#its the audio processing issue babey

[cinnabeat]

i think what happens with new songs is that i end up focusing on the music first instead of the lyrics and sometimes (most times) the music by itself is really fucking boring or borderline incomprehensible and im like what the fuck is this shit and then at some point i start paying attention to the lyrics and im like there is nothing interesting abt this?? bc the music is still like a blaring focus in my head and it just takes several listens to like combine the two and actually listen to the song in its entirety instead of separating its parts like a weirdo

#this has nothing to do with the lyrics not being in english btw i do this with literally every song #its bc most of the time i cant parse out the lyrics in the first place #like most songs the lyrics just register as like musical noise and not actual words #which honestly is how my ears work in general #its the audio processing issue babey #so i tend to listen to a song first and dont pay attention to the lyrics bc i know im not gonna catch it anyways so like i listen to the sou #sound in general? and since im not focusing on the lyrics much the actual music is what i hear and sometimes (filament fever) its literally #so fucking bizzare or (beyond the way) the music is just categorically boring #and without fail im like what the fuck this sucks and i dont bother with the lyrics bc if i cant even stand the music then whats the point #so then it takes a few listens to either get used to it or process it enough that im like wait nvm this is good actually and then i focus on #on the lyrics and i follow along with the lyrics but i can ot be assed to understand the lyrics while following a song bc i lose the plot co #constantly #and then eventually it like meshes together and im listening to the song entirely #or in filament fevers case i literally dont even notice it like its just background noise to me now not even music lmao #love discovering things abt myself #this was hours of background introspection btw lmao #michi tag #of course some songs do actually suck and it becomes less grating to me just out of like whats the word..getting used to it? #stockholm syndrome music style lmao #and theres some songs where theyre good to me first listen and thats entirely bc the music is pleasing like just bc i like it from the get g #get go does not mean my audio processing is any less convoluted

[rigelmejo]

Another April Update Babey!

Upside: like March, I’ve been pretty motivated this month.

Downside: I wanna do Everything. I do NOT have time for everything.

A list of stuff I’m currently doing:

Going through Basic Chinese Radicals (Zhang Peng Peng textbook series) - its only 150 pages, but incredibly dense I did like 30 pages yesterday. Its excellent for writing practice as its a WORKBOOK, and all the radicals and example hanzi in it I should fucking know how to write T-T I don’t know how long this will take but I put it off long enough and its my SHORTEST chinese ‘writing focused’ book so I should use it. Its for the BASICS i should be past this already! But i’m not lol so I’m doing it.

Transcribing the pages in Japanese in 30 Hours with actual japanese under the romaji - good for picking up actual spellings of new words (and picking up the new words), grammar refresher, and I’m finally reading this book through (since the focus on transcribing is helping me be less perfectionist about memorizing everything before moving on). I’m about 1/4 through the book - it took a day. So I may well be done by next week. (Can you tell I’ve been in a really ‘writing practice’ mood lately? I think I just want to engage my touch senses more lately... might also be why active video games are easier for me to focus on, lots of actively affecting/moving things and doing something with my hands). 

Going through  Read and Write Chinese : A Simplified Guide to the Chinese Characters by Rita Mei-Wah Choy and writing the hanzi and mnemonics to remember them - this is actually going to be a very long process as the book has 3300ish characters. Also this book is literally JUST a reference - hanzi, pinyin, stroke order. Why am I doing this? Who knows man. I am writing out the hanzi like 20 times and making up my own mnemonic to remember the pronunciation (and meaning if I don’t already know it). Basically I just want to solidify my knowledge of the hanzi I DO vaguely recognize/partly know. And hanzi knowledge is basically my biggest issue in reading right now - running into new words with hanzi I don’t know, or running into hanzi I do know and forgetting how to properly pronounce them. 

Reading Guardian - I wanna finish this book so bad, like 90% of the rest of everything I’m doing in chinese right now is primarily an attempt for me to INCREASE reading speed somehow so I can read this easier. Also it is THE goal. The first goal I had in chinese, the BIG goal, the goal that eventually led me to my other goals. I want to do it. I’m currently well within the capability of doing it! So procrastinating has no excuse! Its just god it takes me 20-30 minutes to read a 5 page chapter and I am in agony over how long its taking. 

Reading hanshe - its going fine. Ultimately while i LOVE reading it, I don’t know if I should drop it because it is eating up time I could dedicate to other things - primarily Guardian at present. But at the same time I really want to finish it, and enjoy it. I would like to move onto extensive reading after this story for a while though (so no reading in Pleco for a while - I have print books I want to get through).

