Based on Duolingo, I’m N3 (lies), and MaruMori/other apps I’m N5. I have seen all vocab for N5 and have about 300 mastered words out of the 1000 or so words. I still to this day keep forgetting katakana just because it’s not very common in loan words I’m given on the MM path. I could honestly make do with a proper course as well, you’re probably right about that. I haven’t really looked into group activities for Japanese, but now that you mention it, it would be a good idea to help get my foot further in the door.

Also I can’t seem to see your comment on my Lemmy instance for some reason, but I can get the reply for some reason in PMs?
What’s that about?

It was like 10 euro an hour, which, I mean, if I really really really tried, I could make something work, but I think at least for the start of this course, it’ll help set me up for success, because I’ll be able to at least attempt speaking the language properly, getting the phonetics right, and that being important. Then the reading, and phonetics to readings and etc, and dialects, and understanding nuances of gender based grammar better (Duolingo is absolutely shit for explaining any of that), and well, just overall language attempt. This will be my first actual proper course I paid for, as I try to be self learned, but I guess for this language I’ve completely given up on finding decent sources, since everything good is still all over the place.

I use Duolingo with the audio turned off for a bit. Sionnach at an odd time if I want to see if the apps updated to something with more of a bite, but my main go to has been Teach Yourself Complete Irish by Diarmuid Ó Sé. I also tried the book Gaeilge Gan Stró, but it felt too touristy in its approach to teaching it, learning whole sentences before they explain the individual words. Complete Irish is more explained, however condensed and to the point which is a bigger strength to me, but also sort of a bad point too.

I sort of want a longer grammatical explanation and then examples, and then maybe some SRS to work with like an Anki card deck. There’s a lot of Irish resources out there, but none of them are good. And the best you can get are just old hardcopy books.

In a while, whenever the depression fully goes away, I’ll probably automate my own Anki card word-lookup Deck. But yeah, just I need my energy back firstly.

Doing 30 mins of Japanese, 30 mins of Spanish and 30 mins of Irish again. Also yeah I know for languages like Japanese, it’s still not enough. Though I am watching a fair amount of shows that incorporate the languages. Still need to go to comprehensible input videos for all though.

Also thinking about picking up a proper language course that might start in the next few weeks, but I’m unsure if that’s a good idea or not. It’s a 10 week course, that spans 2 hours per week, and it’ll cost roughly 200 euro. So it’s like a tenner an hour or something, which is decent, but I’m not sure if I can afford it just now is the thing, but then again I’m unsure if they’ll have these courses again in the next few months. I have about a week or so before courses fill up, so I’m limited for time, so I’m just mulling these things over in my head wondering if it’s worth it or not.

Depression and anxiety have hands, but I’m getting back into the swing of things… Slowly. Also more bad news, so it’s just been a real struggle of late to continue, but still trying.

Bad news hit me lately so just been sorta struggling to maintain streaks, let alone study.
This thread’s always a motivator, so might end up doing a bit more after I close out of this.
Just, yeah, life, I guess.

I feasted, nay, engorged myself in Japanese, to the detriment of my Spanish and Irish. I’m still doing my Spanish, but it’s a drop in the ocean of what I used to do. Realized today I’m probably hella depressed, but I guess it is coming to be in waves? I guess despite my constant efforts, I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere in my languages, so that doesn’t help. Feel sort of like, what’s the point? You know. Like I like learning the languages, and I want to be good at them someday, but my motivation is in the swanny.

Japanese is still getting tackled. Thinking about ditching Duolingo entirely for Lingonaut but also not sure when it’ll have Spanish done, so have to wait on that. Irish is seeing a bit more hope these days as the app Sionnach which I was referred, it had a schism where one of the owners apparently went mad and ejected a lot of the workers on it, so now they’ve diverted and are making a newer, ground up Irish learning app. Called Madra Teanga, and are also open sourcing it, as well as going to get proper native speech, such as Munster, and Connacht and Ulster dialects. Basically in the pre-planning stage at the moment, but oddly enough more optimistic than anything I’ve seen so far.

Anyway, yeah, that’s me.

Try out https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/ for free to use Japanese books. I’ve heard good things about this site. Books for all levels too.

