Yes, that‘s a very important condition. I often ask myself, what the heck is that person talking about, and then in the next sentence it gets explained right away.
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Yes, exactly!! But also it’s sorta similar how you can be talking to someone irl, and they say something and you don’t immediately get it, but then a sentence or two later you’re like “Oh!”
There’s something about the brain struggling with it, just a bit more, that makes a difference I think. Also if it means less stopping, cuz they explained it next sentence, that’s definitely a win!
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I sometimes watch my brain replaying something said before, and then oh, of course. Why didn‘t I understand it right away? 
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Or sometimes the other character is equally confused about what was said.
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I got a physical monolingual dictionary… some thoughts:
The dictionary is cool, but gonna be quite a challenge to get used to… will definitely become a lot more solid on the 五十音順 (syllabary order), and I see a serious benefit already, in that I have to look up words to understand definitions… ex: 各個 (かっこ) めいめい。一つ一つ。一人一人。 - I had to look up めいめい, which turns out to be 銘々 (each, individual). There’s also the incidental seeing of the words around it, and the fact that it has antonyms is really great!!
The other thing that’s cool w/ monolingual dictionaries is that they’re often much more descriptive than J-E dictionaries… so it’s basically an exercise in reading comprehension. It’s interesting comparing it to the JP definitions in the Takoboto app.
I don’t really know how I’ll incorporate it overall… maybe just use for song lyrics, or stuff like that where there’s no time component to it. Or for something I’d consider easy in the first place… but I think the “no time component” will be important for me. Looking up words that are familiar is a helpful bridge, for adjusting to it.
This feels kinda similar to starting Star Rail actually - where there’s an overwhelming quantity of info, and I need to learn little parts of the UI and mechanics, in order to get my bearings.
Edit: courtesy of monolingual definitions, I actually finally understand why Nina’s nickname is 正論モンスター…
正論 (English): sound argument, fair argument, just reasoning
正論：道理の正しい議論
道理：人として正しく生きるための指針。道徳。
Really wasn’t clicking, until that last one
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バンドリ: Extending on this, I watched BanG Dream! S1 | L21 without subs, and understood everything comfortably! That’s my first time watching something brand new, and just understood it, without having to think consciously about what was being said! Then I opened up the game, and same deal (for the few minutes I played). I wanna continue with S2, but apparently it’s best to play the game, so you have context for the characters… which given my negative experience with MyGO, is advice I’m inclined to follow… Maybe I should try ラブライブ！ in the meantime
I’m not super into the game - and also can’t be bothered to learn another gacha mechanic rn (honestly FGO & SAOIF really spoiled me with their simplicity) - but it’s the sorta thing where you can just play the story(ies) for a few min, whenever you want. It seems like you can completely ignore the gacha actually, unless you’re trying to collect specific cards… 良かった. Anyway… I keep procrastinating Star Rail, bc my brain wants stuff I can understand without trying. I’ll have to try to push past that soon.
雑誌たち: Almost done with 百合姫2024年4月号 | L25 and Megami MAGAZINE 2024年 08 月号 | L29 . I didn’t read everything in Megami, like I only read the descriptions for series that seemed interesting, didn’t try to read all the ads for various figures, etc. Just have 2 one-page interview + よるクラ and 声優ラジオ features, and then I’m done. The descriptions are great for picking up vocab though… I just only have so much motivation for stuff like that… Still though, it’s the first time I’ve really gotten through a magazine of this sort!
Lessons: Started 堀さんと宮村くん 4 | L26 in my lesson (after finishing 3), and my teacher said I read better in this lesson (tho I think some of that may have just been luck of the draw). I’ve been thinking about whether maybe I want to practice output some more, but nothing concrete so far.
