#and i've translated some of this myself ToT and i've read these chapters in chinese

[rigelmejo]

Little things I did recently:

Listened to 20 minutes of Silent Reading chapter 1 audiobook, twice. Understood more the 2nd time around. But I'm relying on remembering the plot to follow the description heavy portions. The dialogue portions I can follow almost all details, so they help me identify which scene I'm listening to. Exciting and humbling. Exciting because I CAN mostly follow the audio Drama now (i listened to a bit last week) whereas in the past I was lost with nl descriptions to orient me and limited comprehension of comversations. But humbling, in listening to the audio BOOK now, because back when I was reading modu as chinese practice I was Very Familiar with the descriptive words and the descriptive paragraphs were how I guessed what scene I was listening to (compared to chinese chapters I'd already read before and looked the words up). Where now, the descriptive words have faded from my mind, and are the harder parts to grasp the meaning of now. I think that...overall, my chinese listening is Better now than it was 6 months ago. But I can tell that the reading-only vocabulary I've picked up is much rustier in my memory, and much harder for me to recognize in listening with no hanzi to look at for reference.

Read 5 panels (chapters) of 19天. Ended up looking up 聚会 because I couldnt remember the "gather" hanzi was pronounced ju. For some reason I kept thinking it was zi like purple 紫. But no, it was ju, for gather: 聚集 gather (juji), 聚会 (juhui) reunion. Again, I recommend that manhua if you like funny, physical comedy, slice of life. It's fun, and even if you can't read something then the pictures have a lot of the comedy anyway.

Watched 40 minutes of qi hun (hikaru no go cdrama adaptation) in only chinese. NO subtitles. First time I tried watching a show with zero subtitles including no chinese subs. I've been listening to audioboks with no text recently though, so I guess I felt I might as well try a show with no subtitles. Hikaru no go is on iqiyi youtube free (still free thank goodness), and iqiyi is one of the channels that has no hard chinese subs - you can turn on english or chinese subs, but they arent pre-made on the video. It was really cool to try! 1. I understood almost every detail! I got lost when Chu Ying said some "sayings" to kid Shi Guang, and when Chu Ying explained playing go I only understood him saying the size of the board/placement number choices, I was confused about the rest of the explanation.

I didn't understand a few lines kid Shi Guang said, but he's speaking like a kid muffled and quick during those lines and I got the gist. It was really exciting just being able to WATCH the scenes, my focus not half torn on the subs. To actually hear how the lines are said, without translation changes. Some words I could guess from context like xia qi 下棋 for play go, since Chu Ying keeps saying 我想下棋。 and shi guang keeps saying to stop crying ToT. But I do think I could have guessed the parts I didnt grasp, like Chu Yings "sayings" if Id had the chinese subtitles on and saw the hanzi to help myself figure out what he meant. So I may rewatch the episode with chinese subs. But since this summer is about improving LISTENING COMPREHENSION, I am just pretty exciting it went so well. Also the show is just so comforting. Id totally forgotten Shi Guang's little intro where he explains what the show/journey will be about!

I wonder if they dubbed the show? I assume they dubbed it, probably, since most cdramas do. But kid shi guang and the other kids talk pretty natural sounding (not like trying to sound "acting" if that makes sense, with clear projected enough voices), which reminds me of To Dear Myself with zhu yilong which either used audio filmed During Scenes or instructed the actors to dub themselves speaking more realistically (i dont remember which, that show just had a Very realisticly visual audio and acting feel). Adult shi guang also has a very natural sound to how he speaks, like the sound of his voice we hear is how he would sound if talking to regular close friends.

In Japanese Glossika app, I've studied 1129 sentences, done 9137 reps (repetitions of sentences), and studied 24:39 hours. Glossika labels me in High A1 14.7%. While I've still got some significant complaints about the new glossika app japanese course, my stubbornness to complete all the fucking sentences and judge for myself how good/bad it is has definitely Motivated me to Study japanese more. I've studied those 24 hours in the past 3 weeks, so a little over 1 hour a day of studying on average. Thats way more than the ZERO time per week I was spending on japanese, and its audio so I've been able to do it with my regular life schedule.

(Truly glossikas Only Unique benefit to me is the listening mode, so I can press play and it gives me new sentences and reviews at time intervals it schedules on its own, so i do not have to put any effort into figuring out what to do next or take time away from other activities to constantly click my screen for an hour... i can just click play new, or click play review, and continue on with my life knowing I'm learning some new stuff and reviewing things i need to. If anything else fucking had this feature id jump to it instead. Clozemaster Kind of had this feature - and i paid for a while just for it - but clozemaster's Radio mode did not split new from reviews and did not spaced repetition schedule the reviews so there were a LOT of days i wouldnt hear new sentences or id review the same 300 sentences instead of different ones out of the 2000+ i had studied).

