Daisoujou's Log - It's Over Here Now!

Japanese
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I’ve been semi-active on Wanikani for a few years since using it and have a log over there. For awhile I’ve been thinking Natively makes more sense for the level I’m at since all I do is read and listen to stuff without formal studying (well, anki). Let’s give hanging out here a little more a try!

I started learning in June 2021, so a bit over 3 years at the time of posting this. Went through Genki 1 and 2 + most of WK, did a brief dip in to Satori Reader and then just went out and did Real™ Japanese. I’m more a visual novel and videogame person than anything, so a little out of place with what Natively currently allows, but I have some manga and novels logged here too. I like films a lot but my comprehension is a little spotty because of words I need kanji for or just rough speaking styles, and honestly my tolerance for missing stuff in movies is low so not much progress there. Expect more in the future, I hope.

This list on Backloggd will show you the videogames and VNs I’ve finished in Japanese up to this point, if you’re curious.

Lots more I could dig into but I’ll save that for later posts to have something to say. As of this moment I’m playing Metaphor: Refantazio (just finished the first big real dungeon) which is nice but does have some pretty specific, fancy vocab slowing me down in places. I’m also on chapter 5 of the Steins;Gate VN which I’m… not nearly enjoying as much as its reputation, and my love for Chaos;Head, made me expect, but hoping that turns around before the end. Getting my big science words there. Also on the side casually reading the Dandadan manga, currently volume 9, it’s chill and a lot of fun.

For listening I jump around streams and the like so it’s more messy, but I’m currently watching back the videos of this streamer, らいすちん playing the Silent Hill 2 remake and happy to say I understand the vast majority of what she says pretty easily.

Thanks for reading, 4649 and all that

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let it all out :popcorn:

Also, welcome! :smiley:

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I’ve moved a little past the big annoyance points and it’s been threatening to have something happen soon so I’m back in the mode of “I’m gonna be fair and give this a chance to turn it around! They might do it!”

I’ll be back with the fire when it lets me down again :innocent:

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夜露死苦!

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Ooh that one is new to me, thanks! Sci;Adv VNs have been sprinkling in a lot of the internet slang kanji replacements and stuff; they’re really fun to learn about.

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Welcome! o/

We has a short-lived VN club here, but it’s been dormant lately, mostly just due to the tiny pool of participants.

We do have a couple of video games threads here and there, so I hope to hear more as you play more!

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I may have to consider making use of that site. Thx! Also, welcome :slight_smile:

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Appreciate the welcomes and info!

Things are cruising along ok, since I read a lot of long-form visual novels and videogames I don’t always have updates on trying new things as much as others might.

I’ll be the first to tell you all I’m a little fixated on getting better and impatient about it. Relative to how people usually do, being where I am in 3 years is quite good I think. But for the hours I put in every day, I’ve been a little mixed about it. Let’s start by talking about where that is. In order of ability:

Reading - Pretty ok. If the material isn’t too bad and I’m really focused I’ve found myself hitting around 10,000 characters in an hour in visual novels, with a texthooker for fast lookups. Could be better, and I do want to speed up, but it’s better than it used to be. I also tend to lean into looking things up all the time if I’m not certain about a reading or something. Up to this point, while I read physical manga here and there, I’ve avoided doing a physical novel because lookups are so much more of a pain. I might be looking to read one soon for the sake of saying I’ve done it. I’m a little more used to manual lookups from videogames I can’t texthook, anyway. Speed aside, I still feel like I need to look up quite a few things in every session. There are so many words.

Listening - Ehhhh. Pretty good with subtitles. Without it REALLY depends on the content. I do ok with some videogame streamers for examples, but I still fall below a line where I’m content with what I can follow in most movies and TV. Listening speed doesn’t feel like a problem most of the time, it’s about particularly rough speaking patterns, or compound words I’d only recognize with kanji, etc making me get lost.

Writing - Didn’t want to do it so I skipped handwriting entirely, but I type messages to a few Japanese friends on Discord. I’m sure it’s a bit of a mess and I’m slow to come up with the right phrasing, rarely confident and always searching for a different better way to say stuff, but I’m pretty much always understood.

Speaking - Lol. I’ve done it like 3 times ever because Japanese friends wanted to talk while playing Splatoon. They’re nice and encouraging and seem to want to do it more but I find the very process of struggling to barely get out a few words frustrating and demotivating at this stage. There’s an element of lacking speaking practice obviously (do some shadowing or something I guess?) but I also just haven’t strongly enough internalized ways to say things so I’m always searching for words and structures and struggling.

The Secret 5th Skill - I’m adding this here less to judge my own ability than to just acknowledge its importance, but cultural understanding feels like a big part of language learning too. And with each thing I interact with I can feel little bits of new understanding coming in. I’ve thought in the future about checking out Japanese history in Japanese, or older tales references are always drawing from, etc etc. It appears both in all this shared cultural knowledge but also the ways people express and don’t express certain things, etc. It’s both a side thing to work on to be better and a cool side benefit along with the language learning.

