#hiikibiiki

[meimae]

1/09/22

久しぶり! It's been a long time since I've written one of these.

I've taken quite a long break from both immersion and blogging, but I think based on my effort from August, I'm finally rested enough to start again.

So, let's dive right into it!

First off, what was I up to in the time I was away? It's honestly going to be a bit of a weird overview this time around, since I'm compiling six months worth of kinda immersing, but I feel its only right to also show my struggles with learning a language. I also pursued some things in real life such as opening a new business that I have been putting more focus on. It's a small venture, but I believe it has potential to be better, so please keep me in your prayers.

All graph images are from a Discord bot that I use to track my immersion for points in a language learning server called The Moe Way. Please feel free to join!

MARCH

February was a great month for me. I read and listened far more than I had ever before and I was and still am very proud of my effort. I think because I was about to hit my two year immersion mark, so I was pushing myself to the limit everyday.

I am quite the competitive person for things I truly desire, and so of course I wanted to beat my previous record. Unfortunately around my birthday in March, I came into a very rough patch which left me really questioning what it is I truly desired to achieve with my whole pursuit of Japanese. It didn't seem like the two whole years of dedication I've had (and the several other years I've tried to get past the beginner stage) for this language would come to fruition soon and if at all. This started my relapse into depression and my descent to, and I'm really sad to say, hopelessness.

Now at this stage I was still immersing quite a bit, but not as much as I had hoped. I still immersed everyday, but with varying consistency levels. I was also very much struggling to stick to one reading material at a time, not because they are disinteresting, but because I was losing my motivation, albeit slowly. By the time the month ended, I didn't even feel like it was worth talking about on my blog anymore, which was not the correct response obviously, but it was my reality and I had to deal with it in some way.

Reading material: Sakura no Uta, Stardew Valley (in Japanese), Steins; Gate, Summer Pockets

Listening material: Youtube, American Life Podcast, Hiikibiiki, Anata no Ban Desu, JP News

APRIL

I didn't give up just yet. With every new month, I always saw a sliver of hope and a chance to try again. The burnout was cruel though, and all my energy tapered off halfway through the month. This still wasn't a bad effort. If anything it looked like my minimum immersion amount when I was just starting, so looking at it now, I can at least still give myself a pat on the back for trying. I also hung out a lot in Discord voice chat and joined immersion streams a lot more so I didn't feel as if I quit entirely.

Reading Material: Fate/Stay Night, Umibe no Kafuka

Listening Material: Youtube, CardCaptor Sakura

MAY

May was my whitenoise era. I talked to my Discord friends a lot, tried every possible thing I could if I found the energy for it, but ultimately was just not in the mood for Japanese, and even if I was, I could not understand anything to save my life which felt like how it was when I was at the height of my depression for every language I knew. The disappointment I felt in myself was unreal and I'm glad I at least had some friends who understood my struggles.

Reading Materials: Shingeki no Kyoujin, Fate/Stay Night, Umibe no Kafuka

Listening Materials: 1 Litre no Namida, CardCaptor Sakura, 100 Man no Onnatachi

JUNE

I don't even have a graph for this month. I mostly just hung around with friends whenever they streamed. I was so excited by a bunch of new reading material, but I was in whitenoise hell and couldn't even enjoy them.

Reading Materials: SpyxFamily, Hakuoki, Fate/Stay Night

Listening Materials: 461 Ko on Obentou, Youtube, Hajimete no Atsukai, Kung Fu Panda 1 & 2 dubs

JULY

Once again, don't have a graph. The worst month of my language learning journey. I swear I have given more effort to studying with textbooks than whatever happened this month. Did however try reading out loud on stream again, and just had fun laughing at my silly pronounciation mistakes with a friend.

Reading Material: Ohayou Ibarahime

Roudoku Material: Akaya Akashiya Ayakashino

AUGUST

And so we finally arrive to August. I felt so much shame and disappointment, nearing my 2.5 year mark without much to show that I tried really hard to correct it with some success! Again, of course it could be better, but with the help and encouragement of friends, at least I'm trying again.

I read 105,126 characters of Fate/Stay Night on the 10th of August and that gave me so much hope that not all was lost. I also crossed the 1M character mark on it which is a really good milestone to reach after struggling for so long. I may still have tripped this month, but it was still way better than the month previous.

Reading Materials: Fate Stay/Night, Sakura no Uta, Shingeki no Kyoujin, Stardew Valley

Listening Material: Porco Rosso

Moral of the Story?

Burnout is real. Depression and anxiety are the worst. Take care of your mental health. Learn when to take breaks and when to distance yourself from things that make you feel bad about your progress.

