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aterriblethought · 4 years

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Hi. Wolf in Sheep's Clothing manga is very interesting. It's like seeing gray haired Masatsugu having an affair with black haired Yuki. XD. How frequent will be the release? How many chapters will it be and is it still ongoing? Kyuugou seems to like forbidden relationships: Future InLaws, Cousins, Significant Age gaps etc. Although few ship them, I'm hoping to see this in Acid Town with Yuki and Hyoudou. By the way, how do you learn Japanese Grammar and Kanji? Thanks.

Oh no, don’t say that! I’ve actually heard a few people say that Daichi looks like Sawamura and now I can’t unsee it... it’s the eyes I think.

“Monster in Sheep’s Clothing” is published in Chara which is a bimonthly magazine. It’s on an alternating schedule from Rutile actually so if Kyuugou was very consistent (hahahahaha *deep breath* hahahahaha), it would be a chapter of either Acid Town or Monster every month. The most recent chapter of Monster came out in April and that was chapter 2. It’s unknown how many chapters it will end up being. If Kyuugou’s making something more than a one-shot it usually doesn’t go beyond a single volume... single volumes tend to be like 6-7 chapters. I’d be surprised if Monster ends up being a long-running series like Acid Town.

I’ve already translated chapter 2 and started working on the clean-up. I’m still looking for staff if anyone’s willing to help, especially since I’m only going to get more busy as time goes by.

Kyuugou definitely has certain things that she’s into. Despite Daichi being 21 and Jun being 33, the age gap between the two of them feels significant and Daichi often acts and is treated like a child...... but to be fair I feel like there’s a significant distance between the person I was when I was 21 and the person I am now, so, maybe that’s a fair depiction?

As for how to learn Japanse grammar and kanji, that’s a really long story that could probably be its own post, but basically if you’re interested in learning, there’s a number of good resources out there. I mostly learned kanji by flashcards... just straight-up memorization. When I was starting out I really liked readthekanji.com, but for the last class I took that required hand-writing kanji, I used an app like Quizlet to make my own flashcards and then used Google handwriting to write the kanji. WaniKani is also a good service/app for learning kanji and vocab. For grammar you’d want to check out something like guidetojapanese.org to start with. There’s also a ton of books I can recommend if you’re interested, such as textbooks.

It’s past midnight, I just finished watching Made in Abyss, and I’m somewhat incoherent. z_z

#Anonymous

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lincoonsjourney · 5 years

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So ive changed my blog name from "lincoonlearnsjapanese" to "LincoonsJourney". Not becuase ive stopped learning japanese, but becuase i wish to document more of my journey.

Ive learned a lot about myself recently includIng what my current limits are (kinda) and what I need to focus on. I have a lot of physical and mental issues right now that need to get sorted out before I can really...have a life, honestly.

So, to that end, heres what that means for this blog: i will be posting study related posts. mostly progress posts, maybe idea posts, who knows. gunna try to take pictures and really document my progress. I will also post other sorts of progress posts, like chores ive done, or self care ive managed, or exercise ive managed. i may make mood posts. i may make venting posts, or thought posts. it could be a lot of things, and its possible to be NSFW.

I have no idea how often ill post. i suppose the aim for now is generally a daily update, or atleast as daily as my studies get. Im prioritising my health and self care over chores (slightly) and chores over studies (to an extent) so there may be days where i do not study. but there should be some sort of post from me.

i may do challanges from time to time to track whatever thing that generallt results in posting more often.

I think my goal with this is i want to get used to noting stuff down, and i want to be able to look back and not warp things and really see the progress i make. Ive personally never been very good at keeping up these sorts of things, but maybe this time itll be easier?

Anyway. My studies have 3 main groups: Japanese, textbooks, and Recovery books.

