God I can’t get enough of Frieren. This may be an anime I re-watch much, much sooner than usual. Every time a card from it comes up for review, I get very happy! I’m so glad to live in a time where I can learn from my favorite materials, instead of Generic Textbook 1 and 2. Also, I just love how Frieren enjoys collecting what others may seem to be useless spells. She’s following her interests and kicking ass in the process, like she should be!
Did April feel super long for anybody else? I was sick for like a week which made time seem to pass super slow. I’m almost completely recovered from it, but now all my allergies are coming to bite me now that we’re deeper into spring. Despite feeling blah and gross, I think I managed to get a lot done this month. At the very least, I’m proud of some of the progress I’ve made!
Output
I’ve been slowly trying to become more and more comfortable with outputting. I’ve already narrowed down that my main focus will be non-verbal communication first. Being able to write, via the computer or in a journal, is my main goal for now. To help with this, I participated in the 別次元の図書館 Discord’s 100 Days of Output Challenge!
I really wanted to use these stickers, even if they didn’t always fit neatly. They’re so cute! This is in my journal that I use to handwrite my book reviews and general thoughts in Japanese. I kept track of most of my days via Obsidian, as I have a daily task list which requires me to check off “Output” each day.
Typing up a book review almost immediately after finishing a book has been great! These are usually anywhere from 3 to 7 sentences. Not super long, but still long enough that I need to spend some time thinking about it. Though now that I’m 50 in, I’m noticing that time is decreasing slightly, while I’m using a few more varied phrasings. I need to work on sentence transitions a bit more for sure though!
Another way I’ve been writing my own thoughts has been via my daily blurb journal. This is a cute physical notebook where the goal is to write at least one sentence a day that comes from my brain. The bar is so low that it’s easier to do it than to not, especially keeping the journal next to me at the computer here. Between that and the Obsidian check-list, I have not missed a day since starting it. Actually, since the Output Challenge started January 1st, I have not missed a day at all of trying something output related! If you’re nervous about starting something new, don’t be afraid to set that bar so low you trip on it sometimes. For me, the more I’ve done it the less resistance I’ve had.
Shadowing is something I’ve been doing more too while I’m listening to something. It’s not a major part of my day by any means, but it’s getting easier to repeat back faster speech than it was before.
Kanji
I didn’t quite hit 1,000 unique kanji memorized, but I’m at least more than 1,000 cards deep into this deck! There may be some kanji in my mining deck that I can write from memory that I don’t have added in this deck yet, but I figure I’ll get there eventually.
Earlier in the month, I was adding all the kanji from the words I was reviewing in my mining deck. However, reviews were getting out of hand quickly! I wanted to make sure I could have some more sustainable review counts come May, so I started only adding about 15 new cards per day, then a few days of only 5, and today I only did 3 new cards. After Tadoku, I’ll start doing new cards again but I plan on doing zero for the first two weeks of May.
I spent a lot of time learning stroke order this month! I was averaging about 2 hours a day for awhile, with a few days being much more. I think I’ve gotten better at being able to predict the stroke order of a kanji I’m looking at now that I’ve been exposed to tons of radicals. I still have a hard time visualizing the kanji for words I know when I see them only in kana, but I know that will improve with time.
I have almost completely filled out this little notebook! I have another one around here somewhere thankfully.
I have already mentioned this, but I’ve been enjoying working on my own writing deck for the highest levels of the Kanken. The more I read, the more of these kanji I naturally come across, so I figure why not continue the writing deck on my own? The card pictures above was really tough because I didn’t have a こ reading for 弘 anywhere in my Sentence Bank profile or my mining deck. There were no subtitled videos either, so Youglish came up empty as well. So I ended up having to find some non-subtitled YouTube videos…which honestly wasn’t that hard at all! It was a great experience because it meant finding more things to watch on YouTube too. It’s also nice to be reminded that while things like Youglish and my Sentence Bank are convenient, they aren’t the only ways I can get audio and other examples when I need them.
Misc. Anki
My mining deck continues to grow too!
I’ve got a bit of a backlog of new cards, but I intend to do a few new cards a day even during Tadoku. Nothing crazy, definitely just like two or three cards. I’ve been trying to stockpile a backlog though for the future, so I don’t really mind if this gets out of hand anymore. Previously I deleted my backlog, because I was mining poor-quality cards. All of these are high quality, at least by my standards!
I’m getting closer to the halfway point for my mined cards goal too! I feel like I can’t possibly become completely sick of SRS, but I’m especially curious about what my thoughts will be when I hit the goal. I’ll probably stop mining for a bit until I can actually catch up to the new cards at the very least.
My Sentence Bank profile continues to grow now that I can make audiobook decks on my own!
I’ll be slowing down on the deck making soon, but I’m really excited about the idea of having more word and kanji coverage in here! There’s a lot of audiobooks of things I’ve already read, and things I want to read so my bank will be filled of things I love!
At the start of the month, I deleted my personal cloze deletion deck. I was just not a fan of it. I think if I go this route, I’ll want to do more than just have yomitan and AnkiConnect make the cards for me. I really like the GameGogakuen's Japanese Production Flashcards deck, so what I’ll probably do is spend more time on that one until I can figure out how exactly I want to make my own cards. Maybe I’ll do a whole month where this is the focus of my Anki time, much like how this month was for kanji writing.
Reading
Unlike March where I was tracking my reading for Tadoku in one Obsidian note, I’ve started to use my daily note to keep track of all Japanese-related activities.
