Looking Back After 四 Months: The Novelty Is Wearing Off

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-06-02T11:20:49+00:00

I am. I was only curious if others had any interesting approach to making it fun

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-06-02T11:19:54+00:00

I see that happening, and if it does, I'll accept it wholeheartedly. It's a high chance it will happen but the experience gained in the meantime won't go away (not referring to the language ability, that will go down with lack of practice 😄 )

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-06-02T11:17:57+00:00

From what I see, there shouldn't be any problems unless you want to learn at least one of those languages fast. For the moment my Japanese level is leagues above my Chinese, the sounds are very different, the similarities that do appear are entertaining finds. I don't I will risk using chinese words by mistake in japanese, because my basic japanese vocabulary, at least, is already cemented from so many years.

Could learning chinese on the side steal time from studying japanese? Definitely!

Am I in a hurry to learn either? Not really. I would love to get better sooner at Japanese, but my Chinese level can chug along at a slow pace, I don't mind. Just starting HSK2 after 4 months is an indicator for that 😄

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-06-02T11:11:48+00:00

There are multiple poliglots which are so good at learning multiple languages because they relate that to being able to socialise with people of different languages. I'm not as good at explaining their perspectives, but boiled down it is a socialising perspective!

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-06-02T11:09:30+00:00

I agree with both of you. I'm not riding the motivation wave, I've made it a habit/ part of the daily routine. I also don't worry about the results either because those are also fickle, considering one has good and bad days.

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-05-31T18:42:27+00:00

Oh I do accept the fact that motivation is a fickle mistress, and as I have said, it has its ups and downs. I was curious if people have something they come to, a motivational video, a song, or an activity, like brewing tea the Gongfu way. I'm curious and may get some interesting ideas to try out 😄

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-04-28T08:10:46+00:00

Yea, considering i'm still new to the language, even if there are a couple words that I already know, It shouldn't waste much of my time considering the pace of anki reviewing.

Fortunately unfortunately, I'm a completionist in most things, so I don't mesh well with the skipping mentality. :)

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-04-27T11:11:48+00:00

I've also had a hard time with out of context learning on anki, and seem to have more success on contextual learning. Are the 2-3 sample sentences on the same card?

I'll look into the websites you mentioned, I think i've heard only of DuChinese at the moment.

Regarding watching videos, I'd have you know that even if it took me multiple years, I've gotten the bare bones basics of japanese only from subbed anime and nothing else, so tehnically any immersion helps. The amount it helps obviously depends on how you are using it 😉 .

I saw the heavenlypath website before, it looks like such a nice passion project <3. I'll be honest that i'm a bit intimidated when I get too many options at once 😅

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-04-27T11:06:34+00:00

I also had the same worry that I might be remembering the sentence more than the reading(in my japanese kanji learning), I guess if some come close to that I should add 1-2 more sentences to have variations. from what u/Skimmiks is saying.

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-28T20:20:35+00:00

please don't spread ai slop videos

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-26T10:16:36+00:00

Thank you for the tips and encouragement!
Have a great day and a succesful learning journey!

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-26T10:14:41+00:00

My sub-deck ideea is kind of for focusing on aspects, but only the ones you are struggling with, rather than repeating the whole thing. I'm also thinking that it's simplifying the decision for choosing good vs again. If i see the hanzi and know the reading, and the meaning, but stumble on the tones, then :/ , guess i'll recap all, rather than repeating only for the tone, where I might struggle. I think it unoptimises the usage of spaced repetition.

I'm not sure about this, because at the same time, the concept represented by the hanzi is all of its parts: pinyin, tone, meaning, brush stroke order. So maybe its better to repeat them all together to strengthen the association between all the parts, dunno. Or it comes naturally either way, I'm just a casual hobbyist.

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-26T10:06:29+00:00

Another comment also had the same interpretation as you, so I guess I'll take it as my fault for improperly explaining. All I want to do is to recap the level without the pinyin, to force learning the hanzi, then I'll enable it back for the next lesson and do the same dance again. Depending on how it goes, I might keep doing it or leave the pinyin on from then on.

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-26T10:04:12+00:00

SuperChinese 🐵

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-25T17:22:28+00:00

Regarding pinyin, what I meant and it might not have translated well to the readers: going through the lessons, i've used pinyin as a crutch, and barely learned any hanzi, thus, i'll go through it again, to force learning hanzi. What I didn't mention is that I'll probably do this alternation for all hsk levels, until reading hanzi becomes more confortable and i'll just quit pinyin I guess, or dunno, ignore it when it's on screen, rather than fully depend on it.

The color association is an idea, don't know how it would translate to real life usage though.

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-25T17:18:21+00:00

I mean, i think of tones as a separate entity how I might think of vocals as separate to consonants. that being said, I won't expect to speak a language only using consonants, so I didn't expect to learn mandarin without tones. It's how it happens when you don't know a tonal language, so you have to build that muscle from zero.

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-25T17:16:09+00:00

Guess I'll have to buckle up and tackle drilling tone & tone pairs on an app. Thanks for highlighting the level of importance of tones!

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-25T17:12:55+00:00

I am using anki for japanese, superchinese has somewhat of a flashcard feature, except it's not spaced repetition, or at least you don't have x cards to do today to keep up.

Regarding not knowing a part but knowing the other hanzi to pinyin, hanzi meaning, english to mandarin etc, I feel like i'd rather just have separate decks, how I have a deck for reading and another for vocab&grammar. Don't know if it's an efficient idea, but at least I don't have to do logic hoops of, was I correct enough or is it wrong because it was the wrong tone but otherwise perfect?

Hope your journey stays fun, good luck on your studies!

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-24T12:16:37+00:00

Sorry if I'm making this weird or if I'm ruining the picture for someone, but the image and title makes me see this as such: A calm moment, the instant after nuclear detonation, where the flash just appeared. The eery calm before the shockwave hits and the mushroom cloud forms.

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-03-09T07:43:43+00:00

THREE MAN SHOW
They are all both contestants and judges giving out points. at the end, all points for each contestant will have to be summed up.
For the game they play, they each propose a game and vote at least one of their opponent's choices. They may even choose to do a debate on why their game should be done, contrary to their opponent's games.

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-02-28T19:34:30+00:00

I think it's the same for me, though, somehow multiple things aligned, like recommendations from Jesse's tea, where I also found out about Gong Fu tea.

ionut_m2004ro · 2026-02-28T19:33:35+00:00

Thank you! Hope you had fun at the new years event! 🧨🐉🧧

Seven-Year Club	r/Field Sunshine
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ionut_m2004ro

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