Japanese resources: みんなの日本語+ all supplemental materials (FINALLY including ALL audio), iknow.jp for all vocab needs, whatever jlpt or 小学校 resource im using as a small break inbetween mnn chapters (sometimes) and a plethora of native resources i plan to have as a project. Also either wanikani or some sort of kanji resource. (but really the focus bieng on MNN)

Recovery: these will mostly be nonfiction books. at the moment it is "the body keeps the score". i go through these and highlight as i read.

Textbook: this one is a line of textbooks i happen to have that i aim to go through. this actually relates both to recovery and japanese, becuase they will help me understand better, and becuase the vocab within i am going to look up in japanese and study via iknow. the line is: biology -> human biology -> human development -> human development through the lifespan (a different focus than the previous).

So the idea here is that on any given day, i study from only 1 resource per catagory (not countIng iknow, which i aim to keep trying to make doing reviews a daily habit), so only 3 resources.

so far i havent quite managed to do chores and study all three things.

im going to (try) to use tags to organise stuff. nothing super fancy, just basic tags to use to filter. will likely not overtag.

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ybyg · 3 years

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Here’s my second Nihongo check-in!

Preface: Very pessimistic, I’m whining and shitting on grammar. Can’t be helped.

If you’re reading it, please don’t let it deter you from learning something new, like musical instruments and languages. Getting over hurdles will grant you gratification, and don’t be like me, wishing for instantaneous results. I’m an idiot, so be the opposite of me. Please remember that practice makes perfect.

About 9 days ago, I wrote about how I focused on kanji (that’s the Chinese characters used in Japanese for the uninitiated) through WaniKani and paying less attention to grammar and absolutely skipped thorough memorisation through other SRS, like Anki and my own notes.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise anymore, I did just about 3 hours of Japanese grammar since then.

Anyway, I’ve levelled up on Wanikani, and the last 2 levels have been the fastest I’ve levelled up, which makes me shake in my boots. Like. How. I felt like I’ve been making slow progress as things get harder, but apparently not?

My progress for each level so far:

As you can see, for level 4, it took me significantly less time to learn and level up. It’s not ideal to finish my kanji/vocabulary reviews with 10 lessons to spare (mostly vocab stuff) and when I click Home, and it suddenly shows I have close to 100 lessons because I’ve unlocked the next level.

This has happened twice. I had a heart attack.

Right now, I’ve learned 15/21 radicals (they’re a breakdown of each kanji) for level 6 which I surprisingly unlocked yesterday evening, and I have 48 lessons to go (the remaining radicals, new kanjis, and new vocab, I presume). I wanted to try my best to maintain a healthy 10-20 lessons per day, and at this rate, that’s not happening. I’m cramming kanji left and right, and this is how I start to not prioritise Anki, my notes and grammar.

I made my calculation (heh) based on this graph and for me to finish all 60 levels of WaniKani. Appaently it’ll take me 3 years to learn over 1.7k kanjis and 5k words. And that doesn’t account for when I have a job (it’ll slow down my progress). I’ll be 28 by then. And I want to have a working knowledge of the language by 30. Will it be possible? Dun dun dun.

I’ve also started to unlock ‘Enlighten’ for over 80 items I’ve learned (mostly from levels 1 & 2), and this has made me go back to those levels for a refresher. Just making sure they’re sticking in my brain until I unlock ‘Burn’ for these. (Burn here means you’ve passed it, and according to WaniKani, basically by the time you burn the items, they’re supposed to already be a part of you and you’re able to recall the kanji and words you’ve learned in no time).

Okay. Way too long for WaniKani. I swear I’m not being sponsored by them lmao. I guess it’s time to start complaining about grammar.

Sooooooo. This sucks. I hate grammar. It’s maths for languages where, upon explaining it, people think they’re making sense, but the longer the explanation is, the less sense it makes; so you’ll have to re-read the line a few hundred times before it starts to make some sense. And I just fucking despise maths.

