I bought the Kiki audiobook because all the hiragana was driving me nuts. I never thought I’d be one to complain about that, but it takes a ton of energy to parse words with nothing but hiragana to go on. And I’m excited for the good listening practice!
I haven’t had any lessons or speaking practice lately.
I’ve been dealing with some crappy bureaucracy problems lately and that’s been getting me down and wasting lots of my precious energy, sadly.
But on the plus side, I’m almost ready to post my summary for Harta issue 84!
ETA: summary posted! (click for pictures, if not for the commentary haha)
Kanji count: 1294
Bookmeter total page count: 14382
(Not sure how to find my bookmeter page count for the year)
I’m on the last volume of はなにあらし Why must it end???
Reading bingo has fallen by the wayside. I was really looking forward to it, but then once I went all in on Harta it started feeling like way too much to keep track of all at the same time.
Summer was a roller coaster, and I only finished two issues of Harta in the last 2-3 months. Despite that, it seems like my pace is actually improving.
Kanji are going well. I added in a mini-review session in the evening and that helps the morning review sessions not be too overwhelming.
I didn’t mention speaking or writing skills at all in the above, but somehow I got inspired about that after posting anyway. I scheduled two italki lessons – one with a new-to-me teacher who does diary correction, and one with the teacher I’ve been studying with all along who is just so much fun to talk to.
So I now have two weeks before the first lesson to start writing in Japanese again!
I haven’t finished yet, but I think it’s going to end before they start college Just give me another 13 volumes of Chidori at University and Nanoha baking up a storm!
One of the things I loved about the Kase-san series is that we got college life, in the followup series, as well. I should probably try seeing where that’s at now, one of these days
Still need to finish my はなにあらし reread, but no rush there
I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. I don’t think the tipping point had much to do with Japanese study, but nonetheless, Japanese study is probably where the time/attention budget cuts will have to happen.
Possibilities:
Harta. Harta, you have been so good to me. But I may need to take a break. It’s not you, it’s me.
Book clubs? I could let myself fall behind, but I’m not sure if I have the heart to truly quit any book clubs. And as long as I’m still sort of participating, falling behind will probably bother me …
Kanji. I have made huge strides due to my goal of learning one thousand new kanji this year, but maybe I could change the goal to 900? After all, it’s not like I will stop adding kanji until I at least have all jyouyou kanji, I would just be slowing my pace a little bit. And review sessions have been getting kind of intense lately.
Slowing my pace on both kanji and Harta feels like it may be the correct answer.
I’m switching it up! Mid-October I decided to take a break from Harta and focus on book club books. Now I think I will pick Harta back up and besides that just read whatever I want whenever I want. No guilt towards book club books!
Also, I saw the Goals & Plans 2025 + Review 2024 thread, which prompted me to do a summary of 2024 in my OP. After all, December barely counts as part of the year.
I thought about making some goals, but … that doesn’t really work for me with where I’m at now. Here are some desires, though!
do italki lessons again!
find a tutor who speaks Japanese and Spanish, and get them to help me bring my Spanish up/back to conversational.
The speaking Japanese part is important because what my brain does is bring up words from whatever language I have been learning most recently, so if I can say that word and they just tell me what it is in Spanish, I think that would be great.)
read more prose!
honestly I would love to go on an aoitori book spree
maybe keep track of how many books I read this year?
oh, also, I had this idea for “reverse bingo”, might try that
Actually, I think maybe I’m getting a little burnt out? I mean, with all the stress that has happened and is continuing to happen this fall/early winter … I’m just tired and feeling like the joy is getting sucked out of things…
Or maybe it’s like my infatuation with Japanese is fading, because infatuation can never last forever, it has to change into something more stable and enduring at some point. I want Japanese to make my brain feel sparkly again! But on the other hand I recognize that my skills have improved and that makes it possible for me to access some of the things that I longed for before but were out of reach.
Is this the dreaded intermediate plateau??!!
Does anyone else have experience with that kind of transition that you would like to share? I would love to hear other peoples’ experiences with it.
I saw your post yesterday and have been pondering it since; I want to write up a nice, long, inspirational post about my experiences, but I don’t think I can.
