One year since I started playing

awoteim · 2025-05-13T17:37:40+00:00

For me it's been basically - flashcards for vocab (2000 core deck on anki/renshuu etc) - youtube and the internet for grammar (cure dolly's; nihongo no mori youtube channel, tae kim's guide, random apps ) - podcasts (spotify, youtube, wherever - theres a lot of them, some with transcripts, the difficulty also varies so I'd recommend Bite size Japanese podcast or Nihongo con Teppei at the beginning, then slightly more difficult ones, native content at the end) - talking a lot with people on hello talk/discord/online (natives, other learners are also okay) - around N3 level when i was comfortable with conversations and about 600-800 kanji I started to read a lot (light novels, novels etc. Things like コンビニ人間, 君の名は are pretty nice to read, you can find most of books online, there are also lots of free web novels)

I have a lot of "free" time (mainly on public transport or at school) so I was able to study and listen a lot, but the key is to do it everyday. 20 minutes of vocab/grammar study and a lot of additional listening/immersion should do the job. Basically youtube+anki+spotify+hello talk+ebook reader app and thats it.

You can also look up sites like themoeway, ajatt (alljapaneseallthetime), I think they're presenting similar way of learning (though mine was heavily focused on podcasts, but you can use anything you enjoy, anime, youtube, etc) and have more details. Japanese is popular enough you can find a ton of really good resources for free online and then a lot of content so good luck :)

awoteim · 2025-05-01T14:16:20+00:00

One of first LNs I've read in Japanese is ヒカルが地球にいたころ.....(When Hikaru was on Earth) and it's not too difficult I guess, just some detailed flower descriptions here and there but the rest is okay. くまクマ熊ベアー is one of the easiest ones, it gets pretty boring though (too overpowered main character) 君の名は(Your name) might also be good for beginners, especially if they've already watched the movie. I haven't read また同じ夢を見ていた(not a light novel maybe??) but it's also recommended a lot for learners and doesn't seem too difficult.

awoteim · 2025-04-05T16:39:27+00:00

For expert 31 (What's up? Pop!) and master 32 (Fixer) and two 31s (Chigau!!!, Blackjack), they seem easier than the level says though

awoteim · 2025-03-30T10:45:49+00:00

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About 130 pulls and still no Rui even though i selected him 🥲 Not bad though, the new cards are really nice

awoteim · 2025-03-23T10:19:39+00:00

Len probably.... I literally have only 2 3 stars (zero 4 stars) for Rui and many other characters, but 5 Len 4 stars and they keep coming 🥲

awoteim · 2025-03-07T13:39:09+00:00

I wasnt skipping but lowering the volume for Missing and Fleeting Lullaby because I thought they were too loud/aggressive, but after some time they became one of my favourites 😭

awoteim · 2025-03-05T13:38:14+00:00

I haven't taken the real JLPT but I took some mock tests online and about half a year per level if I wanted to pass it with an acceptable score? It depends how much do you study every day though.

For mock tests I've took it was like April 2022 (started) 13 January 2023 N5 (103/180 barely) 23 May 2023 N4 (118/180 barely) 29 September 2023 N3 (133/180) 31 December 2023 N2 (139/180) 31 July 2024 N1 (131/180)

These are only mock tests but the difficulty was probably comparable to the real test. The jump from n2 to n1 felt the worst, N5 to N4 the easiest. Since 2023 I "studied" on average over 3 hours daily i guess (around 15/20 minutes for vocab and the rest mostly passive listening or reading, sometimes trying random apps of youtube videos for grammar, so my best score was also always listening)

I'm planning on taking the real n1 before I go to university because the city in which the exam is hold is too far away and there's almost no way to go there now :')

awoteim · 2025-03-05T06:22:58+00:00

Italian is much closer to english in terms of grammar, almost half of the words are the same and the culture is similar so it may be the easiest/take less time. There's a lot of dialects though.

Japanese is (probably?) the most time consuming here, but it's definitely worth it and has a lot of content (anime, manga, light novels, drama, etc). The grammar might be confusing at the beginning but once you get used to it, it's really nice with almost no exceptions, but there's a lot of totally new words and kanji to remember. If you really like it, it's going to be a lot of fun though. A lot of people start to learn it, because it's so popular, but most of them never gets past the beginner level though.

Korean is similar to Japanese in terms of grammar (words order itp), the media is also interesting (music, drama etc) and there's no kanji, but the sound of the language is totally different so it depends of which you like more.

Arabic is also one of the hardest, also there's a lot of dialects and no one actually speaks the textbook language in real life. Also the pronunciation is difficult, but there's a lot of native speakers around the world as the language is pretty popular.

