wellllll… so… I go to a weekly class AND see a tutor… I just don’t use any of those textbooks… haha… help
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Good sir what in gods name are yo doing at these classes and tutor? I assume they are structured in some shape or form. That is one issue I have with the lovely elderly people there were helping me to begin with is the general lack of structure despite a book and being unable to explain to me very well grammar points. That and switching into advanced japanese at my then young level.
But now my current teacher/tutor is a JSL teacher and she can go into detail and uses grammar at my level.
but also as someone who is a teacher and getting my masters to become a teacher, I have a certain love of textbooks and the general guideline they follow even knowing they arent perfect. So I go through and use them.
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I picked up the first 6 books from this series at a Bookoff and progress is slow, but I’m almost on book four at least.
I read the series as a kid (it’s originally in English), so it is incredibly helpful knowing the general concepts of the plot and what should be occurring at X point in the book.
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Yeah, I think I got what you meant! Maybe in the genre of what we’d call “urban fantasy,” just using japanese folklore? It’s been on my to-try list for a while, so I’m glad to hear you’re liking it. I’m also a big fan of youkai/gods kinda fantasy so it continues to be 
I don’t know that there’s much helping any of us in here, the 積読 is strong in this place…
Oh my god are these the Warriors books but in Japanese-
I think I just had a flashback to middle school. Good lord.
…Maybe I can find like Artemis Fowl or Ranger’s Apprentice or something translated…
Yeah, this is me with some of the manga I read! Especially with stuff like Detective Conan, it’s helpful to know the broad strokes so I can focus on the details of how they’re explaining it.
Today’s progress: volume 5 of メガネくん! (Borrowed).
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I use Dekiru Nihongo (chuukyuu) for the class but I also own a whole host of other textbooks… oops
And for tutoring we mostly just chat in Japanese because I am disorganised LOL
I guess I’m not that worried about learning grammar in a structured way anymore but I bought a bunch of textbooks when I was gearing up for n3/n2 (mostly shinkanzen master) and now I am too afraid to get rid of them in case they contain vital secrets
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Yeah urban fantasy is a good description! I guess more like low fantasy though maybe because urban always makes me think of cities… I’m not really sure what the difference between urban and low fantasy really is though. And those and speculative fiction… So many labels…
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Oh definitely! A lot of women authors have also expressed frustration with it too, as it overwhelmingly tends to get applied to books written by them even when they’ve explicitly stated it is for an adult audience or fits better into another genre.
For this particular book, I meant YA more in the sense that it somewhat egregiously uses a lot of the tropes associated with YA.
——
Anyway, no reading updates from me today but going to drop this here since FMA and 黄泉のツガイ came up:
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- AAAA I wish I could afford this aaa
- how do people find these pop up events? I never hear about them but they’re happening all the time
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I know, I was kind of surprised by the price! Still debating on whether I’m going to try going or not. . .
As for finding stuff, I occasionally check: https://collabo-cafe.com/
I still manage to miss things though 🥲 (Looking at you Eureka Seven 20th anniversary events).
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Valid. You’re also a solid level above me so really the speaking practice is probably best tbh. Once I finished the Quartet Series I was probably gonna move into meeting with my tutor maybe once every other week and turn those bi-weeklies into asking questions about readings.
Which relating too, I was doing some pre-class homework and according to some study I would need to recollect the source on, the average person sitting with a vocab count of around 4000~ should be reading ONE BOOK A WEEK (This is for English learners but should light a fire in all our butts)
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Yeah, I always have that same knee-jerk thought, but I think technically as a genre it just means “fantasy elements in the real world” rather than solely being based in cities. I’d have to go do some googling to check, though, so take that with a handful of salt. Genres are weird.
Oh yes, I am very aware of this one. Honestly, I’d argue it’s a large part of why the genre is so amorphous since things are forced in there that don’t need to be for reasons that aren’t actually related to their content, but that’s a whole different can of worms.
