Luna's Learning Log

暁のルナ · August 12, 2025, 9:59pm

Gotcha - I agree, tho that’s not really what I was comparing it to.

I disagree - there’s nothing spaced about it, it’s totally random. So if anything it’s Unspaced Repetition System. You can probably still call it targeted tho. Anyway you could see a specific word 10x in one chapter, or 1x in the entire book (or series even). It’s true you do acquire vocab through that repetition either way tho

I tend to think of SRS as emulating (a component of) reading.

A bit… But y’all probably have other things you do with your time and energy (people, things, hobbies, work, w/e). I try to limit those as much as possible most of the time. If I have to properly work or have plans or something, I can’t do as much

Honestly compared to when I was in music school, or when I was learning programming - which both took similar hours - SRS is way less complex and exhausting. But I guess it’s a mix of habit (癖) + I’ve figured out how to make it fun for me. Also it’s a good “instead of scrolling social media” thing for me - much better for my mental health lol

It’s important to have days like that ~~Tho beware review pile up~~

Good partner

暁のルナ · August 13, 2025, 3:26pm

Watched かげきしょうじょ!! S1 | L28 and it felt easier than I was expecting, tho I feel like I’d need to watch it a second time, to fully absorb the themes. I watched the first episode without subs, and that was a mistake. I think for L28-33 shows I shouldn’t watch without subs, unless I’m specifically trying to work on audio-only. It didn’t help that I was kinda tired, and it was really humid. I’ve finally given in and started using my A/C again - after like the 3rd night in a row of 4-5ish hrs of sleep

リコレコ | L28 is next, and then if I’m in the mood 灰と幻想のグリムガル S1 | L28 - since I’ve already completed the decks for those. Hoping to get started on Goblin Slayer deck today. But also hoping to spend less time on jpdb today, so I can make some solid progress on 『人斬り』少女、公爵令嬢の護衛になる 3 | L30?? and/or catch up with this week’s portion of 明日の世界で星は煌めく 3【電子書籍版限定特典SS付き】 | L27 . I’m feeling pretty tired tho, so it may be easier to just do more jpdb.

Considering whether I should watch リコレコ in one sitting, or a few eps at a time. I usually do the former, but I think it’s probably not as good for comprehension. Otoh since it’s a rewatch, maybe that doesn’t matter. I feel like I remember the show pretty well.

Conversation lesson went well last night. Had multiple “I figured out how to say this, but not in a native-like/idiomatic manner”. I have my lesson with my other teacher tomorrow, and am probably gonna just ask to do conversation as well

暁のルナ · August 15, 2025, 1:45am

グリムガールアニメ

Felt like crap most of yesterday, so I took off work, and wound up doing about 3 hrs of jpdb, plus rewatching 灰と幻想のグリムガル S1 | L27 . Comprehension was very solid, though somewhat aided by memory.

グリムガール 7

25% into 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.7 彼方の虹 | L31 and wow the difference btwn L27 (人斬り) and L33 is definitely apparent. It’s also 106 pgs longer, so btwn that, and the writing style, and being in a slow part of the story, it feels like much slower progress. But some of the vocab is nostalgic and, and it’s nice reading something a bit more challenging, but not overly challenging. I can usually get away with 0-5 lookups per pg, but some pgs have gone up to 15. As usual , a lot are readings - but some new words too. Thankfully there’s a lot of frequently repeated vocab, so it’s great reinforcement.

I’m kinda surprised I got through 6 of these back in 2023 - but it took me about 5-6 days for each, and I definitely skimmed a lot of parts (the author didn’t learn how to do summary until vol 5). Anyway I’ve got 13 hrs of this left. So I’ll probably finish Sat or Sun. After that either continue to vol 8 (there’s an event I’m really looking forward to in it) or finish 人斬り

jpdb

This means jpdb reviews are piling up. So I temporarily deleted the premade decks, and will slowly readd when I put the book down I guess

クラにか & comprehension

Had some interesting discussion on the クラにか thread that both brought up some stuff I misread, and debated interpretation. While I usually use comprehension to refer to the more basic understanding, it was cool to think about it more analytically. “Is this character thinking/doing X or Y” questions, with no explicit answer. It’s nice to be able to think about and analyze that sort of thing. I guess 読解 is probably the word here, as opposed to 読み取る. Iirc it can include stuff like why the author chose certain words or phrases to express something. Hopefully I’m getting that right

