Let's go to Japan! A log by yours truly

[wafture_skies]

Thanks for your tips @zerohbeat and @Megumin . I’ll take that in consideration when signing up for the JLPT, likely in my country.

よつばと！was a really wholesome manga. I’ll be sure to check out your other recommendations too! If you don’t mind, would you mind telling me your method when reading つばさ文庫 books?

To be honest, I’m not very computer savvy and not a fan of the popular digital flashcards available. However, I’m still exploring new flashcards options! Though I would like something like Bunpro.

[wafture_skies]

Thanks for your recommendations!
May I ask if you track the time spent on reading e.g. light novels along with the materials you track?

[Megumin]

Yes I do. Learn Natively does that for you if you don’t want to have/want an extra tool.

I just use a stopwatch on my phone/watch/computer and then record my session for that day.

Also there are some fancy new graphs added by @sweetbeems recently:

My previous book:

My current book:

[zerohbeat]

For つばさ文庫, start with one novel and see how things go. After all they are aimed for kids and might be a bit dry… I strongly recommend going on Bookwalker or any digital store and trying out the sample before spending any money on them.

For つばさ文庫, initially I read ずっと前から好きでした. Its part of a project by HoneyWorks ( 告白実行委員会〜恋愛シリーズ ) . There is an anime (“Our love has always been 10 centimeters apart”) , two movies and two books . I saw part of the anime, which is lightly connected and thought why not try that book. I probably looked up most words and unknown kanji.

For Mirai (未来のミライ) and Summer Wars. I tried to look up only the repeating unknown words, not everything. That way at least its easier to get invested into the story by not stopping all the time hehe…. After I watched the movie (with English subs). Just to see if I understood things correctly.

Sometimes, I don’t look up any words and just try to understand from context and not worry about it. For 2/3 light novels, I actually re-read them a few months later as I found it helpful to better understand things.

Btw, there is also Bunpro’s Reading practice section!

For digital flashcards…. This may sound strange: “Do you really need them? What do you want to gain from digital flashcards”. It seems like your study methodology is already good enough… Probably getting something like Kanzen Master JLPT N3 for vocab / kanji can work just as well….

Bunpro’s vocab decks are already in beta, hopefully they will be released officially soon

[sweetbeems]

@Megumin

Also there are some fancy new graphs added by @sweetbeems recently:

Oh so glad you’re enjoying! You are one of the few that tracks all their time spent @Megumin and it allows very cool charts. Hopefully more are inspired to track their time, now that I think it’s easy to do and valuable!

I’m not sure you noticed, but on the general stats page you can also see your hours timed as an aggregate over weeks / months like all the other aggregates. I haven’t implemented all your other requests, but someday…

Hours Timed Graph

[wafture_skies]

This is so cool! I’m definitely going to try Learn Natively!

[wafture_skies]

Thank you for your tips! I actually found a book that piqued my interest - 夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口.

[sweetbeems]

yess!! Happy to hear ^^

[Megumin]

@sweetbeems

Oh so glad you’re enjoying! You are one of the few that tracks all their time spent @Megumin and it allows very cool charts. Hopefully more are inspired to track their time, now that I think it’s easy to do and valuable!

I’m not sure it makes obvious for a lot of users that tracking time has benefits on the site, as it hides some of the charts/stats afaik.

One example, the chart of reading speed doesn’t display at all if there’s no time input.

[sweetbeems]

Heh, yes you’re right. I guess I’m a wary of being ‘pushy’ if someone doesn’t want to use something. I could certainly be more encouraging… but I rather someone be surprised by functionality than be annoyed by unused functionality

[Megumin]

I know the feeling as I used to run a very high traffic website.

But there could be subtle ways of doing it. Like hovering over a user that has read a book, would display a tooltip with their reading speed graph.

Is just that it’s a shame that it’s not used that much and also I the fear of not being developed further or abandoned because it’s not popular.

[sweetbeems]

You are right that’s a reasonable fear.