I know it’s important, and especially when you’re learning a language, it’ll help you form your ideas correctly and succinctly. But what sucks about learning grammar is that when you finally have a grasp the idea and move on to another topic, everything you knew about the former just... disintegrates. There are way more rules to follow. It’s the start of ‘studying’, not ‘learning’. That’s just how daunting I find learning grammar.

In my experience, grammar has reduced my confidence, and I’m already a pessimist, so it bodes well /s. Unless someone is understanding, and even how long it took you to learn a language, people would make you think you’re lesser than (ohhh I’d know); and if your brain is an asshole and a half like mine, it’s not people, it’s just you. This is why I go to therapy.

Sorry. I went off-tangent there. Haven’t seen my therapist in 2 months because of Covid.

As I’m typing this, I’m flipping through my old notes from uni about verb and tenses. English tenses gave me a hard time, and Japanese tenses are at least twice harder than that.

Disclaimer: The following bit is what they call ‘conjugation’ (I think), and in no way I claim these to be correct, and I’m not explaining it until I know for sure what each of the function is for, so take these with a fistful of salt. Seriously. I remember writing these down, but it’s been 4-5 years since uni, I don’t remember anything about this, however the pain in my chest is telling me otherwise.

For example for verb to-do ending in します (shimasu, drop the u at the end when pronouncing it, so it becomes shimas), and the word I’ve chosen is 食べます (たべます, to eat, in its polite form):

1. Present positive: 食べます　(たべます) - I suppose this means ‘I eat/am eating’?

2. Past positive: 食べました　(たべました) - This... ‘I ate’?

3. Present negative: 食べません（たべません）- ‘I’m not eating’?

4. Past negative: 食べませんでした（たべませんでした）- I dunno. ‘I didn’t eat’?

There’s also keiyoushi (adjectives), and in my notes they’re divided into two parts - the いーけいようし (i-adjective, words ending with the ‘ee’ sound) and なーけいようし (the ‘every other adjective’ adjective), and for no apparent reason, some of the ee-ending words just fall under na-adjective. WHY!

These i- and na-adjectives start with です as the present positive. Yeah, that’s easy. As soon as past positive gets into the picture, it fucks you over.

i-adjective example I’ve chosen is 可愛い（かわいい, cute):

1. Present positive: 可愛いです（かわいいです)

2. Past positive: 可愛かったです（かわいかったです - the second い in kawaii is replaced by かったです

3. Present negative:　可愛くないです（かわいくないです）- just like the past positive, the second い in kawaii is replaced by, this time, くないです

4. Past negative: 可愛くなかったです（かわいくなかったです) - just like the other two, the second い is replaced by くなかったです

Do I want to do one for the na-adjective? No. I’m tired.

This is why I just wish I was either a genius or a person who doesn’t ask inane questions like ‘Why the fuck must it be this way?’

On a more positive note, my favourite word right now is マジで (maji de, spelt in katakana, and using hiragana for で). It means ‘seriously’, but after some checking, it also means ‘for real’ and ‘literally’. For instance: ‘たっくんはめっちゃかっこいいね。。。’ (Takkun is really handsome/cool, yeah?) and you reply it with ‘マジで？’ if you wanna sound sarcastic. (But no, Takkun is metcya kakkoii okay) Other than that, you can say ‘マジで？？？？？？？’ if you’re, for lack of a better word, shook.

Yes, I love my slangs and buzzwords...

Another thing, in Japanese, they don’t really use exclamation marks and question marks, at least formally anyway. You can scream on top of your lungs through text, but you’ll just use ‘maru’ 。which is their full stop。Maru quite literally means circle. But informally, you can use exclamation and question marks. By all means. Go to town with it.