Anyway it was interesting to see myself make some errors while reading something for the 3rd time. I think that’s partially a result of me having read it as an earlier read, initially. Certain leftover impressions or inaccuracies. Otoh everything I know from later in the series blends together. So I might have certain anachronistic perceptions of characters. Still there are things I just missed, for whatever reason. So I’ll have to be more careful I guess

会話練習 with my 2nd teacher

Did 会話 practice with my second teacher today, and wow that was really helpful!! He gave me a lot of corrections and suggestions, and then we also did a “describe the picture” - first concretely, then like how it makes me feel. Grammatically and 言い方 I got lots of corrections, but he said I did really well with giving clear description… Which is funny, cuz I get really frustrated with that sort of thing in English (too much to choose from, or hard to put into words). I basically just went for really concrete details. One thing he told me is to use て for continuing more Also apparently you can’t use けど after nouns, it needs a verb (eg だけど、してるけど). Also I use の too much, in places where it’s not needed.

He wrote everything out from the picture part, so I have something to review + he gave me a note philosophical picture for next time. Anyway it was really fun!! It makes me want to book more lessons… I’d have to buy less books, but it might be worth considering.

暁のルナ · August 17, 2025, 6:27am

I had all Friday & Saturday to read, so… I finished 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.7 彼方の虹 | L31 and am halfway through 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.8 そして僕らは明日を待つ | L31 - which is a lot faster than I was expecting! I unfortunately have plans today, so I probably won’t manage to finish it until Monday night.

My comprehension has been a bit rougher in places in vol 8, and I’m pretty sure it’s bc I actually need a break - but I haven’t gotten myself to put it down until just now (2am or so).

As silly as it probably sounds, it’s been really nice seeing so many newer or less common vocab review words show up as I’ve been reading these volumes.

After this volume, I’ll probably pause to catch up with my book clubs. If I do, then I’m gonna read the rest of 付き合ってあげてもいいかな 1 | L24 and 乙嫁語り 1 | L24 in one sitting, just to tidy things up. Thankfully I’ve already read this week’s クラにか. 明日の世界 is the only one that will take a while to catch up with. Plus まちカドまぞく 1 | L35 just started.

Besides book clubs tho, I think there’s a good chance I’m just gonna keep reading through the whole series. That would take 1-2 months probably, if I don’t pause midway. Sorta like when I read マリみて

暁のルナ · August 18, 2025, 7:58pm

I’ve finished 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.7 彼方の虹 | L31 and 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.8 そして僕らは明日を待つ | L31

Otoh my jpdb reviews ballooned, so I won’t be adding new decks, and tbh am probably not gonna be doing much at all rn, bc I’m too into Grimgar. In a very worst case, I can Abandon Due & Failed in the future. Or just do the decks by episodes again, when I get there.

On the plus side, all of my decks are at 90%+, and most are at 99%. It would be nice to go through the Grimgar decks, since I should be strong with a lot of the words now - but that’s still 2-3k words per deck, and I’m not gonna do that. Or maybe I’ll spend a few minutes a day doing that… But I’d probably still have to clear the custom decks, unless I just Abandon.

The repeated lookups in Grimgar 7-8 have actually been really helpful in reinforcing a lot of old and new words. It’s different from 2 years ago, since it’s actually at a comfortable enough reading level now. Admittedly the last month of jpdb’ing helped me get here, and is helping me pay more attention to differences in similar kanji.

I’m not sure why, but I had a bit more trouble with comprehension in vol 8. Nothing that majorly interfered, but a lot of “ehh, I’m like 70-80% sure I’m right” plus some “ehh, I didn’t quite get that” (setting aside Yume’s pseudo-nonsensical speech style - which I still mostly get)

Also I’m excited that I can finish these in 2-3 days now, unlike the 5-6 days it took, back in 2023. I look forward to いつか when I can read ソードアート・オンライン | L34 like this too. The last one took around 8 days of reading, tho I wasn’t reading straight through like I did for these two.

In theory I should be catching up with book clubs now, but I think I’m gonna start volume 9. Tbh I really just wanna drop most of my book clubs rn, but I’ll try to at least finish the manga ones this week, rather than drop.