ガルクラと国語辞典: Been working on ガルクラ lyrics, with my monolingual dictionary (plus Takoboto, when I can’t find, or don’t understand, something there), and actually that’s been going well. I don’t think I could manage totally without translation, but I got a decent amount right for 空白とカタルシス on my own. Learning them like this kinda makes the lyrics feel a lot closer… like I internalized those parts more. I’d love to get to a point where I can use Takoboto or another 国語辞典 app, without it feeling like a conscious effort/disruption
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Congrats!
This is the dream!
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Thx 
kinda amused that I achieved (the very beginnings of) the dream via BanG Dream! lol
Now I have to replicate it…
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Currently I get through 8-10 pgs of 裏世界ピクニック per lesson… So it’s gonna be about 27-30 lessons before I’m done with this, unless my reading speed improves 
Edit: that’s over half a year… So I really hope I improve more soon
It also means my novel reading speed hasn’t particularly improved in the last month… Which makes sense, cuz lots of vocab + not enough novel reading.
I’m fairly sure I’m at least a bit faster with manga tho
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How far in are you? I’ve read about 25 pages and so far I’m not hooked. I don’t plan to drop it at this point, just means I’m not super focused on it.
I’m on p47 - things seem like they might pick up a bit soon. I’m not quite hooked yet, but I’m not turned off either. From a vocab perspective, I like it a lot. Story seems like it has potential.
Made some more progress on AKB0048 as well. Eps 6-7 were kinda rough for me, and also not really the most interesting. Hoping it picks up again soon. At the very least, I’m halfway through, so can probably finish by the weekend
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I’ve been feeling like I’m not making enough progress on things I’m reading and watching lately (too much socializing time, and work has suddenly been busy).
What I've actually done
Finished Reading:
- 雨でも晴れでも 1
- 熱帯魚 1-7 (2 Vols left)
- Yurihime 4-5月
- 踊り場 1-2
- しかばね 1-2
Still Reading:
- メガミマガジン - 3 pgs left
- コミック百合姫 2024年6月 - 68%
- 色々な百合姫のシリーズ
- 色々なラノベ
- 熱帯魚 漫画
- Occasionally playing Star Rail and/or Bravely Default, when I’m in the mood
Finished watching:
- ガルクラ - 4th time, audio only (apparently it’s coming to Prime Video in a few days… so I guess I’ll be watching it a 5th time - just to show support lol)
コミック百合姫
百合姫 2024年6月号 | L25 - is my last volume before I’m caught up through vol 8 (tho some series I might have to read/reread the chapters in 7 & 8). Perfect timing, since 9 ijust got here. I started reading the magazines back on June 17, meaning it’s taken me almost 2 months to read 8 manga magazines, including a not insignificant amount of time it’s taken to catch up with 4-5 series, so I could be current (but skipping various series I don’t want to touch with a 10 foot pole bc of stuff like prominently featuring a college student crushing on an elementary school student; an unrepentant rapist PoV character; a high school student + school nurse relationship, etc… I can abstractly appreciate the latter two as fantasy things (私的に嫌だけど), but the first one - wtf?!.
I’ll feel relieved when I’m done with YH 9. It’s been a good journey overall, but I need a break. I really like many of the series, but some of them feel like a chore (I wouldn’t read them if they weren’t in the magazine). It’s also kinda weird having one or two stories be randomly harder than the others.
August Audio Challenge
I signed myself up for 50 hrs of listening in August. So far it’s entirely ガルクラ / トゲトゲ related, and I’m behind… which I’m not thrilled about. I keep procrastinating it, but I’ll catch up eventually I guess.
I think I’m going to try 裏世界ピクニック audiobook, or maybe something easier… but 裏世界ピクニック would dovetail with my lessons
雑誌、次は何？
In terms of magazines, my next choices are between: Type Moon Ace, Shounen Ace, Animage, Hana to Yume, LaLaDx.
Animage is similar to Megami, I think (just not 美少女). TMA is probably too hard, but that might be a good reason to start it. Shounen Ace would be a good choice, cuz change of pace + I can evaluate whether or not I’m interested in enough of the series in there (of which like 60-70% seem to be Isekai 
).