Find people who you can trust and rely on. Find new hobbies! Pursue new goals! Don't quit and never stop trying.

I love this language. I may have struggled, but I am stronger for it. One day, I'll find my footing again, but for now, just knowing that I have come so far and that I can still have fun and improve this skill is more than enough.

-☆-

Thanks for reading, and I hope that you who waited for me and took the time to read are doing well. ʕ•̀ω•́ʔ✧

#language acquisition #language learning #langblr #studyblr #japanese language #study blog #japanese #language immersion #japanese langblr #japanese studyblr

[meimae]

01/02/22

Hello and welcome to my first immersion overview of 2022! ʕ•̀ω•́ʔ✧

If you're new here, hi, I'm Mae, and this is a list of media I listened to and read this month using the immersion or input method for Japanese language learning.

I came into the month thinking I knew exactly which books I wanted to read and dramas I wanted to see. Of course, not all my plans worked out and I had to work around some weird immersion material choices and unexpected but probably overdue gaps in my learning.

And so we come to this, a month where I almost didn't watch any dramas - I wouldn't have even watched 消えた初恋 literally on the last day of the month if I didn't realize how short it was. It had a standard fluffy plot, so it was simple and easy to listen to in the background while I was dying in grammar hell. ヾ(｡>﹏<｡)ﾉﾞ✧*。

Ah yes, grammar. The bane of my Japanese language learning journey. There's a reason I picked immersion learning as my method, and it was because I absolutely hated grinding grammar exercises in the classroom. I just wanted the language to wash over me, obviously while obsessively doing look-ups while immersing, and somehow magically be able to turn my passive knowledge from input into active output.

But alas, my anxiety has gotten the best of me, and I started to fear that the language books I did read and grind in Anki, Tae Kim and the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar, had run its course and it was finally time to sit down with another grammar resource to stitch up the loose ends.

So for the past week, I've been taking advice from people who seemed to be better at the subject than I am, and I have started to grind through the 新完全マスター 文法 N1 and N2 books, and yes, even the exercises.

Can't say I'm too happy about it, since it has so far drained my energy to read for fun, but if its going to help me somewhat based on other immersion learners' experiences, then I'm willing to give it a try. On the bright side, at least its written fully in Japanese! Never a break from immersion.

And so while I was struggling to get back on the reading grind this last week, I started to read a few chapters of 無職転生. Admittedly, still not much of a light novel reader and its not even for a lack of content I'm interested in, just a lack of drive and motivation. It's something I'd like to work harder on this year.

On the other hand, ひいきびいき is as fun to listen to as ever, now that I have a better reading base. I can still tell there are gaps in my comprehension, but at least it does not sound like gibberish to me like it did a year ago. Progress!

I wish I could tell you guys that I had a good time reading visual novels this month, but honestly it felt like a mess. If seven different visual novels shuffled within a month doesn't clue you in with the kind of concentration struggle I had, then I don't know what to tell you. At least I kept my 1M reading streak. (ﾉ∀`)

My motivation reading VNs started strong and promising, and I finished PARQUET (the beginner VN at TheMoeWay Discord) within the first few days of the month. I was also made aware of the fact that the Steam version of 剣が君 had a lot of bonus content that I missed out on because of the version I played, and so my friend Alex kindly let me read everything I missed. It was absolutely lovely, 11/10. It has been months and nothing has beat this game yet for me.

Then, with my reading high, I turned my attention to the intermediate VN from TMW, and that's where it all went south. 紙の上の魔法使い' s blurb sounded so promising, but I couldn't read past (or listen past for that matter) some stupid lines from the female characters, and so it now unfortunately sits on my stalled pile of VNs. I feel like I got baited into thinking that the characters in this game were smart because they supposedly liked reading. Who knows, maybe I'll revisit it when I'm in the mood for moe girls, but something tells me that it will take a while or never.

In my frustration with the previous game, and due to some previously hyped conversations with my friend Alex from Discord, I decided to play her favorite VN on a whim without looking at the VNDB tags (which proved to be a mistake on my part - always read the tags to filter out games with triggers). Let me introduce you to Omega Vampire, something completely far from my comfort zone, which proved to be detrimental to my reading as well later on.

Count this as the review I have for this game, apparently omegaverse is a huge thing and this game does it well, but it was not enough of a pull for me because I have no idea what the omegaverse is, and I also don't particularly enjoy vampire/werewolf stories thanks Twilight so there's that. So after a while when this VN kept on showing me disturbing sexual content without consent, I had to quit after two routes. Honestly, if I sat and read for another four days or so I could have finished it, but if I had to rinse my eyeballs everytime I tried to read then I'd rather read something else. So yeah, this goes into the stalled pile as well.

