My Japanese Journey 🌺

[bibliothecary]

Moved to 📚 bibliothecary's bibliophilia 📚 language log 🇰🇷 🇯🇵 🇨🇳!

OP

After many years of reading manga, I finally decided to start learning Japanese earlier this year. My primary goal is to be able to read manga in Japanese comfortably, although I do have other books I’d like to get to one day: the 十二国記 series, the 勾玉 trilogy, and 萩尾望都’s memoirs and interviews with other mangaka.

Having previously studied Korean using textbooks, I wanted to take a different approach with Japanese. I spent a week or two learning a couple of hundred words, then dove into よつばと! and チーズスイートホーム. I’m mainly reading manga and graded readers, only looking up grammar and vocabulary occassionally.

Ever since Natively Korean was launched, I’ve neglected Japanese in my excitement to return to Korean, so I’m hoping that keeping a record of my progress learning Japanese will encourage me to read more regularly.

Timeline

2023

March

• Spent about a week learning kana and reading some simple grammar explanations
• Learned about 200+ words using anki

April

• Started reading https://learnnatively.com/series/3f84bbb07d/ and https://learnnatively.com/series/da92b7c21f/
• Read multiple N5 graded readers
• Started watching anime with Japanese subtitles
• Finish several manga volumes from various series

May

• Read multiple N4 graded readers
• Read a handful of children’s books

June

• Read multiple N4 graded readers
• Finished several manga volumes

July - August

Natively releases Korean beta; time spent on Japanese decreases

• Read a couple of N4 graded readers
• Sporadically dip into manga and children’s books
• Read multiple chapters from https://yomujp.com/, http://hukumusume.com/, and https://www.satorireader.com/

September

• Started reading https://learnnatively.com/book/b26291e5b3/ with the book club
• Started watching dramas with Japanese subtitles
• Started listening to Nihongo con Teppei

Monthly Goals & Reviews

• 9月: Review
• 10月: Goals