Just finished watching my first movie with J-subs. Took me about 4 hours: I don't like pausing and going back, so before the characters spoke I paused and read what they say, looked up the words I didn't know. My reading is still ultra slow compared to my listening, but getting better. In my defense the font of the subs was kind of bad too.

A few words about the movie: Crayon Shin-chan the movie 1. My first Shin-chan anything. He's a cheeky little fellow. Besides the dynamic animation style, what I really like was all the different kinds of humour/comedies in it. It goes from puns to Shin-chan inappropriately telling what he thinks, from absurd situations to parodies, and let's not forget dirty jokes. All the while having this delicious slice of life feel (I can't imagine Shin-chan without his parents/teachers). All around a great experience.

Had for the first time the feeling I could actually scan over the text while understanding it. Not on every page, but I think I've come closer to the speed I want to read at. So that's my achievement for the week.

Halfway through Core6000.
Naruto is significantly easier to read now than 2.5 months ago.
But I still feel like I know way too few words.

EratiK Wrote:Just finished watching my first movie with J-subs. Took me about 4 hours: I don't like pausing and going back, so before the characters spoke I paused and read what they say, looked up the words I didn't know. My reading is still ultra slow compared to my listening, but getting better. In my defense the font of the subs was kind of bad too.

If you're not using hard subs, i.e. if you have a subtitle file, I recommend reading through the whole script beforehand and looking up any unknown words. That way, you don't have to pause once you start watching.

vileru Wrote:If you're not using hard subs, i.e. if you have a subtitle file, I recommend reading through the whole script beforehand and looking up any unknown words. That way, you don't have to pause once you start watching.

Interesting. Shin-chan movies aren't hardsubbed but I'd have to extract them. If I do I'll put them on kitsunekko too. I guess the problem is I dislike going through any content twice. On about a hundred hours of J-subs I got, only 10 hours are of something I've already seen, and it's really because I couldn't help it and will watch it last. It's SOL stuff and I'll take over any magic/superpower thing at my level.

Also when processing new data, the visual context really helps (like irl) and I'd rather try to make inferences from context than attempt to do the same with just a bare script. I'll do that enough when I'll start reading books.

I do watch some J-subs with pausing but without look-ups, it helps build the reading speed, but with Shin-chan I really wanted to understand everything.

http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/Level_Check_Kanji.html
I got 1500-1600 Kanji, which is really reassuring. I haven't ever checked how many kanji I can recognize, assuming it to be somewhere around 1000/~2000. I was testing based on giving the correct reading, which is somewhat disjoint from words with at least one known meaning. Although, if you were to count the number of on-yomi readings, it would be far lower.

For reading, I switched to somewhat easier material and noticed I finally am free to do other things besides breaking down the sentences or looking up vocab. I can visualize the actions (e.g. fight scenes), sound out mentally the main character's thoughts.

I started learning Japanese June 26th 2013. One of the goals I've had was to be able to read Japanese literature within a year. Fastforward to the day before yesterday, June 23rd, I finally finished my first novel, 狼と香辛料!

I'm really happy I succeeded in this goal. It's going to be one of those things I can look back upon as I get old and think of as one of the best decisions I've made in my life. And since I managed this, all those other life goals I have feels more within reach than ever.

Maybe I could finish that huge video game project I've been working on for the past 3 years? Maybe I could finish a marathon? Or maybe I could finally lose all that excess weight I gained as a by-effect from a medicine I took a few years ago? Well, maybe that last one can wait a bit; I'm going out to buy some cake to celebrate!

Well, it's been over a year since I started the core2k. In the first month I added just over new 1,000 words. In the 11 months after that, I added about 250. I stopped practicing RTK and lost 75% of that knowledge. Not exactly achievements. I'd just started college last year, and couldn't balance anki with it. College was un-fun enough, I couldn't make myself sit and do flashcards with my precious little free time. Overall, I lost progress this last year.

BUT I've been turning it around.

As I type this, I'm sitting in my apartment in Tokyo. I've spent 2 months here and have gotten so much better at listening and speaking. I consumed a great deal of manga and Japanese-language video games this past year in between classes and improved my understanding of grammar a ton through that, and my writing sounds a lot more natural because of it too. About 5 months ago I downloaded the JALUP modified RTK 1 + 3 anki deck, and I'm getting back to where I was with kanji, and this time it feels immediately applicable and viable for the long-term (example words > Heisig's keywords any day!). Just this week I've started the transition to J-J learning. I'm not going to switch over 100% yet, but I'm playing around with a J-J dictionary and I've actually found several new words easier to understand through a Japanese definition, rather than English definition + Japanese example sentences. I deleted the English translation of the example sentences on my core2k and I'm pleasantly surprised to find that I don't miss them at all. I got a bunch of Japanese CDs to up my immersion environment last month. I also got one of my favorite anime with Japanese subs and audio, so I can practice the both at once, and re-wind bits and talk along with the seiyuu to perfect my accent and inflection. I've started following some Japanese language learning websites regularly and have expanded the variety of exercises I can do with Japanese to keep it more engaging. And I've made a rule for myself - I have to spend at least twice as long on "fun Japanese" (games, manga, chatting with Japanese friends) as I do on anki. When I'm seeing results, anki is fun, and I'm excited to get to it every day. But when anki is all I do...well, I stop doing it.

This last year was a big backslide, but it taught me a lot about how to motivate myself, and I'm turning it around now.

When college starts again in the fall, I'll be ready.

