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April Recap

April was a good month I would say. Watched several dramas without subs, and though I wouldn’t say I dramatically improved in my listening, I was relatively fine with switching back and forth to subtitles.

Last month I started speed-running Wanikani, I’m now at level 11. I skip all vocab, except selected ones where I feel like I might have forgotten them after burning.

April Stats
New Vocab | Kanji | Grammar 181 | 50 | 17
Days Read 26
(M)angas/(N)ovels read 2M/3N
Pages read Manga | Novels 517 | 637
(E)pisodes/(M)ovies watched 14E/3M
Hours watched 10.1

Recently finished reading/watching

Adore the art style and the story seems quite interesting. The language level varies quite a bit, when it was the little girl, it child-appropriate conversation similar to Yotsubato!, but the lore and other characters speaking was more complicated.

Very sweet and innocent BL live action adaptation of a BL novel which I also read. For me it was a bit too innocent, I didn’t really care too much about the main characters, nothing really happens so it’s a bit boring. But I think it’s a good watch for learners looking for an easy-to-understand relaxing drama-free BL.

Bought it because the cover art looks nice and reminds me of another ship that I like.
The main characters are childhood rivals who meet again as co-workers in the same company. One fateful day after drinking a li~ttle too much, they get handsy with each other trying to prove their ahem longevity. So another bet commences, whoever makes the other fall for them wins.
Yes, it sounds like plot slop to justify the spicy stuff, but hear me out, they do kinda make it work. The character dynamic is superb, their bantering and teasing is super fun, and they’re actually quite self-aware that their rivalry is quite idiotic.
This is basically a one-shot so the story develops pretty quickly and doesn’t get boring. Loved the art as well, the uke is beautiful

I also finished 3 movies that I briefly reviewed in the JFF Movie Club:

線は、僕を描く
カラオケ行こ！
MONDAYS

Out of the three I think Mondays was actually my favorite, but it’s hard to say because they’re all very different genres. It was super fun and I loved how the co-workers started working together, and I like the soundtrack with the group lyrical school.

Recently it’s finally getting warmer again, so I’m looking forward to reading outside on the balcony, we’ve spent this weekend pretty much getting it read for our kitten and spring/summer.

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I joined a new community class course recently, it’s been so far the third class (weekly). Officially the class is labeled B2, but I think A2/B1 would be much more accurate, since they work with the Quartet book. Community classes are usually quite slow, and I think that leads to level inflation.

I did join an A2 class before (1+ years ago I think) to get more speaking practice, but that one was even slower and I ended up dropping it. Like, imagine reading full novels and then there are people in the class who still need romaji to read hiragana words.

This current course is also slow, but I like the teacher a lot. She speaks fully in Japanese (except to explain when it gets more complicated) and there are a lot of conversational sessions. She works with a digital notebook, taking notes and transcribing.

Due to my reading history, I’m pretty far ahead compared to the rest regarding kanji and vocab knowledge. For the grammar points, it’s great being able to practice writing and speaking those in practical use and get correction on it. I also enjoy the conversation parts where we tell our opinion regarding a specific topic or question.

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This also happened with my in person course this year. It was labeled as taking the N2 (so mid to high B1), but it’s definitely not that..

The camradarie is definitely nice, but if I’m being honest, I don’t really work that well in a classroom setting past the very very beginning of a language. It’s frustrating though bc it’s so hard to find intermediate and above courses..

I just died a little inside. :melting_face:

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Yeah, I internally discussed a lot before joining this one. It’s still more of a repetition and strengthening the foundations. Not sure if that’s a little unfair to the other group members, they seem to struggle a lot (they’re coming from Minna no Nihongo and we use Quartet, which is a pretty big step-up I believe).

Maybe that will give me the confidence to book actual one-on-one lessons.

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Happy Pride month! :rainbow_flag:

Nothing big to report in terms of studying, reviews are being done, books are being read, etc. I did start a few more dramas and animes.

Finished

Finally done with きのう何食べた？ S2 | L25 and the ending was so good! The character growth was amazing and I was really touched. With the recent news about the government planning to further LGBTQ awareness in education, I feel there’s a glimpse of hope for small change.