I had more on my mind but I think this explanation is a good place to leave it for now. If you’re so inclined, please enjoy this excellent face Steins;Gate presented me with while reading last night. It’s not really a spoiler, but I’ll hide it in case anyone might play the VN sometime.

RIght here

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I have no idea about a character count, but I can definitely relate on this. I read much faster than I used to, but still very slowly compared to my native language

They are, and having done both physical and digital, I don’t see much particular benefit to doing physical, unless you just like reading physical (I do). I make lookups as efficient as possible by scanning the whole page w/ Google Lens, and then dumping that into Akebi (which shows basically all the words at once), but I think the real pain point is picking the book up and down, and finding your place again. Anyway there’s no harm, but I wouldn’t particularly recommend it either, unless it’s for something easier.

I did that for a long while, but eventually put some time into it, and found it improved my kanji - and handwriting - recognition a decent amount, or helped clarify similar kanji.

As writing/speaking goes, I think basically either shadowing or chatting with natives is your best bet. If you can afford lessons on iTalki, I’d really recommend it. Mine have been 90% focused on reading, but my conversation improved a lot, just from basic chatting with my teachers during the lessons (it’s still a challenge tho). One thing that’s been cool and helpful recently is I’ve been translating some of my reviews here into Japanese (with the assistance of my teacher). I’m really learning a lot about how I can say/phrase things, how things sound, etc. Otherwise if you can deal w/ textbooks, I think Tobira Advanced is pretty helpful here.

intentionally clicks it, even though I want to play the VN eventually :sweat_smile:

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This. It seems stupid but it’s not until you read those tales that you realize how common these references are in books, whether it’s outwards said or implied that it’s a reference to a certain folktale. At least for Korean (and I’m assuming it’s the same for Japanese), folktale references are quite common. It’s the kind of thing that you can miss if you don’t pay attention to it, but it brings so much more context knowing the thing they’re referencing.

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Yeah, that’s pretty much where it comes from. If I was reading in English I’d probably default to real books cause I just like them, and getting away from the computer screen a little more would be nice. I have some I’ve bought as longer term goals to get to, been thinking about if I want to tackle one soon. I’m certain I CAN do it ok, just gonna require more patience and admittedly not for much benefit compared to having easy lookups, but I’ll be happy to make it another little milestone and hopefully before long it gets easier and easier til format doesn’t matter.

I’ve felt through doing WK, learning the radicals the way they set them up and eventually kinda learning to chunk kanji my own way when I approach new ones now that I’ve managed this ok, but no doubt it does help. I just don’t like handwriting in general, but perhaps I’ll feel like it one day.

Similarly, appreciate the speaking advice a lot, but probably few immediate plans to act on most of it, if for no reason other than leaving all the direct study (like textbooks or iTalki lessons) behind was hugely appealing and I’m still liking doing things this way. I do have a few natives on hand who want to talk so hopefully I can work my way up on my own like that, or keep these ideas in the back of my mind for when this stuff comes to more of a head and I really think it’s time to buckle down and do it.

Writing reviews and stuff in Japanese does sound nice, though…

Yeah luckily spoils nothing but the impact of seeing this image and, if you’re like me, laughing really hard. It helps cause the moment it appears in the VN is really wild, too. Either way, hope you enjoy SG when you get to it!

For sure! Actually getting around to this stuff more substantially is definitely a goal of mine at some point. The snippets or brief summaries I come across seem super interesting outside their benefits for references, too.

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I don’t actually like reading physical books in English much, but Japanese books just feel so much better, are a more comfortable size, and are just a pleasure to read.

I’ve been able to read a few kids books lately that are only 10 lookups or so per chapter, and it’s really nice to read physically when you’re reading that fluidly. My harder books are definitely still digital, but once you think you’re down to 1-2 lookups a page, physical is just a really nice experience.

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I’ve going that where the book thing for really make a difference for me is with manga - the art looks so much nicer. Also nice when you get one of the ones that’s larger, nicer quality, etc

I did WK as well, but I’d say writing things kind of helped ingrain some of them better. Anyway if writing’s not your thing, that’s fine. It’s mostly not mine either.

Mm tbh I don’t really do direct study in my lessons (though I have, and did find it beneficial). I just read things (outloud), and it means I ask the teacher instead of the dictionary. For shadowing, I’ve just been doing it with the game I’m playing (SAO Alicization: Lycoris, which I’ve beaten before). So in both cases, it works cuz it’s basically what I’d be doing anyway, just outloud.

Anyway, sounds like you’ve got a strong sense of what you like, and what does/doesn’t work. That’s great you’ve got natives on hand to chat with. I get too tired to really keep that up, cuz I’m an introvert, and my skills still have a ways to go.

I’d love to see more people do it tbh. I’ve only seen a few here - which is what have me the idea

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