Language Journal: March 26th 2021

It has been a while since I did one of these. I'm still working on my Japanese. And I felt it was time to once again sit back and reflect.

I'm mostly just doing flash cards. Anime is losing appeal. Mostly because there are fewer and fewer shows my wife and I both enjoy. I also missed my first 2 days of flash cards in 1500+ days. First on my daughter's birthday (understandable) and then again totally at random earlier this week.

Neither case was something I intended to do. And for such a long term, ingrained habit it was a bit shocking for it to happen twice in a little over a month. Could be statistical noise. But it is at the least a good chance to start revisiting things.

I'm doing other things sporadically still. But, I'm woefully behind in the second volume of Shield Hero and still have a Silver Spoon volume to digest at home. I will do random binges of anime. But, if my wife isn't involved, it means carving out time to do it alone. It is a choice, and yes, I could make the time. I know I am choosing to invest my time elsewhere.

Is it a growing lack of interest? I don't think so. But ruling out possibilities won't help. What I would say is that a major motivator in ramping up my studies disappeared. Our plan was to go to Japan the year after the Olympics. Which WOULD have been this year. And last year we were supposed to attend a destination wedding. On top of that, we're slowly trying to address our daughter's fear of new foods.

So, now it looks like at least another 2 years before that trip. And, at this point my proficiency is more than enough to have broken conversations even with people who speak no English. Thus, some of the lost productivity is probably related to losing that push. I'll probably experience an increase in pressure once we have a date in mind again. But I am genuinely interested in increasing my proficiency regardless of the journey.

And that is the reason for getting back here. To spit out some ideas, maybe attempt some and hopefully make some progress. For now, I don't want to make any solid plans, just toss out some ideas and try them and see if any stick:

• Watch one episode of something 3 times a week with my wife (she will usually agree to at least sit with me even if she pays no attention to the show)
• Translate more songs. I did モールス by Halo at 四畳半 recently and spread it out over a few sittings/days and I think that relaxed pace is sustainable.
• Return to the 1-page of a Japanese short novel a day. I set this limit for myself with Shield Hero vol 1 and it worked well. I also have Harry Potter in Japanese on Kindle.

We'll see if any of those work out.