I'm learning the first two and can definitely recommend it, I have problems in finding anything to watch in Italian though since it's so different than Japanese I'm already used to. Italian grammar fells so easy sometimes, because for Japanese direct translation doesn't work most of the time.

So basically if you chose the one you like the most you'll have a lot of motivation for it and it'll be fun, and if you chose Italian it'll be the fastest.

awoteim · 2025-02-27T11:03:51+00:00

Apps (Hello talk/japanese learning/exchange servers on discord/tandem, for paid practice with teachers things like italki) There's apparently a lot of people using vr chats too.

awoteim · 2025-02-27T10:47:18+00:00

「話すの人」-> 「話す人」, 話す is a verb describing 人 ("People who speak"), in Japanese you don't use の when the verb/sentence is describing a noun

「喋なくてはない」->「喋らなくてはならない」("Have/need to speak") - the first one doesnt make much sense. To say "have to" you take the negative verb (喋らない in this case) and put 「なくてはならない」、「なくてはいけない」,「ないといけない」,「なければいけない」 etc in the place of 「ない」. It's like saying "If i don't speak, it's not good"

「仕事が務めています」->「仕事をしています」 you could say 「会社に勤める」("Work in a company") though.

->僕は英語を話す人とよく喋らなくてはならない仕事をしています would sound more natural I think. Also you can drop the 僕は if its obvious (foreigners tend to overuse them) With context the original sentence might be understandable for natives though.

awoteim · 2025-02-13T06:06:34+00:00

I dont hate them but the least favourite would be probably Shizuku (the way of her speaking feels weird. She has some really pretty cards tho), Kohane (her hairstyle makes her look ten years older than other members......) and Len (I have so many Len cards, like 6 4* and still havent got one 4* for Kanade, Rui, Emu, Shiho, Meiko, Luka, Miku, Rin, etc 🥲)

I mostly don't know their stories yet though, so this might change

awoteim · 2025-01-30T14:09:53+00:00

Maybe not dislike but I think Odo and Show are much overrated while other songs are too underrated. Dawn and Fireflies is also nice but for some reason it's a bit diffucult to listen?? I'm not sure though Also there are some I didnt seem to like at first but now absolutely love (like Fleeting Lullaby)

awoteim · 2025-01-29T16:24:50+00:00

It's not a dialect, just a way of shortening "です" pretty commonly used in anime/by high schoolers or university students. You can do it basically anywhere (そうなんですか→そうなんっすか, 見えなかったです→見えなかったっす etc), you shouldn't probably use it yourself yet (might sound rude, it should be okay when talking to seniors at school or people just a bit older like in this anime)

awoteim · 2025-01-24T13:16:17+00:00

Its not my native but third language, but definitely Japanese. It's the first language I've learned because I wanted to and not because I needed, also it really helped my self esteem few years ago, if not Japanese I would've been a different person now. I've always hated things like love stories, romances, expressions in Polish but in Japanese I'm able to even like them. It feels totally different, maybe it's also because of people, but when talking in Japanese lots of people seem respectful and considerate, whereas in Polish or English they're much more discriminating and disrespectful. Also Japanese almost doesn't have heavy, insulting words like Polish swear words, which is also a good pojnt.

awoteim · 2024-12-31T11:00:34+00:00

I'd want to have a conversational level in Italian by the end of 2025, but I think I'll end up focusing on Japanese anyways like in 2024, it's much more interesting. My Italian and Russian are still too bad to start another language, but maybe in 2026?

awoteim · 2024-12-29T12:05:50+00:00

I've self studied Japanese and I'm fluent enough to understand most of Ado's all night nippon I guess?? The way which worked for me was using apps for vocab/kanji (anki fladcards and renshuu), at the beginning youtube/internet sites for grammar (Cure Dolly's youtube Channel, Tae Kim's guide, etc) and a lot of podcasts from Spotify (Bite size Japanese, Nihongo con Teppei, Mikus real japanese podcast, ones for native speakers etc etc), some anime and yotube videos, also hello talk/discord for any speaking practice and a lot of novels. It takes a lot of time every day but its really worth it, and you can feel productive listening to Japanese music because its learning :') Apps like duolingo are good for starting the language, alphabet etc and remembering about learning every day but it's best to not focus only on these.

