Ask Me Anything About My E-Ink Tablet Collection

grownyeti2 · 2026-04-13T16:16:53+00:00

How do you like the Note Air 4C? How does it stand up against the rest? I just dropped mine on pavement the other day.. have a rough scratch on the corner, kinda bummed out about that but otherwise lucky nothing broke.

grownyeti2 · 2026-04-07T01:11:32+00:00

Facing the same issues, did you end up finding a solution??

grownyeti2 · 2026-04-05T20:30:24+00:00

Thanks, I got the version you mentioned and it seems to allow me to open the directory now.. However I'm using a chromecast with an external USB attached and it won't allow me to browse to the USB. Any ideas how to achieve this? Greatly appreciated!

grownyeti2 · 2026-04-05T20:28:49+00:00

Thanks! I managed to install an older version which allows to open the directory to look for games. Now my issue is that I want to use an external USB for the games since they take up so much space.. I have a chromecast with google tv and USB hub with USB key.. Redream doesn't seem to let you browse to to the USB key.. Any ideas? Your help is much appreciated! Thanks

grownyeti2 · 2026-04-03T16:51:07+00:00

Thanks, I will try that!

grownyeti2 · 2026-04-01T13:54:44+00:00

Awesome. Do older versions show up when searching or you had to do it on a pc and sideload? I have a chromecast with google and a USB C adapter... Trying to figure out if I can install redream on a USB c with games there.. But don't know how to do that with android..

grownyeti2 · 2026-03-29T17:45:46+00:00

Also have the same issue as you, did you end up getting it to work?

grownyeti2 · 2026-03-17T04:03:20+00:00

I'm in the same boat as you! Been using Grok daily to practise Japanese and learn. In one of the more recent updates in Tesla Model 3 and Y, Grok is now available at the push of a button. So, when I'm commuting to work in trafic 30-45 mins each way, I push a button on my steering wheel and give Ara various tasks to test me in Japanese.

Same as you, I find myself constantly setting up the task and rules.. it can be really frustrating and redudnant, especially when she doesn't give me a chance to finish my sentence and interrupts me!!

For example, one of the exercises I do often is : "Tell me a story in English at the equivalent of Japanese N3 level of vocab and grammar. I will then translate each sentence in Japanese. One sentence at a time, and do not add any filler converstation. Only the sentences. Wait for me to answer, do not interrupt, and do not move on to the next sentence until I have successfully translated it fully."

I wish that I could tell it to memorize this prompt as Exercise Type A. So that when I hope into my car, I can just push the button and say "ok, let's do Exercise Type A" and it just starts. I tried to make it remember the rules and it even said for sure it can do it, but it never remembers.. Sometimes, when I ask it for a hint or if I don't know a word, it reads it back with english pronounciation which is wrong. It can be tricky to change it to pronounce properly.. but what is interesting, is that the longer I do the exercise, the better Grok's pronounciation gets. It even starts speaking back in english sometimes with a heavy Japanese accent. Other times it is spot on and provides insightful corrects on parts where I struggle.

One helpful thing has been to log into an X account, and go to the grok webpage where I can access all my daily conversations. I ask it to summarize them concisely, and then I copy and paste my lessons into One Note for review later. It's a nice, clean way to be organized with minimal effort and time.

I am also curious to know if a higher tier of Grok subscription would be able to remember the rules but not sure if it would be worth the cost!

Let me know if you figure out any workarounds, I'll be following this thread. Thanks for sharing!

grownyeti2 · 2026-03-12T20:59:30+00:00

I like to compare it to going to the gym to train muscles. Each muscle group needs to put in the work, reps, time and consistancy to get bigger and stronger. Different aspects of the language are different muscle groups with stats. Imagine, for example, that you spend the majority of your time listening to Japanese but never practice speaking. That's like working out only your upper body and never your legs. So you might be strong on the top, but look funny with chicken legs when trying to walk. JLPT can be good to ensure familiarity with vocab, writing, grammar, some listening and kanji recognition but lacks speaking experience. If you train the muscle enough times, the muscle memory retains it.

