Luna's Learning Log

Japanese
608

Assuming it requires login, they’re still saving something - otherwise why would you need to be logged in? But better than nothing

2 Likes
609

fwiw, ChatGPT also has a private mode and you can delete past “chats” with it and I’m pretty sure they aren’t used to train the model (if they haven’t been picked up already). Less sure about deleted chats though, so if this matters to you, you should verify that yourself.

I have no skin in any particular company’s AI, but I find Open AI the most intuitive to get to and use, so that’s what I end up defaulting to, personally.

2 Likes
610

This sounds interesting, is it a public server?

2 Likes
611

I’m not really sure what makes a server public vs not, but I’ll send a link. Edit: I guess it’s private

1 Like
612

For a private server you’ll need an invitation to be able to enter.

3 Likes
613

Reading 青い花 | L26 - it feels not so hard this time around, including the names (tho some I’ve just skipped over). Definitely had some lookups for words I don’t really run into much, but not to a point it felt overly disruptive. Do this is definitely great timing for a reread - and another indication that I shouldn’t procrastinate L27+ manga … You’d think ベルサイユのばら | L32 would have gotten me over that :joy: But seriously, I hate reading manga with lots of lookups, and I had just watched the anime

Also started playing 月姫 remake - definitely feels easier that last time, but there’s still enough random strange words that I’m really glad to have the voiced lines… Tho ironically, I usually read faster than they speak (but often slower than the auto text). It would be nice to get to a point where I could play VNs on auto someday

Caught up with jpdb reviews, now just getting through the new ones. Reading too many books lol. Edit: finally up to クラにか deck. 80 card to go. Some of the words and kanji feel pretty unfamiliar - which is a little surprising, since I’ve read it twice already

5 Likes
614

Turns out some of it is stuff like 所謂 (いわゆる), which has furigana both times it appears… Tho jpdb seems to think it only appears once… Which makes me wonder if there was a character limit, and all the words didn’t get imported. Since the 2nd instance is at the 96% mark

615

Come back to June/July 2025

Getting overwhelmed by my reading list, and also trying to focus on physical books rn, so here’s a list of stuff I’m enjoying, and want to come back to, once I finish some of the current novels:

LNs

Manga

Currently Reading

Anyway I should be able to finish からたち tomorrow or tuesday at latest, which will free my reading up a bit. After that, I should probably focus on 花物語 manga, since it’s the hardest manga, and that would free me up to get through マリみて and 青い花… otoh, maybe I’ll just read all of 青い花 first, since it’s the easiest, and I can finish it tonight or tomorrow… Also I’m a little worn out today so I won’t process からたち quite as well probly… so 青い花 and マリみて are both good choices for that

4 Likes
616

You read so many things at once, that would really stress me out, I’m a bit stressed out just looking at your list :smiley: though possibly if counting english, german and jp books, my list might be similiar…
Also I’m really looking forward to your thoughts on Friends when you get back to it.

6 Likes
617

Yeah… I should maybe learn from this in the future

I got really into 若草物語 over the last 2 days tho, so decided I’m not reading anything else till I finish it (sorry in advance to all my book clubs :sweat_smile: )

I’ll let you know about Friends whenever I get to it (probably a few weeks?)… I know @pm215 has read it, if you wanna discuss with them in the meantime

4 Likes
618

Finished anime:

Those both feel like accomplishments :slight_smile:

I’m going to try not to start any new shows anytime soon, so I can dedicate all my time to 若草物語 | L39?? vol 1. I’m 30% in with that, and it’s finally clicking. Still have to check translation, but not as frequently (depending on the section). Anyway the anime has me fired up for it!

Sometimes the JP actually helps me make sense of the English! (antiquated expressions, or references that I’m just not educated enough to know). Tbh I don’t actually like the writing style in English as much… it’s a bit obtuse. Otoh it loses a bit of the old timey feel in translation, and I’m honestly very fine with that.

I’m going to try not to think about other books while I read through book 1. It’s good to have goals, but I get a bit too ahead of myself. Also a good reminder that I should probably be more conservative with joining book clubs in the future.

3 Likes
619

Had my last lesson for 薬屋のひとりごと 1 | L37 today, and read well enough, for being sleep deprived (stayed up till ~4am after finishing 愛の若草物語 S1 | L24 :sweat_smile:)… it definitely makes me feel more motivated to actually finish it though. And honestly it doesn’t feel that hard (which truthfully is kinda weird)

Added the jpdb deck for 若草物語 book again… tho with 2.7k new words in it, I will most certainly finish the book well before the deck. I wonder what’s actually a realistic amount of new words per day? I currently have the quota set to 30. In the past I’ve crammed a ton of words at once, in close proximity to reading… but not inclined to do that this time around, I think

Edit: almost finished letter response… Leaving this note here, in case I forget by tomorrow

4 Likes
620

敬語で書くのは本当に面倒くさいんだけど、いい練習。最近、前述のディスコードサーバーでもっと書いてる。難しいだが楽しい、甲斐があったと思う。殆どアニメや漫画の話題についてを書いてる。難し過ぎるの部分ならグーグル翻訳とチャットＧＰＴを採用した。

Alright I’m done with the poor JP attempts… Anyway on one hand writing/discussing on discord is cool and useful, on the other hand it’s super time consuming. Some of the stuff that pops out of the apps is like “ok yeah, I could think of that”, and other stuff is “well that was a fascinating lesson” - often enough it’s somewhere in btwn.