I know new years in Japanese is 正月, but don’t know how to say happy new years despite so, also probably not going to try Spanish or Irish either just because languages do it all differently and I haven’t really gotten around to seasonal greetings yet, even birthdays for me have been hardly touched, so memory is vague.

I’ve gone absolutely ape shit diving into my languages. Doing well over an hour, maybe 2, of Japanese a day. Doing my vocab for Irish on Anki and Drops and also finally my Irish book arrived, so incorporate that and another book. AND also a friend of mine decided to pick up Irish recently, so I have that to also look forward to! And then next the Spanish. Felt like years since I’ve studied it properly, when it’s only been a week or two, and already things are clicking, so that’s also been quite motivating for me too. I want to push for a full hour in Spanish now too. A friend mentioned to me their office is looking for WFH translators for English-Spanish, so if I ever get a C1 credential, I could potentially chase after that as a job, which is hella neat.

That all being said though, the biggest disappointment of 2025 was looking at my languages through the eyes of a translation job. Pay can be quite poor despite the countless hours needed for such skills. So for me it’s best to enjoy the ride rather than work myself up for some overarching goal that might never happen (not that I’d give up, just that I might not get a translating job).

2026 is the year I go full send on all my studies. Including languages, maths, Blender and other courses. 2026 has been a complete shit year for me so far, so at least I can look forward to studying in the near and far future.

As I like to tell my friends, “I’m in my gitgud era”.

Crapped out for the holidays. Only scratching the very surface of apps to maintain streaks. After Xmas though I’ve gone crazy wild trying to dive back in. Ending up picking up 22 words a day in Japanese, and about 10 in Irish. Spanish still needs to be picked up proper, but out of all the languages I’m doing now, Spanish is by far the most demotivating.

Really wanting to push more Irish as I get into the new year. I find it depressing I’m Irish, lived here my whole life even, and don’t understand the language. Next to that, the language is actually dying off despite what our government says. So I’d like to strengthen the lifeline of the language by contributing to it.

Haven’t done Irish in a bit. Keeping up with Japanese though. Spanish is a bit hectic, but surviving a lot better than my Irish. Maths is completely fallen over and my reading habits are just standing there laughing at it.

Despite the lack of language effort, I’m reading a chapter a day, and despite reading a chapter a day it still feels like I haven’t even eaten part way into Lord of the Rings.

Japanese has seen better times, I was a bit skimpy on the vocab up until recently. Ended up knocking a 200 word a day pile down to 70. Spanish and Japanese see some sight of Busuu, bit of Duolingo, and a bit of Migaku. This all being said, there’s still not enough done. I genuinely feel like at this moment in time, I could do with hard copy physical books, not just apps, ironically though what would help my Irish a lot are apps that don’t suck like Duolingo or RosettaStone.

Time is however short, and I have no idea how I’d divide my attention per language, then again per activity for hard study. Life would be a lot easier with a teacher or some guided activity cheat sheet or something.

Despite my love for languages, and I’ve been doing this for like 2+ years, I still have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.

I’d try Spirit City: Lofi Sessions, Ithya: Magic Studies and Chill With You Lo-Fi Story in waves and not altogether. There’s probably a whole other bunch of software out there on Steam that’s similar but different, but these are the only ones I’ve managed to try fully.

The software on Linux is a bit buggy, the sounds on my machine go f-ways when I run Chill With You Lo-Fi Story, but only switched today so it’s possible it’s a me-issue.

Also the free route is still an option if you’re okay with using just youtube videos, the Lofi Girl channel has a pomodoro lofi video that I used to use before getting into the software side. I bought a bunch of these knowing I could just get free pomodoro tools elsewhere because I wanted the extra comfort/coziness that the games/apps provide.

Like for instance, this Lo-Fi Story game has the worst set of tools for studying compared to the other 2, but I’m still using it more because of the plot built into the game. And I guess the gated unlocks also keeps me going.

There was a Black Friday sale on not too long ago which is why I picked up the latest one, but the Winter Sale should be on soon if you’d rather wait to buy them then. They’re quite cheap at around 7 euro each (roughly) when on sale.

Doing an hour of Japanese (30 min study/vocab, 30 min listening practise), hour of Spanish (30 min study/vocab, 30 min listening practise), hour of Irish (full study), 30+ mins of maths and reading at least a chapter of a random book a day.