#qila learns nihongo #edited this #but still so many mistakes i missed #i just couldnt give a fuck rn

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flyingcookierambles · 4 years

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aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

some people lucky enough to either be in an actual class setting or be good at self studying and organization: ah yes i used 1 textbook and then when I'm finished with it, i moved to the next in the series. I've become fluent in only 2 years.

me, horrible at organization and self studying, graduated from college and not able to get into formal class settings anymore, also all the colleges in my area did not have standardized skill levels/placement tests or consistent textbooks so i wasn’t able to get into a higher level of Japanese class anyway: I'm suffering. I've studied for 3 years and im not fluent at all, i can probably barely communicate to a 5 year old native speaker. i learn best in a formal class setting because the competition amongst my classmates+set schedule and syllabus motivated me, self study is hell and i struggle to concentrate alone. now that I've graduated out of formal education, i doubt ill have any opportunities to be in a formal class setting ever again. also, before corona hit and our college campus was shut down, my friend and i were trying to self study together in the library despite our different skill levels and cobble some kind of curriculum together using an unholy mixture of genki 2, minna no nihongo, tae kim’s guide, wanikani articles on Japanese grammar, and sometimes either duolingo or lingodeer. once my college shut down, we tried to continue our weekly study sessions over discord but it kinda sputtered out a few months ago bc we (mostly me tho i think) are horrible at communication. im now left alone in self study hell and i have no idea what to do. i also dont even have a desk and i dont want to study on the 1st floor of my house because im embarrassed of studying in public. also once i tried to study/read Chinese aloud this one time that my mom got rosetta stone, and my younger sister came up behind me and said racist stuff against Chinese people (even tho we’re Chinese American wtf????? still confused on that one). so my experience of studying a language in public is very embarrassing for me. even when i casually do my duolingo Swedish lessons, im always alone in my room.

anyways im just suffering. this is purgatory great. my knowledge of Chinese and Japanese will just rot bc i now have 0 access to good environments for education since 1) i finished all the classes my college offered and wasn’t able to join other colleges’ due to 0 standardization in language learning/placement tests in the area and 2) i graduated college so i cant do 1 anymore. uuuuugh whys my learning style so incompatible with self studying.

so rip my brain, almost 8 years of knowledge is leaking out lulz

#big sad ill never be able to join a class again #uuuuuuuugh #I feel dumb #i think i feel like this since i started playing twst and enstars and was like huh it sure would be nice to be able to read these #and not have to rely on others #but then i remembered i cant access education now so oof #self study hell i hate it here #flyingcookie rambles

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betsuniisan · 6 years

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2017 in review and 2018

2017: I ended up moving to Eau Claire in early January.

It wasn’t my first choice, but it offered a place I could get together with friends while not paying ridiculous amounts in rent (Talking about 200-300 more a month) It also gave me a place with faster internet in which I could download anything I needed.

I spent a cumulative total of close to a month or two there. While it was great for entertaining evenings with friends, the days I was there by myself were pretty lonely, and given my previous experiences with Eau Claire, I had run out of avenues that I felt optimistic about exploring for new friends (not to mention I lacked a lot of the energy to pursue things that I had no guarantee would provide me any true companions)

I turned 32. Spent my birthday weekend with my friend Mike. Bought a Nintendo Switch (The only Nintendo system I haven’t regretted buying since N64)

I played a lot of good games: Persona 5, Nier Automata, DDLC, Subahibi, A Hat in Time, Mario Odyssey, Zelda Breath of the Wild. I replayed Xenogears

Anime-wise I also saw a lot of good series: Keijo, Gintama, Patlabor, Net-juun no Susume, Made in Abyss, A Silent Voice, Your name, Magic Knight Rayearth

Non anime I finally got around to seeing all of Cheers and Regular Show

Doubtless I’m forgetting a few things. Hopefully some friends can remind me and I’ll edit them

On the good end of 2017, I finally found closure with Candace and became a lot more comfortable with driving (to Eau Claire at least) I also (mostly) kept up with studying Japanese, even though my passion for it has waned a lot

On the bad end, I spent a lot of time screwing around online and I spent a great deal of money on things I didn’t need (Especially this holiday season where I spent probably close to 1k on myself). I also had a period where I relapsed and went back to FFXI again.

