Luna's Learning Log

暁のルナ · August 19, 2024, 1:04am

August Listening Challenge is going well! I’m almost at 37 hrs, and at this rate, the highest proportion will be from audiobooks (with text)! I’ll probably continue with MagiRevo 2 soon. I wouldn’t mind trying something different, but nothing is coming to mind. Anyway, I’m really glad I’ve been doing the challenge - both for quantity, and cuz it got me to try out various new things.

Finished GBC rewatch. I wasn’t as diligent with listening carefully on the last 3 eps, but it still let me link things from EN back to JP a bit more. So we’ll see how I do next rewatch

Got a chapter or so into Shirayuki 4. It’s still challenging, but easier than it was the first time around.

Had a moment the other day where someone posted a very error-ridden translation of a manga chapter. And I was able to look through and easily spot the errors, and why they were wrong. That was kinda exciting/affirming.

Been having trouble motivating myself today for some reason, which is really annoying… But I did catch up with スピカをつかまえて 1 | L23 chapters, so that just leaves me with the Android series, and then I’m truly caught up with Yurihime (unless I wanna do ゆるゆり and the spin-off, but those are like 100-200+ chapters, so idk). I’m really proud of myself for having gotten there!

暁のルナ · August 27, 2024, 12:39am

Watched some episodes of 鋼の錬金術師 2003, and played a bit of Fate/Stay Night at my friend’s over the weekend - both EN subs. FMA was kinda disappointing that I couldn’t understand more of the audio than I did, considering I watched it not so long ago. Played more FSN in JP, and it confirmed that I do in fact find mechanics, lore, etc 3x as boring in Japanese since it already involves a lot of effort and reading speed. In English I don’t mind it too much, but in JP I really get sick of it fast. Only solution is to keep at it, and one day have better vocab and reading speed.

I’ve still got 10 hrs left on my listening challenge, which has me worried. I have Friday off tho, so in a worst case, I’ll squeeze more in then

暁のルナ · September 1, 2024, 7:26am

A lot of my learning lately has been stuff that’s not really loggable, so I’ll log it here

August listening 47.7/50 hrs
ロンリガールに逆らえない 1-6 reread
I translated a 2 pg webcomic!!
reading ガルクラ web interviews
slowly progressing through Fate/Stay Night
occasionally ガルパ (バンドリゲーム) playing. Roselia story
picked up はなにあらし 8 again
Rewatched ガルクラ twice in August - once just cuz, and twice bc of live audio commentary… So that’s my 6th watch through now

Lonely Girl was great, cuz I was able to just read it (with some lookups of course). Nice relaxing confidence booster. For some reason, I found it both easier and faster than はなにあらし. I read through Yurihime 10 earlier, and it felt overall a lot easier (it helps that this month’s was only 601 pgs).

It’s kinda frustrating that manga magazines are so long, yet only count as one book. Similarly that I can’t log rereads. Even though it’s superficial, it makes me feel like I’m not accomplishing as much. I’ll just have to get even faster at reading to make up for it I guess

But also I feel like I’ve been slacking off throughout August - mix of motivation, to much time taking to ppl, and various life things keeping me busier than I’d like. I wonder if some of this isn’t from me pushing myself with the listening challenge too (and thus less time and energy for reading)… But I think I need to push myself more in general.

I’ve been pushing myself to use JP-JP dicts more. Not all the time, but every bit adds up. Definitely want to keep doing more of that

暁のルナ · September 4, 2024, 3:00am

I decided to try translating the most recent トゲトゲ interview in Billboard, and it is sooooooo much harder than just reading and understanding it (though it has made clear a few places where I’m just like ???). I’ve spent probly like an hr or so, and am not even done with the first page - some of the stuff at the beginning was tricky to parse. Granted I got really poor sleep last night, and that’s contributing, but still! Trying to work it into English feels like I’m going through a jungle gym or something, and I’m not even trying to be perfectionist about it, the way I’d usually get (tho I will have to fact check various things about my translation before sharing it)

