Luna's Learning Log

Japanese
588

If you say “down to 411”, how much did you have before? :scream:

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589

I don’t think it was above 500? … I’ve added and deleted some stuff since then, so now it’s at 361 :joy:

Idk this is what happens when you ignore reviews for weeks :sweat_smile:

I wish there was some sort of archive feature or “go through the words from deck B only” sorta thing.

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590

I joined the Patreon for a few months but it was really lacking in a lot of qol features like that that I dropped it. I don’t think the sexier male voice was worth the $5/mo. The few things I was doing with it (like having it pull cards in frequency order) can be manually done and doesn’t bother me that much to do. :woman_shrugging:t4:

additional Patreon musings

I feel bad bc I’d probably should be supporting him, but whenever people gate functions behind money I’m calculating whether or not I’m getting my money’s worth when I’d be mostly fine with just giving money for a free thing that I felt improved my studies in some way…

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591

Hmm looking at what the Patreon features are, the ones that got me were:

  • You can see known vocabulary statistics for subdecks instead of only for the main deck
  • You can set your WaniKani level up to level 60, instead of at most level 3 (ironically I’ve intentionally unset this, these days)

And I’ve used the jpdb.io labs feature for Abandon Due and Failed cards

I did want it to do the reverse of the frequency thing - only show me words from the x least frequent words… Which as you pointed out, you can sorta work around anyway

additional musings

I think most people would not though, and so associating it with functionality changes the vibe from “begging” to “offering something”… Which as you pointed out changes the calculus from “supporting” to “do I benefit from what I’m getting?”

I’m not really sure I’d call this gating though - at least to me that implies something like WaniKani or Satori Reader, where the main functionality is inaccessible without paying the fee

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592
Muse muse

That’s fair. I agree that I’m probably not the average subscriber and I do appreciate that he gives away all of the necessary parts of the site for free and there are just value adds/time savers.

There’s a lot I would like to see on the site, but I’m not going to go wade in Discord swamp of Japanese learners to even just suggest those features, and who knows if they’ll get implemented. I’m pretty happy with the base features, but there are some things that still bother me. Not enough to change back to Anki or anything, bc the parsing feature alone makes things a million times faster than making my own cards, but I do miss having that much control over my cards.

fwiw, the deck futzing that I did when I was a Patreon seemed to stay after I left, so I could see doing a month here and there if I wanted a special feature for a bit.

Yeah. Without the extras, I’d probably just pay whenever it felt like I was getting $5/mo worth out of it and drop it when I wasn’t (which is mostly what I did before). But now I’m like “I don’t really value the extras $5 worth”. So I’ll just need to recalibrate how I think about it as more like supporting a project that I don’t want to go away.

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593

My concern with supporting jpdb would be that I keep hearing it stopped being updated. So if true I would question where my money is going lol. Also I don’t like the inbuilt srs system, it seems like it should be simply to export to anki but there is no such option as far as I can tell.

Just wondering if either of you are aware of/tried https://jiten.moe/ it launched recently (last month or so) and doesn’t have many of the features jpdb has. I wouldn’t say it’s a jpdb replacement yet but I’m keeping an eye on it. It does fix one of my personal biggest issue of anki at least.

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594

It is infrequently updated. The last major to updated was Nov 30, the last minor update was Dec 3. Wrt content updates, it currently doesn’t have any active contributors, so new material is on pause, apparently.

That’s not a concern for me, personally. Even if it were fully stopped:

  1. There’s certainly regular costs associated with hosting and running it
  2. The creator built this damn useful, long-term, stable software - that’s become a staple, and which I regularly heavily use - otherwise for free (I assume). That’s an extraordinary amount of time & effort, over however many years. I’m happy to give them some money back for that

In settings there is an export to json, which you can import to Anki (might need a plug-in), though iirc there are some things that don’t export (don’t ask me what).

Anyway that’s fair. For me jpdb SRS is a “thank God, I don’t need to use Anki” tool. Also the pre built decks, and “deck from text” features have been probably the most useful tool in my Japanese progress, short of Natively, and maybe WaniKani (which had a much more temporary usefulness)

I just checked it out. Definitely has potential, and seems very actively in development. It doesn’t have SRS or user profiles yet, so my main use would be if I manage to find something there that isn’t on jpdb, then I could import it to jpdb… Which, combined with the fact that you can make media requests in the (much smaller and less overwhelming) discord, is pretty useful. The fact that they have manga (and YouTube even) on the roadmap is great too.