Ultimately I give the year a C. I’m most proud of myself for the leaps I’ve made on driving, my confrontation with Candace, and not letting myself fall off the wagon too long. I’m most disappointed in my shopaholic ways, all the time spent being unproductive, and a lack of direction

2018:

I actually have a lot of things I want to do for 2018, but I’m only going to list some of the major ones.

First, I’m going to try to cut down on my net presence. I’ve done this before back when I was trying to do the AJATT(All Japanese All The Time) , but this time rather than looking to focus on Japanese more, I want to shift my focus onto a couple different areas: writing, Japanese, recreation (like anime and games), and learning programming.

-------------------

Writing

For writing, my plan is to try to do a little bit every week. I’m trying not to set the bar too high by saying every day (Even though that’d be great) but I’m also trying not to set it too low either. While this will often take the form of blog posts, I also intend to start some fiction writing.

Japanese

I’m currently level 26/60 on Wanikani. I’m not studying nearly as diligent as I could be, but I don’t intend to change back to my AJATT mindset. Rather, in 2018, I’m going to finally start trying to read a Japanese visual novel. I intend to start with a Clockwork Leyline (a game that was actually recently translated by Sekai Project) and do a bit every day until I’m finished.

It’s my hope that this will finally break the ice on reading Japanese vns and give me the confidence to further it. I don’t intend to devote a whole lot of time to this (probably an hour every day) but it’s going to hopefully add up.

Recreation

This might sound bizarre, but despite the massive amount of free time I have, I don’t spend a lot of it in pursuing my hobbies. Instead I spend a lot of time either checking the internet or idly thinking about what I want to do.

Next year I have a plan to do stuff I enjoy more.

For anime, I plan to watch six episodes a day. It’s my hope that instead of watching only a handful of series (like I did this year) i can watch a huge chunk. I initially had set the goal at 100 series, but given how unrealistic that can be, I’m just going to stick with 6 episodes a day (starting Jan1st) I’ll keep everyone abreast of what I see when I see it.

I’m hoping to also see my friends more. I do not know where they will all be in 2018, but I’m hoping we can do more stuff together

I’m also going to do more reading but there’s no definitive plan for that other than, I’d like to read at least a books worth of material every month.

Programming

This is where a good chunk of my time will be going. I intend to study and become familiar with the current trends in programming. Right now I’m currently relearning Ruby, and in the future, I would like to transition this blog back to a ruby on rails blog.

-----------------------

Second, I’m going to do a better job of saving money. After ordering more stuff today, I finally blocked both Amazon and Rightstuf (two of the biggest offenders of my wallet) While I’ve made a few allowances for certain things (I want to get a dakimakura and to go to Anime Detour) I’m going to keep all other kinds of buying down to a minimum. I’m thinking maybe 50-60 a month for personal expenditures apart from the allowances listed above.

This will be difficult, as I’ve realized that my shopping is a coping mechanism for a lot of my depression. However, I’m hoping if I get a good routine going (see next point) I wont have to succumb to this

Lastly, I want to get a good routine going. Right now I have the routine of waking up at around 1-2 in the afternoon and going to bed at 4-5. I want to adjust this to my previous schedule that I had where I went to bed by 2 and woke up around 10. Not that it’s much difference, hours wise, but I hope by having it more structured, it can help lead to a more structured day.

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ybyg · 3 years

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久しぶりでしょうね？ Let's catch up.

I haven't been diligently studying Japanese due to... just life. Some unavoidable things happened and I had to live through the nightmare. It's all right now. I think. I'm here to update you about how miserable it's been trying to catch up with what I've missed and maybe talk about the time I spoke to JO1's Sho who can speak English and I wanted to make an effort to speak to him in Japanese but failed (without sounding like a twat who's showing off).

Continue reading under the cut.

Note: I barely edited it, so if it sounds out of place, or my Japanese sounds awkward... tough luck, I'm probably not going to edit it.

