Learning Japanese From Zero

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Mon Oct 03, 2022 4:57 am

I still haven't been able to focus much on Japanese lately and am still farther than ever from getting through the JPDB backlog. However, I have been watching an episode of Steins;Gate most nights, except when I get busy, which is why I'm posting this tonight.

When I tried to watch Steins;Gate on Crunchyroll like usual tonight, I discovered that it was no longer available. I also checked Glass Mask and found that it is no longer available either, so it's not just Steins Gate. I checked r/crunchyroll on Reddit to see if there was any major news about this and found one person had posted a list of 211 anime titles that were no longer available to non-subscribers starting today. Steins Gate and Glass Mask weren't on that list, but presumably the list was incomplete and they just removed most of the catalog today. Edit: It seems that the list of 211 was only for shows available in Brazil. Incidentally, I also found a news article someone linked to talking about several series that were removed on September 1st, so it seems that they had been slowly building up to this for several months now.

Anyway, it's pretty annoying to get cut off in the middle, especially when I had just three episodes left to go. Ironically, I had been thinking about subscribing, since I had already watched several shows for free (Bofuri, School-Live!, Glass Mask, and now Steins;Gate) and figured that I should subscribe. However, it feels a bit annoying to be forced into subscribing, though I probably will end up subscribing anyway. I knew it was too good to be true to be able to watch so many anime for free, but it is still sad to see it all go away.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Mon Oct 10, 2022 5:46 am

Wow, 3rd page, I really am slipping.

Anyway, today, I finally managed to break through the giant JPDB review wall and do new cards for the first time in nearly two weeks! The weekend helped a lot, since I was able to devote more time to powering through JPDB. I also blacklisted several annoying cards recently, which helps as well.

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(Graph of the previous week, taken Oct 3rd - notice this overlaps by two days with above)

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Also, I finally read the last chapter of The River Sanzu on Satori Reader yesterday. I haven't picked a new story yet. So far, I've just continued reading News, which is what I've been reading lately when I'm not feeling in the mood to read anything I care about and am just going through the motions of SR.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Wed Oct 12, 2022 5:15 am

Well, my return to JPDB didn't exactly get off to a good start. After two days, I've still done no new cards and my review pile is back up to 92 again.

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Anyway, I've been watching a bunch of Nanawo Akari songs lately. I initially assumed she was a Vtuber because the first two song videos I watched (Dadada Tenshi and Kanzen Houki Sengen) depict her as an angel, which I figured must be her VTuber persona. However, it turns out that she is a regular singer and that was just pure coincidence. I've watched a bunch of other song videos now, and none of the others hand the angel character (though at least one I haven't watched yet does).

Anyway, one thing that really puzzled me is where the "wo" in her name comes from. I thought that modern Japanese didn't use "wo" except in the object particle?
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby vonPeterhof » Wed Oct 12, 2022 6:47 am

golyplot wrote:Anyway, one thing that really puzzled me is where the "wo" in her name comes from. I thought that modern Japanese didn't use "wo" except in the object particle?

"Wo", as well as the fully obsolete "wi" and "we", are sometimes used for stylistic purposes in things like stage names and titles (a well-known example is the Rebuld of Evangelion movies respelling the word from エヴァンゲリオン to ヱヴァンゲリヲン). Aside from deliberate overpronunciation in order to verbally "demonstrate" the spelling to someone, the use of those characters pretty much never affects the pronunciation, i.e. they're pronounced identically to the kana characters from the bare vowel row.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sat Oct 15, 2022 6:10 am

I finally got fed up with JPDB enough this morning that I decided to just ragequit. I'm planning to delete everything and start over tomorrow, but before I do, here were the stats for my last week of JPDB:

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sun Oct 16, 2022 5:21 am

I procrastinated for a quite a while the first time I scheduled an iTalki lesson and have obviously been procrastinating even longer since. Of course the natural tendency is to always want to wait until you've gotten better at Japanese, and the rough experience in my first lesson just made procrastination even more appealing. But this evening, I decided to go ahead and book a second trial lesson for tomorrow in order to force myself to stop procrastinating and just take the plunge and hope for the best. So fingers crossed that this will go better.

I also read ch11 and 12 of いつも通りの日常で、、君からすれば today. Since I ragequit JPDB, I figured I should try to immerse more in the hopes of doing better on JPDB if/when I ever go back to it.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Mon Oct 17, 2022 5:09 am

I think my second iTalki trial lesson was less painful than the first, though it was still pretty painful. The main problem is that I don't know any of the basic conversational phrases and patterns, even stuff like the appropriate way to answer a yes/no question, and I'm not sure how to learn them. Oh well.

Also, I was planning to rewatch the episode of SAO where Sinoh mistakes Kirito for a girl tonight, to try to see if he was using feminie speech patterns to confuse her or not. But it turns out that Netflix no longer has the first two seasons of SAO at all, only the Alicization arc. It also no longer has SAO Alternate: Gun Gale Online, which is a shame, since that show was actually good, unlike SAO itself. Instead, I started watching The Promised Neverland.

Also, I started reading Koibito on Satori Reader this morning.

---

「うわっ!」と康平は、勢いを止めることができず、その人に思い切りぶつかってしまった。

I found the use of 思い切り interesting here, since from the definition, I assumed it was limited to intentional things. But I guess not.

私が高校生の時、インターネットはまだ普及していませんでした。

普及 is on WK as "diffusion", so I was surprised to see it here, since I had assumed it referred specifically to the physical process. It is interesting to see the broader meanings of words.
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby Sumisu » Mon Oct 17, 2022 9:17 pm

golyplot wrote:I think my second iTalki trial lesson was less painful than the first, though it was still pretty painful. The main problem is that I don't know any of the basic conversational phrases and patterns, even stuff like the appropriate way to answer a yes/no question, and I'm not sure how to learn them. Oh well.


Congrats on giving it another try. I've done about 80 italkis and still struggle a lot, but have definitely improved. I do this far too often, but inserting a "soudesune..." into any awkward pauses usually keeps the conversation moving along. I think if I ever saw a transcript of my italki, half of it would be me saying "hai," "naru hodo," "soudesune," "ano..." I've gotten REALLY good at (over)using these "filler" words.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Tue Oct 18, 2022 5:59 am

This evening, I watched "After Today" from A Goofy Movie in Japanese. I was not familiar with the song and looked up the lyrics in English first beforehand like usual. One thing that really surprised me was the very end, where the line "I wish that this was the day after today" was translated to "勇気ください神様". I don't think I've ever seen a translation that was just completely different even in spirit like that.

Also, I read いつも通りの日常で、、君からすれば ch13 this evening.

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Fri Oct 21, 2022 3:51 pm

Haven't done much Japanese lately. Ironically, the biggest thing is that I've had a lot of trouble sleeping lately, and sometimes I watch videos from BookTuber Belle to try to make myself sleepy, since they are very difficult to understand.

Incidentally, I learned that she hates driving, just like me.

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As for anime, right now I am still watching The Promised Neverland (with English subtitles), but I don't count that as Japanese study. I've watched five episodes so far, and I highly recommend it.

Also, it looks like I still haven't gotten through all the Nanawo Akari songs. There are way more of then than I expected. Dadada Tenshi is still my favorite though.
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