きみの色 was pretty great. I could understand a lot of it without the EN subs, but would have missed some relevant parts still, if it was audio-only. I also understood most of the Director Q&A without translation - so that was really nice! Looking forward to rewatching that movie someday without the EN subs.
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Recent comprehension thoughts:
- マリア様がみてる 17 チャオ ソレッラ! | L29 - barely checked the translation (again a mix of non-interest & not needing to)
- おにいさまへ... 1 | L25 it pretty understandable. Lots of kana-only words, and mildly dated style. Would have been nice to read before anime, in terms of comprehension
- きみの色 | L20?? - I’d understand a lot without subs, but not everything. Also great movie
- ストロベリー・パニック S1 | L26 - doing pretty decently on comprehension. Tho sometimes it’s just waaaay too boring to care
- 少女革命ウテナ S1 | L31 - acc to jpdb, my words known for ep 3 is pretty high (93% Known, 94.6% Coverage, only 26 new words). So I’m curious to watch and see how much my comprehension challenges are due to audio recognition vs vocab
I finished マリみて 17 with relatively low deck stats (81.5% known, 92.7% coverage), and it didn’t really feel that bad. So I’m debating 2 things with myself:
- Would my time be better spent using jpdb for something like Utena/薬屋のひとりごと?
- Should I try reading book 18 w/o purchase the digital version?
I think I’ll stick to what I’m doing for now, and maybe revisit this question once I finish Strawberry Panic.
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Started 百合姫2025年3月号 | L26?? and おにいさまへ... 2 | L25 and 乙女の港 | L30?? (with the book club). I’ll definitely be reading マリみて 18 on Kindle, and checking the physical for pictures and/or page references - just to save brain power.
マリみて 18 is certainly the priority. YH & Oniisama will be pretty quick reads anyway. I’m really excited about 乙女の港!! Not sure how much jpdb I’ll do this time around. Current stats for book 18 are: Known 82.7%, Coverage 95.3%
Finally started back on Tobira. I’m in the part where it just lists a bunch of grammar
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My two cents: I got two books I’m reading up to 92% coverage and then just didn’t feel like I needed to review the words anymore. Either words would come up and just be there once, or they would come up a few times and I’d get a feeling for them organically. Since my coverage is so high words hardly come up anyway, I actually ended up dropping the two decks and moved onto a deck for my next book. I imagine at this point you’ve read so much of the series that your coverage probably starts high enough to spend your time on something else 
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I certainly see the appeal in that approach, and my coverage for the next 5 decks is already 93-94%. That said, I’d like to not have to look up the 1x words in the first place. Not to mention half-remembered words or “I knew that word 3 novels ago”. Less lookups = faster reading, and probably better comprehension
I went through more of the deck (reviews & marking words as known), and finding it still very helpful. So as much as I want to watch Utena or 薬屋のひとりごと without needing to pause a bunch, I’ll stick with this for now.
Are you doing multiple decks still, after having dropped the other 2?
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I’m currently doing decks for 明日の世界で星は煌めく, サイレント・ウィッチ, and 日本人の心がわかる日本語 (although the last is an easy enough read that I’m also considering dropping it). I’m planning to put my next non bookclub book deck on there but I also still haven’t quite decided what it’s going to be yet so I haven’t started it yet. And I think I have one for アクロトリップ too since that’s what I want to read as soon as the number of bookclub books I’m reading gets more manageable.
I might also drop サイレント・ウィッチ as a book altogether and wait for a bit because I always dread that reading bc it’s too hard to be fun still…
So a very long-winded way of saying yes 
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Gotcha. Silent Witch was first on my drop/pause list, when I was getting into マリみて. Idk that it’s actually justified, but I feel a bit intimidated by it - and also am wondering if retrospect why I decided to order the physical
I’m kinda considering joining up with 日本人の心がわかる日本語 now tho, since it seems like easy enough reading. But I’ll wait till I finish おにいさまへ before actually deciding anything about that.
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You also don’t really need to read 日本人の心がわかる日本語 in order since each chapter has a few related keywords, but there’s not really an overarching narrative or anything so you could jump in where the club is and then loop back around to the beginning if you wanted to read it with the group and didn’t want to read super quickly to catch up.
Silent Witch is perfectly doable, but it’s not fun to read at my level. Which is funny because last year I’d have struggled through it, but now that I have a number of books I can read without a ton of lookups I suddenly don’t have much patience for books that are that much higher than my current level.
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Book 18 went well enough m read first half without translation, then checked occasionally, and realized the translation I had was pretty unreliable, so read the rest without. Book 19 is side stories and doesn’t have a reliable translation either (besides section 1), so I’ll probably just read it without checking. Came across a line that I remembered having trouble with during the anime - that was cool.
