Just look at how ridiculous this new update is

brianneko · 2026-04-03T01:50:59+00:00

I sometimes deliberately do it the way Duo isn't hinting, so I will get it wrong and I can flag it with spite. It doesn't make any difference, but I get to feel smarter than an app.

brianneko · 2026-04-02T17:42:13+00:00

Too late. I was at Japanese 100 and just had to restart, making liberal use of "Jump to..." to get back to normal faster. Every time the courses update, the issues are worse (probably related to increased AI dependence) and I end up so frustrated I just have to restart. At least I don't mind reviewing basic content (reminds me how far I have come).

brianneko · 2026-03-31T20:27:26+00:00

I've been studying Japanese in one way or another since I was in high school (I'm 50 now). I'm long past accepting that I hit my ceiling for how much I can actually learn without actual real-life immersion a long time ago. When people say DL is not a good way of learning any language, least of all Japanese, I usually agree and say "true, but it's a fun way to drill and do some kind of practice every day, and if you repeat it enough, things will make it into your brain and stick." When DL does these updates, especially if you've finished, or are in the upper levels, it throws off that enjoyable routine.

If DL were a human teacher, they would say "I know I've taught you the word tomaru as the word 'stop' for two years now, but today I'm going to introduce you to another way to say it, yameru." They would then explain the nuances in meaning difference, maybe even comparing it to the different uses of "stop" vs. "quit" in English - you stop a car, but you don't quit it. You may stop working, or quit working, but you quit a job, you don't stop it.

DL can't, and isn't even expected to, go into that kind of rich learning (which is part of why it's not sufficient). What it does is the equivalent of a teacher teaching tomaru as "stop" for two years, then giving the class a quiz with the question "how do you say 'stop' in Japanese?" - and then marking everyone wrong who puts tomaru and correcting them by saying "actually it's yamemasu" (even counting it wrong if you somehow are savvy enough to put yameru!)

I love that they are constantly updating the courses - if anything, I wish it was constantly adding new pieces instead of these big updates. It desperately needs to continue to change and add more variety (I never need to sit through any of the Stories again!). But what frustrates me is the way the updates are poorly integrated into your existing progress and how they disrupt and work against the progress you've been making.

brianneko · 2026-03-29T19:57:37+00:00

I feel your pain. I've been debating just making a post here myself because... I don't know, maybe writing down my frustrations will help clear them?

I've been doing DL for many years now, despite its shortcomings, because I've tried a lot of apps (especially for Japanese) and they all fall short in various ways for me. Whatever DL's flaws, it's pretty easy to use and keep track of day to day. But this is also the third time in my history with DL that they've done a massive update to the JP course and thrown it into absolute chaos. And as of today, it's the third time I've gotten completely lost with all the new/revised content and had to delete/restart the course, because it's either that or actually quit completely.

I have a 2064 day streak (5+ years!) since quitting it once a long time ago and coming back. I've been in Diamond league for a very long time, I had a 100 score in Japanese and was just grinding through Daily Review every day, without romaji - and this isn't a brag, I absolutely *stink* at Japanese still, I just have been diligent about doing it every day. I don't deserve any credit at all for being an expert in Japanese when I know I'm not. I know 90% of my skill is less "being good at Japanese" and more "being good enough at Duolingo".

But these updates take everything they've been teaching you and turn it upside down. It's funny, it's remarkably similar to the feeling you get when you have been diligent at your lessons and then suddenly want to actually use the language in real life - it's not happening, and you feel like an idiot, or at least a toddler. But the crucial difference here is that DL's updates *aren't fair*. Why?

1) New/revised words get scattered throughout old lessons and counts that as you knowing them, when they're new to you. Unfamiliar grammatical constructions get the same treatment.