Also, I still suck at telling ツ and シ apart. I really need to get better at that one of these days

earwen · August 18, 2025, 8:54pm

The trick that made me tell them apart is that シ is “looking forward” because depending on whats ahead the sound it might turn into シャ and so on. while ツ has no need to “look forward”

暁のルナ · August 18, 2025, 9:05pm

That’s cute and memorable, I’ll have to give that a try as I read, thx! Most of the time I work it out from context tbh. It’s mostly with names that I have trouble カツハラ vs カシハラ - like I can see it, now that you’ve said it, but encountering it in the wild, I’d be stuck. (カツハラ is a character in vol 8, and it was only at vol 9 that I finally decided to check, and I was in fact wrong)

shitsurei · August 18, 2025, 10:24pm

I at some point just got the magical ability to know which is which (tbf I learned katakana like 25 years ago ), but I really like this mnemonic. I’ll definitely share it the next time someone complains about being able to tell them apart.

暁のルナ · August 18, 2025, 11:22pm

My other occasional one is ン and ソ, depending on the font. Most of the time it’s fine, and way more obvious from context anyway. Maybe I should figure out a mnemonic for that

shitsurei · August 18, 2025, 11:24pm

The ソース drips down?

暁のルナ · August 18, 2025, 11:51pm

Hmm kinda messy, but seems like it works, if I can’t think of a better one

cloverff · August 19, 2025, 12:32am

I always remembered it because シ is horizontal because the ten-ten are laying down because they’re shleeping

暁のルナ · August 19, 2025, 1:05am

What are the ten-ten?

eefara · August 19, 2025, 1:09am

They’re the ", right? The だくてん. (Well, I guess they’re not real だくてん here, but you get what I mean.)

暁のルナ · August 19, 2025, 1:23am

Ohhhh gotcha

暁のルナ · August 19, 2025, 1:55am

Alternately - the other ソース

Mnemonics aren’t really my strong point. But I saw this, and it was facing down, so…

暁のルナ · August 21, 2025, 1:19am

Stayed up till 3am to finish 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.9 ここにいる今、遥か遠くへ | L31 - which was great, but left me exhausted. So btwn that & work, haven’t done any reading, but have done jpdb

jpdb

Deleted all the premade jpdb decks for now. Will re-add in the near future (episode by episode). Went through the Grimgar 9 deck. I’ve gotten it down to 376 new items (324 vocab 52 kanji). Sorted by deck frequency for most, though once I got around 400, the words started being kinda meh, so I switched to global. Normally I’d do chronologically, but since I’ve already read it, there was no point. There’s been a number of “oh I was kinda off on the meaning/reading” words, as well as some word that Kindle JMDICT didn’t pick up

Also did some of vol 10, but didn’t get to any of the new words, cuz I had like 145 Due words.

SAOIF

Played some SAOIF. Even being a bit sleepy, I could read most of it fine. A few words I either didn’t remember the reading, or had to figure out from context, but it felt very at my reading level. Same for the skill descriptions. I think it may actually be a bit simpler than FGO, so maybe I’ll play a bit here and there - no loss if not

Other

Hoping to get some vol 10 reading in tonight, even if it ends up being just the prologue. Anime is probably a more practical option, but I’m not really in the mood. Still have to catch up with book clubs. At the very least まちカドまぞく book club (home thread)

Update: I read a bit of the prologue, and then skimmed through the rest in English, bc it was basically a side story (with some distant background plot relevance), involving none of the characters - and even skimming in English it went on way too long.

These have both been helpful - thx!!

暁のルナ · August 22, 2025, 5:13am

Abandoned Failed & Due, and set the order to Deck Frequency. Have 810 new words left. Turned kanji off, bc for short term learning I think it’s unhelpful (makes me think I know the vocab word better than I do, bc I just learned the kanji), and I just wanted to get straight to the words.

Normally I’d go chronologically, but I skipped most of the prologue, cuz it annoyed me. So I didn’t wanna do that vocab. Deleted 月姫 VN deck, since I haven’t been playing it, and the words aren’t relevant rn

Vol 10 is going smoothly. The jpdb reviews definitely helped a bit, but I’d be fine without too. Comprehension feels good as well. Kindle thinks I have 7 hrs left. So I’ll probably finish on Saturday.