Luckily, the TMW Joseimuke Media Club pick for the month, レムレスブルーの午前２時, seemed to be wholesome, so alongside あかやあかしやあやかしの, and because I was heavily inspired by my friends in voice chat, I finally ventured into output territory and did a few hours of 朗読 with these two unvoiced VNs. I also had a brief opportunity to read in voice chat while a native Japanese speaker was watching and got 上手'd for the first time - a clue that I need to put a focus on output more.

The real star of the show this month for me though was the VN Club's quarterly pick, White Album 2. My expectations were high for this one, since its one of the admin's favorite games, and finally, finally, I was not disappointed.

The writing has been spectacular so far, and the music just adds to the mood and vibe so much that I couldn't stop reading the introductory chapter for three days within 6 hour sessions.

Gosh, so jazzy, its so good! My favorite kind of music. I love vibing to this while studying grammar - it makes it less painful to do.

I'm actually still very excited to continue reading White Album 2. It gives me so many butterflies when I think about it, so it will be my main read for February alongside the VNs I've dedicated for 朗読, and quite possibly yet another otome game from the club.

At least I learned something from this - my comfort zone is my comfort zone for a reason. It's fine to try out new things, but if it makes me frustrated or uncomfortable, its not going to be worth it regardless of how much it can improve my skill. *coughgrammarcough*

-☆-

Here's to hoping for better concentration and grammar progress in February! Still don't know how I'm going to go about studying it, but hopefully whatever it is includes better time management and just reading more than I currently have. Clearly, something I was doing was working, since I could comprehend well enough and in turn produce lengthy and detailed reviews, but output, output, is where it comes down to, and the thought of it getting stalled makes me worried. It's either the dedicated grammar study or the 朗読 that's going to push it further, and I'm going to try my best on dedicating time for both.

Thanks for reading, and I'll catch you all next time! (*˘︶˘*).｡.:*♡

#language acquisition #language learning #langblr #study blog #studyblr #japanese language #japanese #language immersion #japanese langblr #japanese studyblr #kieta hatsukoi #shin kanzen master #dictionary of japanese grammar #grammar #mushoku tensei #hiikibiiki #parquet #ken ga kimi #omega vampire #akaya akashiya ayakashino #lemures #lemures blue #white album 2 #white album #kami no ue no mahotsukai #Spotify

[meimae]

6/1/22

I am back with my December Immersion Overview, the last one for 2021! ٩(๑´v｀๑)۶

Remember when I said I wanted to watch a lot of shows last month? ....Yeah, that didn't happen. For whatever reason, I expected the holidays to be less busy, but I was obviously mistaken.

What I did watch, 僕はまだ君を愛さないことができる, took me over two weeks, not because it was bad - I quite enjoyed seeing these best friends absolutely friendzone each other for 700 minutes, mind you - but I wanted to read, and oh boy did I read (1.47M characters to be precise).

Ended up getting 100% of Angel Beats 1st Beat's records, which is absolute skip hell pain I tell you, but was worth it to be able to say I conquered such a beast of a game in terms of number of choices. Here's a preview of the guide, which by the way, doesn't even cover all potential ends and episodes.

Also, read 穢翼のユースティア because I needed to add more variety in what I am reading and not just stick with SoL, so I really appreciated seeing more fantasy words and formal styles of speech. I will be putting reviews up for both . Who knows when that will be but releasing this post is a good start.

Since I did less watching and more baking for the holidays, I listened to so many episodes of ひいきびいき, only possible because I can actually finally follow along with minimal context. It's still difficult, missing specifics here and there especially when they go on a tangent that isn't connected to the episode topic, and usually when I was distracted with measuring flours and sweeteners, but for the most part I am definitely enjoying it more than I did when I first started listening in the very early months of 2021. What a high quality podcast, let me tell you.

-☆-

That's basically it! It feels like not a lot, but I was definitely squeezing every bit out of 2021, reading for five hours a day for a lot of days towards the end to reach my goal, and I'm quite happy with the results.

For this year 2022, I do have some Japanese learning goals in mind that I won't disclose in behalf of my sanity, but I will say that I will continue immersing the way that I have been and adjusting as I go as always.

Thanks for reading, and updates in the future as always! ʕ•̀ω•́ʔ✧

#language acquisition #language learning #langblr #study blog #studyblr #japanese language #japanese #language immersion #japanese langblr #japanese studyblr #穢翼のユースティア #angel beats #ひいきびいき #hiikibiiki #僕はまだ君を愛さないことができる #i don't love you yet