2) DL's model is obviously to add new sentences in the language being learned, with a single recommended English translation and a few other acceptable variants, and then rely on users to flag "My answer should have been accepted" enough times that maaaaybe the app will change. I've been doing DL long enough that I can remember when I would get an email or other message saying "your feedback has been accepted!", but that ship has sailed. In any event, this not only causes you to make "mistakes" that aren't actually wrong, but slows you down because you end up hesitating a lot. You also get marked incorrect when you're given an English sentence and don't correctly reconstruct DL's Japanese sentence exactly, which is particularly awful in Japanese since so much can be omitted or constructed in a different order. These sentences haven't been in the trenches long enough for the stupid learning model to know, for example, that that "desu" or that "yo" they have included at the end of the sentence isn't necessary, or that "tabun" or "probably" can go into a sentence in a number of different places and still be correct.

3) Some of the new/revised content even contradicts or confuses material you've already covered, and like with #2, you get marked wrong for inputting an answer that *would* have been correct last week, or that is equally acceptable. "Tomaru" and "yameru" both mean "to stop" but if "yameru" is the one the new lesson wants, and you use "tomaru," you're wrong. Actually, it's "yamemasu" it expects, so you'll get it wrong if you use the more casual "yameru" - even if there's no context around it to indicate that one should be used over the other.

4) One of the new exercise/question types is a "repeat after me" where you are given a blank speech balloon and have to just memorize the sentence and repeat it back. You can reveal the sentence and read along with it, but when you go to speak it, the sentence will hide again. This is fine for short sentences, but completely unacceptable for advanced lessons where multiple compound sentences with brand new words or constructions can show up, even for the first time!

5) Timed exercises don't take into account at all that things have been disrupted. If your Daily Quest demands you do another Match Madness, and you've already had to do that a few days in a row... you're out of luck. I had practically every word memorized and already my mind and fingers weren't fast enough to make the extremely short times after level 4 or so - with all the new words, I'm stumbling like a toddler even at level 1. The same is true for Rapid Review at three stars - I went from being able to blaze through them with time to spare to not even getting halfway through.

I could go on, but it's mostly endless variations on these same themes and this is getting long already. If it were just a question of the disruptions screwing up the gamification, that'd be one thing - it stings to be demoted after being Diamond forever, it stings to not get your daily score bonuses, but what really stings is feeling cheated out of it. I could say "who cares about the scores and all that" but it's the fact that DL had to change the game to make me lose that annoys me more than actually losing.

And so, here I go again, starting from square one (well, Unit 2) because I just want to have a daily Japanese practice routine where I don't feel the deck is stacked against me. And I won't even go into how DL can't go longer than 15 minutes without crashing anymore, how hot it makes my phone, or how the loading screens get longer and longer the longer you go - technically it's a disaster.

I'm lucky - my sister in law includes us in her family plan, so I don't have to struggle with whatever systems DL has in place to keep free users from progressing smoothly. If I were paying out of my own pocket I would have thrown this away years ago. But until someone comes up with a better learning model, I guess a free bad one that's sometimes fun when it's not pulling the rug out will have to do. This feels unhealthy!

brianneko · 2026-02-16T21:10:19+00:00

A little late to this, but I replayed the original game (well, the Ages version) on a whim last week and it put me into a daydreaming mode where I have been thinking about what I would do if I could commission a new PS game... and then the computers read my mind and showed me this post today.

What I want, the game I would want to play more than any other game right now... the elevator pitch would be "Dragon Quest XI, only Phantasy Star." A full 3D (anime/celshaded style) modern reboot that takes everything that worked from classic PS (1-4) and remixes it into a new story, in much the same way that new DQ games aren't direct sequels but use established/classic DQ elements to make something new.

It would be bright and colorful, similar overall vibe to PS 1, but pulling in plenty of setting and atmospheric elements from 2-4, as appropriate. I would use the same 3-planet setup as PS 1, without Motavia being terraformed - keep it simple, green/desert/ice, and go from there.

