I hadn't been feeling well for a while now, completely unmotivated to do just about anything. But, things are finally going well again and I've got my groove back! I guess once you realise you're being sulky, you can stop sulking
I am trying to figure out where to go from here.
I have been evaluating for myself what my language goals actually are. Do I really want JLPT N1? It would be neat, sure... But what's much more important to me is keeping my Japanese functional. During my trip to Japan I realized my Japanese had not deteriorated as much as I feared (actually, it was just fine). So for now my goals are:
use my Japanese, even if just passively. I’ve been reading more short stories lately, and as a huge literature enthusiast
tadoku is really working for me. I might study a bit of vocab here and there, but for now picking up new words and grammar while reading is enough. And, getting back into Japanese cinema!
As for German, same thing. For a little while I considered taking a refresher course, particularly for grammar. But I realised am currently not interested in using German actively, so reading is the way to go.
Mandarin? Really one of those languages that I should have kept studying/reviewing. I didn’t, and now it feels like I have to start over. I have changed jobs and with that, the incentive is gone (plus the money to pay for courses, and I’m not enthusiastic enough about Mandarin to do it alone
) (and I’m no longer seeing Chinese every day, so the unintentional study materials are also gone). Maybe one day, but for now I’m setting it aside. Treating it the same way as French and Latin and even Manchu... Dabbled in it, and that’s it.
But! On a slightly more exciting note. I’ll be starting Korean soon! My friend asked me if I wanted to join her, and in a moment of madness I figured,
why the hell not. I was going to take some type of course anyway this semester. My mind was on crafts, so I did not anticipate it being a language course haha. I’m very curious though. The fact that it’s an alphabet and not endless characters is a big plus for me (ok, there are occasional characters, but I should easily be able to get by with Chinese/Japanese). I wonder how useful my knowledge of Japanese is this time around!
vonPeterhof wrote:brilliantyears wrote:I have permanently dropped classical Manchu (with a heavy heart).
Aw shucks, and I only just found out that there was another Manchu learner on the forum
Either way, good thing that you've retained your Japanese. Good luck in your future studies!
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I’m sad I had to give up Manchu! I was working fulltime back then, and trying to do too many other things, so I had no choice but to give up It’s such an interesting language (and culture!). I wish I had the energy to try again, but the fact that it was classical Manchu and the very limited amount of modern language sources was also holding me back a little.
But it's an interesting movie if youth culture is your thing. (Japanese knowledge is beneficial as it turned out to be impossible for the subbers to sub everything, in particular the net stuff)
As is to be expected when you completely stop studying two months in advance, for an exam that was perhaps too difficult to begin with. I went to Japan in May/June of this year though, and at least in practice my Japanese was fine! Still able to speak relatively fluently, and reading stuff (from regular things to museum texts etc - we went to areas with very little to no English anywhere 
I am quite excited! It'll be nice to start something from scratch.