Despite my sleep deprivation, I still got through 11 pgs of 裏世界ピクニック in my lesson today. I definitely feel like I’m talking more smoothly and quickly than 2 weeks ago, despite fumbling more than usual, due to the sleep thing. One of the things is that I’ve realized I don’t have to try to perfectly, consciously, enunciate everything (not that it’s bad to) - after all, it’s not like I remotely do that in English. A lot of it comes down to phrase anticipation as well, and knowing where to jump with my eyes, once I’ve done that (i.e. if I recognize that something’s about to be ～ていた or ～られなかった etc, I don’t have to consciously read those characters. Just like when I know a katakana proper noun, I don’t have to try to parse those characters. I’m pretty sure some of this is a result of learning トゲトゲ lyrics. Those are almost all very fast, so the muscle memory of producing sounds faster gets built. Sorta similar to reading along to audiobooks - your eyes get used to scanning/following that much quicker.

I’ve decided I definitely want to start working on output, and that I’ll do so by going through the Miku Real Japanese shadowing course exercises again. Not sure when I’ll start, but sometimes this month. I’m not necessarily particularly interested in talking to people, but I think it will help my comprehension, reading fluidity, and confidence a lot to have internalized this stuff more. If I happen to have more written JP conversations as a side effect of working on output more, that could be cool, I guess. In the future, it would be great to work on written output more too, but one thing at a time.

shitsurei · September 4, 2024, 4:13am

I don’t know how interested you are in being able to translate, but just in case it’s something that you’re looking to do I wanted to make sure this was on your radar:

暁のルナ · September 4, 2024, 4:35am

It’s something I’m dabbling in for fun as a ガルクラ otaku / general manga fan. I’ve just found that I like explaining things to ppl, or translating little things here and there. Honestly I’m questioning whether translating something like this article is even a good use of my time. I’m probly better off just jotting some highlights/fun facts and moving on.

I have heard of that book, and while it looks abstractly interesting, I pray I never get to a point in my life where I think reading it seems like a practical use of my time

Anyway thx for sharing it

暁のルナ · September 8, 2024, 1:56am

I finally finished the translation for the ガルクラ Billboard Interview… may I never be masochistic enough to do that again!!

Stayed up really late the other night the new chapters from カクヨムクラスで二番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになって (web novel), and while I of course have to look up words still, most of it feels so easy now… like 80-90% in “just read” territory. So I started rereading book 1, and found myself needing to look up a surprising amount of words. ~~Also I’m reading it much more slowly this time around - I finished it in a day the first time, but I’m less than halfway through so far.~~. Actually the first time I got through 195 pages in day 1, this time 175 it so… So similar speed, but still.

Anyway It’s a mix of mood (I read faster when I’m super excited), and being very thorough about looking everything up - definitions and reading. I’m pretty sure I was much less careful about lookups the first time around (especially readings). But regardless of speed, my comprehension is way smoother this time around

義妹生活 | L31 is a comfortable upper range book, and I’m reading it w/ the audiobook to help with my September Listening Challenge, but it’s hard to totally keep up with in real time, bc everytime I run into a word I’m not sure about, the audio gets ahead of me, and then I have to pause it, and reread. In some ways it might be more beneficial for me to do without audiobook, but w/e. It’s also the part of the story that I already know from the anime, so getting through it faster is definitely the better choice, to evade boredom.

Anyway, lately I feel like I’m doing much better at just picking things up and reading them, in terms of comprehension (within a certain upper limit of course). Also getting comfier w/ a monolingual dictionary, tho I still don’t use it exclusively (in part because the UI for Akebi is just too good to give up, when doing paragraph to page long lookups). If I’m reading on Kindle app tho, I have it set to the monolingual dict, so I check that first. But for physical books, it’s easier to just grab the whole pg at once

Haven’t started the output exercises yet, but they’re on my mind… so one of these days soon!