If I keep having reduced reading time (likely bc work is busy rn), I’ll probably keep doing jpdb decks for successive volumes. Kinda stalls my anime + jpdb route a bit, but I think this is more useful for the short term

暁のルナ · August 22, 2025, 11:06pm

Finally caught up with まちカドまぞく 1 | L35 week 1 - not sure I’m into it yet, but the language didn’t feel as torturous as I was worried it might.

Would like to catch up with 明日の世界で星は煌めく 3【電子書籍版限定特典SS付き】 | L27 this week. Still caught up with クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった | L27 . All my other book clubs are in “if/when I feel like it” mode

Today wound up being a bit better than I expected, so I got 灰と幻想のグリムガル 10 deck down to 671 new words remaining. Considering I started around 900+, that’s pretty cool.

Kindle things I have just under 7 hrs left for グリムガル 10, so I’ll definitely finish it tomorrow Might try to catch up with seasonal anime after that, or maybe just finish the book club manga, so I can have them off my plate. Depends on my mood.

It came to my attention there’s a 処刑少女の生きる道 | L24?? manga adaptation recently. So I might try that later this month or next, since the novels are still higher level than I’m looking to read rn.

暁のルナ · August 25, 2025, 7:14pm

Finished 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.11 あの時それぞれの道で夢を見た | L31 (I skimmed some substantial positions). I had mixed feelings on vol 10, but they’ve both been smooth reading, in terms of difficulty. It kinda feels like when I was reading マリア様がみてる | L30 … Which its hard to believe I finished just 6 months ago. They’re almost the same level now - tho Grimgar is meaningfully harder imo.

Lookups

I feel like 3/4 is my lookups are 読み方, and most of those of those are "I’m pretty sure I’m right, but lemme double check) ex: 正門. Often I either mix up readings or just can’t recall in the moment, bc my brains doing multiple things or is tired. If I was reading on paper, I’d just keep reading without looking those up. For repeated lookups, I’m clearing their review history in jpdb, no matter how “basic” the word might be. Still there are a number of new or not so familiar words - which is cool. Probably what I should do is write these words down, and use them or come up with some mnemonic or something.

Then there’s a number of 大 == おお vs たい vs だい type things. I’ve never been able to deduce a solid pattern for these. I guess them right often enough, but wrong often enough - but mostly go by memory. Otoh sometimes there isn’t an actual dictionary entry, and I just get to choose Maybe I should look this up

Sometimes there’s made up words, and the book doesn’t give you the reading until the 6th or 7th time it appears (this has happened since vol 1, and it’s the only series I’ve noticed it in). So I just fudge and go by meaning in that case.

敬語, タメ口, 意味合い

There was a scene (in a flashback) where a character said 付き合ってください and then was like “why am I using keigo?” And corrected themselves to くれない. I always forget those are the same thing, and they usually (perhaps incorrectly) have a different vibe in my head. I think of くれない as an imploring “won’t you xyz?” And ください as “please”.

This (and social registers in general) is the sorta thing it really would be worth spending some time with a textbook to reinforce Most of the time I’ll be clear on when a character is using keigo vs tameguchi, but every once in a while I don’t pick up on it until there’s dialogue

Was watching some of https://youtu.be/NzCxd1fhPUE?si=Jav3dL-kb_TvjLo8 videos, and discovered スタイルがいい means someone has a nice figure - not that they have good style/taste

読書会たちについて

Read a few pgs for this week’s まちカドまぞく 1 | L35 - so far it’s not really interesting, but is an enjoyable vocab & comprehension exercise. The humor doesn’t grab me… Like I can see the joke, but it just doesn’t have much affect on me. Anyway, it’s enjoyable enough to read in small bits at a time.

Considering taking a 1-2 day pause with Grimgar. Caught up with 付き合ってあけでもいいかな. I’ll catch up with クラにか sometime this week, and hopefully 百合オタ and 明日の世界 - but depends what I do with Grimgar. Still I’m so far behind on 明日の世界 that I have to make at least some progress this week. If I don’t catch up with 乙嫁語り 1 | L24 I might just mark its as dropped. But it’s not like it’s stressing me out, so maybe it doesn’t matter. コミック百合姫 is coming today tho.

I’m still doing mixed on ツ vs シ… It’s a visual recognition thing at this point. Should slowly get better. I think I always recognize ツ but シ is still high enough that I can get confused. I guess there’s more space btwn the 濁点 and the slanted line in シ. So maybe that will help?

TIL ムササビ