Anyway the only real downside to this is it takes away from reading time. Speaking of which… I should spend some more time checking out some of the articles and vids ppl have shared in there… Little by little lol

One cool thing I found in one of the threads: 古語活用表 - Wikibooks - finally have more of an idea of what 〜るる pattern is, also cool to see 2-4段 verbs listed! I always wondered what happened to those

5 Likes
621

Yesterday I was 45% through 若草物語 (~15 hrs remaining). Today I’m at 73% (8 hrs remaining)… hoping to finish tomorrow, but if not then Monday. Edit: I made it up to 79% (6 hr remaining). As much as I really want to continue on to book 2, I think I shall restrain myself, and instead catch up with book clubs:

Besides those and 花物語 上 | L38 (which I’m reading 2 stories at a time), I plan to stick to 1 book at a time. Now which one…

2 Likes
622

As I hoped, I finished 若草物語 this evening, and (as I feared I might), I started book 2 :sweat_smile:

On one hand, book 1 felt much easier by the end. On the other hand, the beginning of book 2 felt quite hard. To be fair there was a ton of info dumping, shifting context, and frankly some sentences that were weird even in the English. It doesn’t help when I’m in a section about something I’m not interested in. Thankfully there’s not a ton of those - and they never feels quite as bad as the info dumping in fantasy/sci fi LNs

I have to work hard to keep my thoughts from drifting while reading the long sentences, especially during exposition heavy sections. And I vary between checking the translation every sentence or few, and just reading for a while, and skimming the English afterwards, for the sections I was unsure about. The former is infinitely more valuable, but at 491 pages I don’t always have the patience. So often the pages are just walls of text, which in the past I would have found really overwhelming, but hear I still enjoy well enough

I’m up to Meg’s wedding now. Tho I’m infinitely more interested in whatever is going to happen with Jo. The narrative keeps dropping hints that Laurie has some feelings for her, but I have a strange feeling that’s not where it will go. For one, I think Jo will be quite upset if he confesses. There’s also the fact that the anime ended with Amy claiming that she’s the one who would end up marrying Laurie. Anyway I’m loving the suspense

And I still need to finish writing letters!

5 Likes
623

Having read it in English years and years and years ago, and having been a fan of the 90s (?) movie adaptation, I find it hard to hold my tongue :speak_no_evil:, but I’m also enjoying hearing you go through the story yourself.

1 Like
624

I much appreciate it. Perhaps I’ll share more thoughts along the way then. Also I’m impressed, cuz a lot of these sentences I can’t understand without the Japanese, btwn the antiquated expressions, implicit allusions, and literary references (the JP thankfully has parentheticals explaining those), etc. I imagine I’d have been even more lost as a kid.

I feel like I’d have trouble with a movie adaptation, unless it’s doing just a limited portion. Do you know if any of the TV adaptations are decent? If you ever watch the 87 anime, I’d be curious what you think of the many original elements.

Reading these is making me think it might be cool to read other classics that I never read when I was younger. At the very least, I’m sure I want to read 赤毛のアン | L32?? this year. But that’s as far as I’ll think about that for now

Edit: I just finished chapter 2, and it says I have 33 hrs left :sob: :rofl:

1 Like
625

I was a big Winona Ryder and Clare Danes fan when I was younger, so that was a big draw for the movie. I don’t think I’ve seen any other adaptations… :thinking:

I don’t remember the book being either easy nor difficult. I do remember it was in my Secret Garden and A Little Princess era, so maybe I was just used to the writing style? Or maybe I just didn’t care that much? I have more recollections of reading Jane Austen, but those I was a lot older…

1 Like
626

Personally I add just 10 new words a day, which keeps my reviews at about 180 a day or thereabouts, but I’m pretty allergic to spending much time on SRS overall.

2 Likes
627

Idk that I would have thought of it in that way prior to using Natively… though I also probably wouldn’t have read it :sweat_smile: Not caring certainly does help

Hmm those are written 40-50 years later, and I wonder if American vs English makes a difference here. At least for Secret Garden, I don’t remember anything confusing about the writing style… but I read it almost 20 years ago. I do remember thinking “wow, kids used to be so much more learned” (based on various things the narrator seems to think are common knowledge).

小公女 | L30?? is on my list to read this year as well! There happens to be a yuri version too (A Little Lily Princess on Steam) - but I only played like 5 min b4 getting distracted. And an anime that I’m skeptical of

Hmmm, maybe I’ll get to those this year too :thinking:

1 Like