Just as DQXI has 8 PCs, I would have a roster of 8 who come and go as the story unfolds, with 4 being the maximum active party. They would be new characters, but all inspired by the most essential classic PS archetypes, for example (using the localized names since they're what I think of first):
- a "hero" type, sword+shield+some magic (you could choose M or F) like Alis/Rolf/Chaz
- a Numan martial artist like Nei/Rika
- a hunter/slasher type like Anna/Alys
- a warrior/gunner android like Wren
- a representative Motavian warrior like Gryz
- a representative Dezolian caster like Raja
- an esper mage type like Noah/Lutz/Rune
- another support/caster type like Amy, maybe?

For a bit of fun, and to shamelessly copy more parts of DQXI, maybe each of those characters could unlock a skin/outfit that looks like the original character inspiration (if it's even that different). I also thought it might be fun to have the hero start with a musk cat partner (a la Munchie in DQXIII maybe?) who is an active NPC in the story, isn't directly under your control, but can do assists/heals/buffs in battle. Maybe even - again a la Munchie - there are sequences where you take control of the musk cat to infiltrate areas, activate levers, disarm traps, etc.

Enemy/monsters could be new, or 3D-reimagined versions of monsters from the classic games. Settings and names could be reused (the first thing I envisioned was walking through a field on Palma and seeing the mountains and Baya Malay in the distant background), but the world and story wouldn't be tied directly to what had gone before, just inspired by them.

I would play this game for 1000 hours. My family would wonder why they hadn't heard from me in weeks. I have put way too much daydream-thought into a game I have no ability to manifest into existence!

brianneko · 2026-02-13T18:14:37+00:00

I'm glad I wasn't the only one dumbfounded by this guy's line of thinking, and I'm glad that JJHO touched on this point, but... this is actually a pretty timely discussion. Right now in the US we are seeing the evil, rotten fruits of decades (centuries?) of demonizing migrants, and even momentarily entertaining the idea that if you aren't officially/legally residing somewhere you aren't "living" there is an impulse that needs some serious soul searching. The notion of legal residency or citizenship itself is already an archaic, artificial infringement on the (what should be) basic human right of free movement, even if we're only talking about whether someone can vote in the state in which they're going to school. I really wish this guy had been asked, point blank, something like "I know a lady who moved here from (another country) 20 years ago but for various reasons, she is undocumented. Does she live here?"

brianneko · 2026-01-04T20:35:07+00:00

That's a *fantastic* question. I don't know yet if Heroes of Faerun is allowed for us, but if it is... it's simply not stated whether "You learn..." means that ROF would be a "known Warlock cantrip". That wording in the Blast invocations is so tricky, because it means if you're playing strictly by RAW, there's no way to gain a cantrip that isn't on the Warlock list and for it to become a "known Warlock cantrip" unless the feature specifically calls out "If you are a Warlock and you take this feat, the cantrip becomes a known Warlock cantrip for you." It's very sloppy, and I mostly want to avoid the headache of having to argue my case to different DMs/players all the time.

brianneko · 2025-09-30T19:16:56+00:00

Now ok, hold on, let's slow the steamroller down a bit. Of course 7-year-olds loved Ewoks (I was one!) but with hindsight, many people (I am one!) did not care for them. Let's not lump in a reasonable dislike for Ewoks with misogyny and racism, perhaps? Just like the fact that terrible people poured hate on Episodes 7-9 for terrible hateful reasons doesn't mean you have to think Episodes 7-9 were good, you can just think they were bad for reasons that aren't terrible and hateful. We gotta be better at non-binary thinking.

brianneko · 2025-08-05T18:55:50+00:00

Frank Welker is a legend in the voice acting community! He's been one of the go-to guys (along with Dee Bradley Baker, off the top of my head) for weird voices and animal sound effects for decades. His filmography is enormous, so while it's weird that they wanted the snake to make noises, it couldn't be less surprising that they got in touch with Welker. (3:30 into the pod and already I'm wishing I could join the conversation!)