1. Wanikani update

レベル１０に入ってでした。正直は、まだレベル9ですね。This thing levels up as soon as you learn everything there is on the level you formerly in, without taking into account if you have complete at least a round of revision on the last thing that you've learned (they call it 'review' on WK).

The SRS thing is proven to be the best method to recall phrases and kanji. I'm paying for Wanikani (okay, the thing is good. I like it) and have Anki installed and haven't reviewed anything since I created my decks. But it works alright. I may have the worst memory/information-retaining brain and it might've taken me forever to recall what 予 is (it's beforehand, apparently), but I can still remember the ones I've learned the longest; basically from levels 1-4. (I'm learning 予 in the latest level, that is level 9. I'm still suffering turbulence here.)

I haven't seen my stats. Let's have a look, shall we?

I live by the words 'it could've been worse.'

My percentages used to be at least in the 90% across the board, but I just jumped straight into reviewing and clearing over 900 radicals, kanji, and vocabulary without revising, hence why I've done terribly and now it's bringing my stats down.

Radicals I can't believe I fucked up my radicals. They were supposed to be the easiest. I have no words.

If you need a single tip to start learning kanji, you can start by learning its components, and that is the radicals. It'd be easier for you to create stories for mnemonics. Other than that, try Heisig's Remembering the Kanji.

Kanji I am aware I could've done better at this, but kanji itself is just confusing. It's sometimes easy to predict some of the words, like ち that's used for earth or soil (地) and pond (池)--and not to mention the difference is just the radicals soil and tsunami--but I deduced that some aspects of nature fall under the ち umbrella.

And then there are devils like 他 and 地. Ugh. I'm going to leave it here.

Vocabulary

I know what the word 交じる stands for, and then you have 交わる which is thrown into the mix just to confuse me, and that just pisses me off every damn time.

I honestly know the meaning better than the pronunciation... which is dumb because if I were to speak in Japanese, I'm supposed to say the words majiru or majiwaru, not to be mixed or to intersect.

One thing about WK: you might understand the meaning differently. For example, they may offer the word substitution, but I would think of another word, replacement. Unless you input the word 'replacement' into the system, it would still be wrong in your reviews, and you're expected to remember substitution instead. And as an ESL, well, sometimes I'm just expected to drill the word substitution into my brain. I barely use the word daily anyway. So, you're expected to do extra work in order to learn, which is not a bad thing, but it can be annoying sometimes.

To recap, I don't do terribly despite not doing WK for a few months, but I could've done better. It's still in the okay territory, but I'll do my best to improve my reading skills and expand my lexicon.

What's next? I still have to clear up 92 lessons which include the level 9 that I've yet to cover and the entirety of level 10. On top of that, the tens and hundreds of reviews need to be cleared out daily... it's still going to be a rigorous routine when it comes to this one.

2. Grammar (and Reading)

In order not to spend my own money on learning materials, I persuaded my mum to get me みんなの日本語 (MNN); both workbook and notes for Level 1, and I chipped in with my Kinokuniya discount card. Yes, I am 26, but my finances haven't been the greatest as of late, so if anyone needs to hire a writer/social media manager, please send me a DM.

I digressed. Anyway, I've reached the 4th chapter, and it's been great so far! The workbook is completely in Japanese, and as someone who can read hiragana, and to some extent, katakana, it's definitely a great book that helps me improve my reading skills. I wish WK and MNN were at least streamlined because the kanji on WK has the tendency to be more scattered due to the complexity of certain kanji despite them being N5-N4 kanji.

[I edited out a paragraph on Kanji levels and complexities but would like to highlight the inconsistencies in the kanji levels that's shared on the Internet, including in WK. I suppose you will never find the one true answer as to which level does 傘 (umbrella) belongs to: is it N5 per stated in Jisho, or is it N1 as stated in WK? I guess you will never know...)