Mannnnnn if you’re gonna get me excited like this you’ve gotta send stuff that’s happening in Kansai 
Honestly, there’s about 70 billion different ways, I think. There’s stuff like collabo-cafe that nminer mentioned, but there’s also individual fan group notices (ex: I have the Detective Conan fan app, so I can check that for Conan-specific events), but there’s also announcements through the venues themselves via stuff like twitter, AND you can sometimes see announcements through an author or company’s SNS accounts (I check in periodically on Jun Mochizuki’s twitter for solely that reason)…There’s a lot.
I love going to exhibits/collab cafes/etc because I’m a massive goblin for that kinda thing, but there’s definitely a ton of events I’ve missed without even realizing.
If you have a specific series you’re genuinely really big on, I would suggest seeing if there’s a fan app/mailing list/etc. That’s probably your best bet on knowing if it’s got something going on. Otherwise, things like an author or official SNS account are good to watch.
…Alternatively we can just keep getting sniped by nminer every few months. I chased down those DGM acrylic standees after last time and I have zero regrets, they’re so pretty-
Does manga count-
Anyway, continuation of yesterday’s progress: also got through volume 6 of メガネくん！ Still borrowed, still being good for now.
My reading pace is likely gonna drop off quite a bit soon since I need to actually start prepping for the new school year/new first year classes. We have a new textbook again this year, so I’m going to take the opportunity to try and revamp my class focus a little bit.
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Ehhh I also think i have a pretty chaotic learning style LOL. I tend to not ask questions much and prefer doing fun stuff like reading or chatting haha. I’m not as analytical as some learners so I miss out on a lot too.
English is much easier to read than Japanese tho on account of not having kanji LMAO… also what kinda books are we talking here 
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I mean, reading is reading at the end of the day. Ill need to reread the section, luckily I highlighted it so itll be easy to find.
It was talking specifically about like graded readers and the such but I would also say that a vocab count of 4000~ in Japanese includes the corresponding Kanji. Considering too with Kanji being able to just Kinda sound it out doesnt work as well.
I picked up a ちびまる子ちゃん Graded reader that is targeted towards 2nd and 3rd year Japanese kids and even that is rough for me. But in part its using A LOT of Passive and Causative they are kids complaining about being forced to do things, or in the first chapter, about being chased by a big dog. So assuming I could easily read that within I would be pretty golden in my studies.
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Today’s reading so far: volume 7 of メガネくん！
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You’re really burning through that series! 
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Went on a manga reading spree and I’ve completed 5 volumes of various series in 3 days 
I would be one of those people but proportionally it’s only around 9-10% of my Japanese books 😶🌫️ (also includes dictionaries, JLPT practice books and ways to improve your language usage to be more native).
Actual text books like MNN, Genki etc I have several different sets of to try to figure out what worked for me and for different levels until I found the ones that suited my learning style (being stuck inside with a lot of free time and a credit card during Covid was not helpful for preventing this). Those textbooks are only about 5% including work books.
So if anyone wants to see what a textbook might be like, I probably have it and can post a few pages
In my defence, I was left unsupervised with adult money and getting actual Japanese novels etc was super expensive so the textbooks also gave me reading material.
What’s a girl to do?
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I know yomi no tsugai is good bc it actually summoned me back into the drawing realm briefly
Not my best work but I am glad I got a little inspiration spark from it 
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This makes sense. Because if you are gonna go down a structured route might as well be the one you like. So thats excusable. Same goes with JLPT books as the case of I bought a few in prep and realized I actually wasnt where I thought I was and reset back so Ive got some hanging out and around.
Neurons activated
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It’s a bit easier of a read than some of my others, so that makes it quicker to get through, methinks. There are only 10 volumes out total though, so pretty soon it’ll be on the waiting list just like everything else
I don’t tend to do this with textbooks, but this is basically why I have so many manga, lol. I was definitely that kid who wanted to Buy The Whole Bookstore and my mom had to be like “honey, we live next to a library, no <3”
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Joint check in! I forget the exact spots I stopped and started at, but since last Friday I finished volume 8 of メガネくん and volume 10 of 傷モノの花嫁, and then so far today I’ve gotten through メガネくん’s 9th volume as well.
Which is nice, because my bunpro reviews have had me wanting to scream into a pillow.
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