I haven't posted here in forever. Basically I got a new job and have been kind of stressed out and tired lately and writing posts was kind of low priority, especially over taking the times I had enough focus to do anything besides vegetate to just study instead. So I've still been studying Japanese, though I've also been taking breaks and doing less than I was before, but I'm kind of slowly getting back into a new routine. This year my goals are (yet again!) to improve my reading-- I picked up all of Trigun, and I've been reading those with enough comprehension to enjoy it at least, but I really want to read a novel by the end of the year. Even if it's only a short, for-kids novel. Not really sure what's going on with the Super Challenge, last I heard there was a break before a new one started anyway, so I might check back soon and see if/when that's starting up again to join. I didn't really 'win' this last round-- I did hit something close to 100 films, 50 hours of conversations, and something like 800 pages of reading and some writing, I'm not even sure how much of that. But I still felt pretty good with what I did accomplish. I didn't finish Core 2000 of iKnow yet either, but I'm really close? I doubt I'll finish Core 3000 this year at the pace I'm going, but I should be able to get at least halfway through. I'm also almost introduced to all the N4 kanji via Read the Kanji, so that's cool, too. Ideally I'll get through N3 by the end of the year. I can work on that at work occasionally, when we end up in meetings where I don't have to pay full attention. I'm also using Skritter sometimes when standing in line or whatnot, since I put it on my iPod. And getting close to finishing first-runthroughs of all the Japanesepod101 Lower Intermediate lessons. I'm debating whether or not I will actually listen again while not in the car to take advantage of the lesson notes, or if I'm just going to start on Intermediate. I kinda gave up on Anki for the moment. I feel like it could be a useful tool for me, but I have to learn how to best utilize it first, and right now it makes more sense to take that time to use other available tools instead. Finally picked up the Beginner to Intermediate Shadowing book, which arrived today, and I'm hoping will help my speaking. I'll probably write a review after I've used it for a while. Unit 1's early sections are super simple-- it really is for beginners. The book says the aim is to take three months practicing each unit, and there are five units so that would take you over a year normally. But I kind of expect Unit 1 to go by a bit faster than that for me, so I have a vague goal of trying to finish the book by December. Unit 4 and 5 say they are meant to be around N2 level, though, so we'll see? I've stopped doing sessions at JOI mostly because I don't have time and I'm still doing sessions with my other tutor, though between us both canceling last minute for weather or work we only meet once or twice a month right now. We met today, though, and did a set of N3 practice questions together, which was ... enlightening, hah. I mean I was kind of about where I expected to be. I failed it, even though we went probably slower than I'd be able to afford to on the actual test, with a whopping 10 correct out of 23. Though in a lot of cases it was between two potential answers, and I picked the wrong one first and my tutor could see why I would think it would be the other one, so it's good that I'm at least able to narrow it down on most of them rather than simply blindly guessing. We'd gone through some of the same questions a year ago, and it's really interesting to feel the difference in comprehension. I vaguely remembered a couple of the questions from before, but mostly didn't remember anything about them, and still at least had 90% comprehension of the context sentences, even if I wasn't certain about the answer. It's a little ridiculous that every year I end up thinking "Okay this year by the end of the year I should be able to read Harry Potter/pass the N3" and every year those things pass me by. But having actually done practice questions, I definitely see that I'm close to N3 level and there's really no reason I won't be at a level where it'd at least be worth to attempt the N3 by Nov/Dec unless I stop studying entirely. Anyway, this is super long, apologies to anyone actually reading? I really need to learn to write shorter posts, but I kinda wanted to get a general "this is where I'm at with everything" out for myself.
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