速読
A bit disappointed to find out that having my (newly acquired) a/c on during my lesson didn’t improve my reading time for 裏世界ピクニック. I was hoping I was reading too slowly for reasons like heat, not eating enough, etc… but apparently I read well enough under both of those conditions… which means my reading speed is in fact just slow.
Otoh, I think I’m reading 熱帯魚 faster than I used to be with manga (more like an hr, rather than 1.5 hrs). Just have 2 volumes left to finish!
Output?
I’ve been thinking more that maybe I should do the shadowing exercises from the Miku Real Japanese course. Tho it looks like I probly won’t get a chance to go ask for an autograph from Saitou, Chiwa at ANYC - b/c apparently they do tickets via a lottery system that ended 2 weeks ago (really disappointed that I didn’t know)… which was a lot of my incentive to maybe work on output more (and also a huge reason I was even interested in attending)… Anyway, I still think it might be good for comprehension and w/e.
I found someone on HelloTalk whose L2 is Japanese and who doesn’t speak English, and this seems actually more productive (even tho both of are JP is a bit iffy). They’re easy to communicate with, and they’re using patterns that I’m like “oh, right - I can say it like that!”. Not having English as a fallback is I think pretty useful, so I’m glad they messaged me. But also it’s hard for me to maintain the desire to socialize… then again, it’s more productive than the (too much) time I spend on reddit.
Update: talking to them is kind of a trip. On one hand they have a better repertoire of phrases, and they type/say things waaaay faster than me. Otoh their grammar is all over the place, to the point where sometimes I wonder if they’re writing the opposite of what they mean (mine is at least in “may be slightly off, but you can probably still tell what I mean” territory, I think)
Also Fate/Stay Night just released on Switch… so I guess I’ll be retrying that again!! Looking forward to the Pain lol… wonder how long it will take me to give up this time around (I remember it well enough to know a lot of it is still well above my reading level). Anyway, time to play some Star Rail, while I wait for that to download…
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I don’t have any personal suggestions (I’d only ever consider reading Kirara and most people would not be interested), but someone over on the WaniKani forums reads a lot of Harta. I’ve read two volumes of one of their series and have a couple more planned to try, so I don’t have much of an opinion on them yet.
That’s a shame. I’d be tempted to ask her if she recorded any lines for the new Madoka movie yet. 
Oh also, two of the members of Liella will be there if you happen to watch Love Live Superstar before you go.
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The only Harta series that looked familiar from Wikipedia was ダンジョン飯
I don’t think there’s enough in Kirara that grabs my interest… But also they might be one of the ones that does terrible Amazon previews, so it’s hard to tell what’s actually in it?
I’m good on the magazines for now tho… Those are all ones I physically own, which is why they’re choices. Thx tho
I guess at some point I should rewatch Madoka, since I only have vague memories of it at this point. So it makes me not too inclined to catch a new movie. My main associations for her are 暁のヨナ and various Fate/Grand Order (FGO) characters. Speaking of Fate, there’s various other Fate VAs too, but it looks like they’ll all be there on Saturday 
(I can only go Friday)
Considering how little progress I’ve made on all my current shows, that seems pretty unlikely. They do have a Love Live panel from 2-3, which is in the same room as Saitou-san’s panel at 3:45, so maybe I’ll try to do both? Of course both of those panels are probly by lottery too, which doesn’t open till the 14th… 面倒臭い！
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rodan over on Wanikani has done iirc a bunch of writeups on Harta series; here’s one of them if you’d like to poke around!
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Nooooo you guys are gonna get me into yet another magazine, staaaahhhp 
With that amount of text in the article, I may as well just read the magazine 
I’m impressed by the variety of art styles… And intimidated by the approx 1,050 pgs 
I downloaded an Amazon sample for now, so maybe I won’t forget it. Actually maybe it’s better if I forget it.
