Wow it's been awhile since my last blogpost huh? I plan to update these more often lol, I just spend a lot of time with the coding aspect of the site, rather than the actual content.

Anyways, today's blogpost is going to be the first Japanese update! Yay! If it wasn't obvious enough, I'm learning Japanese (and Somali, which will hopefully also have updates), and it's something really special to me as I'm a huge weeb (let's be honest here), and learning Japanese has given me a lot of self-efficacy and sense of accomplishment, which I apply to other areas of life.

So, why in particular am I learning Japanese. Firstly, there's a lot of untranslated content out there from Japan that I want to enjoy. Like for example, the Puyo Puyo/ Madou Monogatari series. I love these games and th series has been going on for like, 30 years! And us english speakers only have access to... like 3 games? 4 if you have an Iphone, and of course those with story so Puyo Puyo Champions doesn't count. I would love to enjoy this series to the fullest and play the games that didn't make it to the west. And this goes for all types of content: video games, anime, manga, doujinshi, youtubers, etc.

Another reason why I want to learn Japanese is that, I genuinely think it's a beautiful language. The language has an abudance of vowel sounds and I really just love listening to it... if that isn't too weird. (Also, not saying that languages with more constants aren't beautiful, I don't know much about it but I genuinely love German too.) Also, the obvious answer, the writing scripts. Hiragana is so flowy and delicate, the letters are majestic in a way. Katakana has more of an edge to it, a more of an awesome vibe. And with Kanji, the fact that a single character can carry so much meaning and depth really captivates me. Isn't that crazy? A single character defining an entire concept!

Getting to the actual update here, I have increased my Japanese knowledge by a lot these past few months or so. Long are the days where I use Duolingo in the middle school cafeteria... alone. Now I use Anki in my room... alone. My friends are overseas okay? I finally acheieved my highest streak of seven days! But I broke it yesterday 'cause I forgor... However, the main thing I'm doing is immersion, AKA what every language learning Youtube channel is telling people to do nowadays, and for good reason!

I've been watching some anime without English subtitles recently and wow! This is really motivating me! Firstly, I'm learning so many new words that I wouldn't have if I were using subtitles. Mainly because when you use subtitles, you're just reading the English. I was immersing in Yu-Gi-Oh this morning (because immersion gives me an excuse to rewatch this amazing show,) and I learned 19 words in just two episodes! Isn't that crazy?! Not only that, but it's helping me remember words I've already learnt but need a refresher on, as well as just generally teaching me how people naturally speak, (which I know this is an anime and their voices are exagerrated, but it's still fine. If someone spoke English to you, but they sounded like Spongebob, you'd sill understand right?)

But the most awesome thing I discovered while immersing today in particular, (since I'm trying to be more consistent), is that I CAN UNDERSTAND MORE THAN I EVER THOUGHT? I think this was the first time while watching without subtitles that felt like, I was just watching a show? Don't get me wrong, there were definitely moments where for like a good thirty seconds I couldn't understand a thing, but overall? I pretty much understood like 60% of what everyone was saying. It helped that I'v already watched Yu-Gi-Oh but oh my god, it felt amazing that I could just know what they were saying! It's like I went from novice to amateur in Japanese! I'm genuinely so proud of myself and I just couldn't believe I've come so far, I still can't sometimes. Honestly, I have to thank Trenton on Youtube for introducing me to immersion because it's the most successful method for me, and the most rewarding. And definitely better than mindlessly repeating "ご飯とお茶ください。" on Duolingo. (I know, Duolingo slander? How original. Look, I'm still pissed they got rid of tinycards, that was my savior when learning Hiragana as a wee little weeb.)

So, what are my goals moving forward? I made a New Years resolution to get to Japanese N4 level this year, so that's my long term goal. It's not far out of reach, which I purposfully did because I actually intend on completing my New Years Resolutions, unlike the majority of America. Sorry not sorry lol! For the time being, I want to completely finish N5 level, (vocabularly wise, I don't want to take the actual test), since I'm surprisingly almost finished with it, Kanji wise. I also want to get better at reading katakana... Yeah I know, I was just talking about how much Japanese I know, yet I barely know any katakana? Yeah it's embarrassing, and probably one of my biggest Japanese learning mistakes. I naively thought at 11 years old that Katakana is basically just English so I'll never actually need to know it. WHICH WAS VERY WRONG, KATAKANA IS EVERYWHERE!! Ah, I need to shake my younger self and bop her on the head.