Which is to say: thx for the info. Jiten isn’t very useful to me right now, but I’ll definitely keep an eye on it

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595

Relevant to my interests:

596

Physical Only (mostly)

I’ve decided for the next month to only read physical books I own (and not buy any new ones besides Yurihime) + finishing any current reads + book clubs. Currently that includes:

My main goal is to get through a lot of the 吉屋信子 books I bought… but otherwise will just read whatever I feel like. For manga, it would be nice to finish off low hanging manga fruit like 五等分の花嫁 | L23 and アオのハコ | L21 (both of which I’ve read digitally) plus any unread yuri titles

jpdb

I would like to start getting through the クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった | L27 deck in advance of the book club. That said, it’s by far the least important deck I have. Also debating to what extent I should really focus on doing decks before watching eps of 赤毛のアン S1 | L29 and 愛の若草物語 S1 | L24 … I did a bit of “just watch the eps” this weekend - which particularly with 若草物語 is pretty doable

Anyway, since I got past the episodes I had decks for, they’ve been deleted, and now I’m down to 18 reviews, and 348 new items… which is way more doable

Book Club progress

Other recent reads

Anime

Blog

For better or worse, I started a blog: lilyphile. As the name suggests it’s about yuri & stuff. It’s still rough around the edges aesthetically, and only has the “Why is most yuri set in same-sex schools?” bit that I wrote up in the BL thread (and revised a bit)… but anyway hopefully it will work well as a space for thoughts that don’t quite fit neatly in forum comments or reviews.

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597

Yeah - the digital has furigana, selectable text (Kindle incompatible), and is easier to make out the characters… so as educational as reading the older version would be, I’m sticking with this one.

I realized I could pdf to txt, and then make a jpdb deck for it… and wow my starting stats are pretty awful… two extremes:

Work Vocab Coverage Kanji Words Known
屋根裏の二処女 58.9% 84.5% 79% 9391 5536
クラにか 92.4 94.8 93.4 1675 1545

Anyway… I had to abandon failed & due cards, cuz there were 700 :rofl: … And I put it at the bottom of the list. I’m gonna try just reading and see how it goes lol

Update: even accounting for 3am, wow this is hard!! Probably L36 is my guess. Like not as hard as the hard parts of 花物語, but not far. Oddly the PDF has some advantage in terms of lookups: I can select the whole page at once, and copy into Akebi. Anyway this is gonna be a really slow read, so I’m dropping it for now, in favor of her easier books.

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598

discord server

I joined a discord server with a lot of queer/LGBT, feminist, etc, Japanese speakers (natives and learners). It’s for both English & Japanese speakers, and there’s plenty of opportunity to speak substantively in both. The reading level of most of the comments is in a comfortable challenge zone for me. There’s also events that involve verbally speaking to people (and they have guests and stuff), but idk that I’ll participate in those. Anyway I’m excited to have found a forum where I feel like I have something meaningful to chat about with JP speakers, and actually interact with LGBT Japanese people. Even the 日本語学習 channel has actually interesting material with some real depth, historical relevance, etc. I’ll probably also talk to people in English there too… I mean all my other discord servers are in English, so why not?

anime & jpdb

Watched 3 more eps without subs, and doing fine - but subs definitely help. I’m behind on jpdb reviews tho, cuz I’ve been wasting time on the Internet and stuff

novels mostly

からたちの花 - 33% through this, and it’s going a bit slower than I thought (both the story and my reading). There’s a higher proportion of hiragana vs kanji than I’m used to, but it’s the perfect balance for getting used to that. Story-wise these feels more simplistic than her other books so far

Read 2 more stories in 花物語 | L24?? manga. It made me realize I should stop procrastinating them, thinking they’ll be hard. They’re not that hard. Plus I know the plot for most of them, since I’ve read them in the book already

Picked up 若草物語 | L39?? again, and it’s challenging but not impossible. The sentences are very long and busy, and that’s my main issue. Just too much to process at once. Some I can read just fine, and others I have to reread 2-3x and check translation. Some of the grammar is not immediately familiar as well. Still this feels like the sorta thing that will level up my reading a good amount - so hopefully I’ll stick with it

Still have this week’s: 明日の世界で星は煌めくto do. Decided to drop 黒猫ニャンゴの冒険 レア属性を引き当てたので、気ままな冒険者を目指します | L29 - I’m just not interested rn. Halfway through 百合姫2025年7月号 | L24?? . Anything with too many lookups (mostly the fantasy series) I shallow read, bc I just don’t have the patience - more so than with regular manga, since you’re constantly shifting gears/series, and the difficulty jumps from anywhere from like L18-L29 fl depending on the series. I do keep thinking I should give the 宇宙人 story a second chance, but haven’t felt motivated enough to do so. Maybe I’ll read through ch 2-3 in English first, and see if it feels worth it

other

Did a good amount of talking in my lesson. Still haven’t brought up switching to conversation lessons, but may message my teacher to ask about that this week.

