I’ve been debating starting one of these, not wanting to clutter up the forum or anything. Instead, I was mostly using Challenge Threads. But I figure I’ve been around here long enough now, and my activities diverge from challenges quite a bit.
But mostly, writing a short “What I did today” and making it public helps keep me accountable to myself, even if nobody sees it.
Motivation
Sometime this year, hopefully in July 2025, I will be moving to Japan to attend an advanced class at a Japanese Language school, possibly followed by Vocational School, in my goal to become a Jp → Eng translator within the next 2 to 3 years.
Additionally, I have a ton of friends and contacts in Japan. When I get back, I want to surprise them with my improvement, and so I am devoting all of my free time to Japanese.
Current Level
I am currently at a decently high level of Japanese.
I am able to read and write somewhere in the area of 2200 Kanji.
I am able to Read Novels up to aboht Lv. 30 without major difficulty. Look ups still happen, but theyre infrequent enough for reading to be fun.
I am able to watch up to Lv. 30 or so shows without Subtitles, unless they festure a lot of shouting or specialized terms. With Japanese subtitles, I don’t think there is a limit.
I have passed N1 with 136/180
Study Methods
My study is split into 6 sections based on things I am able to do by myself, and where my interests with the language are. I use a simple app by the name of aTimeLogger (Not affiliated, I just like it) to painlessly keep track of what I have been doing, and for how long. In addition, each category has an ideal percentage of my total study I want it to be, this time based on my experiences in Japan.
Traditional Study (5%) - This includes test prep, textbooks, Grammar Lectures, and Pronunciation Training.
Anki/SRS (10%) - Currently using an App called Skritter, as my primary concern is being able to write right now. Ringotan is similar, I just found this first.
Games (10%) - Text heavy Video Games. Mostly RPGs.
Currently vague and unplanned. My only two goals are to
Hit 1000 hours of independent, focused study (Not school, and not just talking to friends.) It looks like I will breeze past this, so I may up it.
Surprise my Japanese speaking friends with my improvement.
I’m not going to keep a list of what I have read/watched recently, as the main Natively site has me covered for that. Also, I read some pretty shameful stuff. Though I will certainly talk about it as I go on!
Thanks for coming along on my journey. Lets see how far this intense study experiment can take me this year!
I’m happy to see everything get back into balance. It doesn’t really matter, but it makes my number oriented brain happy. Once I’ve got it back evened out, itll be harder for it to get this out of whack again: The bigger the number, the less the percent drifts.
Today I left the world of really, really trashy borderline ecchi Light Novels and went to something a bit more able to be diacussed publicly
I spent just shy of 4 hours today reading 甘城ブリリアントパーク 3. The tentative is Level 31, but I feel thats a bit too high? 26-28 epuld probably be more appropriate.
I managed to read half the book, though. That’s a neat thing for me. The first book I ever read in Japanese was shorter than this and took me a month. That I could theoretically do a whole book in a day, if I put the time into it, is super cool.
双子まとめて『カノジョ』にしない? is one that’s not too embaressing.
Was recommended to me by a friend after we spoke about Kanojo mo Kanojo and 100Kano. It’s not even on Natively. Put in a request but I think I did it wrong.
I think the approvals are backed up right now, but the manga is already approved so I don’t see a good reason why this won’t be eventually. For the record, you can interact with the books before they are approved just like any other approved book, it just won’t come up in searches.
Unfortunately, I read too slow to read that much trash still, but I’m putting together my list of trash to blow through once my Japanese gets a little better
I’ll have to ask you how to do that, then. I’m sure its something simple, but since I always use the site on mobile, I haven’t really been able to see how the site is structured.
Anyhow
Day 2
I listened to 2 episodes of ゆるコンピューター学ラジオ. The first was very interesting, building a full adder from logic gates, and it was easy to follow because it was a topic I am familiar with. The second was a round up episode and I ended up tuning it out before I noticed.
Moved back on to Amagi Brilliant Park 3, finishing it up. Thanks to Bookwalker’s 読み放題, I can read a lot really fast. At first I thought the selection was pretty limited, and for the big popular series it is, but I’m finding fun little things through their recommendations I would have never heard of.
I’m going to add another goal of 50 Books in 2025–A book a week. I’m currently reading 2-3 a week, but I got started late, and tine will dwindle if and when I get to Japan (C’mon, approve my CoE damnit!)
I’ll probably post my time logger once or twice a week, as to not fill the forum with uploaded images. Besides, at 550+ hours, its not changing very much day to day.
I almost always use it on mobile too. If you click on your profile picture it brings up a menu. If you’ve interacted with the book before (setting it as owned, want to read, etc) it will be in your library (under Books) in that category. If you don’t have it in your library at all if you go through the process of adding a new book from the Amazon link it will give you an error that says book already exists with a link to the book and from there you can add it to your library so you don’t have to go through that again
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for science… 
