Learning Japanese From Zero

[golyplot]

Seven month update:

Well, on the bright side, I'm not avoiding Japanese right now, which is more than I could say a month ago when I posted the six month update. Anyway, I've continued pretty much as before - just doing Wanikani and watching anime. Progress is maddeningly slow, but I do think my listening comprehension is improving.

I've barely tried to practice reading and haven't tried to study grammar at all in months. I do think reading is important (if nothing else, it's really frustrating to not understand any of the signs or writing when watching anime), but I haven't been able to find any good way to practice it. And that's doubly true for grammar. Hopefully I will at least pick up the spoken grammar by osmosis if I keep watching anime long enough.

Shows watched:
Complete:
Carmen Sandiego
Hilda
Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online
The Dragon Prince

Ongoing:
Cardcaptor Sakura (ep 35)
BNA: Brand New Animal (ep 3)

Abandoned:
One Piece (three episodes)
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (one episode)

Wanikani Update:
Level 32
Items Learned (Guru+): 399部首 1058漢字 3394単語

[tangleweeds]

I'm just popping in to thank you, golyplot, and everyone else who's contributed here, because I've picked up a huge number of new-to-me resources in this log to help me resuscitate my ancient and slumbering Japanese. Ironically, I'm now absolutely certain that Wankani would give me a nervous breakdown, as I can't handle high-pressure SRSing that's prone to pileups (I'm looking at you too, Skritter), and meanwhile I adore Lingodeer, which doesn't spark any joy for you at all. But nonetheless I've found all kinds of other new toys here so I wanted to shout out my appreciation to everyone.

どうもありがとうございます！

[golyplot]

As far as Wanikani goes, I missed the burn reviews for the kanji 鳥 and 考 due to being able to remember the kunyomi but not the on'yomi readings required for the kanji reviews. I guess it's one of those things where I only remembered the kanji via words, not the original kanji lessons. So that was a little frustrating. I also missed burning the 校 kanji due to not recognizing it at all, which was quite embarrassing. I'd of course understand it if it showed up inside a word like 学校, but I just blanked on the kanji itself.

It seems like the kanji lessons are often like the caldera of an atoll that has sunk back into the ocean, leaving only the coral of vocabulary built on top of it behind. Although I don't always forget them. For example, I was able to remember 黒 just fine. In that case, the on'yomi reading is commonly used in words, so it wouldn't be that surprising, but I specifically remembered it from the mnemonic of the original kanji lesson.

(I also missed a bunch of other burn reviews, like 氏 and 民, but I don't feel so bad about those since they're less common and much harder to keep straight. It's the ones I *should* have gotten but didn't that are really frustrating.)

While watching Sakura yesterday, I was able to recognize her saying 五年生 a lot and connect it with her being a fifth grader now, so that was kind of cool. I'd never learned that particular word before, but I've learned (and forgotten) similar words on Wanikani like 大学生 in the past.

[golyplot]

As usual, I haven't devoted much time to Japanese lately. But today, I did finish going through all 495 episodes of the intermediate Nihongo con Teppei podcast. (The latest episode is labeled #496, but there are actually 495, since he skipped #86 or so for some reason).

For months, I've been listening to Teppei in the background while eating, cooking, etc. I mostly end up just tuning it out, but I figure it can't hurt, and I do occasionally try to pay attention. From now on, instead of ignoring Nihongo con Teppei while eating, I'll instead be busy ignoring 4989 American Life.


Speaking of which, while listening to Nihongo con Teppei yesterday, I was proud to understand the phrase 心配しないでください, and in particular, the fact that しない is the negative form of する. Conjugations (and by extension, verbs) have always been a source of struggle for me. I tend to just recognize words by the root words with all the conjugation stuff just being indecipherable gibberish to me. So I've been rereading a bit about basic grammar lately, but it's not easy to remember.

[crush]

For months, I've been listening to Teppei in the background while eating, cooking, etc. I mostly end up just tuning it out, but I figure it can't hurt, and I do occasionally try to pay attention. From now on, instead of ignoring Nihongo con Teppei while eating, I'll instead be busy ignoring 4989 American Life.

I didn't know about 4989 American Life, it seems the episodes all have complete transcriptions as well, that's pretty amazing! I may have to find some time to dedicate to this podcast to see if i can't improve my listening skills. Thanks for sharing it!

[golyplot]

While watching Cardcaptor Sakura yesterday, I noticed that when Sakura asks Li to practice together, she says 一緒に練習しない?, which puzzled me a bit because しない is the _negative_ form of suru - to do. I vaguely recall something about the negative form being used for suggestions back when I was actively trying to study grammar months ago, but I wasn't able to find anything about it from cursory searching.

Incidentally, I also noticed that the play scripts in the episode go left to right, rather than right to left as many Japanese books do. The show has frequently depicted both types of books, and it always makes me wonder why they are that way.

[dampingwire]

While watching Cardcaptor Sakura yesterday, I noticed that when Sakura asks Li to practice together, she says 一緒に練習しない?,

"Together" "practice" "shan't we?"

Or something like that. I keep getting caught out by things like that ...

[golyplot]

When listening to podcasts in the background, I usually tune them out mentally, and I mostly can't understand 4989 American Life even when I am paying attention, or at least not the Japanese parts.

This morning, she was saying "Do you mind" (in English) a lot and I realized that she was complaining about the ambiguity of the question and how confusing the typical yes/no answers are. I'm an American but that's always bugged me too. Eventually, I realized that it was best to just always treat both "yes" and "no" answers as "it's ok, go ahead." If someone actually isn't ok with it, they'll usually elaborate, e.g. "sorry, my friend is sitting here". Anyway, it was pretty cool that I was at least able to figure out the topic and understand some of the words.

For the last couple of months, my Japanese studies have pretty much just been on autopilot. I've just been doing Wanikani and watching anime sometimes, and lately I've been watching anime less and less frequently. It's just so hard to get in the mindset of learning Japanese when there's always more interesting things to do. Of course, there's a bit of a chicken and egg problem there, since studying Japanese would be a lot more fun if my level were higher. But for now I'm just drifting along. I keep hoping that I'll be able to devote the time to study Japanese seriously in the next couple months.

Edit: Apparently, this is a pagetopper. Maybe I should call it my "seven and a half month update".

[golyplot]

Last night, I watched the first two parts of Natsuki Hanae's Undertale playthrough. I can't understand much, but it's still entertaining to see him react to Undertale, since he appears to be going in blind. I was amused when he initially gave Flowey a cute, high pitched voice, since that's the exact opposite of Flowey's true character. Also, apparently, not only is there a Japanese port of Undertale, but in the Japanese version, Papyrus's dialog is written vertically, right-to-left (unlike every other character's dialog, which is written in the usual left to right, top to bottom manner).

I didn't bother trying to read any of the Japanese comments on the videos, but the English comments were all people who are well aware of the true nature of the game and commenting on his choices. I'm curious what the Japanese comments are like. Undertale was quite infamous in the west when it came out, but I wonder how well it penetrated the Japanese speaking internet. Are they like the English comments, or people who are just following along blind like Hanae himself?

[Xenops]

I haven’t read through your whole blog yet, but how are you finding Cardcaptor Sakura? I also thought that might be a good anime/manga to ease into (also, I’m a Clamp fan ).