(It’s an impressive writeup tho)
Obviously… it’s in Japanese… but just for what it’s worth, even that may be less of a barrier than one might think – in the grand scheme of things I’m still surprised that it took me only three years to quite comfortably read my first issue of Harta, and that I could have struggled through a lot earlier than that.
Words only a Japanese learner/manga fan could write
Do you wanna read this 1k page magazine? Spend 3 years learning this language, with a super complicated writing system, which is the polar opposite of your L1. How bad could it be?
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I went through the lyrics for 無知の知 and 極私的極彩色アンサー with my teacher earlier. The former was really productive and helpful… The latter, even my teacher was like ??? - both cuz of some of the kanji/readings, and cuz the song itself is just hard to understand. Since they’re not available online, 無知のちの私 歌詞:
I think I might do this more in the future, and just drop 堀さんと宮村くん for now … I feel like lyrics have a lot more possibility for exploration/deeper learning, and grammar reinforcement, whereas like 70% of my linguistic gain from 堀さんと宮村くん is getting better at reading crappy handwriting. Only downside to doing lyrics tho is that I have to figure out what to do in advance… But it’s not like I have any shortage of songs to choose from
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Speaking as someone who was BIG into Japanese music in high school (music was probably the biggest influence on me wanting to learn the language, over manga and WAY over anime at the time), lyrics can be really good for study, but they can also be terrible. (Shout out to all the bands who are writing full on literary poems in their rock songs. You know who you are 
). There’s a ton of wordplay, literary allusions, and doing the thing with kanji where you write one thing but say another, so if you can’t hear the lyric clearly you might be at a loss with what the line is even saying.
I credit jrock for teaching me weird ass words like 波紋 or 抜け殻 before I knew words like 消防車 or how to pronounce all of the days of the month (7日 and 9日 still trip me up from time to time). Having a tutor there for a lot of this is going to help a lot, but speaking from experience, you’re gonna get a lot of shoulder shrugs if you end up with lyrics like mine, lol.
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Almost none of the stuff I listen to is like that, thankfully lol… the 極私的極彩色アンサー lyrics are probly the worst of it. Maybe someday in the (far) future I should try doing poetry tho…
Exactly why it’s interesting. Those are things it would be hard to know on my own. Plus there’s always the occasional “makes no grammatical sense, we just did it to make things rhyme” thing. I think one part of the appeal is that there’s much less context, so to the extent that things are grammatical, I can’t cheat on the grammar by filling it in with context.
消防車 (and probly a lot of other “real world” vocab) is completely useless for me tho, where as either of those examples are more likely to appear in something I’m reading - and 殻 is a kanji I see (and half-forget) quite often… I actually got a decent amount of vocab from music, and it super helps w/ remembering words in the long-term (for me anyway).
Anyway, that’s why I was saying the downside is that I have to decide on lyrics in advance, cuz there’s no point doing something overly difficult or incomprehensible. I should just write down song names during the week, as I’m listening to things.
I always have to remind myself with 4月 and 7月… my brain always wants to say them as よんがつ and なながつ for a moment
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I transcribed 無知のち私 into romaji for someone the other day, and now it’s got me inspired to handwrite the lyrics to this and other songs. I think I’ll try to make this into my “idle/procrastinating” task, instead of scrolling social media as much… of course, it’s just as likely I’ll forget about or get tired of it by tomorrow 笑.
Definitely can’t do this without looking at the kanji right in front of me, but all that practice with Ringotan, and handwriting from subs, definitely paid off, cuz a lot of it feels familiar… Also, this is good reinforcement for the lyrics I just went over last night.
I tried typing direct input for a bit as well, and similarly, it felt a lot easier than last time - but still something I’m slow at… honestly tho, it’s so much nicer and less error prone than romaji input.
Honestly I probably should be working towards my listening goal instead rn… but I’m just gonna follow the impulse for now 笑
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