I went back and read your introduction. It seems like you are a little ahead of me in terms of time (I’ve started almost a decade ago rather than well over) and way ahead in terms of skill.
“hitting a wall” is such an odd way to describe what is basically reaching your goals.
That’s a great way of looking at things, I think. I’ve long since achieved my original and guiding goal of learning Japanese ("be able to read any non-specialist book in a reasonable amount of time with a reasonable amount of dictionary lookups), but while I’m capable of feeling proud of myself for achieving that, I don’t feel fulfilled?
I suppose we all move that bar up higher and higher without realizing it as we learn; the goal is no longer “I want to do specific hard thing”, but “I want to hard things”, and there will never be a pinnacle of perfection where “hard things” no longer exist, so (at least for me), that feeling of success is muted. (I think something else that also contributes is that most hard thing goals require lots of incremental effort, and your brain forgets the earlier incremental bits as you go along…)
I don’t know if that made sense; I need to go to sleep.
Hello! Welcome to my log where I like to make introspective rambley posts about mindset and Korean vs. Japanese, and also talk about my enthusiastic love of textbooks. 
The time I spent learning wasn’t continuous as there was a multi year interlude where I went off to learn German (which I am much less angsty about and never post about in this log), but it’s been a long effort so far.
Yes!! All of this. 
For me, having that carrot to keep going is important, but perspective about what I’ve achieved so far and what “is left” is important and something I hope to continue developing. 
January 5th 
Dear language diary…
It’s time for a study post!
Korean Listening: 1 drama episode (400.82/600 hours)
Vocabulary: キクタン韓国語上級編 Days 36 & 37
All-Purpose Textbook: 本気で学ぶ韓国語上級 Vocab & reading (Chapters 6.1 & 6.2)
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Korean Listening
I started watching 오징어 게임 S2 | L25?? (second season of Squid Game) today with Korean subs and I was pleasantly surpised by how easy it was to follow. I haven’t watched a kdrama in around a year or so, but it seems like I’ve reached a level where it’s become quite viable for me to learn from watching with subs! 
That’ll obviously depend on the content of the show and overall comprehension is lower than 100%, but that’s ok. I was able to pick up a few words from context or guessing what the hanja were and also got some good exposure to mumbled speech.
I am a fan of kdramas even though I don’t watch many these days, so this feels like a huge positive development for me! Going to have to start watching more this year.
Korean Vocabulary
December was my “review” month where I went back over weeks 1-5 of キクタン韓国語上級 and tried to go through example sentences, do some shadowing and solidify what I learned so far. That turned out to be a mixed bag due to how busy I was, where anki was the main avenue of review (which is better than nothing - ideally I would have had more contact with the audio clips throughout the month but it’s fine).
I did do a substantial amount of Korean reading in December, though, and I encountered many nouns I learned in weeks 1-5 which made for some great unplanned “passive” review (reading is basically like spaced repetition for vocab!!) and kind of brought things full circle for me motivation wise - I use the boring vocabulary text books to cram a bunch of vocab words into my head in bulk so I can go forth and read the things I want more easily, and then when reading does become easier the vision is fulfilled and I have more motivation to use the vocabulary books again! It’s a nice positive feedback loop that is currently really supporting my vocab study routine.
All of that aside, I decided to proceed with the next lesson and do week 6 things week just to start getting in touch with some fresh material again to keep that motivation alive. There were a number of nouns I knew already which always feels amazing, and then there were a few words where I didn’t even know what the Japanese translation was and had to look it up in English. 
I love that for my brain and my vocab knowledge in both languages, but like, HOW CAN THERE BE SO MANY WORDS?! It never ends haha.
I’ll keep reviewing the audio this week during my commute and get back into shadowing - everything back to normal! 
All-Purpose Textbook Studies
I did not get to touch 本気で学ぶ韓国語上級 very much at all last month, so I’m starting from the beginning of chapter 6 with the goal of doing units 1-3 as one “study loop” with transcription, shadowing, and reading out loud before moving on to 4-6.
The vocab for Chapter 6 is pretty easy and I know 90% of the words already - I may just chuck the other 10% into anki right off the bat instead of waiting to see what sticks or not after iterating through the material. I’ll probably see all of them in anki before I get through units 1-3 anyways!
Random Cultural Stuff
By the way, chapter 6 is all about superstitions, especially ones that are similar between Japan and Korea. Have you ever heard about any superstitions from either place? Like, if you whistle at night, snakes will come out? Or if you play with fire, you’ll supposedly wet the bed? Or if you lay down with a full stomach, you’ll turn into a cow in your next life?
I never thought about what kids in Japan/Korea do when their teeth fall out, but there are several variations such as throwing your lower teeth up over the roof and your upper teeth under the 縁 (in Japan) or in the chimney (in Korea) when they fall out and asking a magpie to bring you a new one?! 
I really enjoy learning about superstitions from my friends from other cultures, so I am looking forward to finding out what is in the rest of the chapter!
Whoa, what a coincidence. I just had some friends over this past weekend, and one, who’s mother is from, if I’m not misremembering, the midwest US, would tell him that as a child! …Is that a more common belief than I’d realized? 
