry but I literally don’t understand anything they are saying to me and we had to shift to speaking English . Although, I reckon maybe if I revisited the language and began studying it, it could come back quickly to me 
.
Also, while I do completely agree that I have had more opportunity for immersion here than most, I’d say the 1 year thing, for me at least, was more about dedication and necessity. It wasn’t so much a hobby or something I had the opportunity of taking my time with. I absolutely had to learn it and I had to do it as soon as possible. So the need for survival here I guess was probably the biggest contributing factor to having the willpower of grinding so hard .
truly blown away by how wani kani can possibly be completed in a year (without scripts nonetheless) makes me feel a little stupid for taking so long and not even being halfway yet 
, and I know my wallet is mad at me too for taking so long
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Please don’t feel stupid about it! Our circumstances are just a bit different and I happen to be in a situation that allowed me the motivation, necessity, and time to get it done.
I was a monthly subscriber too up until I hit 60 and was surprised to find out that there was a lvl60 lifetime discount 
.
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Congratulations 
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Thank you!
Awesome results, congrats! And I also heavily recommend using ChatGPT. It does make mistakes so always be aware, but in general it’s great in explaning grammar. I use it a lot and it is such a great help for me.
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Thank you! I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one studying alongside ChatGPT . I remember the first time I tried it and spent like hours asking it all the grammar questions I had accumulated over several months and I was shocked by how eye opening it was. Even though I always read it’s answers with skepticism, it has been a very powerful tool for me too.
I plan on trying to subscribe to it for a month to get access to being able to just speak Japanese to it and have it speak Japanese back. I’m thinking of either talking to it about random topics, having it ask me lots of questions for me to answer, or maybe doing roleplay like mock interviews, meeting new people, everyday conversations/situations, etc. I’m curious to see how well it does this, how well it will correct what I’m saying, and how much my speaking may improve 
.
I’ll probably start this experiment at the start of next month 
.
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You are definitely not the only one. I also ask AI for sentence explanation with grammars and stuff from the light novels I’m reading and it’s really amazing to see how helpful it can get with a bit of prompt modifications. For example, I try something like: "I am reading so and so light novel and in chapter 3, I encountered this sentence/paragraph. Can you explain this to me in the sense that explaining the vocabs, grammar, connotations, nuances etc. Also, follow the Imabi and DoBJG as reference for the grammar explanation: これは例の文章 ".
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That’s exactly what I do when I read various things and play Persona 5 Royal! It’s super helpful and I honestly don’t know what I would do without it and how difficult it would be to find answers to all my questions elsewhere.
I also ask it to double check what I text or write and what I plan to say when I go to various places or need to speak with someone. It tells me how well I’m doing these things and then helps correct me on grammar, naturalness, politeness, etc. and suggests better ways of doing so. Sometimes, it just tells me "that’s great/correct!’ or “perfect!”, which helps reinforce me that I’m getting the hang of it and raises my confidence and motivation to keep studying and trying 
.
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Also, you’ve got a Japanese wife, right? You can ask her about the certain replies of AIs to double check (if you don’t do it already).. Haha
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Not a wife yet, but soonish . Although it’s tough for her to answer my grammar questions because it’s kind of like she knows the language but not exactly why it works the way it does… if that makes sense . Similarly with me for English, where I use it without thinking and if you ask me why exactly I say things the way I do, all I can really say is that it’s because that’s how it is .
For instance when I was studying verbs and conjugation, I was memorizing all these rules for -ru verbs and -u verbs and stuff and she didn’t even realize immediately that that’s how they work . Because for her she just says the conjugated forms immediately without even thinking about how to construct them.
But yes, she definitely double checks anything important I need to write to make sure I don’t say something stupid to a company or government office lol
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Í subscribed to ChatGPT and it’s so worth it. It remembers things from other chats so quite often when I’m asking for an explanation she (yes I made her a girl) she refers to a previous explanation, to show me how it’s kind of similar.
I made some steps for her to do whenever I paste a Japanese sentence, I’ll paste it below.
I was just watching an anime with Migaku and encountered a long, complex sentence.
It was just absurd how well she explained it, and for the one part I still didn’t really get she made me do some exercises until it totally clicked. It just works fantastic, like having my own private tutor.
You probably lnow this but you can also completely alter how the AI behaves. Mine now uses a lot of Japanese sentences when we’re chatting, drops a lot of onomatopee in her text so I get more familiair with them.
Original Japanese sentence
Hiragana version
Literal English translation (as close to the Japanese as possible, not too free)
Grammar explanation- Sentence structure
- Verb forms
- Particles
- Spoken vs written language nuances
Tone and register- Formal? Informal? Cute? Blunt? Who’s speaking to whom?
Cultural or contextual explanation- If needed, brief context (e.g. customs, social nuance, setting)
Implied or omitted elements- Like dropped subjects, verbs, or indirect implications
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That makes a lot of sense. Actually while studying Japanese grammar, I learned/realized a lot of things about Dutch grammar. You hardly think about your own language grammar since you learned it the natural way, but I realised how absurd difficult and unlogical our grammar is compared to Japanese 
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Give deepseek a try too
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I did, although not too much because I found chatgpt giving me better results, especially for Japanese grammar explanations. Do you have better experience with Deepseek vs Chatgpt?
That’s awesome! Yeah, I’m super excited to give the subscription a try and it’s great to hear that you’ve been having huge success with it! One thing I was considering is altering the voice weekly or something. In other words, make the AI use a different voice each week so that I don’t get too used to hearing the same one and can practice hearing a variety of speeds, tones, etc.
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Yup, I know exactly what you mean .
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