Started Watching

From the first episodes I was very intrigued, and I liked how realistic the relationship is portrayed. The way they talked, had agreements and disagreements, felt very natural for me. It touched on a lot of topics about LGBTQ and women’s stance in society. The characters are very interesting, and somehow they remind me of the early side we saw of DaiShun in The Boyfriend (Itsuki reminds me of Shun’s negative and distant side, Yuuma reminds me of Dai trying to please everyone).

They did a GREAT job adapting this and cutting out the sus moments, it was very cute and Nakamura is absolutely adorable. I was skeptical, and I heard of the shitstorm western audience gave the author. It’s a bit of culture clash, as I see the problematic issues they have with the author and some of the themes in this/their other works. On the other hand, I feel like Japanese culture has much more leeway with problematic topics, as a form of open exploration without any censoring. The question is, if the uncommented depiction of these kind of problematic topics lead to a form of normalization in the reader’s thinking.

Something else to report on the more personal and less studying-related side

In an attempt to touch more grass, I have recently begun outside running to be a little bit more healthy (I am trying to lose a bit of weight too but that isn’t really working as long as I keep eating my calories back - welp).

I am a total runner’s beginner, so I did a very easy beginner programm (9 weeks of incremental running intervals, starting from several 1 min intervals to a full 30 min interval). Today I finally completed it and am now able to run 30 min in one go. It’s probably not much for people who run on the regularly, but I am happy that I kept the habit so far. After ‘graduating’, I’ll work in increasing my running interval to 40 min and work a little bit on my running speed.

It definitely feels good for my body and mind, and I hope I will keep it up as now the hot months are approaching.

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Reply to not-study-related things

Oooh I am also doing a couch to 5k, currently on week 3! Things are ramping up, but so far I have found the increments to be manageable. I wouldn’t have been able to run for 3 minutes straight 3 weeks ago, and I can absolutely do it now, so I guess the programme works :grin:

Congrats on finishing the 9 weeks, it takes a lot to keep at it!! And it’s great that you’re still going and aiming for 40 minutes! :clap::clap:

How are you finding the “mental” side of things? Right now I am still distracted somehow by the intervals, needing to slow down the treadmill etc, but I’m worried about the longer intervals where you have nothing to do but run. Do you listen to something? Focus on not thinking?

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Reply to reply

Yay, another C25K buddy!

There were a few challenges along the program, one was me being sick for a week, then other times when my schedule was busy and I was resting for a few days longer than intended. The most important thing was just to keep going (I know, if it were that easy…)

Most days I luckily felt motivated to start a running session, but then sometimes it was hard midway through. In those cases where you are really exhausted and already dread the next day, I highly recommend to take a slower pace than usual, especially if the total running time goes up. A few times I ran too hard (because I felt I was too slow), and it was really the worse decision because I felt horrible all throughout.

Especially that dreaded first 20 min run, take it as slow as you can manage. I did not repeat any days, and felt it would have damaged my motivation, I prefered to just run the next run much slower. The missing breaks were then no problem at all, it’s even better for spacing out and just focusing on putting one foot after the other. The reason is that you first need to build stamina, only then you can work on speed. So running slow, but for a increasingly longer period is what’s the goal.

Then, having a really good playlist helps a lot. I found that I run best with a Drum’n’Bass workout playlist :smiley: Sometimes I do an audiobook (double-tasking Japanese studies), but I prefer music. I usually run outside, so that’s also plenty of distraction.

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Still hiding the reply

I love how the most basic advice is actually the truest, on days where I don’t feel like going I just think “if I go, then I’m doing it”, and I do go, and I do run, and I am doing it!

I get that, halfway through is when I get bored and I have to… just keep going.

Good tip about trying different playlists, I’ll try to find a genre of music I like running to and let YouTube do the rest instead of trying the find the perfect song.

I hope I can finish the 9 weeks, I’ll use you as accountability partner :laughing: I’ll let you know when I’m through!

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