I am curious if the Chinese Glossika app course is better? I know the old cd chinese course was fairly good, as learner reviews mentioned some alternately worded things but nothing worded Wrongly. So if the new chinese app course, please please please, just used ANY of their people on staff who know chinese (like the maker of it) to human translate, then their chinese app course should be one of the app courses with the LEAST errors. Since its a language they, presumably, have the most access to human translators for. And im curious if therefore i could study using it. Or vice versa, if the new chinese app course is trash id like to review how fucking far their quality has tanked. I recognize more chinese than japanese, and i'd be able to tell within 500 sentences roughly what the error rate is in the chinese app course.

[mejomonster]

so on the progress back to getting some energy i can now read a little and have been chipping away at yukacchi’s translation of guardian (here’s yuka-cchii’s twitter and tumblr @yukacchi) and

i love the characterizations? when i have more energy i might go back and quote but just. i love how priest sets it up. the moments where zhao yunlan frightens li qian for an inexplicable reason, that god tier intimidation still there. the fact he takes the guardian rules so seriously while he makes a mess of his personal life, how he’s unabashedly bi and wants love but thinks he isn’t long term relationship material so he always is a loyal partner but just keeps being left by them and thinks shen wei is ‘a serious looking man’ and zhao yunlan doesn’t want to offer himself when he thinks he can’t be the kind of man shen wei would deserve to date. how shen wei pointedly won’t look at zhao yunlan directly, how when he touches zhao yunlan he can’t help but reveal his affection (that’s already there) and desperate urge to hold/protect. how he hears li qian want to throw her life away and takes it So Personal he gets scary. 

Because it almost killed the man he loves. Because he knows what its like to want to die to protect someone and reasons for throwing your life away are deeply personal shit to the man and stuff he’s thought about for centuries in longing and grief. How guo changcheng looks back in the hall, and shen wei who’d refused to meet zhao yunlan’s eyes is now staring like he’s been doing it 10,000 years in longing and pain and care to the point he doesn’t even notice guo changcheng watching him. the way shen wei has a gentle smile that the more you look is clearly pasted on and held tight and a mask. 

the way he immediately makes zhao yunlan think of a beautiful scholar a demon falls in love with and paints, with that touch of darkness in the art unable to be ignored. that shen wei looks just so perfect of a beauty behind the glasses and avoidance he’s using to keep his walls up and go less noticed. how shen wei speaks eloquently but dances completely around giving actual answers. the way zhao yunlan is singleminded in his work, puts on this friendly casual act to handle the SID and push Guo changcheng along but he can drop it and be frightening at a dime and when people have done something wrong or they’re sensitive wow do they feel that underlying threat no matter how relaxed and ‘friendly and casual’ he’s putting on. 

just. the masks the two put on were certainly aspects in the drama acted out well by zhu yilong and bai yu, but in the novel there’s such a noticeable undercurrent of otherworldly power/isolation in the way zhao yunlan relates to things even if he doesn’t notice or pay mind to it - its in how he acts relative to da qing, to the SID, to regular civilians. the way this dark shadow seems to seep from shen wei, not in an evil way but in a way like he fits more with the shadows and ghosts, with the things slipping in the dark, like its touched him and he can be the sweet strong level headed and kind professor but that past doesn’t go away, doesn’t leave, its just under this very nicely made up front he’s got on. and the moment no one’s looking (or shen wei thinks they aren’t), the moment zhao yunlan gets too close and shen wei feels like he’s young and vulnerable and aching with loss again, it breaks right through (and then there’s zhao yunlan’s much sharper to the point its scary perception in this novel form - he picks up on shen wei’s oddness before he even falls into the contemplating how Hot and His Type the guy is - but it also Doesn’t even put him off a man is weird because zhao yunlan is so used to seeing ghosts and dealing with shadows without even a jump or blink of shock, because he’s the guardian he doesn’t feel like he quite belongs to the world of the living even though he plays in it and protects it). 

[rigelmejo]

Notes today o3o)/

1. Chinese

I am 5/12 chapters through 第十二封情书 and I also recommend this as an easy-ish read, especially if you want to pick up some school related words. School related words are a weak spot for me lol because I never needed to learn 班长 is class monitor. The writing is fairly straightforward if you wanted to guess word meanings they're fairly clear from context.