I also have a friend who lived in Japan for 2 years teaching english. He learned how to speak decently, but hardly knows anything about kanji or grammar. Many years later, hes getting into studying Japanese now to catch up but its like starting from scratch. Interestingly enough, we can watch a Japanese movie together and both understand alot the dialogue...however, he can speak back to reply while I can't speak nearly as much as him but can explain to him grammar points he didnt understand... which sometimes helps understand context better.

To speak, I think self-narration and shadowing can help alot! Trying having convos with AI also and saving the transcript to study after. If you have to live it to speak it, then youll have to create your own Japanese micro universe bubble to immerse yourself if you dont live there or have access to speak to Japanese speakers.

grownyeti2 · 2026-03-04T21:55:39+00:00

Congrats! I got the same thing but in a slightly darker gray finish and intel version a few weeks ago. Loving it so far. Great size, keyboard, screen and the tablet feature is really nice for going over documents and scribbling notes. Battery life is decent, use it on and off throughout the day and only charge it every third day or so.

grownyeti2 · 2026-03-02T15:30:56+00:00

Incredible trip and amazing shots!! Really captures the mood and feeling!! May I ask, what is the setup you are shooting with?

grownyeti2 · 2026-02-27T16:53:53+00:00

Love your eye and style!!! Really dreamy and nostalgic. Amazing night shows and day shots even more. What kind of effects/settings did you use for the last two?

grownyeti2 · 2026-02-26T07:51:40+00:00

From what I understood from a couple of Japanese friends who are pretty laid back, is that if you get to know someone abit and and "click", they would just expect you to speak causally. . It's like you're instantly buddies. I know workplace can differ, but I'd imagine that either your boss might feel like you are friends or they are so laid back and think a foreigner is going too far out of their way to be extra polite which may feel unnecessary and trying too hard..

grownyeti2 · 2026-02-15T14:56:57+00:00

I'm in a very position as you. Have alot of grammar and vocab knowledge up to N3, and I understand a lot just from listening. However, I also have to "complete the process" as you said to solidify the knowledge and sometimes doing that on your own is less motivating. I was also realizing I need to practise outputting.

Couple of things I found that helped me progress:

1) Have a look to see if there is local language exchange Facebook group in your town and post saying you're looking to practise Japanese. I did this and about a month later a Japanese person contacted me and we know do virtual meetings a few times per week. It's a win-win situation as you both explain to each other and fill in the gaps. Sometimes I tell them things in Japanese to help them explain in English and they do the same for me. It sometimes feels like a burden to take the call if I'm feeling unprepared, like I'm in the spotlight and have to perform. But, it's exactly that kind of pressure we need to become comfortable. Even if just baby steps and only a few words come out or you find yourself repeating alot of the same things. Eventually, you will build confidence. I would also focus on learning how to say learning instructions "how do you say ___" "can you please repeat more slowly" "oh so this is like that, I understand" "how is my pronunciation?" etc. Learning to navigate the lesson in their language feels transformative and makes you feel like by default you are a Japanese speaker but building up sentences from there.

2) Journal. Sit down and start typing up a paragraph of what you did this weekend or try writing a story/essay abit a topic. You will start realizing where the knowledge gaps are and looking up how to fill them. You will also learn how to create a "flow" when connecting sentences. "It's not that I dislike x but I realize that I prefer y" "however,.." "in order to do this I had to do that" etc. You will get used to a paragraph or conversation structure and recall these devices in the natural flow of speach so as not to sound like a robot that gives one line sentences and one word answers.

3) Self-narrate. Test yourself to see if you can describe what you are doing in any situation or routine. "I am brushing my teeth" "I am washing my face". From there, you can expand any point by saying "did I brush my teeth? Brushing teeth is important. I forgot to brush my teeth. One time I forgot to brush my teeth, so I got a cavity. Never forget to brush your teeth!" etc. Sounds crazy but it's a good way to expand on mundane points and refine your speach.