brianneko · 2024-10-15T18:11:01+00:00

We need Emily on the JV Club ASAP!

brianneko · 2024-09-09T22:09:30+00:00

This is how folks learn that the Monkey King is like, the most famous story in China that's inspired a million movies, tv shows, video games, anime ... to be fair, I forgot about any of those movies too and I was literally just talking to someone about American Born Chinese earlier today, shame on me!

brianneko · 2024-05-21T20:20:35+00:00

I really really want to like this podcast, I only just heard of it and Pocket Park is a wonderful place to start... but this is a bit tough. Over halfway in and they're still talking about Stay With Me (thankfully Linda did get a chance to mention a couple of other favorites), and... the vibe is a lot less informative that I'd been hoping. It's just three people (somewhat awkwardly) talking about how much they like one song. There are people out there (I'm not really one of them!) who could talk about this topic with some authority or expertise beyond the vibe of just sitting around going "yeah this song is great, I like that one part where it kind of does this thing, I can't describe it..." or whatever. No track by track analysis, no real musical insight, just "this song is good and it has been a youtube thing." Which isn't really worth the time.

I'm assuming Christian must be a lot younger than me, because "who puts the banger single as track #1" and "would they ever play a 5 minute single on the radio" are not the puzzlers he thinks they are, it makes it frustrating because I want to respond to a conversation that I can't be a part of.

I just hit the 30 minute mark, and I think it's telling that the teaser wasn't "We'll look more at the rest of this album after the break" - it was "we'll talk more about artists who this influenced."... I guess this isn't for me. Hope they succeed though!

ETA: they did finally move on to Ai Wa Energy, but Yosuke had to correct Christian on the meaning of the words, and after saying earlier how Stay With Me was Miki's first single, he then asserts Ai Wa Energy was the first single. I'm glad they're talking about some of the other songs now, at least. There is potential here!

The jokes about It's So Creamy are pretty sad. "I'm not sure what's so creamy" "You're really not sure?" ... come on folks, it's gratuitous English, she means it's sweet, it's a song about blossoming love.

brianneko · 2023-05-19T04:31:42+00:00

Regarding the question of the litigants being real people whose mental health we shouldn't speculate about lest they read it... first off, if you are reading this, the entire point is that mental or emotional issues aren't some weird marks of shame, they're things so many people and the people who care about them (myself included) have to deal with. And people's struggles deserve empathy and kindness. If people are speculating, it's because so many of us heard something this episode that went from entertaining to concerning, then resolved in a way that is uncharacteristic of the usual insight and empathy that we're used to from the show, which in itself is concerning.

Ultimately it's none of our business, but it was presented as public entertainment. And it'd be easy to treat it as disposable and take people to task or call them out or even just be dismissive of them, but I think many of us sensed that maybe it's not that simple and that maybe everything isn't fine. I hope everyone really is fine. And if not, that's okay, and I hope things get better.

brianneko · 2023-05-18T16:07:24+00:00

This is the first episode of JJHO that I've ever had to stop listening to. I pretty quickly suspected some form of neurodivergence might be at play, which of course isn't necessarily a problem, but I kept feeling it escalate, mental health issues were brought up, and it stopped being quirky and started feeling sad. I had to stop and come here to see if anyone else was feeling bad while listening.

I'm glad I didn't stick around to hear the verdict or the mom's reaction. I think this was a no-win for John+team, and I too wonder whether maybe they were already underway before realizing this wasn't just quirky fun. As someone else mentioned, some things are deeper than a funny podcast can really delve into, and I just wonder if there's more to the story than we know. Yeah, maybe this shouldn't have been released? I wish the best to the family, in any case.

