[Snowflake] Meme

[karanguni]

I did a whole bunch of cleaning this weekend, but other than that laid low because I feel a little bit laid low by the intensity of, ah, 2018 as it has begun. I certainly hope it doesn't mean to carry on in the same fashion...

Things:

* I flailed my way through my Chocolate Box signup and letter. Too out of it to be more verbose this weekend, but I'm going to get some edits in before assignments go out. FFVII in a fic challenge? What!
* I'm reading the Bedlam Stacks and quite enjoying it. Possibly because I enjoy anything related to ruthless bastards and the East India Company a bit too much for someone who comes from an ex-British colony. Someone, EIC history RPF with me!
* I'm trying to get more in practice with Japanese again this year. yhlee, if you're still interested, I think I'm going to start pumping out Japanese lessons or at least meta again. Including a post on translating classics, I hope.
* I need to get my ass back to the gym, stat.

Snowflake 7: In your own space, create a love meme for yourself. Let people tell you how amazing and awesome and loveable you really are.

Er, go ahead! Or just take this as an opportunity to come say hi. Or tell me if there are things you'd like me to write or blather on about in our shared fandoms/interests. Or just talk!

Comments

[yhlee]

Definitely still interested in taking up Japanese again--now that Duolingo has Japanese, I've been slowly working my way through the beginning lessons of those (hiragana review at this point). =D

You are an awesome person and I love reading your posts, whether on Japanese or the Culture books or what. You wrote one of my favorite Yuletide letters this past Yuletide. ^_^

[rosefox]

Oooh. How is it working for you? If I were hypothetically to somehow find the time to take up Japanese again. (I stopped when the baby was born and they have not become any less time-occupying since then.)

[yhlee]

It's...Duolingo? I mean, at this point all this stuff (the kana at least) is review. One thing I'm not liking is how it introduces vocabulary, which is sometimes does with random multiple-choice where you basically just have to get lucky guessing. So far I've lucked out and either been able to eliminate possibilities, or already know the answer (Korean-Japanese cognates, watching anime, whatever), but I really prefer it when the app introduces vocab with a picture accompanying each word to help you figure it out, and so far it's not doing that with any consistency. Ordering in general seems to be borked--it'll frequently test you on kana you haven't actually been introduced to yet. But it's free and low-effort, so I'm continuing with it for now.

[rosefox]

Huh. Sounds like I should stick with Wanikani and Textfugu, then, since I already paid for them.

[yhlee]

I paid for Wanikani and got overwhelmed by the fact that I cannot memorize visual things worth spit so it was a waste of money, but yeah, if you have it you might as well use it instead. The one thing I'm liking about Duolingo is that it says all the words, so I'm getting pronunciation, including pitch accent.

[rosefox]

Oh, that's handy! Does it have just one speaker for all of them or a mix?

[yhlee]

One speaker, a woman.

I'm starting to see kanji vocabulary being introduced from pretty early, though; that's a plus in my book.

[rosefox]

Oh yes, that's definitely a plus!

[karanguni]

Awesome! I'd love to start doing some in the wild stuff and just seeing what is or isn't useful for people. Not a lot of good Japanese translation writing out there, even if there's a lot of great grammatical stuff.

[rosefox]

If you'd like a virtual gym buddy, just say the word!

I really loved beta-reading for you at Yuletide, and enjoyed the story very much.

[karanguni]

Thank you! Next week on I'm aiming for two sessions per week :D

[rosefox]

In theory I want to go Mon/Tue/Wed/Fri, or at least Mon/Wed/Fri. In practice, let me see how long it takes me to get over this cold. :(

[cahn]

I don't know if you're tired of hearing this by now, but that tagset app is basically the BEST THING EVER. <3 You are awesome!

[karanguni]

Heee, thank you! It was fun to code!

[swan_tower]

I am also interested in the Japanese stuff!

[karanguni]

Yay! What relative skill level would you say you're at, and what kind of stuff ate you interested in - like, what would make the most interesting learning material, be it songs or text or TV shows?

[swan_tower]

Relative skill . . . oof. First year of Japanese my freshman year of college; second year of Japanese my third year of grad school; that was over a decade ago, but I live with my sister who is fluent enough to do Japanese language e-discovery for lawsuits, so my conversational ability hasn't completely vanished. I am, however, the next best thing to illiterate.

As for learning material, stuff that isn't too complicated? :-P

[karanguni]

/thumbs up

Not too complicated can be achieved! Just that some people pick stuff up faster from audio, others from pure text (I am a garbage conversationalist, for example, but I can rock classical Japanese better than most because it's highly textual).

[swan_tower]

Ah, got it! I'm garbage at hearing song lyrics in any language, but a mix of spoken and written text would work for me.

[cafemassolit]

HELLO I'm here to say hi and thank you for being an ULTRA cool yuletide gift-giver -- the story about baby Mikodez still warms my heart and I keep recommending it left and right <3 Looking forward to getting to know you better!

[karanguni]

\o/!! HI! Sounds like you had a crazy December! Welcome!

[schneefink]

I don't know you well yet but you seem pretty cool :)

[karanguni]

:))

[extrapenguin]

*waves*

You have an excellent taste in pairings, and write very well! This year's Tang Dynasty RPF especially was amazing. (Everything is better when it's In Space.)

[karanguni]

:D

Depending on how it develops, I think you might really enjoy the Bedlam Stacks. I'll keep you posted...

[luzula]

Oh, I didn't realize you were the one who made the searchable Yuletide tagset! So very useful.

Did you get a writeable Chocolate Box assignment?

[karanguni]

I got an awesome assignment that will be writable the moment I inhale the canons/pastiche...

[chagrined]

You are also great! And I would enjoy such posts on Japanese stuff. I have been trying to get on my studying again lately but it's always a struggle, heh.