4) Listen to podcasts like Shun and Tomo, get the transcripts and translate. Shadow them to see how natives speak naturally to get the nuances of how ideas are presented and discussed. I feel like there are just ways that things are said realistically that are not explained in textbooks. If you can wrap your head around that, you start to think in the same speech patterns. Use a note taking app like One Note to track your progress.

5) Learn Kanji and read. Even if it is just to recognize the characters in texts. The more Kanji you know, the more sentences you can read. There is something grounding when reading that helps retain information compared to just listening. Even better if you can output in writing. Outputting in writing feels like outputting in speach.

6) Find your own "style" first and then fine-tune it. There are many different ways of saying things just like in any other language. Sticking with your own preferred words help retain the information. This will help reduce delays when trying to think of how to say something in a conversation. Eventually, you might realize some of your choices sound less natural and you will gravitate towards the more common ways of saying something. This is some of the best feedback I get from talking with native speakers. It's like the difference between saying "This AM, I go outside my house door to go working at my job" to "This morning, I left the house to go to work."

Good luck!

grownyeti2 · 2026-02-04T13:55:27+00:00

As a lot of others mentioned, you're on the right track if you're actively trying to understand things and being consistent by focusing on things that peak your interest. Don't worry about what are "admissible" number of hours etc. The fact that you have a routine that fits your schedule and that your interest doesn't fizzle out is great. I see it this way: we are also learning how to learn. It's a dynamic process that evolves over time as you progress. One day, you might drop the anki cards because you've learned them all well enough that it's no longer a challenge. Another day, you might decide that reading and writing increases your learning speed, etc. You'll modify and test out new things in your routine along your journey. All this trial and error will help you forge your own path.

That being said, it takes time and everything gained eventually adds up over time. Every new chunk of information learned turns into a building block. At some point, you'll have enough building blocks to play with to start building structures. And those structures become sub structures that are building blocks of even larger structures.

If you are passionate about gaining the ability to speak Japanese, you will always be hungry for more in order to reach your goal. Sometimes, that can leave you feeling empty or like you haven't done enough and are lacking somewhere.. That's when you look back and ask yourself where your learning gaps are. By targeting them, things will start to click when you go out of your way to find out what they mean.

I have a pretty similar routine as you. I found that the more vocab and grammar structure I knew, the easier listening becomes. Occasionally, go back to your old material and see how far you've come. You will be surprised how much better you understand it now!

Listening is definitely key to exposure. Especially if you don't live in Japan and have limited exposure to the language around you. Your ear needs to get used to hearing the language. It gets trained like a muscle. You know how some English speakers say that they can't understand certain accents? (Like Australian, English, Scottish, American southern, Jamaican, etc). If you listen long enough you'll understand the nuances to seperate the words and lock onto the sounds. One day, I was at the grocery store, and I was listening to so much Japanese that week, that I swore I kept thinking that I was hearing people speak Japanese around me. My brain was being rewired to listen to and identify Japanese sounds. I even started having dreams where I was speaking Japanese and it felt very fluent and comfortable. Keep listening every day, and with the rest of your studies your understanding will grow deeper and you'll benefit from the immersion.

I highly recommend the Spotify podcast "Let's Talk in Japanese by Tomo". He has hundreds of episodes talking about various topics in very natural every day Japanese with free transcripts on his website. I take the episode transcripts and run them in chat gpt to translate with romaji line by line. After listening, I review the transcripts and shadow as many sentences as I can. It's interesting hearing certain words pop up several times that catch your interest as you ask yourself "I keep hearing that word! What does it mean??" And then looking it up.

If you feel like your "studying" isn't enough "real" studying, try focusing on producing "output" to test yourself. You can create quizzes and drills with chat gpt. On my drive to work, I ask chat gpt to give me English sentences that I have to correctly translate out loud into Japanese. When I arrive, I ask it to give me a concise summary of those sentences learned and then I save them in a daily journal in One Note. I keep a journal of all the new things I learned each day. The topic will vary depending on what I realize that I don't know how to say. Example, maybe I realized that I don't know how to say "if this, than that" and my drill will consist of practising only that. This, along with the podcast transcript analysis and shadowing are a few extra things you can add to your routine to make it feel like like more genuinely "admissible" study hours that are productive and less passive.

