This week I diversified a little bit. I won’t have a new volume of ５等分の花嫁 until the 17th, so I slowed my pace down a little and didn’t rush to finish vol. 7 (though I may end up finishing it anyway since I’m on a long bus ride right now). My recently-studied grammar continues to show up (I saw どうやら the day after it was in my Bunpro lessons), and I realized that I’d learned ざる (N1!) without even realizing it when I immediately understood 働かざる者食うべからず.

I dabbled in a few anime to find a new one to watch and settled on とらドラ, which is a little too fast for me to follow without subs, but pretty manageable when I have J-subs on. I watched it about two years ago but I mainly remember characters and important plot points, so I shouldn’t have to worry too much about “spoilers” interfering with the need to pay attention to comprehend.

I also watched a bunch of Japanese cooking YouTube! I don’t remember the recipe I was originally looking for, but I came across this channel and was immediately hooked. I love cooking and know a lot of the patterns already in English, so I can comprehend pretty much everything that’s going on and then map the new words directly to that concept (instead of a dictionary gloss).

I finally got back to Persona Q2 this week after neglecting it for over a month. I did a side quest starting Yukiko and Yusuke and noticed that I have a much easier time understanding Yusuke now. He has a flowery way of speaking that I’ve suspected was very literary, and I think my N2 grammar studies have helped me with some of the constructions he uses. I’ll be back to playing it regularly on Monday. I want to at least finish the third dungeon before the official Western release in June.