Luna's Learning Log

Japanese
22

２０２４年１月１０日 新しい

Despite getting sick for the first time in 3 years, 2024 started off ok.

最近終わった - Recently Finished

Books:

Anime:

今の読書 - Now Reading

Light Novels (with audiobook):

Light Novels (text only):

Manga

Textbooks

Paused, but will pick up again:

今のアニメとゲームと音楽 - Now Watching/Playing

Anime:

Music:

  • 結束バンドLIVE-恒星- | L30?? - I’ve watched most of disc 1 (concert) and half of disc 2 (ぼっち・ざ・とーく part). Haven’t done disc 3 or listened to commentary on disc 1 yet

Games:

  • SAO Alicization Lycoris… not very far in. I forgot how aggravating a lot of the story is.
難しい物は多すぎる - Too many hard things

I’ve been feeling really stressed by the number of things I’m reading, so I finally gave in and dropped some things (all of which I will definitely come back to). Now I’m “only” reading 9 things. The problem is that 4 of them are things I categorically can’t finish soon (Tobira, わたモテ, ぼっち, 後宮の烏), b/c I’m reading them for lessons or book clubs.

後宮の烏 in particular has been a source of stress, but now I’m ahead of the book club, and can read next week’s portion at an easier pace. Watching a few episodes of the anime has helped my interest. I want to binge the rest of it, but it’s probably more productive to stay in-sync with the novel.

Otherwise the other LNs are hard to prioritize:

  • 本好きの下剋上 (33%) - easiest read, least-motivated, will pause after book 1
  • 弱キャラ友崎くん (13%) - perfect balance of motivation + difficulty
  • 薬屋のひとりごと (15%) - hardest/slowest , but most enjoyable

In some ways, 薬屋のひとりごと is a good complement to 後宮の烏 b/c of the setting, but then I’m reading the two hardest, this making the slowest progress.

I think I’ll prioritize 本好きの下剋上 after 後宮の烏. While it’s the one I’m less interested in, reducing the novel load will be helpful (gotta get that dopamine rush lol)

Then there’s also the reading vs watching anime debate - and I’ve also got too many there (10 if you count the 結束バンド Blu-ray). 結束バンド has probably another 5 hours of playtime, if I want to watch everything. Otherwise 5 anime are current season, so 1 ep/wk - that’s manageable. 3 of the remaining are only 12-13 eps total, but I’m trying to watch 2 of those along to manga. New Game is enjoyable, but the most difficult, and I have to be in the mood. Then there’s ハガレン Brotherhood, which has another 50 episodes left. I’m torn between dropping it vs feeling like I need to finish it (out of fairness and cultural literacy for HelloTalk)

もう一度HelloTalkを試している Trying HelloTalk again

I decided to give HelloTalk another try. I’ve lowered my expectations, but also decided to just seek out other otaku, and to blog more. I find people there are pretty bad at 会話テンポ (keeping the conversation going). But with the blogging, people can just comment and/or make corrections.

It’s really frustrating how hard it is for me to express myself - particularly in JP lessons. If I didn’t already feel overwhelmed, I’d start going over the Miku Real Japanese shadowing course again. It was so helpful, but I don’t want to add another thing right now.

Anyway we’ll see how it goes. If it gets too annoying, I’ll just drop it again.

暗記とリンゴたんをリラクスしている - Chilling on Anki & Ringotan

I think part of why I’ve felt overwhelmed lately has been the ever increasing reviews on Anki & Ringotan (resetting Ringotan helps with this). The name decks especially really pile up. So I deleted a few decks, and will just try to be lazy about the remaining ones + be aggressive about suspending/deleting cards I already know. Also I’ll only do reviews for ones I’m reading at the moment… Which means I can put 弱キャラ友崎くん and 薬屋のひとりごと on hold, until I finish 本好きの下剋上 (which I’m not doing a deck for, bc I don’t care).

It’s a tricky balance to find, cuz the SRS does help, but it also feels like a huge struggle

レッスン - "Lessons"

Lessons are generally going well, basically:

Y-Sensei: intro conversation + ぼっち・ざ・ろっく
T-Sensei: intro conversation + わたモテ
R-Sensei: 1/2 talking + 1/2 Tobira

With Y & R it’s almost entirely in Japanese. With T it’s a mix, but explanations tend to be in English. I’m definitely really grateful to be reading わたモテ together bc there’s so much slang, cultural references, and euphemisms I wouldn’t get, even checking the translation. It’s helpful for ぼっち・ざ・ろく too, but the slang and references aren’t as extreme there.

Btw can anyone correct my JP headings here? I have a suspicion that’s not actually how you write these things…

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