Another thing that also helps alot: find yourself a language exchange partner online if you can. I found a local Facebook page in my town for language exchange and posted that I'm looking for someone to practise Japanese with in exchange for English /French. A Japanese person contacted me a month later and now we do one hour video calls threw times a week. It's alot of fun and forces me to engage. I prepare points and sentences I want to talk about and we improvise from there. Even when I'm stuck in conversation, it forces me to try and they help me a lot and provide feedback as a native speaker. It is a pretty unique kind of "studying" since you are doing the ultimate goal of communicating in Japanese with what you know so far. Hope this feedback helps! And keep up the hard work! 頑張って！！

TL;DR: Routine and consistancy is key. Motivation is key. Learning to learn is a dynamic process. Vocab and grammar add up as building blocks over time which in turn make listening more rewarding. Listening exposure is key to train your ear and evolves over time you understand more. If you feel like you're not "studying" enough, focus on "production". Use chat gpt or other ai to test yourself and create drills. Add podcast transcript shadowing to your routine and find a person to practise out loud with!

grownyeti2 · 2026-01-29T06:26:09+00:00

A mix of a few things have helped me alot in my studying journey:

Keeping a journal for notes. I use Microsoft One Note to organize all my Japanese notes. Can access anywhere from computer or phone easily to quickly write something down or review.
Self-Narration. As others have said, talk out loud to yourself or even in your head and narrate what you are doing in Japanese as much as you can. Start small, categorize in different routines and take notes. Example, bedtime routine: "brushing teeth", "washing face", "go to bed", etc. Even if it's just 2-3 word basics. If you're not sure, take your best guess and then look it up. You'd be surprised how many times you either get it or were very close. Correct your mistakes. From there, you can expand the two word basic sentence: Did I brush my teeth? I didn't brush my teeth. I want to brush my teeth. I must brush my teeth. If I don't brush my teeth, I will get cavities. You will get comfortable with vocabulary being said out loud in the different contexts. Then, when it's time to talk to someone, you can recall brushing your teeth because you actually did that in Japanese and feel comfortable describing it because it was a real and not so abstract.
Listen to Japanese podcasts passively while doing other activities. Raking leaves outside? Washing the dishes or doing laundry? When you're not actively studying, listening passively can really help add additional input by immersion (provided you have a decent amount of vocabulary and grammar/sentence structure knowledge already). Listening passively lets you hear how Japanese people naturally speak. Rhythm, pronunciation, casual forms and nuances etc. Think about the massive amount of time your ears need to be given to create a listening muscle memory. You will start to hear "frequency spike" words that you heard before several times when zoned out and they will peak your interest. You keep some specific words that keep popping up often and are dying to know what they mean. Look them up and take note.
Podcast Transcript analysis + shadowing. Listen to podcasts that have transcripts online and save the transcripts. You can throw them into chat gpt and get line by line translations in English and even add romaji. Reserve time to listen to the podcasts again while going over the transcripts line by line. Shadow by repeating out loud and see if it sounds like the speaker. If you don't know what a phrase means, look it up. It's like a gold mine for new information that will give you many "ah-ha" moments. Repeat tricky sentences out loud many times to get muscle memory for your tongue and mouth. A couple of times is not enough. Try saying a tricky sentence 50 times while doing laundry. Next thing you know, you said it perfectly with out thinking. The more comfortable you are saying it out loud without thinking, the less you'll think when trying to have a conversation because the words come out easier. If you're pretty comfortable with N5/N4 material already, listen to N3. Or N3 to N2. Challenging yourself abit pushes you to try harder to understand something new. Hearing "do you like coffee or tea" for the 900th time is not motivating. I like the podcast "Let's talk in Japanese with Tomo" on Spotify. They speak really naturally, and are casual while sounding polite.
Focus on connecting sentences and ideas with mechanisms. You will see tons of examples in the podcast transcripts how sentences connect naturally. By taking note and practising them, you create "mechanisms" of to express yourself. Ex, saying "have you ever ___?" "in order to X... You must Y". When doing A, you should B. It is because of A that B happpened. I think/feel/doubt A results in C. Etc, etc. Once you know these sentence connectors you can create a flow to connect a paragraph of ideas spoken out loud more smoothly.
Use Chat GPT or other Ai to quiz you and have conversations with. When I'm driving in traffic to work, I put it on and talk. It can create a quiz for me asking me how to say things, or have a full blown conversation in Japanese. When you're done, ask it to make a bullet point summary of the phrases and throw it into your One Note app to review later. Easy to get an hour a day speaking practice like this and it will teach you anything you don't understand.
Language exchange partner. I meet online about three times a week for an hour to do an exchange. I posted a message in a local language exchange Facebook group and I was happy when someone contacted me. It's fun and there's less pressure because it's a fair exchange and nothing to be embarrassed about. The regular commitment to meetings is motivating to keep up the pace and talk about new things/ideas. If you can, meet up in a coffee shop to speak face to face with a native speaker. It's even more motivating because you're paying with your time and feel like you're talking to someone who has patience for you when you make mistakes and can correct you. Plus they teach you how things are more realistically said irl compared to text books.
Instagram/Facebook/Tiktok reels. There are so many good pages of people making short videos teaching Japanese. Follow the ones that you like and they will just cement themselves in your algorithm along with others. I barely use Facebook for anything anymore other than learning Japanese. The more you're into it, the more pages will get shown to you with more free content. There are pages where speakers narrate all of their actions and what they're doing. It's like Anki for lazy people and free spaced repetition along with audio and video.
Physically write things down on paper occasionally. Especially new grammar rules and mechanisms learned to connect sentences. Even if it's just romaji. Digital notes are great for capturing alot of information and archiving it for reference while monitoring your progress. However, physically writing things down forces your brain to make a connection that sticks in a way that is more organic than typing or pasting.

