slr2moons | Ii ne.....

I really truly miss studying Japanese every day. I do. T.T My reading comprehension isn't the best b/c of vocabulary limitations, but given enough time and my dictionaries, I can read just about anything. Especially manga.

Anyway, I began to learn the language for fun in college. Yes, that's right. Other college girls when bored went out clubbing or to the mall. I studied a foreign language. ~~We already I know I'm a geek.~~ I studied it every day, and I loved it. I took advantage of my library job and copied four entire grammar books from the public library. I still have them all, too. One in particular was a treasure, since it started at the basics and went farther in grammar than have ever seen in a beginning grammar book since. What a find!

Ohhh, I loved studying so much! It was a power trip to cover up the lower half of my tv and listen to the dialogue and catch words and basic meaning. (This was before DVD, so subtitles were all hard-copy on VHS and LD.) I completely freaked out the first time I read a manga word bubble in Japanese without consulting my kana charts and understood what was being said. Just thinking about that gives me the chills. X3

But as my comprehension grew, my studying began to slack off. I studied a couple times a week. Then I'd take off a week, pick it up again diligently for another month, take the next couple months off, etc etc etc. I was doing this on my own, no classes, no sensei, no fellow students to practice with. As long as I was able to read and translate my manga, I was happy.

I still have a great handle on the grammar, though I should prolly brush up on it. It's the vocabulary and kanji that trips me up. I have to look up so many words, it makes my reading take a very long time. And I have to write down the meaning, b/c by the time I reach the end of the sentence, I've forgotten what the first few unfamiliar words meant. :P Learning vocab and kanji is straight memorization, no way to avoid it. I bought a set of kanji flashcards years ago, but I never progress very far before I just can't take it anymore and go do something else.

I have a huge Japanese manga collection. Not only copies of almost everything I've lettered (only missing the first 12 volumes or so of Nana) but stuff that hasn't been translated here: Arslan Senki, Touch, DNA2, Sailor V, my eternally beloved Zetsuai. And series that I refuse to read in English, like FY and HanaDan. And one day I AM going to fork over the $200 it will cost me to import all 37 volumes of Violinist of Hameln! (I tried to talk the Viz acquisitions guy into licensing it, but nothing happened. :P Too old? Too long? Too much not what they want to release??? Whatever the reasons. :P I would totally buy English!Hameln out of loyalty! And still import the Japanese version.)

I stopped studying almost completely when I began to work in earnest for Viz b/c that was taking all my mental concentration. Once work was done I didn't have the energy left to memorize or study, so I'd pick up an English book instead and let the eyes glaze over. Now that work has slacked off a bit, perhaps I can resume. I'm filled with such longing when I flip through one of my Japanese manga mags and look at all the lovely stories it would take hours and hours and hours for me to read. I wanted to resume my 6 issue HtY subscription, but no way could my reading keep up. T.T I'm just too slow thanks to the vocabulary.

Of course, I do have a reason beyond desire to finally read my 6 mags of HtY in a timely fashion. Remember that Sailormoon fic I mentioned a while back? It would be based on the SM anime and the Sailor V manga. Which I need to read first so I don't make a fatal canon error and end up ranted about on

fanficrants. And hey, I happen to own all 5 volumes of Sailor V. To read it, I'll have to translate it. Yes, I'm aware that other people have posted Sailor V scanlations. However, I'm the only amateur manga translator I trust. And I have issues with some professional ones, too. OverAmericanization and slang drives me crazy! X|

So...I want to resume my studying. Perhaps if I made it a goal to study every other day...? I've already unpacked all my dictionaries and those kanji flashcards... would any of you be interested in learning vocab along with me? *tosses it out there*