Also need to write letters back to ppl. I’ve been procrastinating that for a bit now (sry!)

I guess I’m using LINE now, so if anyone wants to chat in JP on there, lmk

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599

Speaking of writing, I’ve been doing a bit of “if I’m stuck on how to write this sentence, plug it into Google translate, and see what it gives me as a starting point”…

I always retype the entire sentence though, and usually tweak it to be more 私らしい. I think @shitsurei mentioned using chatgpt for this? I’m otherwise averse to it (and generative AI in general), but I might give it a spin for this sorta thing

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600

…also uses their own Google AI to translate texts, so there will probably not be a great difference in quality, I‘d assume.

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601

Depends what you give them. I ran a comparison with the intro pages from マリみて 1 at one point, and there were some definite differences.

The other difference is that chatgpt can spit out options in specific styles, or give you multiple ways to say something

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602

So I just tried “I’ll definitely read it”

HelloTalk (real people): 絶対読むよ！

Google: 必ず読むよ

Chatgpt got lengthy, so under details

Chatgpt: give me a few ways to say 'I'll definitely read it' in Japanese

Sure! Here are several natural ways to say “I’ll definitely read it” in Japanese, depending on tone and formality:

1. Polite / Standard

  • 絶対に読みます。
    Zettai ni yomimasu.
    → “I will definitely read it.” (Neutral, polite)

2. Casual / Friendly

  • 絶対読むよ。
    Zettai yomu yo.
    → “I’ll definitely read it.” (Casual, assuring)

  • ちゃんと読むから。
    Chanto yomu kara.
    → “I’ll read it properly, I promise.” (Reassuring, casual)

3. Emphatic / Strong Commitment

  • 必ず読むよ。
    Kanarazu yomu yo.
    → “I’ll read it for sure.” (Strongly committed)

  • 絶対読むって！
    Zettai yomu tte!
    → “I said I’d definitely read it!” (Very casual, playful or emphatic)

4. Formal / Professional

  • 必ず拝見いたします。
    Kanarazu haiken itashimasu.
    → “I will certainly read (look at) it.” (Very formal, humble — used in business or respectful contexts)

Let me know the situation or tone you’re going for, and I can tailor it further!

Chatgpt: 日本語で「I'll definitely read it!」は何ですか？複数言い方 (response in JP)

「I’ll definitely read it!」の日本語訳には、ニュアンスや丁寧さの違いによっていくつかの言い方があります。以下に複数の表現を紹介します：

:star2: 丁寧な言い方（フォーマル）

  1. 絶対に読みます！
    → 直訳に近い形で、強い意志を感じさせる表現。

  2. 必ず読みます！
    → 少し柔らかい響きですが、しっかりと読む意志を伝えられます。

  3. 拝見させていただきます！
    → ビジネスや目上の人に対して使う謙譲表現（丁寧で礼儀正しい）。

:blush: カジュアルな言い方（友達や親しい人に）

  1. 絶対読むよ！
    → フレンドリーで元気な感じ。

  2. 絶対読むね！
    → 柔らかく親しみを込めた言い方。

  3. ちゃんと読むよ！
    → 「ちゃんと（しっかり）」というニュアンスを強調。

  4. 読むに決まってるじゃん！
    → くだけた口調で、少し冗談っぽく確信を伝える。

使う場面や相手に合わせて、自然な表現を選ぶと良いですね。希望があれば、特定の状況に合った例文も作れます！

Definitely some things I wouldn’t have thought of in the chatgpt ones… And I love getting the whole explanation back in JP, cuz I can absorb other phrases like that too (like 直訳に近い形で、 強い意志を感じさせる表現。 For saying something’s a pretty direct/literal translation). So I think for this one thing, I’ll consult it in the future

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603

This is of course not a fair comparison, as a translation as such only works well in the right context, whereas you gave ChatGPT the explicit order to give answers in made up contexts.

You can btw speak with the google ai directly, and then give it the same instructions. You‘ll have to log-in with an google account and do some preparatory calls, says google if you ask for it. But I didn’t test it and thus cannot say if it actually makes a difference/is worth the trouble.

