It was actually Lojban that helped develop my love of languages, some odd 15 years ago or so. It’s only recently did I start picking up studying them in earnest.

Going excellently. I’m pumping roughly 90-120 minutes into my Japanese. Spanish is still only being barely maintained. But I still don’t feel quite ready to indulge in Spanish just yet. Lojban is going by slower now, only reading every once in a while. And still need to engage with the community more if I want to pick it up proper. I’ve been writing a journal in Lojban in order to test the waters.

I had a bum day a few days ago due to computer trouble (computer still is borked), but bounced back very quickly. I do believe I’m finally pivoting out of my depression.

Going excellently. I was told a trick in how to manage my timing when it came to studying. Instead of setting up a 10 minute or 30 minute timer. You get a song or a podcast or a video on in the background, and use that as your timer. So I ended up finding a 7 or 9 minute long song and then just studying with that on repeat. I’m managing like 40-60 minute study sessions for my Japanese, and have finally worked through most of the workload.

Spanish is still just maining a streak, but I want to just fully push my Japanese first before branching off into my Spanish more.

Lojban is going great too. Managed to complete all of Lojban.io in about 5ish days, and now I’m reading the Complete Lojban Language book, going by a chapter a day. I’ve only complete 2 chapters so far. But with some background knowledge from the past and such, I’m finding it relatively easy to start writing sentences in it already.

Doing maths still, and my reading (of other books) isn’t as intense. But I’m at least gaining more steam again.

Just one monologue. The voice is completely different from my RL voice.

My favourite song that’s in another language would be Prituri Se Planinata by Stellamara.

Fei by Irfan is a close second.

Scraping by with Spanish streaks. Doing roughly 20-30 mins of Japanese a day. Since I’m not doing Irish and haven’t done it for a while I decided to whet my whistle more by studying Lojban. Honestly, restarting my Lojban journey ended up making the rest of my studies a lot easier. Things were novel and interesting again. Only been at it for 3 days, but I’m thinking I might end up temp replacing my Irish for Lojban, at least up until I’m at a decent enough level. And I’m hearing you can get to near-fluency by 6 months time. So going to be targeting that for at least conversational.

My maths and reading has taken a hit, but at least I’m studying more again. Also the heatwave still technically isn’t over for me, I’m still reaching 29C most nights, and there’s another major heatwave coming next week as far as I’ve heard. Just need to maintain what I can now and during then. Really don’t want to even get a days break, not to mimic what happened last time. It’s always incredibly difficult having to think you’re restarting from 0 again.

The first book I picked up was The Coming of the Third Reich, by Richard J. Evans, which is a history book on how the Nazis came to power (reading this in part due to history repeating itself and want to mentally prepare). But at some point it become too heavy to continue on properly and wanted to read something lighter, so started reading The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, which is a history book about fabrics. It’s really opened my eyes on how important textiles really was, and how even modern computing has some lineage in textiles too.

I think when I’m able for it, I’d want to read about Japanese history in the Japanese language, and Latina/Hispanic history in Spanish. I’d also say Irish history in Irish, but even English, our main language here, doesn’t really have decent Irish history books outside of primary and secondary education. But I do have an Irish book picked out that was supposedly an amazing book and helped in part spark a mini revival of the language many years ago, called Cre Na Cille. Which is about undead spirits shooting the breeze in a cemetery. It’s supposed to be comical from what I’ve heard.

Felt very defeated thinking about restarting doing an hour each, then remembered that’s actually the wrong way to think about it. Aim for 5 mins over 60 and just rebuild time again. Doing much better now since that. Not fully back on the horse. And there’s a heatwave going to happen to us sometime in the next few days so hopefully I can push through then unlike last time.

Doing JP, SP and maths. Irish is nice, but I still feel like I need to flesh out better tooling for that. Atm, it’s very difficult starting in Irish without going a full 30-60 minutes. So once I’m back at a better pace I’ll try again then.

Also to add: I’m drawing and reading a lot now, so time isn’t completely wasted.

The ebbs and flows of life have worn me down some. Still suffering under this depression, so haven’t been really studying much. Only crossing off the checkmarks to pass the streaks. Otherwise on extremely low energy.

I started drawing again, and I feel a lot better due to that. But still a long way off feeling even “okay” at this point.

Yeah, not much to report on. Sorry.

I think that’s a huge part of it. I don’t see the end results being all that worthwhile anymore. For a while I was told learning Japanese will get me nowhere, and it was my focal language, so that really shot my nerves. Next to that, I don’t really find myself being anyway competent at the languages so it’s just struggling uphill constantly with no payoff. At least not yet.

Feels like the better part of 2 years down the drain at the moment if I end up do giving up. Effort levels for attempting studies is very high so I want to engage slowly and not force myself to over indulge to keep up with full force studying. Honestly I just feel like I’m in a slump and when I see things right again, I’ll be rearing to go again. No idea what’s caused the downfall though. I know I’m near homelessness, but that’s just about it for me. I really shouldn’t be all too far gone. There still should be hope, and yet I just feel like I’m wasting away. Don’t mean to emotionally dump/vent, but studying is just so hard to do right now with regards to my languages. I used to always enjoy it. Something is off, and I’m not sure what.

MaruMori has it’s own system for learning both the readings and the meanings, but I honestly skip them completely since I just ignore the stories made since they never help me remember them any better. I feel the best way to memorise a hard to figure out word is always a more personal story. For instance I had issues with the word “とにかく”, and the pre-made story wasn’t helpful. So I just imagined a mobster called Tony being dismissive going “anyway…”. And that helped me remember a lot better than the pre-made stories.