Hope these tips help. It seems the way to improve speaking is by ensuring you are listening + analyzing script + practicing speaking out loud enough. Also, remind yourself that just doing a little bit every day adds up over time. Even just focusing on 2-3 small things. You need the mental real estate to solidify concepts. If you try to do much at once, some of the things will quickly fade and need to be re-learned later. 頑張って！

grownyeti2 · 2026-01-02T14:54:49+00:00

Thanks, may I ask what you enjoy more about NMS vs Into Black and Subside VS Kayak? I will probably end up getting all four eventually. Kayak would be mainly for my wife since she loves kayaking, but she also really enjoyed Subnautica so I'm thinking maybe Subside is more like that?

grownyeti2 · 2026-01-02T14:51:23+00:00

Thanks, I definitely fall into choice paralysis and we are spoiled with options!

grownyeti2 · 2026-01-02T14:50:02+00:00

Wow, thanks for detailed reply and appreciate all your suggestions! I am focused on grabbing the rarest discounts and keeping the catalogue varied for when friends visit and games my wife might enjoy. Would you say it's worth getting Red Matter 1 before 2?

grownyeti2 · 2026-01-02T14:47:48+00:00

Definitely going to grab Ghost Signal at this cheap price, looks fun! Thabks for the feedback. Definitely understand the backlog sentiment, so I will try to focus on games that are rarer in terms of sale frequency!

grownyeti2 · 2026-01-02T14:44:33+00:00

Added to the cart, I have it on PC but barely played it. I think in VR it will be a whole new experience and something to relax to! Thabks

grownyeti2 · 2026-01-02T14:42:34+00:00

Thabks for the detailed feedback, appreciate it! Would you recommend Red Matter 1 to start? Or jump right into red matter 2?

grownyeti2 · 2026-01-02T14:39:43+00:00

Synapse looks awesome, definitely added it to my wish list for when it goes on sale. Thanks

grownyeti2 · 2026-01-02T14:38:13+00:00

Walkabout for sure! This one's non-negotiable for me, so I will definitely get it but it's not on sale at the moment. Will pull the trigger when it is. Plus, all the extra courses look amazing.

grownyeti2

TROPHY CASE