However, take comfort in the fact that I view it as a pretty large distinguishing factor from other reading tracking services, especially for learners. One of the main selling points of tracking your reading on Natively is to monitor and realize your progress you make when you’re in the intermediate/advanced language learning phase.

Natively distinguishes itself by showcasing that progress through difficulty and, if you want it, reading speed.

So even if it never becomes super popular, I think it’s a big selling point and distinguishing factor against all the other reading trackers out there.

But yes, agreed I’d love to surface other readers reading speed on a per book basis… definitely in the plans. Those charts are too cool not to surface!

[wafture_skies]

Hey! It’s been a week since I started this log and I think it’s time for a weekly update.

I found a nice tracking template on a Japanese discord server which I’m currently using to track my overall Japanese immersion time. Pairing this with Learn Natively recommended by @Megumin, I think I’ve got myself a pretty good tracking system!

I didn’t do a lot this week since I had an important test on Thursday…

Books/Animes I’m currently reading/watching

1. 夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口 - The front part of the story was pretty boring and I was highlighting almost every word in every sentence…
2. スパイファミリー - I watched 2 episodes from the anime adaptation and the first volume of the manga. I enjoy this show and definitely will continue with it.
3. 可愛いだけじゃない式守さん - Wholesome anime and I can understand more than 80% of each episode! Shikimori-san is really amazing in so many different aspects of her personality.

I found a new vocabulary system - jpdb.io. It’s really amazing since I can just copy and paste my anime subtitles and they will generate a vocabulary list. I’ve also been keeping up with my daily Bunpro everyday.

Thanks for reading and have a great day ahead!

[zerohbeat]

Nice!
Just one recommendation: Try reading the manga / light volumes first before watching the anime.
This way it should be more interesting. At least in my case, if I am ahead in the anime show, I find reading the manga / light novel a light drag haha

[wafture_skies]

Hmm ok! Thanks for the tips

[Megumin]

Be sure to put the time you take onto learnatively if you keep track of your sessions so you can get some nice insights on your reading speed. (Also sent you a follow over there!)

For example, I found out that my speed increases the longer the session I do, or that I’m taking 2h less to do later volumes than the first one to read them completely.

It’s just nice data to see, and it helps to motivate you to keep at it.

[wafture_skies]

Noted! Thanks so much for the tip. I’m definitely tracking the time I spent the new book I just picked up!

[wafture_skies]

Week 2
My exams are finally over and holidays are starting! I plan to take some conversational and textbook-based lessons on italki. If anyone has any italki teacher recommendations, please feel free to PM me I haven’t taken lessons on italki before so any tips would be appreciated!

Back to Immersion, I realised that I can’t stick with one material/resource very long. Likewise, I could not commit to using my new flashcard system. I think for now I’ll stop using Flashcards and explore new ways of learning vocabulary that works best for me.

I’ve been reading my current light novel- 迷子になっていた幼女を助けたら、お隣に住む美少女留学生が家に遊びに来るようになった件について everyday. I understand the story without having to look anything up but have quite a lot of unknown words also a bit lazy to search up the words and let them into an excel sheet If only there was a easier way…

Thanks for reading and 頑張って！

[wafture_skies]

Late update but here we go!

What I did this week:

• continue reading my light novel
• watch all 7 episodes of SPYXFAMILY (top tier)
• have a conversation lesson on italki
  …and that’s about it 🫤

June goals:

• Finish at least 50% of my current light novel
• Listen and understand at least 70% of 10 anime episodes (condensed or non-condensed are both counted)
• practice more conversation with Teachers on italki
• start listening to podcasts (any tips how to effectively utilise them?)

What I plan to do next week:

• Continue reading my light novel for at least 10min per day
• Listen to 2 episodes of anime
• find a good podcast with transcripts
• take 2 lessons on italki

[Ochamame]

To me podcasts are just… immersion. Just a way to get as much Japanese input as possible, as you’re able to listen while doing other things (cooking, cleaning, etc.) So I personally don’t really “do” anything with them haha. But something you could do is practice by transcribing them, especially ones that have subtitles, so you can check yourself. (eg. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dWfySP_cKDMFj6aFfQbFA )