Maybe more a common psychological trick than a belief 
Hah, that was the friend’s current theory as well; it was just mom’s way to keep him from getting into trouble.
This is universal
Wonder how many superstitions have started this way
Tho I’ve never heard this one before
That one exists here, too. 
Yeah, I was writing the English translation of some practice Japanese output I had written and I wrote “soon” instead of “since”. It made the sentence a bit nonsensical, but it was something I only thought about at all because I was already in a language learning context. We make dumb mistakes (or “brain typos” as I heard them called once) in our native language all the time. Certainly reminded me not to beat myself up when I e.g. randomly fall out of keigo in one sentence in a paragraph of Japanese.
Solution: just never write in keigo at all 
I use ため口 with pretty much anyone I can get away with because I read way too much manga and watch way too much anime and my university classes were so so long ago 
Although every now and then I’ll interject a set phrase with です or ます, so I’m sure I sound pretty wild in Japanese. Hooray for being a foreigner who doesn’t live in Japan and people mostly just being pleasantly surprised that I can kinda understand them and hold stilted conversations in Japanese.
There is a surprising amount of keigo in anime, depending on what you’re watching. But I feel ya. I have quite a mix myself, mostly cuz I’m not sure what formality level’s appropriate. I mostly only talk to my teachers 1-2x a week tho, so it’s not very relevant rn. I should probably just ask them at this point
I remember when I taught at an elementary school (Korea), we were reading a story about the tooth fairy…and I realized most of them didn’t have that random moment of your tooth falling out and getting excited to put it under your pillow. (Or getting scarred by your parents making you pull it out with a string lol). My students pretty much all said the dentist pulls out all their wiggly teeth 
I was shook. But some of them said they did do the whole tooth fairy thing. Just like, whenever their mom made the dentist appointment lolol.
Omg going to the dentist just to have wiggly teeth pulled 
I want to ask some older Korean people and Japanese friends about this and what they did too now.
January 6th
Dear language diary…
~p;o2bv₩₩₩ (Intro today typed by my cat walking on my keyboard) 
Korean Listening: 1/2 episode of Squid Game 2, Audio from キクタン韓国語 (401.73/600 hours)
Vocabulary: キクタン韓国語上級編 Days 38 & 39
All-Purpose Textbook: 本気で学ぶ韓国語上級 Vocab & reading (Chapters 6.3)
——————
Korean Listening
I watched another half of an episode of Squid Game 2 today (Kdrama episodes are so long that I sometimes just need to only watch half an episode because I don’t have time 
) with Korean subtitles and it again went pretty well.
I have been focusing on the actor’s mouths when speaking and by doing so, I naturally end really lisetning to what they are saying instead of focusing on the subtitles. If I don’t understand what they said, the subs usually stay on screen for a second longer than the dialogue, so I can just glance down and figure it out which is good speed reading practice (gotta read it before it disappears or it’ll be lost forever!!). I find there are times when I miss a word or two and then the entire sentence turns into mush in my brain, but when I read the words I know everything and the way the sentence sounds in my working memory suddenly becomes audible - you need to really read fast for this to be possible, though, since it’s hard to hold mush in your working memory. 
Otherwise, I am just cheating as usual with my knowledge of hanja to guess what things mean, or trying to guess from context if it’s a pesky native Korean word like a verb. It turns things into a fun guessing game and when I get it right I win a new word!
That is a pretty active way to watch a drama, but it’s entertaining since I play these little games with myself to figure out what I’m hearing as I go so I get some nice dopamine hits.
I see a lot of learners on the internet in general who are unsure how to learn from tv shows effectively or end up looking at the subs too much etc. - my unprofessional conclusion is to focus on the mouth (if it is not anime 
) and make up some guessing games for yourself (if it is a show already around your level and not majorly incomprehensible).
Random Cultural Stuff
I was amused about the discussion about wetting the bed after playing with fire and googled it in some different languages I know to see other people’s experience and the reasoning:
Random reddit thread in German asking Americans if they were ever told that with mixed results - seems like in some regions maybe, in others no
A chiebukuro thread with some background on why it was a superstition in Japan
一応、「火遊び」と「おねしょ」を結び付けた理由としては、 ●幼い子供が 火遊びで燃えさかる炎を見ると、夜寝る時まで興奮を引きずり、 自律神経が撹乱されて 睡眠中おねしょなどの失敗をしてしまう。 ●だいたい おねしょする時は水の夢を見ている場合が多いですが、火遊びと消火のためのバケツはセットなので、 昼間の火遊びを夢に見ると、水をかけて消火＝放尿 というふうに連想がいってしまう。 ●昔の木造家屋では市中の火事騒ぎも多かったが、実際に 人間は何故か 火事などの大火を目の当たりにすると、恐怖＋人智を超えた大きな力に対する一種の恍惚感?から失禁する という反応をしてしまうことがあるので、当時「火⇔おしっこ」は直感的にわかりやすい組み合わせだった。 などが背景にあると思います。
なるほど！
And last but not least, a whole video from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety of South Korea about whether or not it’s true that kids wet the bed after playing with fire.
