Inhae's blog

January is already over and it is time for my monthly review!

Reading goals

My reading goals for January were:

And I am sad to say that I haven’t finished Miyuki MIYABE’s novel 『誰か』… I like the main character Saburo SUGIMURA and I want to finish the book because I want to know what will happen to him. The plot, however, is not very appealing. I have reached a point where a part of the detective case is solved… in what is, in my opinion, a rather disappointing way.

I will continue the book for the sake of its protagonist and because I still want to read the rest of the series. (I am hoping that the following books will be better.)

My other goal was to read at least one other book, and I have achieved it by reading two other novels: 『ボクたちはみんな大人になれなかった』 by Moegara (book review) and 『推理作家（僕）が探偵と暮らすわけ』by Shiki KUZUMI (book review).

N1 JLPT goals

My JLPT goals for January were:

• Grammar: 2 or 3 lessons per week in So-matome: by the end of January, I must be somewhere between week 2 day 3 and week 3 day 1.
• Vocabulary: 2 units per week in Speed Master: by the end of January, I must be reaching unit 10
• Kanji: review N2.

Grammar: I have studied 2 lessons rather than 3 lessons per week. I hope that I can do better in February. I have reached week 2 day 6.

Vocabulary: I have reached unit 8, but I plan to study unit 9 this week. Still, I must have skipped one day without realising it! 😅

Kanji: N2 review done!

Currently reading

I am still reading Harry Potter and of course, 『誰か』! 

『向田理髪店』by Hideo OKUDA (奥田英朗)

I found this book in a bookshop and I bought it because the cover was cute, haha. I have read the first chapter and I like it. It tells the story of a fictional town called Tomazawa 苫沢町 and its inhabitants. Tomazawa is one of these coal mine towns in Japan which have flourished at the end of the 19th Century but have lost their raison d’être with the change of energy policy and the transition to oil.

The first chapter was absorbing!

Goals for February!

This time, I must finish 『誰か』! I also want to finish reading『向田理髪店』and read another detective novel. Last year, my reading goal was to read one Japanese book per month, so I thought that I could aim at two novels per month in 2019. But as things turn out, I am reading 3 per months!

I am not setting reading goals for Harry Potter in Japanese, I am reading it to relax.

As for the JLPT, I will go with 3 lessons of grammar per week (let’s see if I can do it!) and 2 units of vocabulary per week. I am also very excited to start the So-matome kanji book for N1. I will study 2 lessons per week.

About

I’m learning Japanese, Korean and Chinese to read mystery novels and play video games in these languages.

Learning languages has always been one of my favourite hobbies, but I’m not a social person, I don’t like to meet new people and make friends, this is just not me. I keep hearing that languages are meant for communication, that we have to actively use them, talk to people, etc. and for a long time, I thought I was weird to learn languages just for me, just to enjoy media, culture and entertainment in a foreign language, with absolutely zero interest in communicating with natives.

Now I don’t really care what people think, and this blog helped me a lot to stop doubting myself and just do what I enjoy doing.