This is my note for April 29th. Each day I take the previous total and the total from the last day and add it up, so then the new day starts out with a new “previous total”. I end up doing this while I’m brushing my teeth so it fits into my day nicely. Each month I’ll reset the count, but I do also have a monthly note where I’ll be able to see monthly totals and a few notes on some of my favorite things.
From the screenshot you can see that my goal this month was averaging 20k characters daily, or hitting 600k characters total by the end of April. I did just barely hit that, yay!
I finished six books this month! I have 3 books currently in progress.
I can’t believe I still managed to finish two volumes of Guin Saga this month, despite it being a slower reading month! I also have volume 12 in progress on my Kindle. At the end of last year, I wrote down a few yearly goals I would like to hit. One of those goals was finishing volume 10 of Guin Saga. I thought I would need most of the year because I was that scared of the difficulty. Turns out, things get easier the more you do them! Really excited to see what volume number I end the year on, but it feels good to have smashed through another goal.
Of these 6 books, I was less-than-impressed with キノの旅 volume 5. This is a series I’ve had a weird relationship with so far. It requires a very particular mood to be in, so despite being shorter volumes than other series I can’t usually binge them. Normally I’m left with a feeling of “Wow I’m glad I read that!” or “This volume reminded me a lot about (current state of affairs/the world)”. So, it’s usually quite thought-provoking, even if a bit depressing. Volume 5 just felt really…bland? Inconsistent? Dare I say it, boring? I’d like to read volume 6 eventually, just to say I’ve completed the book club for Kino, but that may take awhile.
I really enjoyed all my other reads though! 薬屋のひとりごと volume 3 was fun because I had no anime to double check my understanding with. It was a slow read for me, but I loved it. I’d like to continue the series on my own once I get through a few more series. 愛を与える獣達 volume 2 was long. It genuinely could have been 3 different books I think. But I’m glad I was able to finish it at long last! It’s another series that requires a particular mood from me, but I overall enjoyed it in the end.「やりたいけど無理」is a very short non-fiction book that acted as a nice palate cleanser. It was nice to hear an uplifting story from a very busy person who was still able to eventually follow their dreams.
Here are my three in-progress books. 5分 is my ttu read, Guin Saga is my Kindle read, and 堅物王子 is a physical book sent to me by the lovely rubygagotoku! I’ve really loved trying to make the way I read more varied, so I appreciate having a ton of options.
Speaking of ruby, I’ve been working on her bingo board! I may have finished my own, but that doesn’t mean the fun has to stop!
I had been dancing around the board so much but I finally got my first bingo! I should be getting another one in the next two weeks as well. I’m trying to not put too much pressure on myself to finish this, because currently a lot of the things I want to read can’t quite fit on here no matter how loosely I interpret each box.
I’ve also been reading visual novels! I finished one whole route in 剣が君 finally. I think my mood is just not lining up with that game at the moment. I put so much effort into understanding it, that I feel slightly disappointed by how things are progressing in the story. I think finishing Amnesia and considering it an absolute masterpiece may also have something to do with this lukewarm feeling I have. So I’ll be putting it down for a little bit. Instead, I started 神学校ーNoli me tangereー. I plan on continuing this during Tadoku, and so far it’s been really good! The art is also gorgeous, not to mention the voice acting cast is beyond stellar.
Listening
Just like my reading, I’ve been tracking my daily listening in Obsidian too. I had a pretty humble goal of 30 minutes a day, or 900 minutes by the end of the month. I was coming out of March where I was not listening every day, and I wanted to set the bar low. I ended up finishing the month at over 2,350 minutes! Just shy of 40 hours.
What really helped me do more listening than normal was creating another challenge for myself. My goal is to hit 5,000 hours of unscripted listening. I tag any listening that fits this challenge with [[Listening Challenge]] in Obsidian so I know to only count those numbers for my spreadsheet. Thankfully, the world is my oyster on YouTube. I’ve been focusing a bit on game streaming, because that’s what I enjoy the most but still struggle with sometimes. Minami Nao is probably my favorite. I intend to watch as much of her videos as possible before moving on to the next Vtuber!
I’ve watched a bunch of anime this month too, though mostly at the start of the month. I finished Guin Saga finally, and I’m so bummed it didn’t get another season! I’m equally impressed that 16 volumes of the novel fit into one season. I think I’ll give this anime a re-watch after I finish the 16th volume.
I also finished 伯爵と妖精, 心霊探偵八雲, and 虫かぶり姫. I loved all of these, but probably 虫かぶり姫 the most. Unfortunately, I could not find Japanese subtitles for it so no subs2srs deck for me. There is a web novel though, so I’d like to read that SoonTM.
I think that’s about it! Despite this month feeling completely dominated by kanji, I managed to do a few other things too. May is the start of a half-round of Tadoku, so I intend to go harder on reading again! May is also the start of 別次元の図書館’s new book club, ループ7回目の悪役令嬢は、元敵国で自由気ままな花嫁生活を満喫する, aka Loop 7! We’ll be reading the first two volumes of the light novel, but I want to continue reading from the web novel after that.
My goal, at least for the first two weeks of May, will be 70k characters read per day. I’m going to round this up slightly for a total of a million characters read during Tadoku. Let’s see if I can do it! I may need to cool it for the second half of the month, but I think I’ll make my overall May reading goal to be 1,800,000 characters. I don’t think I have March energy in me this time around, but I don’t want to expect that of me all the time anyway.
I’ll probably continue what I did last Tadoku for my next two blogs, and do a weekly re-cap of my immersion.
See you next time, and happy reading!
Always love reading these insights into your process, especially how you did a deep dive to find material to make cards for more obscure words! Amazing progress on the kanji, so inspiring!!