Doing book 19 deck in small bursts when I remember. Current stats 83.2 known, 94.6 coverage, 237 learning, 493 new, 162 due
乙女の港 (実業之日本社文庫 - 少女の友コレクション) | L30?? has been easier than I worried, but harder than is comfortable. The antiquated language is definitely a challenge for me, but I’m into it so far. I kinda wish I could do this in lessons too, but I wanna read through it faster than I’d probly get through it in lessons. 花物語 is probly a better choice anyway, since that’s further beyond my level.
花物語 上 | L39 almost got to the end of this week’s story, but I talked to much at the beginning of the lesson. Reading on Kindle made it easier, tho I feel kinda guilty using the dictionary in real-time, when my teacher’s right there… that said there were a number of times where she was more helpful than the dictionary anyway. While the old vocab makes it really hard (had 15-16 lookups for 2 of the kindle pages compared to like 2-5 in マリみて), somehow my comprehension was way better this story than last story. Tbh I feel like reading マリみて straight through has actually been really helpful overall with my comprehension (I mean I’d hope reading 18 novels in a row would help!), and it does come in useful with some of the shared vocab here.
In general I feel like I’m reading too many different (and challenging) things rn. So I’m not gonna pick back up w/ any of the bookclubs - even the seemingly easier ones. At the very least I’d have to finish おにいさまへ and 百合姫, but I think until I finish 乙女の港, I probly won’t pick anything else up
Been looking at how much I’ve spent on physical media over the last year, and realizing that I want to use more of that money towards lessons. So I booked a lesson with a new teacher for Sunday. Going to focus on conversation. I was debating between that & more reading, but A - I can’t practice conversation on my own (well I can with my friend a bit, but neither of us are that skilled), B - I feel like this will fill in more gaps than just doing more reading. Anyway will have to see how it goes
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Did another chapter of レトロゲ(1) | L27 with my friend. Definitely still in need the translation territory - both for the highly niche content, and the grammar. But do feel like I did better with it this time around. Some of the font was surprisingly small tho. I’ve gotten spoiled by novels
Edit: more FMA (with EN subs as well). To the extent that I could hear the audio clearly, I could understand much of it without subs
Also took a look at Quartet 1 | L20 and think I might like it a lot better than Tobira. Considering ordering it and using it instead of Tobira… Not sure tho. Update: decided to order it.
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マリみて: Finished book 19 & 20! I didn’t do any jpdb for 20 (just partially looked through the Due/New words list once). I’m guessing I’ll do similar for 21. I’ve stopped checking the translation now. I can’t say I never felt like I needed it, but the few times I did, it was really unreliable anyway. And overall I can feel a real difference between my comprehension now vs the beginning of the series (or even 10 volumes ago). So I’m going to just read the rest without - which feels nicer anyway.
Watched an ep of 薬屋のひとりごと S2 | L34 without stopping for lookups, bc I just didn’t have the energy. I could follow the general plot well enough tho, despite missing some particulars. Maybe I’ll rewatch it before next time, maybe not.
Still need to finish at least ch 2 of 乙女の港. I’ve been really enjoying it so far, but I wish I didn’t have to balance it with マリみて. Tho it takes me way more energy than マリみて does anyway, so my progress still might be relatively slow, even if I wasn’t reading both. The digital & physical versions I have are just different enough (plus the lack of pictures in digital) that I don’t feel like I can just read digital. Maybe I should just read physical, and use my instead of Kindle dict? Idk neither is ideal
I’ve officially jumped ship from Tobira to Quartet 1 | L20 . I’m not far in yet, but I like it a lot, just for the layout and coloring… very easy to follow, tho I still have to take in small doses
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And of course right after writing this, I get thrown a difficult first chapter 
I’m glad I looked through the word lost a bit before. I guess I’ll do some reviews before I go to sleep then
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I didn’t really do the reviews, just kept reading & now I’m on book 22
Trial lesson was awkward. Teacher was fine, but neither of us has a pre-planned idea (well we did the 自己紹介 type stuff, but that only went so far), and I didn’t account for the fact that I’m shy and socially awkward. So next time I try a lesson, I’ll have to decide a thing or two to talk about in advance. Also I need to either just say “yes” when people ask me if I want to go to Japan, or stop being self-conscious about explaining why it’s 複雑. Teacher was also less proficient in English than I was used to… which wasn’t exactly bad, but it made me feel less like I could ask how to say certain things
So I’ll keep all that in mind with whoever I try next. Tho maybe I should just book more lessons with a current teacher. One of them offers a lesson where we write journals on advance, and she corrects, and we discuss. That sounds interesting, but I’m not sure I want to commit to doing that. Could also just do normal conversation lessons
I’ll have to think on it I guess… In the meantime, more reading
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How come you tried a new teacher?