Where this fic shines is its words about feelings/ideas/reasons since it's half in rhe form of introspective "love letters" Zhang zhijun never plans to send, so it's him writing how he feels and wondering if he's nervous or worried to tell his feelings, if he wants to stop the feelings and move on, if people you like become perfect in your eyes, etc. All really good conceptual words on thoughts and emotions which would help one figure out how to word their own feelings in a conversation, in a journal, or if you plan in the future to read stuff where the narrator does get self reflective.

I checked out the 200+k story 你喜不喜欢你, and although Heavenly Path ranks it as Upper Intermediate, Readibu is giving me an hsk 4 comprehension 83% and hsk 5 comprehension 93% for it, which appears to be comfortably in my Extensive Reading zone. So i may read some of that next... though 撒野 is equivalent in difficulty because of Length reasons at that point, and similarly easy language for me. 你喜不喜欢你 supposedly has ghosts though... and I love me a modern supernatural story. See: my favorite pingxie fics ToT 寒舍 and 半夜寒衣. Which, I would read those 2 pingxie fics next but. Readibu stats put them as harder (hsk 4 comprehension 77%). So while I've read them before and know a lot of THEIR specific words, on the other hand I'm reading "easier" stuff right now just to get a lot of reading in. More reading practice = more improvement, so I'm not exactly dying to slow down my progress lol.

On the other hand though? Reading stuff with more unknown words/stuff does increase opportunities to learn things I have a weak spot in. For example I'm reading this school focused thing, which is definitely filling in my high school/college vocabulary gaps. Reading a business setting with economics discussed would fill in gaps I definitely have, etc. Like... I will ultimately NEED to read stuff I'm unfamiliar with, to become familiar with it. So it's not a bad idea to push myself into Unknown vocabulary territory every so often.

Yes, I'm still trying to find out if that 9000 pages in your target language makes u able to read better ToT. One day ill get to prove that claim true or false. One day ToT

I am still reading dmbj 1. But it's slower going cause those chapters take me 20-30 minutes a piece. And of course... once I finish I've got a LOT more fucking dmbj novels ToT. Which... I might do 云村笔记 next, since it's got useful words and it's mostly a slice of life novel so I don't need to keep reading another 30 chapters of our dudes scared in a tomb! (I tell you what though: if you want to get comfortable with tomb genre words read dmbj... I feel like after this first novel, the majority of new unknown words will be sand/water setting related or names, because the vast majority of other words in dmbj are scary/reaction/tomb/old stuff antique/bugs/tomb gear which the first book is covering and getting one familiar with).

2. Japanese

I started Yakuza Like a Dragon yesterday, with Ichibian!

And like every single fucking time I start a Japanese game, my brain goes into overdrive to remind me of what's familiar but I fucking forgot ToT, what I don't know yet and desperately try to guess, what I remember but needs to Snap Back into place again, and how much I just wanna Get Better At Japanese so the task of me enjoying comparing the japanese to the English translation gets easier. (Don't ask why I enjoy so Much comparing japanese original with translations, but wow do i, I'm absolutely overwhelmed with doing it automatically and loving it a lot whenever I stumble into japanese again ToT).

The thing is. Every time I remember jjapanese, the Chinese word for things usually zooms right out of my active vocabulary and gets replaced with the japanese. This spring I played through several yakuza games and my japanese recognition and new learned stuff increased (I got to the point I kept forgetting how to converse in chinese and the japanese sentences were all that were fucking coming to me... 时间shijian was GONE and replaced with 時間 jikan ToT and nanren was replaced with otoko it was a mess, I truly couldn't remember something as basic as nanren ToT). But it just shoved my active chinese vocabulary right outta my brain - which to be fair, I was doing no chinese studying in the spring to KEEP it active.

Meanwhile, this past week I read 5 chinese stories and I'm going on 2 more. So my chinese active vocabulary I forgot this spring came right back, and now I can remember how to chat in chinese (which is good for particular personal life reasons at the moment) but that also means I blanked out on all my old japanese active vocab. Nanren replaced otoko, haizi replaced Kodomo, jiehun replaced whatever the fuck wedding was in japanese but I forgot. (I do notice my mental active vocab seems to replace the hanzi/Kanji cognates the worst, I think cause my brain just hates multiple pronunciations for a given character so it doesn't like conceptualizing multiple... which is part of why hanzi clicked so easy for me with their usually only 1-2 pronunciations, versus Kanji which I STILl fucking struggle to pronounce with their usual several pronunciations). So yeah, my chinese is great again rn... but just playing a game with japanese audio, my brain goes into overdrive trying to remember again lol.