So in my JP learning experience, I started learning probably, uh, maybe 12 or 13 years ago. All self taught, no idea what I was doing, wasn’t using cool stuff like Wanikani and study plans and the JP community in general, it was basically just Genki. Which meant that it really wasn’t until, hmm, maybe four or five years ago that I really began to read things, and only within the last two years or so I’ve felt like I can say I can read in Japanese versus making each book its own study project they still are sometimes. So for me the shiny spark of “omg I’m reading in Japanese!!!” only kicked in recently, and my reading improvements have been quick enough to maintain said spark fairly well.
Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re feeling a bit of burnout. I know I am; the holiday seasons are always really hard for me. My schedule gets disrupted, suddenly all my friends are free and want to hang out, family members are visiting, etc. And I’ve also noticed that after some intense periods of Japanese, or after just a really long block of time learning and reading, it just takes my brain a bit to chew through all the good information and incorporate it, and during that time it has less resources to work on other things, so it often feels like a downswing in terms of my comprehension. I’ll usually maintain some regular reading, but divert a larger chunk of my attention to other things while my brain works through it’s funk. (Some super-interesting looking book getting voted in as a new club pick usually brings me back.)
Yeah, the magic is gone. I think the magic died a couple years ago for me, when I realized I could read basically what I wanted (provided a dictionary for more niche subjects or literary texts) and watch whatever I wanted. Like I reached my goals…that’s it? I think also the disappointment of not being able to output fluidly compared to my level of comprehension played into it. Even still, I can talk all day in Japanese but I’m not able to express myself like I do in English so I’m disappointed by it, in a way.
So…I let the magic go. I can’t chase the high of ‘omg I understand this!’ anymore, because that’s like chasing the high of puppy love in a new relationship. Instead I take joy in finding books and tv shows and whatnot which I otherwise couldn’t understand. I take joy in uncovering weird little nuances of culture that would be hard to grasp without all my built up knowledge. And I enjoy being surprised by the seemingly endless supply of youkai that exist in Japanese history
Well said! It’s natural that what’s exciting and new shifts as you gain more experience; it feels like a surprisingly large part of language learning is fine-turning how often you move your own fulfilling goal posts.
Aww, thank you for your super thoughtful reply, though!
This is a great point. I’ve been pushing myself in terms of kanji and I’ve made great progress, but because there are SO MANY I also sense how far I still have to go whenever I read. That’s kind of a tiring place to be.
Yes! I think my strategy has to be first take a break during December and let myself just be, but then second … YOUKAI! ahem, dig into those nuances, explore history and literature more, really take advantage of the level that I’ve reached.
Bookmeter kindly created this overview of my reading in 2024 for me! I read 43 volumes, of which 1 was an audio book, 1 was a children’s prose book, 1 was a children’s picture book, and the rest were manga.
I just found your Booksellers and Librarians list; I love the idea! I don’t know if you’re looking for more entries for it, but two books that popped to mind that aren’t on the list are ガイコツ書店員 本田さん 1 | L32?? and 本屋の八木くん | L24??. Both are manga, so if that’s not what you’re looking for just ignore me.
So, I decided my overarching goal for 2025 is “Less perfection, more joy!” and that has to apply to language learning as well!
Consequently, my only “hard” (ish) goal for 2025 is
read at least 10 issues of Harta
Since my last update I:
did some more italki lessons!
found a tutor who speaks Japanese and Spanish and did one introductory lesson with them (want to do more)
started the Silent Witch book club (reading prose!)
started working on my “reverse bingo” idea
Someone started an “intermediate plateau” thread, and I will probably post something there later, but I’m thinking the IP can be a lot of things. Like:
burnout from studying really hard during the beginner phase
difficulty transitioning from the “even small gains are significant gains” phase to the “less noticeable gains” phase
transitioning from an “infatuation” with the language to a more stable relationship
feeling stuck in a rut if you don’t change your study habits enough
That last one says a lot about my language learning/autodidact philosophy. I think routine is super important, but at the same time I think sometimes it’s really important abandon your previous plans and change your approach. For me, if I don’t do that when the feeling of stagnation strikes me then I will definitely get burnt out.
Why must it end???
I think my strategy has to be first take a break during December and let myself just be, but then second … 
I’m pleased you enjoyed my list concept. 