２０２３年１２月７日 一歩一歩、新しい試し
アニメを観てる
Finished:
Actively Watching:
今の読書 Now Reading
I finally finished both SAOP 1!!
Now reading:
Dropped:
Observations: I’m bad at 薬屋のひとりごと and ぼっち・ざ・ろく(a nice change of pace!). 薬屋 I expected, it’s absolutely above my level. ぼっち I’m hoping is just an “I’ll get used to this soon”. They’re both kind of abstract, in writing style. 薬屋 I especially have to read very closely, and check sentence by sentence. Reading things I’m bad at is a good choice right now.
兄友 is pretty comfortable (also full color + furigana), but sometimes there’s slang or expressions or things I don’t 100% get. Nothing major. I’m reading it without translation.
SAO 2 I’m reading and sometimes checking the translation. I still have to do a good amount of lookups. I really wish I was at a point where I can read it totally without translation, and have a very detailed understanding, but I’m not quite confident/accurate enough yet. It feels kind of odd, since I have read other SAO books (sections) without translation/reference (bc it didn’t exist at the time). しょうがないよね
駄目なSAOオタクだよ (もう知ってるよ！)
No hope for this SAO Otaku 
Reading Progressive got me nostalgic for OG Aincrad, so I started SAO 2, which has Silica, Liz, Yui, and Sachi stories. The first 2-3 are very heartwarming, though the last two are also a bit tragic. I wish I could skip them & still mark the book complete… But I’ll just have to read them.
Also bought Vols 3-6 and 19-20, which I’ll eventually read.
Vol 3-4 Fairy Dance: you get a lot of Suguha’s perspective + Leafa and Kirito’s side adventure to Jötunheim (sadly but understandably cut from the anime). I’m gonna wish I could skip the Sugou + Asuna being captive parts, but oh well.
Vol 5-6 Phantom Bullet: Kirito + Sinon story. They’re my 2 fav SAO characters, and I really love the camaraderie between them in that story! I wish I could skip the Shinkawa Kyouji and PTSD flashback parts, but then I wouldn’t be able to mark it complete.
Vol 19-20 Moon Cradle: early part of Kirito & Asuna’s time in Underworld, after the war. There’s some great stuff with Ronie & Tiese (Kirito & Eugeo’s former paiges), and it’s one of the few SAO stories I don’t remember super well. So it will be nice to read familiar but fresh, if I read it.
But also… I kinda wanna continue with SAO Progressive, since Floor 3 is where things actually start getting interesting and fun! So we’ll see where I go after SAO 2 I guess.
単一言語辞書/モノリンガル方がいい
I’m working on getting myself more comfortable with JP-JP dictionaries. So I’ve put Takoboto to show JP definitions and hide EN ones, until you tap on the word (It doesn’t always have JP definitions though). It’s definitely a bit less efficient, but since this is starting to be more comfortably in reach, it’s worth it. Need to start using that 電子辞書 more
レッスン
Lessons are mostly same as usual, except that I’ve been talking more, which is kinda fun. Not 100% sure that’s the best use of my time tho. Next lesson with Y-sensei I’m reading an article on 妖怪. T-Sensei gave me an essay about かぐや姫 (Tale of the Bamboo Cutter) to read for homework. So we’ll start with that, and read another one as well.
I did a trial lesson with a new teacher, K-Sensei. It’s much more what I would have expected of a typical lesson: there’s a PowerPoint with grammar and other exercises, we do a mix of reading, listening, and speaking, the teacher types out things I had trouble with, assigns homework, writes/sends a report after, etc. It was really great b/c it honed in on my general weakness: grammar (and output).
I have a trial lesson with a different teacher upcoming, T-sensei, who self-describes as an otaku, and offers informal conversation lessons. While I sometimes talk about anime, LNs, and manga in my lessons with Y-sensei, it’s tangential, and it’s hard to really express my thoughts about them well. So I thought it would be cool to try a lesson where something like that can be the focus.
The budgeting is tight tho, so I’ll have to limit it to one lesson per month with the new teachers (that’s still 7-8 total though!). Though if I only go with one of the new teachers, I could do lessons 2x per month, which might be more productive.
文法
As I mentioned, my grammar knowledge has some holes, and it definitely affects my reading comprehension (I rely on intuiting, rather than fully understanding). My output is very limited too - short sentences, iffy grammar, 表現 choices, etc. This has been in the back of my mind for a while now, and I’ve been thinking about what to do about it.
So I’m giving Bunpro a try. It’s surprisingly nice. Reminds me of LingoDeer, but stricter with the output exercises, and less Duolingo-esque (LD & DL are very different, but the UX for the actual sessions is a similar style. LingoDeer is a very solid app).
I know that outputting with Ringotan has really helped my reading comprehension, bc of kanji recognition, so I’m hopeful Bunpro will help here too!!
漢字を書くしたり読むしたり
Ringotan has been really helping with the kanji, and feeling more secure as I read + reducing the number of lookups. I’m up to 2,300分の1,130 (1,130 out of 2,300), and making it a point this time to not do too many new kanji at the same time.
The other nice thing is that it’s easier to actually physically write them now. Definitely not easy though, but like the motions and the proportions are more intuitive. Sometimes I reduce the text box size, or set it to stricter drawing evaluation, but my stylus isn’t always precise enough. I know the stricter drawing setting would be more benefici, but since my main goal is recognition, I usually leave that on Normal. Plus now that I have a printer, I can practice with actual kanji sheets, if I really want.
名前ら (駄洒落、すみません！)
I’ve been doing the proper nouns and names deck that @bibliothecary so kindly recommended, as well as a second Japanese names deck I found. The proper nouns one is better - it shows multiple readings + type (location, name, etc) + frequency, but the overlap from the second deck is pretty helpful too. Also the second deck put the back of the cards in katakana… No idea why, but that’s helpful in its own way.
The location names have already been useful, in one of my lessons. Also it’s cool to plug them into Google Maps and actually see where they are in Japan. Between that + the history manga, I’m slowly getting a somewhat more developed sense of where the various cities, prefectures, etc are in Japan!
I also started making a 声優 deck, which I’m slowly adding names of my favorite voice actors to. I’m sure most of the names would show up at some point in the other decks, but I always get frustrated when I see VA names, and I’m just like “I have no clue what that could possibly say”, even for my favorites.
Kinda surprising that I’m doing all this SRS, but something like this is what I’d consider the ideal use case for it anyway.
Edit4: that went into his Anki deck too. Oh well. Edit5: to be fair, better make a small mistake than not speak at all. (That’s literally the point of his day 30 story too)
DeepL is probably the best translation app out there at the moment and it still has so many issues and gives bonkers translations at times.
. Great illustration of the difference btwn 
/j