Powered by Pash - Random Study Thoughts and Log

So over the last two years I’ve spent:

  • €500 on ebooks (nearly all Bookwalker)
  • €300 on physical books (Amazon and Verasia)
  • $150 on Bunpro (one year at $50, then lifetime at $100)
  • $270 on WK (one year at $90, lifetime at $200, prorated refund of $20 when I upgraded)
  • €120 on JPDB
  • €120 on textbooks (Genki 1 & 2, Quartet 1 & 2)
  • €100 on Dogen’s Patreon
  • €150 on games bought specifically because of Japanese language options

So all in all, about €1,600 over two years. €800 per year/€65 per month on a hobby is not bad, I think. I spend more on that on video games per year.

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December 2024 JLPT results are out!!!

And my results for the N3 test are…

I PASSED!!

With a score of 49/60 (Vocab/Grammar), 60/60 (Reading), and 41/60 (Listening) – 150/180 total.

I knew I skilled everything into Reading (why else would I be here), but I’m really happy that Listening was better than expected; still a lot of room for improvement though–this is definitely one of my 2025 goals to get better in this domain.

Now is the next goal N2? I will probably aim for it next December.

My goal for 2025 was to watch more j-dramas and recently I started watching きのう何食べた? S1 | L28, it’s a lovely drama adaption from the corresponding manga (from the manga art I’ll probably skip to read the manga). It’s basically portraying the daily life (and struggles) of an LGBTQ couple, and I like it for being pretty realistic and relatable. Things like coming out to your parents/co-workers, dealing with being perceived, personal insecurities etc. The actors are amazing and I heard they’re pretty high-tier too. It’s not really fanservicey which is a good thing here I guess since then it really focuses on the issues portrayed.

I’m also collecting a list of JFF movies (Films streamed by JFF Theatre | Japanese list by Pashmina | Natively) which I’ll hopefully be using for listening practice (most of them have no Japanese subtitles, so this will hopefully force me to rely less on them.

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Congrats and good luck on your trip to Japan, hope it’s awesome :blush:

I'm a little late in replying but I kind of have a yearly budget. Most of my free money goes on Japanese stuff be it books, textbooks, audiobooks, lessons or games. Any games I buy usually at least have a Japanese voice over if not Japanese text options.

Per month:

  • Lesson: £40 approx
  • Audiobooks: £7.99 (audible sub and every book I buy is in Japanese)
  • Textbooks: when I need them or have the money to buy one for specific things (I have a lot of smaller textbooks on individual parts of the Japanese language).
    Books to read: last year alone I spent somewhere in the region of about £800 and I’ve just spent another £800 approx on books for this year in one go.
  • Games: £40 this month so far but both were on sale and for Switch. I have 2 more games I want to buy which is Monster Hunter Wilds and Ghost of Yotei.
  • Media - I occasionally buy mp3s but it’s like once in a blue moon. I have recently started buying DVDs from Japan though but that’s more about £200 in the last year and will be about the same this year.
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First novel this year!

I liked the third volume of UtsuKare a bit more than the second volume, mostly because you see a bit more growth in the character development. Have already queued up Interlude (which is a short story collection, I guess) and the fourth volume.
I think I’m noticing improvements language-wise, it feels like I’m starting to have to look up less and less. But the fourth volume I will go in completely raw (did not look up any summaries or anything and trying my hardest to avoid spoilers), and hope that I can follow the story alright.

I bought a few other novels since Amazon had a point cashback offer:

猫を処方いたします。 | L30?? → will probably use that for my “Has cats” bingo field
カラフル | L28 → popular book with mixed reviews, let’s see how I like it, will probably use it to mine/pre-study vocab
言ノ葉ノ花 | L29 → already listened to the audio drama

And a few manga from Amazon/Bookwalker:
カードキャプターさくら クリアカード編 | L18 → the last volumes so I’ll finally finish the series
ハレとモノノケ | L24??
メタモルフォーゼの縁側 | L21
ハッピー・オブ・ジ・エンド | L23

Then I bought the BLCD drama for Old-fashioned Cupcake, I think Togawa’s voice actor is pretty close to the live action drama actor! Was a very wholesome listen. I still have a 25% off coupon for this month, still musing back and forth about what to get for that.

So a lot of purchases this month again sigh :money_with_wings::money_with_wings::money_with_wings:

I continued a bit with Tobira Chapter 6, but so far I’m only halfway through grammar. I’ve been a bit lazy recently, it feels like I’m already occupied with my study “dailies” (Renshuu SRS 30 min, reading about 1h or so, watching 1-2 episodes of Natsume Yuujinchou or Kinou Nani Tabeta). I’m mostly using the weekends to catch up a little, but recently these have also been full with appointments and schedules.

I also watched マイ・ブロークン・マリコ | L28 from the JFF Theatre selections for listening practice, liked this movie, especially for the great acting of the main actress.

I do procrastinate a lot when I’m on my phone and actually want to study (rather going through forums and discord and reading/talking about studying than actually studying) , so I have to find a way to reduce it a little bit.

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