My Japanese Reading and studying Experiences - CatDQ

2024/10/14:

TL:DR - Made some good listening progress, starting to get back to practicing Kanji/ writing and started back on みんなの日本語初級 blue series. And, increasing my listening goal from 40 hrs to 80 hrs this month since I’ve already hit 50 as of yesterday.


I feel like I have made some small leaps and bounds in understanding on the listening side of things. Finding it easier to figure out what the sounds of words are even if I don’t know the actual meaning of the word spoken. Sometimes I can also guess at the word meaning from the context, not often but enough for me to see a difference in my overall understanding.
I’m finding it quicker to pick up on words that I know without having to pause the audio. And I 'm recognising more words by just hearing them.

I haven’t done a lot of reading over the last several weeks since becoming unwell, but I feel that I have made up for this with listening. I’ve continued with passive listening as well though I’m not tracking that in the October challenge. I have managed to rack up 50 hours of active listening in the space of 2 weeks (10 hours more so far than I intended for the whole months) only due to the fact I have spent a lot of time resting and trying to recuperate and being unable at times to focus on reading from a book for more than a few minutes.

The last few weeks I have gone back over all the grammar in Genki book 1 & 2 (read through, listened to a bit, with some writing out of the answers if I wasn’t speaking them instead), rewatched the Game Gengo grammar videos for N5, N4 & N3 grammar, gone back through the Kanji text book for みんなの日本語初級 red book, and started the Kanji textbook for みんなの日本語初級 blue book (I’ll be starting the main blue textbook from tomorrow again so fingers crossed I manage to finish it this time instead of getting only a few sections in and finding it too difficult).

I’ve been writing more across the last week and finding it easier to answer the questions from Genki books as well as reading the Kanji in the みんなの日本語初級 Kanji textbooks (even without the furigana) and was able to write out almost all of the 243 Kanji in the Kanji textbooks so far (220 studied from the red Kanji textbook and 23 from the start of the blue Kanji textbook) without checking stroke order first or checking answers. I felt this was pretty decent considering I haven’t written much by hand the last few months. I’m also hoping to get back to writing to my penpals again since I’ve been unable to while so unwell.

I’ve continued with my lessons and language exchange, there’s also another meet up in a few weeks (hoping I’m not still contagious or feeling so unwell by then), and hoping to get a bit more practice in if I’m able to go.

Plans for this week;

  • Continue to work on my listening trying to get a few hours in each day (wondering if I can get 80 hours completed this month, double my original goal).
  • Start working through the みんなの日本語初級 blue textbook.
  • Continue working through the blue みんなの日本語初級 Kanji textbook.
  • Continue reading ふらいんぐうぃっち book 13 (started reading this the other day and finished chapter 1).
  • Hopefully finish ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 book 4 (only one chapter and the epilogue to complete).
  • Continue with my lessons and language exchanges.

On a different note, I am tempted to join the Korean side of Natively as well (so might have to switch this to the all languages topic), seeing how far I could get by with just reading. Obviously, for the moment this would not be serious study like with my Japanese but just small amounts to see how I find it since the written language has interested me for a while. I seem to like alternative writing systems (I was studying Ancient Egyptian at one point as well and will pick it back up again at some point :joy:).

11 Likes

2024/10/29:

TL:DR - made a lot of listening progress this month that has had an impact on my understanding, sentence building and writing as well as the expected listening improvement. Going for a more regular routine from next month, adding Shadowing practice and getting back to working through the Zenitendo series as well as completing MNN blue series.


Still 2 days to go til the end of the month but thought I would update today since I missed updating last week.

For the listening challenge I managed (as of today) just over 135h. Mostly covered listening to anime series and films with Japanese voice over. Listening instead of watching the screen as most didn’t have Japanese subs and English subs were automatic.

There’s a few I will revisit at a later date, but I have found both my listening and writing have improved even if my vocabulary hasn’t increased that much. Listening to the grammar videos earlier in the month I think had an impact so will continue to use those for passive listening or for easier listening when feeling overwhelmed. I probably won’t get more than a few hours over the next 2 days so will take it a little easier for those.

I will be taking part in the next listening challenge and have decided to try building a proper habit for both active listening (30h, 1h minimum per day) and start shadowing (5h, 10 minutes per day). Hoping that this, alongside the textbooks, reading practice, tutor lessons and language exchanges, will all help me to build a proper habit and help me get passed the plateau I feel I have been stuck at for quite a while.

I’ve been writing more recently, just the textbook answers and drawing out the Kanji again but I do feel it is helping and this run through of みんなの日本語 blue textbook is actually making a lot more sense this time. I’m not taking everything in to be able to use it myself yet but I am able to at least understand what I’m reading and the grammar with just the first pass. I’ll come back to this again for the conversations for practice and refreshing my memory but I definitely find it easier this time around and don’t feel stuck or frustrated like I did last time (I’ve managed to reach further through the textbook this time too).

Reading has kind of fallen back this month with my focus being on listening and me having been unwell for a lot of this month unless it’s been from the textbooks or the 2 manga I’ve read (hoping to finish Ruri dragon 2 tonight or tomorrow). Next month I’ll have a more stable routine so hoping to get back into reading a chapter a day alongside my planned new listening and shadowing practice.

Speaking has been limited to my lessons and language exchanges but I have seen some improvements and my tutor has mentioned the change in my speaking as well. I have also been finding it easier to find ways of saying things even if I don’t know the way I want to say it so something must be clicking in my head.