Nukemarine’s memrise courses - this is actualy going great. Not much to say except to myself: STOP procrastinating by trying to be a ‘prepared perfectionist’. If you can simply brute force the courses? Then do it. While reading Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide with it is ideal, as is reading the Memrise Website version (versus the app) which has all the course details, simply doing it is better than STOPPING to ‘prepare’ if you never actually are satisfied with enough preparation! JUST KEEP DOING IT MEJO I AM BEGGING. (Like... I literally was brute forcing the Tae Kim Grammar Guide portions and it went fine. Was it ideal? no. But I was actually studying versus just stopping out of fear of imperfection).

A list of stuff I WANNA do (not even like in a month, as in I wanna do it today/this month) ToT. Why am I listing it? Because knowing me, even if I have no time, I might do one of these things:

Read through Japanese in 30 Hours - this has potential to happen, as I’m transcribing the book into japanese instead of romaji and like 1/5 through already so like... good chance I’ll just happen to read it as I transcribe. I’ve felt compelled to do this so I might actually. Also! This book, ultimately, is for beginners, so if I keep making progress in the study materials I want to, idk how long this book will be relevant. What I’m trying to use to prevent procrastination: the book’s falling apart so I don’t need to feel bad for transcribing in it, its beginner material and a little out of date so I really should not feel bad if I just read through it without memorizing/re-reading until I’ve perfected a section!

FINISH HANSHE - I really want one book DONE, read and FINISHED. It being digital means a good chance I could do it. I just would... really like 1 book done, to say that I’ve read a full story, AND so as I’m going through Guardian I don’t have another BIG story I’m reading at the same time. I have a lot of books I plan to read/extensively read and they both go slower when I’m juggling multiple. 

Read Alan Hoenig’s Chinese Characters - I SHOULD have already done this. In fact I want to do this ASAP, and it would be great in combo with Rita’s book - because Alan Hoenig’s book has premade mnemonics to help me with memory and SIMPLIFED characters (Rita’s has traditional), but Rita’s book has stroke order and MORE hanzi. However both books are very dense reference materials. I want to read Alan Hoenig’s book. Do I have time? Well no because reference books take me like an hour to get through 5-10 pages lol. But will I read it anyway? Maybe...

Read the Little Prince, or Butterfly Lovers, or Journey to the Center of the Earth, or one of my Sinosplice graded readers - basically I sort of want to read something that is ACTUALLY a 98%-ish comprehension material for me. I’ve been doing some extensive reading, but by artificially lowering the difficulty by reading the english translation first. And I think if I read something ACTUALLY graded lower to level, I could work on improving my reading speed. Also it could be nice to FINISH those stories since I never did. However - that would be adding Yet Another story to the list of things I’m reading ;-;. I do sort of want to do this anyway though. You have no idea how much the biggest thing I wanna do right now is solidify pronunciation/recognition of hanzi I Already Vaguely Know, and improve reading speed. Both of those would make reading So much fucking easier. 

Read Le Francais Par Le Method Nature, recording audio for each chapter myself - while yes the second part could be optional, future me and any (truly lost) learner would probably appreciate an audiobook form of it. even if its pronounced bad, that’s more than currently exists (which is nothing at all audio wise). The textbook has a pronunciation guide under every word, but it would be nice to hear/say it out loud. Also I’ve been meaing to Finish the book for ages - it is over 1000 pages its a BEAST. But theoretically it puts you solidly into B1 or B2 by learning purely through graded comprehensible input that increases with your comprehension level. I am so in the mood to do it right now. I don’t have time. I do not have a solid reason to need my french better right now. But dang do I miss that book ToT

Things I kind of think I should want to do but also have had 0 motivation for:

**Finish reading Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide - I may not do this. Like I “want to do this” in the sense I feel a need. Its important, useful, will help. But actual “Random urge to do”? I do not have. Every time I read it I find myself doing my awful habit of wanting to reread from the very first section again, over and over. Wanting to reread each chapter multiple times and memorize, wanting to not move on to new more challenging material. I very easily stall ever studying new material when I get like this ;-;

**Listening-Reading Guardian - I literally tried a week ago. I got mad the english translation oversimplified so many sentences to the point lots did not match up to the audio, and gave up within a couple pages. Also this activity is time consuming. I’m probably going to put it off for later because honestly? As long as ONLY reading Guardian is an option - as in I can do it and skip the audio - I will tend to JUST read. Until the audio is the only new aspect, I’m likely to keep trying to read rather than listen-read. 

Thankfully, there’s some core stuff I’m managing to stick to doing:

Reading Chinese regularly

Going through the Nukemarine memrise LLJ courses

Who knows if I will stick to any of the rest. But at least I’m making solid Forward progress in each language in specific areas lol.

#rant #study plan #april #april progress #april study plan #as u can tell big weak spots for me is i have a tendency to divide my time too thin and then accomplish nothing #and also i cannot stick to a fucking plan without flexibility