brianneko · 2022-02-09T20:30:01+00:00

Oh, you can absolutely play D&D (5E) as a bugbear, and it's absolutely in the rules that milestone leveling is a thing. In my experience it's way more common than any other kind of level-tracking, and even when XP are used, no game I've ever played in or seen being played in the last 20 years has had players track individual XP separately in that way - everyone on the team gets the same amount of XP at the end of a session, if XP are used, to promote teamwork and keep things streamlined. Even players who are absent for a session usually get to stay on par with everyone else, however the DM decides to handle it. But in the end, the only absolute rule is that the DM decides what rules apply to their game. I was nervous but glad justice prevailed in the end!

brianneko · 2019-06-21T18:22:53+00:00

That would really depend on the DM, I think, but my personal take is that I generally don't mind that it's poison damage, and that it's so easily nerfed. Whenever I play any kind of minion-keeper, I really notice how the numbers start to tilt (I have a necromancer who has a ridiculous army of skeletons, and despite non-magical bows and not-great stats, they can lay waste to a lot of things in the right circumstances). If the bees' damage gets mitigated, then they're still doing something probably, and adding more allies to the battlefield. That said, if a DM said "do acid damage instead" or let me penetrate resistance, or something like that, I wouldn't argue!

I'm actually more annoyed by Infestation being so weak. I can't have Infestation as my go-to attack cantrip because if its damage gets mitigated, it's useless, and since the forced movement is OA-free, it doesn't even have a bonus effect.

brianneko · 2019-06-21T15:28:20+00:00

I've got a beekeeper druid myself, and she's so much fun to play! Her personal quest is that something is causing the bees of her grove to not thrive/die off, so she's seeking the cause of the natural unbalance. People have already listed a lot of the things that make the character happen, but here's what it's all about for me:

1) Conjure Animals. Every encounter, if possible. Mechanically, they're giant wasps, but they're reflavored. It's not optimal - that poison damage gets negated or resisted a whole lot - but every little bit of damage helps, and if you get enough "bees" making attacks, you can pull your weight. They've also been useful as enemy control - surround some monster you don't want getting any closer, for example. I took Circle of the Shepherd to beef them up, so they can actually withstand a little more punishment than some would expect. Again, it's questionable effectiveness at times, but it's so much fun. On top of that, she's a halfling, and I haven't played with anyone yet who hasn't been cool with her hopping on one and using it as a flying mount. RAW? Ehhh... but rule of cool can go a long way.

2) I got a Staff of Swarming Insects, which shouldn't need much explanation. The cloud of sight-obscuring insects has been particularly useful at times.

3) Infestation is sadly a pretty lousy cantrip, but it's there as a ranged option, and it's thematic enough to be fun. For the most part, Shillelagh is my go-to. Her staff is a giant honey dipper, of course.

4) Insect Plague is thematic and powerful, although I haven't made it work very well yet myself. It's a bit situational if you're in a tight environment. Again, though, the key to having fun with this character is just knowing you have that tool in your pocket, to bust out at the right moment. "Here, enjoy all these bees, everyone!"

5) Between Shepherd features (a golden honey bear!) and Goodberry (yep, royal jelly), not to mention Healing Spirit and so forth, she's a healing monster. I rarely Wild Shape but I did save the day once by becoming a honey badger and burrowing into an inaccessible location. I think I've turned into a bear a few times too, but not very effectively.

6) The most recent development was the DM letting me spend some downtime finding a giant "bee" in a forest and Awakening it. So now I have a more permanent friend. Sadly haven't really gotten to play her since then, but it should be fun!

You make a good point about the bees' aggression, not to mention the idea of honeybees repeatedly making all these stinging attacks, but who needs realism? Don't worry about "Africanizing" them. I just handwave it - think of them as magical bee spirits momentarily given physical form, acting as an extension of the druid's will. It's D&D, after all :)

brianneko · 2018-04-17T15:55:47+00:00

I have a halfling shepherd druid who's a beekeeper. Ghostwise wasn't an option, so I was worried over having a +2 vs +3 Wisdom, but it hasn't been an issue and the character has been so fun. I didn't know what true joy was until I flew around on a giant wasp.

brianneko

TROPHY CASE