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604

What exactly do you mean by Google AI? Gemini? Not sure what you mean by preparatory calls, but I was able to paste the text right away, just like (granted I’m already logged into Google). Output below (bold text is a bit rough and divider lines missing, bc Gemini doesn’t copy formatting)

Gemini - give me a few ways to say 'I'll definitely read it' in Japanese
  1. ぜひ読みます！ (Zehi Yomimasu!)
    This is the most common and polite way to express that you’ll definitely read something. "Zehi" (ぜひ) adds the nuance of “by all means” or “definitely,” showing your strong intent and enthusiasm.

When to use: In most situations, whether you’re talking to a friend, colleague, or someone you don’t know well. It’s a solid, all-around option.
2. 必ず読みます！ (Kanarazu Yomimasu!)
This phrase conveys a stronger sense of certainty and commitment than “Zehi Yomimasu!” "Kanarazu" (必ず) means “without fail” or “certainly,” implying a promise or a definite action.

When to use: When you want to emphasize that you absolutely will read it, perhaps because it’s important or you’ve been asked to read it by a superior or in a formal setting.
3. 絶対読みます！ (Zettai Yomimasu!)
This is a more casual and emphatic way to say “I’ll definitely read it!” "Zettai" (絶対) means “absolutely” or “definitely,” and it carries a strong, almost playful, tone.

When to use: Primarily with close friends or family. It’s too strong and informal for business or more formal interactions.
4**. 拝読します！ (Haichō Shimasu!) - Formal/Humble**
If you’re reading something written by someone of higher status (like a boss, teacher, or senior), or a very important document, this is the most humble and respectful option. "Haichō Suru" (拝読する) is the humble form of “to read.”

When to use: In very formal situations, especially when speaking to superiors or about their work.

Deep Research

Gemini AI - 日本語で「I'll definitely read it!」は何ですか？複数言い方

はい、日本語で「I’ll definitely read it!」は状況やニュアンスによっていくつかの言い方があります。

「I’ll definitely read it!」の日本語表現
1. ぜひ読みます！
これが最も一般的で自然な表現です。

「ぜひ」は「by all means」や「definitely」といった意味合いを持ち、相手の勧めに積極的に応じる気持ちを表します。
例： 「この本、面白いですよ。」 → 「ぜひ読みます！」
2. 必ず読みます！
「ぜひ読みます！」よりも、さらに強い「確実に読む」という意思を伝えたい場合に使うことができます。

「必ず」は「without fail」や「certainly」といった意味で、約束に近いニュアンスです。
例： 「来週までにこの資料に目を通しておいてください。」 → 「必ず読みます！」
3. 絶対読みます！
これは非常にカジュアルで、親しい間柄で使われることが多い表現です。

「絶対」は「absolutely」や「definitely」という意味合いで、強調したい気持ちが強く表れます。
例： 「これ、めちゃくちゃ面白いから読んでみて！」 → 「絶対読みます！」
4. 拝読します！ (謙譲語)
目上の人やビジネスの場で、相手が書いたものや重要な文書などを読む場合に使う、より丁寧な表現です。

「拝読する」は「読む」の謙譲語で、相手への敬意を表します。
例： 「先生の最新の論文、近いうちに拝読します。」
5. 読ませていただきます！ (謙譲語)
こちらも丁寧な表現ですが、「拝読します」よりは少し柔らかい印象です。相手が書いたものや、読む機会を与えてくれたことへの感謝の気持ちも含まれることがあります。

例： 「企画書、後ほど読ませていただきます。」
これらの表現は、話す相手や状況、読もうとしているものの種類によって使い分けることで、より自然な日本語になります。

Deep Research

Definitely prefer ChatGPTs formatting and explanation style

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605

I don’t know its name, as I wasn’t that much interested in that. If it’s the engine Google made, then that’s the one I mean. I can test the same with Microsoft‘s AI this weekend. For me it’s the most easiest to use as in Windows there is nowadays a prompt to directly talk with their AI without the need to install an app or such. I used it once to ask (in Japanese) for the name of the Japanese prime minister and it gave a correct answer in Japanese incl. Wikipedia as source, but after that I immediately forgot where it was that I used it :wink:

And yes, of these two I‘d also prefer ChatGPT.

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606

If you feel like it. I’m content to stick with GPT personally, as I don’t use my PC much in the first place, and am also averse to giving MS (or Google) the extra info

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607

I heard in German radio this week that Google‘s AI supports kind of a “private mode“ i.e. somewhere in the settings you can determine that your session is not saved and not used to improve their engine.

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