Plan going forward:

  • Continue with the listening challenge for next month
  • Add in some Shadowing practice
  • Get back to reading regularly by continuing ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 from book 5
  • Continue working through みんなの日本語初級 blue textbook, Kanji textbook and English translation notes (will start on the listening and reading ones after finishing these)

Hoping this is me finally getting back to a regular study routine which works for both days I’m working and days I’m off and helps me to improve my Japanese more efficiently than I have been until now.

9 Likes

Dang, I did not realize your numbers have gotten so high! You’ve been rock solid in your consistency. Hats off, seriously!

10 Likes

Thanks :blush:
Most of it was anime, plus I was quite ill for much of the first 2 weeks or so of the month so a lot of that time I was doing around 6 hours split across the day, but I do think I’ve started to burn myself out and read very little this month which is why next month is a much lower number.

5 Likes

Wow!! I’ll echo those are super impressive numbers!

If you’re watching in a web browser there’s plugins you can use to add a black bar over hardcoded subs like that, or you could just bring out the old “put a piece of paper over the bottom screen” tech, if you want to actually watch the things :laughing:

But seriously that’s great dedication and I hope your plan for the november challenge works out too!

2 Likes

Thanks :blush:

Unfortunately most of these were DVDs or Bluray I had so I English subs were standard with the JP voice overs (most have no option to remove them) and was watching on the TV but easy enough to just sit listening to it while staring out the window or doodling as long as I didn’t zone out :joy:
Wish my laptop had a DVD/ Bluray drive though.

Thanks, I’m hoping this has started to build a habit so I can get back to studying properly since most of this year has been just reading and I haven’t felt much of an improvement elsewhere until this month. :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes

Do you know of any? My answer is usually to find jp subs and make them really big with a opaque background, but I’ve never found a plugin that will just block it for me (I’m usually team watch without my glasses on, esp if I’m watching something I don’t care that much about, but obvs that doesn’t work for everyone :joy:)

6 Likes

I bought an external Blu-ray drive for pretty cheap recently ($20-30 USD?). There’s free Blu-ray software these days, and if I wanna add subs (from kitsunekko.net or jimaku.cc), I just use MakeMKV to rip it onto my laptop.

4 Likes

Hah, glad to see someone else has done the same thing. :rofl:

5 Likes

I’ll echo the cheap external drive, mine was less than $40 about 5 years ago. And I’m not 100% sure, but I think you can use external subs in VLC player with physical media.

4 Likes

That sounds right, tho whether or not you can get VLC to successful decode the region locking is another question (mixed results when I tried, but I didn’t go too far down the rabbit hole, and I gather others have gotten it to work better)

4 Likes

I routinely forget my glasses exist (and need to get new ones), but I’m only mildly nearsighted, and almost always watch things at small distances anyway.

5 Likes

Is it easy to set stuff like that up? And do you know if I can get it multi region?

I’m not tech savvy with a laptop/pc since I switched to mobile and tablets about 10 years ago (can set up steam and apps but no idea about hardware add ons) and even with my new laptop, I’ve not used it for much (it kinda sits in its bag wondering why the hell I bought it :joy:).

3 Likes

External drive, Leawo(Windows only), and MakeMKV are all very straightforward. I’m pretty sure there’s multiregion players out there (and MakeMKV is good with that). Adding subs in VLC is straightforward. Getting the region decoding to work is potentially not.

I vary between devices, but usually watch things on laptop, and do use my Blu-ray player for the few that I have. Tho if something has built-in subs, or I don’t need them, then tablet’s nice too.

4 Likes

I think MakeMKV can break the region lock, it just takes longer? :woman_shrugging:t4:

I have a US computer and can rip Blue rays and DVDs from the UK and Japan on it, but it’s been so long since I’ve done it I don’t remember how it works :sweat_smile:

4 Likes

MakeMKV breaks the region lock just fine. Idk about it taking longer. I just know that it’s been totally fine with anything I’ve fed it.

US and Japan are same region for Blu-ray (but different for DVD)

4 Likes

Thank you :blush: I’ll look into this as it might suit my needs if I can get it to work and get the JP subs for things if they are available.

So far I use a tablet if it’s on Disney+, Netflix or YouTube, I use the PS5 for UK Bluray, (I don’t currently have a multi-region Bluray) and I use the multi-region DVD player or PS5 for DVDs. So far only one of my DVDs/ Bluray seems to have JP subs (I’m not counting the part subs in Zestria the X) and the rest either have English subs as standard (you can’t switch those off at all) or no subs.

Netflix, Disney+ and YouTube mostly have JP subs if they have the audio but the stuff on DVD/ Bluray I can’t find anywhere else. At some point it will become a moot point but it would be nice to be able to use them for studying from and trying to pick apart the audio if I can.

Incase anyone is wondering about the multi-region DVD player, most of my anime DVDs are either US or JP instead of UK.

5 Likes

The subtitle hider I used was a web browser extension that @cat shared a long time ago, but I think the website for it is dead now. subtitle-hider/README.md at main · Bennycopter/subtitle-hider · GitHub This looks like it does a pretty similar thing with a few customization options. It just adds an adjustable box that’s always on top of your screen and blocks that area, and because it’s not a web extension it would also work for hiding subs in any video player

That wont let you add your own subs though, if you wanted to watch with those because it will be on top of your new subs as well, but I also just make my jp subs larger with a big black background if I need to do that :laughing:

Adding subs to physical media you’re watching with vlc player :white_check_mark:
Using vlc to watch out of region stuff, also :white_check_mark: it used to be pretty bad at it, and also pretty bad at playing bluray specifically, but both of those have gotten a lot better in the last couple years or so

Can’t remember if there were any settings I needed to tinker with to make it work at first (I seem to remember there was a region switch option in vlc settings somewhere?), but just popped a region 2 dvd into my internal drive and vlc autoplayed it

3 Likes