2024/12/12:
TL:DR - update on changes I’ve been making and the progress I’ve noticed more over the last few weeks, and my bingo card choices for 2025.
Updates are a bit scattered atm, partly because my routine has been messed up again, will need to set a property schedule for next year.
This is just a quick update (wasn’t quick by the time I wrote it to mark my progress with changing things a bit over the last few weeks. I’ve been managing to do more shadowing, though I kinda fell off the wagon with recording myself and playing back, though I do intend to try to bring this back and do one section a week (7 days of shadowing the same section and recording myself). each section is only a page so it isn’t that long. When I have been shadowing, I’ve been listening and repeating afterwards, then re-listening and trying to repeat with a slight delay then listening a third time and trying to repeat at the same time, recording each time then playing back afterwards. My tutor has said that she has noticed an improvement in lessons (we’ve been doing about 5-10 minutes, giving me a chance to try each A and B part with her doing the other, so first time is me just trying to say things as I see then for part A, then we switch and I’m then repeating the part B she’s already covered, if that makes sense).
)
I’m slowly getting back to reading though I seem to be switching between several books atm. With ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂, I’ve started having less of a tolerance for ambiguity again so have been reading each part slowly and looking up every work I don’t know again, think that is partly because I’ve not read it in a while, though I have noticed I looked up less words this time and seem to be starting to remember more of the words I’ve seen previously. I’ve also started being able to guess the meanings or more words from the Kanji and context, which I noticed with 世界の真ん中の木 as well. It’s not a massive improvement but every letting thing is another step in the right direction.
For listening, mostly it has been music lately, or the audio in みんなの日本語中級, which is faster but not quite native fast yet. Again, managing to pick out more but I’m not quite at the same speed yet so I have had to re-play a few bits. With music, it’s songs I’ve listened to a lot before, though now they seem clearer and more short phrases are jumping out at me. I’ve been trying to listen to Japanese music on low through headphones while studying as it seems to be helping me focus more even though there are words. Sitting in quiet is causing me to become more distracted lately, not sure why.
For textbook study I’ve been trying to complete a chapter of みんなの日本語中級１across a few days if possible, done 3 /12, it is about 7 pages of vocab and grammar point explanations then about 14 pages of exercises between the grammar point practice, speaking/writing, reading/ listening and then the actual problem exercises. I have quite liked the longer passages for listening where they give a long conversation or a report/ short story about something then ask comprehension questions. They are around an A4 page long and cover a lot more vocabulary compared to the shorter passages from the beginner textbook (expected but still good). This is partly why I wanted a new CD player as the online audio from the website actually misses those individual audio out, though everything else is included. I wondered if it may be because the rest of the info isn’t presented in the main textbook (only the answer books) but this has the written script in the textbook. I’ve been using it to read along then shadow it as well (as best I can) and it’s been enjoyable so for.
Speaking freely is still a struggle but even in English I do tend to respond more than start conversations, (which I’ve only recently noticed, this is my default), unless I’m curious about something. I need to work more on this, or at least find more interesting topics for to discuss with other people.
Bingo 2025 books, beware of Spoliers:
Original idea was just to use Novels/ Light Novels and children’s books but I bridged out to include a few manga as well as a non fiction book. If it gets me reading more varied content then it’s all good 
- Features a cat/s - liked the anime so thought this would be a good start
- Book + Adaptation -wanted to read this for a while so will read alongside the anime adaptation, but if this is too difficult, then I will switch it out for the next part of ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 series since I’ve just picked up some of the anime DVDs (will just watch them up to the point I am in the books so I avoid spoilers)
- Favourite Colour Cover - covers both of my favourites in one cover so it had to be added
- Science Fiction- one of the first books that was recommended to me
- Past book Club - wanted to read this with the book club but I only managed to understand a small part of it here and there
- Character retired (age) - this was recommended though I was originally going to read it for a different prompt
- Curious title - found it on CD Japan looking for something else, it has dragons too apparently
- Non-human protagonist - Already seen the anime and quite liked it, originally this was sent to me by one of my Japanese penpals
- Was recommended to me- Has dragons too, might read alongside the audio book
- Unknown Premise - actually picked up both this and the second one as I saw it on CD Japan and liked the cover, no idea what it’s about but I’m guessing some kind of Magic users maybe?
- One word title - think this will be more difficult than I think but apparently it’s one to read, I don’t actually know much of what it is about either
- Character with Disability - I bent the rules slightly for this one, non fiction with one person’s view of their own life living with Autism
- Title included number - read book 1, which I will be re-reading next year so will be good to see if I can also understand at least parts of this one, not my usual genre but it has been easier for me to read than most fantasy
- Natively-no ratings - one of my earlier cheaper Amazon finds, think it was printed by them too but I really liked the cover, unsure exactly what it’s about as well
- 2nd Volume of series - first volume is already in the list so might as well add this too
- Features a dragon/s - should be an easier book to read, I hope
I see a trend of dragons/ cats in almost half of these and also a trend of books I know nothing of or very little about. A few of these I am anticipating being quite difficult (for me) so I have already decided just to use it as a learning experience and see how far I can get, though I do intend to try to read as many of these as possible by end of year. I’m most likely going to start with the shorter or lower level ones and take it from there. We’ll see how things pan out though.