Sometimes I get really pooped though and can only manage 30 mins of JP then 30 mins of SP.

I woke up not too long ago but my spoons are already depleted from switching operating systems due to Windows constantly fucking with me, so there’s that.

Also have new study software from Steam, called “Chill With You Lo-Fi Story”, it’s not better for studying than Spirit City Lofi Sessions, but it has a story that progresses with more study, so I’m sticking with it for now until I can see the end of this girls journey.

Was feeling awful, but pushed myself to study! Glad I did.

I studied Japanese for around 2 to 2 and a half hours. Spanish for an hour. Maths for 20ish minutes. About 15 minutes of Irish. 23 Minutes of exercising (pushed much more than I usually do too), and am going to crash and burn in about 5 mins.

Recovered the day! I need to learn to deal with stress like this more.

Well done! You’re making me want to retry Spanish with the GF, I might try it once she wakes up later.

Been pushing hour long study sessions in to my Japanese as well as my Spanish and also doing 10-25 mins of maths a day, as well as exercising (cycling) for 20 mins a day all week. Been having a very hard day just today though and not sure I can make it today, but I’ll certainly try to.

… Also feel guilty about my Irish lately, it feels like out of all languages I should be learning, Irish should be one of them. I felt so guilty that I managed to make a few flashcards in Irish using one of those Irish dictionaries. But lord knows if it’ll actually go anywhere. It’s hard enough to muster the strength to do an hour in Japanese, let alone an hour in Spanish, let alone the other stuff too. But not learning Irish still kills me at times. In part because people keep saying how terrible Duolingo ends up being but the Duolingo Irish learners are still leagues ahead of me too. I’m Irish, born and lived here my whole life, yet can’t speak a word of it. I feel like I’m sort of a disgrace.

I often find that when days are good, the best I can feel is when I’m studying. But days where it’s hard, I can’t study to relax, and I can’t find other ways to relax besides studying, my mind is constantly racing, and I can’t watch or play anything and I enter this phase where I’m constantly trying to do something but ruminate on the bad instead, then have to disengage with the distractions since it’s not distracting enough.

So that’s been at me today again. Really wishing I had a different brain, I get so panicky like today for the dumbest of reasons and I was doing really good up until now too. I’ll try study after this post, and then if today is successful, I’ll post a small update of how the day went. I think today is just a day where I need to rough it out and learn how to rough it out.

Sorry for the wall of text.

Hopefully a good update soon.

The first genuine time I tried to speak Spanish with my GF she outright refused to speak back to me in Spanish, no hangups with her, she just didn’t engage me with it and instead spoke English. That was also a downer for me, but at the same time I realized I could say a basic few words despite never doing it before, so at least that was a positive.

Progress recently, scraped by quite a few days, doing bare minimum, due to various factors like stress and illness and more stress. Only today was I able to study the full 30 mins in Japanese and Spanish. Still not over the hurdles life threw at me save the sickness, but at least I’m on the horse again for now. Or at least today. No idea what tomorrow might throw at me, so hoping for something less serious.

Today managed to be with the GF a fair amount too, managed to do a full 180 flashcards on MaruMori and still have another 20 to go. Then I spent a while on Duolingo and Migaku for Spanish. I’ve completed both languages at 30 mins a piece, but still don’t feel satisfied. Also to add, I still have yet to finish the last of the N5 off, so should probably aim to do a few more of those before pushing for other stuff on the Japanese front. Down to about 15 cards now, but I tend to do 10 cards a day based on N5 then 10 cards on a random assortment of N4,N3,N2,N1 levels jointly together.

Might end up going back to Dreaming in Spanish later, as well as that Japanese site for videos… cijapanese, that’s the site.
Otherwise I guess I could dive into Irish again, but I’d feel easier just focusing on these 2 languages for now, as I’m still trying to get into the swing of things again. I was doing so well for months then life happens, I guess that’s just life. Still. Such a bummer.

Anyway, back to the grind.