I prefer MNN over Genki as Genki explains points in English and annotates translation/furigana as bright as day underneath the Japanese texts. As a high-functioning English/romaji reader, my brain isn't doing the hard word; it's just reading the English and romaji. MNN forces me to read in Japanese and makes me translate the sentences on my own, so I am actively learning from the activity. Whilst it has a separate book that explains the chapters in English, I find it very helpful for me to immerse myself in Japanese then flip through the English version of the book just to see how well I understand the lesson. I would suggest Genki for absolute beginners and MNN for those who are in the lower-intermediate level.

I've been reading JO1's mails and articles related to them with varying degree of successes. The shorter ones are simpler and more manageable, but reading longer ones make me quit halfway. I should be reading more so it'd be easier for me to recognise the ones I've yet to learn and strengthening those I've learned.

3. Active learning (Speaking, Listening and Writing)

I've tried to speak in Japanese to myself, and it's mostly え、なんだろう今。。。、ヤッバ、マジ？、いいですね！、ほんまに？ and the latter being 'really?' in Kansai dialect (関西弁), thanks to half of the members of JO1. Since I'm learning 'textbook', formal Japanese, I'm still finding it extremely difficult to communicate in vernacular/colloquial Japanese. Not that I'm familiar with 敬語 (keigo/honorific language) either, just trying to fit the よ, ね, です, します, ません et cetera have racked my brain and I'm at the precipice of trying not to lose my mind. Perhaps, if I tried harder, I'd be able to use it comfortably. But for now, please let me suffer from my stupidity.

Since I wanted to 'try harder', I'm currently going through Making Out in Japanese (it sounds crude, but so far it's been very mild and helpful)

I haven't been writing in Japanese, which is horrible, because what's the use of reading when you can't write. I tried making my own flashcards which ended up taking too much time so I turned to digitalised SRS instead, which can be both annoying and unhelpful sometimes. I'm not a fan of learning through the screen as it takes too much space on the table and plays a part as my focus destroyer. But I can't complain as these devices do make things infinite times easier for me.

For the past couple of weeks, I've interacted with more Japanese JAMs (that's what JO1 decided to christen their fans) and have made the effort to type in Japanese, albeit broken Japanese. I employed my brain, Jisho and the untrusting Papago and Google Translate (the translation sites merely help me check if my sentences make any sense). I bet they're reading my tweets and messages thinking, 'What the fuck is this person on about?' Well, I don't know either.

And here comes the horrible part.

I won yonton (용통 in Korean, basically a video call) and had the chance to speak to the JO1's leader. Which is awesome, yes? I had a week to prepare and that particular week leading up to the event had given me multiple heart attacks. Some dramas happened, an interview happened... and I had only a few days left to prepare. Towards the end of the week, I decided I was going to do 自己紹介 (self-introduction) in Japanese. I know enough to say *キラです。クアラルンプール出身です。マレーシアJAM です, though that sounds super awkward. What I did on the day was the exact opposite.

Well, it's a known fact that the leader speaks English. Heck, it's an open secret that we know he went to a school that had an English department, whatever that means. As the owner of this brain who've spent approximately weeks and hundreds of hours on Japanese, I think know enough to say those words. But what did I do?

I spoke to him in English.

Of course, like everything, it takes a while to set in. That evening, it occurred to me that not only I had spoken to him in English, I also didn't let him speak. I didn't let him finish his sentence.

To be fair, it was only for 30 seconds. I don't need him to speak, and I wanted to, for once, assert my dominance. (The running joke here is that he plays the character of a freaking flirt, and as a lesbian whose compulsory heterosexual crush is him, I have the inclination to get the man to sit down and shut up for once. I guess I did?)

It's not me if there's no faux pas. Anyways...

Today's the 290th day since I started using WK, basically the beginning of my journey to relearn Japanese. Will I be able to communicate at least on a conversational level by the time I'm 30? We will see.

If you're reading this and needs recommendations on resources that are free, hit me up!

またね。

#qila learns nihongo

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