I find it so funny. I find it so funny things can be so easy yet so hard. That u can learn more and be eons past where you used to be in progress, and then realize how much you still don't understand and must learn. Then you learn more, get aware of New things you never realized you didn't know, and the process repeats. In japanese I was OVER THE MOON last year when I realized I could read manga finally, without a dictionary! Then I was over the moon this spring, listening to Final Fantasys X audio and just able to actually PLACE each scene I heard, follow some of the dialogue meaning. Now it's fall, I've "progressed" and I pick up Guardians japanese translated novel... I slog through the intro character page, and realize just how brutally few Kanji words I know how to pronounce, how much I'm leaning on chinese hanzi knowledge to "guess" what I'm reading. I start playing some yakuza, and realize how HYPE I was in spring to understand "I'm going to get Oden, yeah he'll kill you, ikuzou etc" when now I hear a solid 4 words I don't know and get So antsy i can't grasp that part lol! That I realize now I can follow that daily life stuff so it doesn't blow my mind to understand anymore, it's not progress that blows my mind anymore to just manage to reach (though it used to), now I've moved on and my brain insists its Frustrating to not grasp new particular details.

It's just. So funny how it's both SO motivating to be on the beginning part when you feel you made a breakthrough and comprehend more! Then it's almost demotivating to realize the new things you Still Don't grasp and desperately want to (even though objectively it's a good thing - you're making more progress if this is happening). Funny what the brain gets happy versus frustrated over.

Which is happening with me for chinese too right now. At lightning speed! At the beginning of this month my brain was DELIGHTED I could read a novel in 2 days and know almost every word! OVER THE MOON I could grasp so much, when I've read stories fully before and Never Comprehended them with such detail as this week. And now, toward the end of this week? My brain is acting frustrated if I try to read and skip or guess an unknown word! Just 1-2 unknown words feel frustrating! When I know good and well I've seen 10-20+ unknown words a chapter in rhe past, ans EASILY read, grasped main idea, and enjoyed. I know that literally earlier this week, I read a story extensively and didn't know maybe 2-5 words a chapter, and it didn't bother me at all! But now it's the end of the week, and my brains going "Oh this feels so hard to read! It has a handful of vague words (that I could definitely guess if I put the effort into and aren't hard to quickly look up)". It makes me wanna force myself to slog through something MUCH harder, if only to remind myself it's not actually a big deal that should make me STUMBLE AND STOP if I don't remember 情致 and 感情s difference absolutely perfectly in a sentence. Or if i dont remember specifically how touch 触碰 and 触摸 differ. Lol its not a big enough deal to actually impede understanding of main idea, and yet now that it's the end of the week these "vague confusions" and driving me up a wall! Lol if I went and read 默读 or 杀破浪 without a dictionary I would quickly realize how much it doesnt fucking matter if I know the specific nuance, and I'd just be grateful to see words I recognize to help me guess all the words I DONT.

Anyway it's. Funny and ridiculous to see the process. How a brain doing something Super Hard acts like it's amazing to successfully understand, but a brain doing something reasonably easy is like "oh but I'm not doing it perfectly so I wanr to give up!"

I also watched 2008 ep 1 of Legend of the Condor Heroes last night in chinese only and uh. Nothing like some huge dialogue chunks of wuxia 4 hanzi wordings to remind me I don't know shit, I can follow a much more confusing story line to me than I think I can ToT. I followed it fine, though yeah it was a bit of a struggle. It reminded me I followed Word of Honor in chinese, and to be so Grateful word of honor was actually mostly fairly modern straightforward dialogue except for a few things Wen Kexing, Prince Jin, and the big sect leader said. Versus Legend of the Condor Heroes 2008 where the first maybe 20 minutes is all several fighters saying lots of 4 hanzi line phrases with just a little relief of action and direct sentences like Tie and Guo fighting and dying. Then finally it flashes 16 years forward and I was so relieved it was regular spoken kinds of everyday stuff again like shoot the black bird/save the white bird/my daughter X/etc is coming.

Anyway back to japanese! I yet again wanna go thru my japanese old audio glossika files. So I can know more of the fucking words I'm hearing in yakuza. Though, knowing me, the words I'm gonna pick up wouldn't even be in glossika. Like I doubt kill is in that course ToT, but I sure had to learn it to follow a lot of yakuza lines.