Completely cratered one day, then the next I got sick, so there’s been a trickle of study ongoing instead of a flow. The last 2 days I’ve really come back on track though, more so than I usually recover. Already doing hours worth of study as soon as I wake up, but I think in part it’s due to the study sessions I have with my GF, we both don’t talk and just study on our prospective projects, and it’s working out quite well.

Spanish I’m using Migaku these days, but I feel it’s also not the best, since the courses you can take from it is like… Learn creatures or colours, and a lot of these words just seem like words I’d hardly use in English let alone Spanish. But I do them so I have something to do. I might end up using the Migaku addon and switch to Vivaldi to use it, and just pick up words from YouTube or Netflix and the like and add it to my manual Spanish lessons that way.

Japanese haven’t really done anything too strange. Doing a bit more Busuu courses these days compared to what I usually do, that goes for Spanish Busuu courses too. Again Busuu helps clear up some concepts that Duolingo left for dead in obscure tips sections. Edit: also, just remembered. I’m about 30 words off of finishing the complete N5 word list, so that’s about either 6-14 days of study, depending. So that’ll be a milestone.

Still however not happy with what course selections I have for Spanish, despite mixing a weave of Duolingo, Busuu and Migaku. Might end up just getting a physical textbook and reading through it to make it feel like I have a more complete understanding.

Still keeping up with the maths, but only managing 15 mins a day, which is more than enough for just starting I think. Plan on ramping up maths at some point in the future to a whole hour a day but probably not for a good few months still.

Will probably touch the Irish again in a short while today. Managed to clear a lot of todays logs so have more time now. Also plan on exercising later too, I’ve also picked that up recently as well.

The cold weather is very nice, it’s actually a motivator for study. I get to keep warm from the cold and study and drink tea and it’s a very relaxing experience.

Doing my 30 mins a day on Spanish and Japanese. Doing more on Migaku these days for my Spanish, not sure if it’s helping as much as something like MM flashcards, but I guess it’s decent enough. Yesterday was actually pretty hectic for me, didn’t get to do the full workload yesterday, but I am noticing I am doing more maths again. So there’s that. Watching some Japanese videos too, an odd day I get an hour of Japanese instead of 30 mins, with 30 mins just being listening practice. Hard to say the same for my Spanish. And haven’t touched my Irish for over a month at this point, (I assume).

My GF is planning for a no-gaming day that we both do at the same time, so we can focus on things we need to do more. She’s decided on it being a Tuesday. So from now on we’re going to try stop gaming on the Tuesday, however the caveat there is I still will run Spirit City: Lofi Sessions, since it counts as a game on Steam, but it’s a tool I use everyday to help me study. Even having it in the background playing lofi music ends up encouraging me to study more, since I equate lofi with study these days. So just having it on gently in the background is a motivator for me through the day. So things like that where apps act as games but are really study/productive tools we can get to use. I normally use Minecraft for my journaling, since in the game I want to build a functioning library and want to have actual books for it, so I can log on Minecraft at the end of the day to journal then close out of it, so that’s another thing.

Sleep has been massively negatively affected, and I still feel far from on the horse, but at least I’m not entrenched in the mud completely.

Grammar is always a pain point. Been doing Japanese for a few years now, but I always mix up things like no, ni and he (not all with each other), nvm ha and ga.

Late to this weeks entry, but my study is going okay. Few days full hour each, few days just doing 5 mins. Been more on the 30 minute mark though. Maths suffered greatly, and this week has just been hectic and had really bad news a while back, so not in the greatest of spirits. Still, managing to do a bit in each day. I actually put off new lessons for my Japanese and just did reviews the whole time, some days the pile still surpasses 100 despite giving it my all each day. I guess it’s just like that at times.

Doing new lessons for Spanish using Migaku, new app to me, but most of those words I already knew, or could tell due to similar sounds to English. Elephant and Giraffe and others are all very similar. My GF’s native language is Spanish, so sometimes she ends up saying words like these but in Spanish, so I know what she’s saying, and I now totally understand the confusion. There’s a lot of words out there that need more attention than just knowing what it looks like but being able to pronounce them. It’ll be many years before I can manage my Spanish as well as she manages her English. Also, she’s keen on picking up Japanese too, so we might both go a combined Duolingo/MaruMori/Busuu route, along with other resources.

Now if I could also just convince her to join me in my future Lojban and Irish studies…