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The main reason is that you get something unique from each person you talk to or study with. Also one of my teachers is 2x more expensive than a lot of other teachers. And there’s no risk of disturbing a pre-existing relationship, if I decide that it wasn’t a good idea, or it doesn’t feel like it’s working well
There was a 3rd teacher I used to take lessons with, who I really liked, but she doesn’t offer them anymore 
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43% through マリア様がみてる 23 くもりガラスの向こう側 | L29 Looked at jpdb word list, and dove in. Ironically it would be useful for this volume, cuz of all the new years perty vocab, but I’ve been too absorbed to do it. Checked translation for a few lines when I had a headache. Been using physical more lately, but less with 23 cuz higher lookups.
花物語 上 | L39 during my lesson had one of my slowest reading paces (.09 pgs/min; 5.4 pgs/hr). Maybe it’s bc I’ve been reading through マリみて so quickly, but I’ve largely stopped caring about reading speed. This story is a lot easier to read and follow so far, but the lookups are many
Conversation at beginning of lesson felt more fluid. While I still can’t express everything I want to express, and it’s still very clumsy at times, some of my sentences were a bit longer or more detailed. So I think at this point if I do extra lessons it will be with this teacher, either conversation or more reading.
乙女の港 (実業之日本社文庫 - 少女の友コレクション) | L30?? I finally finished ch 2. Focusing primarily on the digital version now, since I’m pretty behind the other person actively reading, and I’m still focused on マリみて. So that will help me get through it faster, and I can still check the illustrations and footnotes when I want. Anyway it felt easier than chapter 1, but I wasn’t really absorbing the content so well towards the end (focus issues)
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Was feeling kinda off yesterday, so only 23% into マリみて 24. Instead I read a bit more of 百合姫2025年3月号 | L26?? (and some recent マリみて vocab appeared!), and watched 3 eps of ストロベリー・パニック S1 | L26 (comprehension feels like it got better here!)
Today I’ve gotten through most of my jpdb reviews + listened to a few of the マリみて drama cd tracks. Doing pretty well with comprehension on those. I still have to pay attention or concentrate tho. But it feels like it these should go a long way to meeting my February listening goal
Added a few “plan to watch” to my Watching list, so I don’t forget about them:
- ベルサイユのばら S1 | L43?? - probably upper L30s, so may abandon for manga
- キャンディ ボーイ S1 | L27
- ママレード・ボーイ S1 | L20 (will def skip filler) - glad this is lower level, so I can have something Easy to put on
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I watched that one with English subs back in the day and its really good. They recently did a movie remake too that looks amazing but I haven’t watched that yet.
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I think I saw an ad for that yesterday, and Sawashiro Miyuki is in it!! Which if so, I may want to check out.
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Finished マリア様がみてる 29 薔薇の花かんむり | L29 so now I’m passed the anime!! (tho I still need to go back and read マリア様がみてる 28 フレームオブマインド | L29). I may try to catch up with 乙女の港 | L?? a bit, while I’m reading 28… but overall I think I should resist the temptation to start reading other works too much. I’ve been very on/off with the jpdb decks, but it’s still helpful when I do them. Vol 28 is longer than usual tho, and seems like I know less of the vocab, so I may try to spend more time with it here.
I’m further into おにいさまへ... 2 | L25 and doing well enough. Been a bit lazy about lookups, but it’s nothing new from the anime, so that’s fine. Probly once I’m done with the all 3, I’ll do きみの色 | L24?? I’ve been mostly reading from the physical (which is 2 volumes lol)
花物語 上 | L39 continues to be quite hard! My reading speed this past lesson was 6 pgs/hr… which doing the math, means I’d have just over a year’s worth lessons before finishing it. I’m a bit torn on whether I should just keep at it, or try something easier for now. It would be nice if there were a way to SRS it… which I guess I could do buy scanning each story, highlighting unfamiliar words/kanji, and making Anki cards out of them… but I’m not even sure that’s worth the time. Maybe the answer is that this is what I should use extra lesson money for… have to think on it
Speaking of lessons, we talked for about 20 min during last night’s, since there was 10 min left after I finished the story. Talking felt a bit more fluid, and also I was able to express myself a bit more, sorta like how reading is gradually feeling closer to reading in English… tho talking is further behind, and both have quite a ways to go… anyway, I never know how to quantify improvements, but I can certainly feel something is improving
キャンディ ボーイ S1 | L27 went pretty well. I still had to check the EN subs (no JP subs available) sometimes, which is typical for this level. Besides catching up, if I start something new, it should techincally be ママレード・ボーイ S1 | L20 (bc level), but I’ve been considering rewatching 青い花 S1 | L24. And at least according to jpdb, my vocab knowledge for the next 2 eps of 少女革命ウテナ S1 | L31 is actually pretty close. So I could try watching those instead.
Haven’t made more Quartet 1 | L20 progress yet. I should try to get to that sometime soon
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