Today I completely finished Genki I and it's workbook. Extremely proud of myself. I'm planning on finishing Genki II by early September!

Today at work someone had "希" tattooed on them and they freaked out because I knew the meaning, haha. Not that big a milestone though... I've known the kanji for months now. A better achievement would be that reading and listening is getting easier and easier.

I had like 4000 reviews accumulated in the beginning of my summer vacations, and I finally reduced them down to zero! Long time no see!
I slacked with anki ever since I arrived in Japan, not really doing it seriously, because I was feeling already satisfied with my level and stuff, but a few months ago started noticing that despite being able to read everything I see, that my output skills were beginning to suck.

And decided to re-try N1 this winter.

I just got 20% of the way thru my RtK deck!

I started reading my first　小説！(Novel)
It feels great. Although I don't understand big parts from it, it is based on the movie "Night in the museum" with Ben stiller. It's great watching the movie and then just reading and understanding it. It also has Furigana which immensely improves the speed of my reading! Understand J-dramas also became easier to me , although I still need the Japanese subtitles...

So much satisfaction...

250 kanjis down

Just hit the 25k words reviewed mark in Anki. Well a little under since it consists of Core 10k (which is a little less than 10k words), plus about 12k words I picked up reading 30+ light novels and another 3k from a separate frequency list. I'll set my next word goal at 30k words I've been focusing more on listening practice recently which I have been finding very challenging. I did most of the practice so far with anime but am shifting a bit to newscasts and the like.

Followed an entire episode of an anime I've never seen before (Psycho Pass), with subs; only paused once or twice.
Barely followed a couple episodes of another anime I've never seen before (蟲師 Mushishi), with subs; paused several times before giving up and just enjoying what I could (which was quite a bit, and I'd never even heard about it before).
The latter is becoming a subs2srs deck in Anki.
Considering my listening ability has been pretty bad, this has been quite exciting (even if I did cheat and use subs).

Hopefully I'll study effectively enough to pass the N1 next year. It costs too much to take it (read: for me to get to the testing center) if I don't think I can pass.

Just opened a random chapter of Yotsuba that I've never read before and followed along with ease. None of the grammar tripped me up, and I knew probably 90% of the vocab.

On my current trip to Japan I
1. Gave a 30 minute presentation on my research, all in Japanese, in front of a large audience. It went well, and I also answered 2 of the 3 questions asked in Japanese. I needed one question translated for me. I also couldn't really answer that one in English
2. I had several multi-hour conversations in Japanese with friends. That amazed me.
3. I took my first JLPT (N4) - no idea if I passed.

Started talking to a Japanese native for the first time the other day, and we can actually have basic conversations (I can only write on a level like "I'm going to the store now, I'll be back in 30 minutes". "This is old Swedish writing"). It's veerrry slow, and very stilted, but I'm surprised I can even do this much. And I guess I'm not seeming horrible at kanji since he's not watering down his kanji use for me.

I also watched some random commercials, a few things for learners and children, and tried some manga and it seemed entirely hit-or-miss on if I understood mos of it or understood nothing. More than anything this just makes me feel "I have to study hard ;_; " than a milestone though. He really doesn't know any English but I don't want to lose him as a friend/conversation partner just because I was too slow to learn Japanese haha.

Unsuspended the last of the Harry Potter 1 + 2 deck today.

Tore through the final ~1000 cards in the last week or so as I was able to hit 'easy' on a sizeable proportion (and it's the holidays).

Next goal: all 'common' words in EDICT.

Just broke 3,200 mature vocab cards!

Just figured out a great way to learn grammar with Anki, and started adding sentences into Anki.

started reading a book in japanese, its been a while. I don't know why, but despite being able to do it without much problem, I just don't. Does this have some kind of scientific name?

Like came to Japan, and my interest in Japan went down considerably.

Rina Wrote:started reading a book in japanese, its been a while. I don't know why, but despite being able to do it without much problem, I just don't. Does this have some kind of scientific name?

Like came to Japan, and my interest in Japan went down considerably.

I often speculate whether I would be more motivated to study Japanese if I didn't live in Japan. It definitely used to seem more alluring, haha. And I barely consume any Japanese media even though I used to in the states.

Tzadeck Wrote:

Rina Wrote:started reading a book in japanese, its been a while. I don't know why, but despite being able to do it without much problem, I just don't. Does this have some kind of scientific name?

Like came to Japan, and my interest in Japan went down considerably.

I often speculate whether I would be more motivated to study Japanese if I didn't live in Japan. It definitely used to seem more alluring, haha. And I barely consume any Japanese media even though I used to in the states.

同感！ Before coming here, maybe because its cause you can't have it, you tend to appreciate much more and better "japan". After coming here, its like I have Japan all the time and I want something I can relate to more, something that makes me feel more at home and comfortable (like watching usa media).

It's like I purposefully avoid japanese media...like I reject it. Or I forget how much I actually like the japanese language/media, or something.
I don't know why, but I'm really enjoying this book, and when I'm reading it I feel this extreme elation for doing it in japanese. It's like joining 3 of my favorite stuff together. Japanese language + books + dystopian scifi So I'm hopeful I'll get back to enjoying it fully, one thing at a time, but I'll get there

I'm sure some kind of psychological term exists for this, I just can't remember it, and it's driving me crazy w.

Just finished the first section of my N3 kanji book (http://shop.whiterabbitjapan.com/product...t-n3-kanji). So happy! Love that book.