What do you all think? Is it plausible?
I started a new French course today I know I shouldn’t, but language addictions run deep and despite it being a good 6 months since I touched the language, I could understand most of it as long as I was paying attention. Since I have some, ah, issues with attention, I remembered you talking about watching mouths. I started staring at the teacher’s mouth and *bam* 100% comprehension! Don’t get too excited, it’s just a class for intermediate learners but it did feel really good after such a long break!
So yeah, I can second! Watch those mouths, people!
January 20th
Dear language diary…
Korean Update
I’ve been in a big fat funk for the last two weeks and haven’t felt like touching Korean very much. It’s January and it’s dark outside. My energy levels have been low and I just want to curl up with a good Japanese book and enjoy not studying.
During my commute when I usually get good listening or vocabulary review in, I also haven’t felt like engaging with Korean either. Instead, I’ve been using the time to listen to old favorite albums or discover new artists and it’s been quite restorative! I feel good being productive everyday and using my time well, but I don’t need to be productive all the time.
So, that is an update that is nearly a non-update so far! For an actual progress update: I said I didn’t feel like touching Korean, but I did a tiny bit of study. I kept my anki reviews going and I finished an entire “study loop” (as I call them - vocab, reading/dictation/shadowing) with the first 3 sections of the chapter I was working on in 本気で学ぶ韓国語上級 + made anki cards out of the unknown words. I will most likely keep textbook studies a bit lower touch than I was doing in November/early December, but keep going consistently each week to keep my Korean “warm”.
Korean Reading
Part of the reason I haven’t felt as interested in Korean lately is because I am in the mood to read some challenging literature that is dense and makes me think and stop to appreciate the writing. The Korean web novels I usually read are basically the opposite of that and actual Korean literature feels very hard, but what’s really stopping me? Nothing I guess! I will go see what I can find on RIDI that seems accessible after typing up this post. Sometimes you crave salad too, even though you normally eat nothing but potato chips. 
——————
Japanese Literature
I am instead fulfilling that craving for something challenging in Japanese right now with 死者の奢り・飼育 | L30??. I always heard 大江健三郎 mentioned as a great writer or saw translations of his works in bookstores, but put off reading him for “when my Japanese was better”. Well, I guess my Japanese is better now because I’m reading him with minimal problems! Yay! Talk about living the dream!
He was mentioned in two recent reads of mine: Contemporary Japanese Literature and 越境者が読んだ近代日本文学―境界をつくるもの、こわすもの | L36?? (still reading this and have written plenty about it on the forums recently). It’s been very valuable reading about his background and the typical themes he writes about first - now that I’m actually reading his writing, I’m able to identify the themes myself and am getting much more out of the experience.
The stories I’ve read so far are set during or right after WWII and are quite dark with heavy themes of betrayal. The word I’d use to describe them is 生々しい. There is an informal book club thread for the book now so I will probably share more of my thoughts there!
I did want to talk about the process of reading a challenging book, though! So far, my reading pace has been very slow because the type of sentences that 大江 writes are very long and meandering and require a lot of focus to follow. The vocabulary overall isn’t hard, but there are some antiquated words that pop up here and there (like with most older novels) that I can sometimes find in my dictionary, or sometimes not. Sometimes even if I find it, I don’t know what the thing is or what it looks like, so I find myself on google looking it up. Sometimes I stop to admire the writing or think about what it means. Then, time passes and suddenly it took me 3 hours split over multiple days to read 50 pages! But, I was having fun and in the zone the whole time.
I mention this because I sometimes see people feeling sad or upset about how long it takes them to read things. I remember feeling like that too when I first started reading - it felt really unbelievable that struggling through a book could somehow be beneficial to me or that I’d remember any of the words I looked up. Having to consult the dictionary was a bother and I was in a big hurry to become 上手。
However, when I read challenging books at a slow pace now, my mindset is completely different. I would still love to become 上手 one day 
, but I feel confident and happy now in the moment that I’m taking on the books I really want to read and actively working improving my skills so that I can read the next difficult book with just a little bit more ease.
I remember it took me almost two weeks to finish 午後の曳航 | L45, the first really challenging book I ever attempted, and I saved nearly 500 vocabulary words while doing it. Since then, I’ve read many other books around a similar level at a much, much faster pace and with fewer lookups due to the experience of struggling with that first challenging book - just like I struggled and then grew as a beginner and later on, intermediate, reader with all the other hard books I ever read.
I guess what I’m trying to say is nothing in the process of becoming able to read ever changes. There will always be another difficult book that will need to be navigated with a good dictionary and patience, but there will also always be growth on the other side (luckily things do become more and more entertaining as you go and gain access to all kinds of wonderful books!). So, when I read a challenging book these days I feel grateful for the chance to get in touch with my beginner self and that slow process, and to appreciate how things are different but also still the same.
…bungakushoujo try to write a study log update without it turning into some kind of weird inspirational blog post challenge 
I recommend 당신을 기다리고 있어 | L32! Definitely thought inducing, and the writing is interesting as well. Plus, it’s a trilogy, so if you end up liking the first one, no need to wonder what to read afterwards.