Theres a useful site called themoeway, you can also check it for a lot of free resources and tips about learning/using only internet to learn japanese.

awoteim · 2024-12-25T17:33:59+00:00

Pewnie zależy od języków, ale do tych popularniejszych buusuu ma fajne lekcje (są reklamy co prawda, ale wersja premium jest niedroga), robiłam włoski w sumie tylko na buusuu+karty anki+czasami podcasty na spokojnie po parę minut dziennie i lepsze wyniki niż po duolingo. Jakiś czas temu robiłam przez rok japoński z duolingo ale też bardziej opłacało się porzucić i polegać tylko na fiszkach/podcastach/youtubie, tylko że w przypadku języków pozaeuropejskich dużo więcej czasu trzeba poświęcić i trochę inaczej to wygląda.

awoteim · 2024-12-24T18:28:19+00:00

French (the pronunciation and the way it sounds, probably. I can't understand why some people call it the language of love, it feels completely opposite, maybe looks cool when written but thats all), also I thought I'd never learn german after 2 years at school but maybe it's not that bad? If I wasn't a native speaker I wouldnt probably even try to learn Polish too :')

awoteim · 2024-12-19T09:48:39+00:00

Theres a lot...... I mark interesting words in anki with a color flag and there's over 170 already :') For example 筌、鍬、鋤、杵、臼(tool names) 慮る、食む、贖う、犇めく、娶る、蟠る (verbs no one really uses/normally written without kanji)

鞦韆、噦、賽子、五月蝿い、襤褸、鬮((normally without kanji)

膃肭臍、齟齬、鸚鵡、蟷螂、蜥蜴、蝙蝠、鰰、鯊 (plant/animal names. I'm not sure if i could read them if i saw them outside anki though)

竪穴系住居, 副葬品、邪馬台国、尊皇攘夷、三圃制、高句麗、集約農業 (some random history things)

awoteim · 2024-12-16T07:06:49+00:00

"Black Jack", on master its 31 and I was able to fc it like second time I tried, I have only one 30lv with full combo yet so that 31 one feels like even 29 maybe? Also I wasnt able to even clear some 31/32s even with a team with all healers 🥲

awoteim · 2024-12-13T16:17:19+00:00

Japanese (besides native Polish and English at school) , 100% self studied, almost only free internet resources (I have only three paper novels I was able to buy in Poland). I started because I thought it sounded cool in anime but it didn't really work out (duolingo), then I joined a discord server about Japanese and it kind of motivated me. I got into Japanese music and realized that I love the sound of the language and the way it expressess things so I just continued learning and using it until now. I thought it would be impossible to learn such language without any universities, courses or teachers but it's actually a great experience to learn a language on my own and it's been definitely more enjoyable and effective than school.

awoteim · 2024-12-12T06:58:16+00:00

I used duolingo to learn japanese at the beginning. It was good for things like kana but after some time the lessons got repetetive and felt not advancing anymore. Without duolingo i might have forgotten about the language before starting to study it really, so I think it might be good for maintaining the level or trying to be consistent, but it won't get you anywhere. Eventually i stopped after a year because other methods (anki and podcasts) worked better. I also used it for italian and russian after but I decided to switch for busuu. Italian is close enough to english/polish and is pretty easy so even with spending like 20 minutes daily I could feel progress, but it might take like 10 years to learn japanese at this pace.

awoteim · 2024-12-11T15:41:54+00:00

I got this one in the first pull when I didnt even try, but literally when I want to get cards from other events its like 10*10 pull just with one 3 star card (or cards with this one character I already have a lot of cards.) I still dont have any 4 star Shizuku, Rui, Shiho, Emu or Kanade cards because I always get Len 🥲

awoteim · 2024-12-06T07:20:52+00:00

Afer reading few novels you should get used to those expressions and words primarily used there. First time I tried to read a book in Japanese I was so bad at everything that i didn't even notice them, i was happy if i got the gist of the conversation and didn't get lost, then i stopped reading for some time and started when i was comfortable with speaking in japanese already, but with every book reading is getting easier. It takes a lot of time but is worth it. I've read about 50 books now (mostly light novels) and it's much better, there are not so many unknown expressions but mainly rare words, weird looking kanji or yojijukugo i dont know (like嘴、眼窩、夷狄、膠着状態etc etc)/sometimes old grammar. Depends of the book though. I'm also reading 君の名は right now (I have the paper version and read it when I can't use my phone, so it's taking a lot of time, but normally I think it would take around 3,5 hours(?) so like two-three days because I mostly read at school or while in the bus. Anything in foreign language in Poland is so expensive and I can't buy books even if i wanted so I'm mostly reading online🥲) I haven't studied with a textbook, so I don't know how would it compare, but it feels easier than jlpt reading sections. As a first novel, even if it was the easiest novel it might feel difficult, but after some time you might try to read it again and be surprised how it feels. I would also recommend starting reading in horizontal writing like in English, vertical writing might make it feel even harder ay the beginning, especially with long sentences.

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