This week I read vol. 10 of ５花嫁, which was I’ve had on my backburner for a few weeks since it came out. My comprehension for the first chapter felt pretty low and I was worried I’d gotten out of my groove, but it picked up after that. The writing has always felt pretty complicated at times, and I noticed a few of my recently-studied N1 grammar points popping up here and there. Still, by the end I didn’t have any confusion as to where the plot had gone, so it seems like it worked out.

Between two days of riding my bike to/from work, I listened to the first episode of HKBK, which I honestly expect to have a hard time with for a while. I shadowed bits and pieces as best I could and I find that it definitely helps me focus. At this point I’m mainly looking to convince my brain that listening and speaking are two things it should care about, so total comprehension isn’t really a priority, but when I do manage to follow the conversation it feels pretty good.

Finally, at the time of writing this I just finished watching 君の名は with no subs. I’ve only seen it once before but it was pretty memorable, which is good because otherwise I would have had a pretty hard time following certain plot points (as above, my listening comprehension is still pretty bad). Still, I was able to make sense of the conversations pretty well. The people in みつは’s country town use a dialect that made some things a little less straightforward but it wasn’t too bad. There was one pattern I thought was interesting; 忘れちゃだめな人 for “person I mustn’t forget”. I know you can use だめな of course, but it didn’t occur to me that this kind of construction would work.