MaruMori does have a building of sorts for their words, but you need to sort of get in to them early to help make earlier meanings make sense of later meanings, so I’m far too deep to start them properly now which is another thing I can’t really jell with it fully. I guess it can work, but just not the way I use it.

MaruMori also doesn’t stay to a strict N5 list then N4, they do it based on what they think is more useful, and in terms of usefulness, it’s not always about word frequency, but about how a kanji you just picked up relates in words its used to indicate how it’s used. Like I learned 機体 in Japanese, despite hardly ever using that word in English. MaruMori also builds from base kanji into more and more complicated kanji, using older kanji as references to newer kanji in order to cement meanings of the strokes.

It’s not the best way to pick up Japanese vocabulary, but at the same time I don’t think there could ever be a realistic best scenario. So it works for what it is I guess.

Only managing to scrape by with 30 mins of Japanese a day and 1 Duolingo lesson of Spanish a day. No Irish. Still sorta depressed I think. I think to regrow my efforts I want to just focus in on my Japanese until that’s doing an hour, then grow my other language muscles again. Still amazed how I just completely fucked up after missing a day or 2 to that heatwave. Absolutely insane.

Also want to reply to some folk here on this thread at times, but can only see them if I go directly to this current Language Learning website/page (sopuli.xyz). Can’t see most posts from this instance. I know Ashtear pops on here every so often, but can’t comment to people if I can’t see them on my own feed. Reoccurring issue for me.

Also if anyone has any tips on getting back on the horse. I’d be appreciative.

Oh hey, my niece bought me that Koohi book just last Christmas. I haven’t gotten into it since I’m already knee deep in MaruMori SRS. But I’ll probably dig into that app and etc for when I start trying to write. Never knew how popular it was. Neat.

That small gap totalled my motivation. Somehow it was just so hard to restart once the heat dissipated. Only touched my Japanese, and even then just 30 mins a day. Today managed to do more though. However I scrape by on my Spanish Duolingo, but that’s about it for Spanish. Irish? Not even touched.

That being said, yesterday I spent several hours tinkering with Godot, and was thoroughly enjoying myself figuring things out. So that’s also ramped up my desire to study my languages again. Did 200-ish reviews today instead of the usual 100. I’m finding leveraging other interests also helps in overall mood and motivation. The thing me and my girlfriend will be doing was put on hold, so I’ll be able to push forwards with languages again as well for the time being, so nothing holding me back now except myself.

I’m hoping the upcoming summer heat won’t completely waste me again.

Edit: a bit more for clarity of point I was trying to make*

Was doing okay in my studies up until this recent heatwave. Always so tired and unable to think. No AC in Ireland either, so it gets up to around 28C in my room, even with the windows open, and at night. Temps go back to normal around Thursday/Friday I think? So I’ll just pick up then when I’m actually able to think and not be so drowsy.

Wolverine, who completely regenerated from a single drop of blood.

Managed to build up some of my efforts again. Did a few days very intensive learning. Probably shouldn’t have gone too ham as I’m already feeling burnt out. It’s always encouraging to hear peoples journeys though, it ends up helping keeping me going throughout the whole period I’ve been studying, especially during burnouts. Additionally, talked to my GF about some stuff lately, we decided it might be good to put some efforts on hold (at least reduced) (both me and her) to adjust to a few things that otherwise need to be picked up. This is good news for both of us, nothing major, but good news. And we’ll both be focusing more on combining our efforts to push for this certain thing. Don’t want to get too into details, sorry for the mystery. But yeah, languages will be pulled back for a while. At least a short while, to see what’s what.

Edit: Still plan on doing the hr in Japanese a day, so there’s that.

Yeah, I feel that, studying is something I pride myself on, which is why I rather not skip a single day, but yeah, I’m only human, and not everything can or has to be perfect. I actually learnt that, in a language learning sense, from a Japanese learner on YouTube, when he admitted to missing a day on one of his live feeds, then said he forged the dates on Anki to make it seem like he didn’t miss any. I get it. People on social media want perfection, I just felt sorry he had to lie about something so simple, so I’m not really one for trying to egg someone who misses a day or two out of hundreds. Life happens.

Again, talking to fellow learners, even if I’m not as active, does help ease the pain by a fair amount. Just really want to indulge in the languages no matter what facet I can come across, so I’ll take what I can get.

I should have really slept hours ago, but need to stay awake longer still, so I’ll probably try do it now after this message, I really gotta do a lot more so even just the 30 minutes should at least tide my senses over for a while.

Also cheers.

Something happened to me last Friday and have only been doing 30 mins of Japanese since then (still not enough to progress).

In somewhat of a depressive slump right now. Trying to muster any energy to study is incredibly difficult. I’m amazed I managed to even do 30 minutes of Japanese a day since. But yeah, just really gutted, no energy, and in a degree of emotional pain.

Talking with other language learners does enable me to feel somewhat connected to my habits still though, so at least there’s that.

Yeah, I feel this somewhat. When you tell people about what you’re attempting, they just immediately have high regards for you, and it can be demotivating living up to these sorts of unrealistic expectations. I have something coming up later this year and they could very well just have a “everyone stand up and talk about yourself” spiel. I study languages a lot in my free time, but I’m definitely not going to tell any of them that.