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After 759 days in Japan — 3,961 days since my first of many visits began — I was granted “permanent resident” status (PR).

One and a half years since I started working in Japan; eight months since the last post.

(This blog post is written in German b/c it’s about the German game Stadt, Land, Fluss — an almost equivalent to categories.)

After Japan and Singapore, Taiwan is now the third Asian country I visited — albeit only for a few days.

(This blog post will be in German b/c it’s about a particular situation of filing taxes in Germany.)

It’s been half a year since my last update, and in total about nine months since I moved to Japan.

Two and a half months since I made my way to Japan — which my sense of time tells me is obviously wrong; there’s no way that much time has already passed.

After having been to Japan as a student (exchange year), for “cultural activities” (research internship), wihout a visa (tourism), and as a temporary visitor (visiting PhD student under special COVID-19 rules), I’m adding another type of visa and status of

Over the course of the past five years, I pursued a PhD while working as a research associate at a university.

Next update on Korean studies after over half a year of mostly stagnation.

Quick update on Korean studies after roughtly 2 months.

Over Christmas and New Year’s I had spent some time creating Anki decks for Hangul and Cyrillic.

During the last few days of my stay I moved out of my monthly rental apartment, send a bunch of books on their way to Germany by 船便, but also had a few last events on my schedule.

Seamlessly continued the everyday adventures, weekend trips, and occasional purchases.

The yen is cheap, the ‘rona is tamed, and the Japan is vast and full of opportunities!

Following up the two weeks in Singapore with two months in Japan. :) As with Singapore, the trip is for a research collaboration, but I’ll mostly focus on the things aside from research here.

Because of reasons I came from a two week stay in Singapore back to Germany and less then seven days later departed for Japan.

After two and a half years of not travelling I was able to make a two week trip to visit a research group at the National University of Singapore. :) This being my first international stay as a PhD student, it was nice to see how another research group op…

A bit more than a year ago I decided to create a new flashcard deck for recognition only vocab.

@300+ “I highly doubt I’ll reach 400+ in another four months.” … well, make it two and a half then. 103 kanji, 131 words, 79 days since the last checkpoint.

99 kanji, 119 words, 112 days since the last checkpoint.

In 2016 I stumbled upon うぶんちゅ！

@100+ “I’d be surprised if there weren’t more updates to come in the future.” … and here’s the fist one of them. 100 kanji, 113 words, 120 days since the last checkpoint.

@2100+ “Another possibility I see, is that at some point I deviate from my current procedure of learning to read and write every kanji and create a separate recognition only deck.” … which is what I ended up doing in late January this year.

(This blog post will be in German b/c it’s about a particular situation of filing taxes in Germany.)

Spent 4 weeks in Ōsaka (Mar 16–Apr 11).

100 kanji, 733 words, 1020 days1; Anki stats, kanji so far. 1) Since the last time I wrote one of these. @100+ “there will — hopefully — be a total of 21 of these in the end”  ✔ done @2000+ “I’m really not sure I’ll ever get to 2100”  only took close to 3…

Spent 6.5 weeks in Ōsaka.

Several times within the last year, maybe two, I ventured into the depths of the interwebs in search of a monolingual Japanese dictionary app that could be used offline.

Five years ago I realized Amazon deems Japanese books incompatible with the Kindle 4 and suggested using 青空文庫 as an alternative source for e-books.

Nine months in Japan — last review: Given I already felt like on my way back towards the end of last month, my last weeks felt pretty relaxed.

Month eight — second to last.

Month seven — two more to go.

Month six — two thrids done; one to go.

Month five of six nine!

A few days ago I was wasting a few seconds on Facebook, scrolling down the newsfeed, and was suprised to see a short Japanese post, 「残念だな」, by someone I was pretty sure doesn’t know Japanese.

Month four — one thrid left; review: Anki ok.

Month three — halfway through; another review: Anki wasn’t that great (stats) but at least still better than in the first month — and I finally got around doing some badly needed maintenance on my deck.

Month two of only six this time; another review: I did better with Anki this month (stats); even managed to stoll through 神保町, grab a second hand book (日本語雑記帳) and read from time to time.

> On to the … oh wait. :( NEXT MONTH!

About a year ago I came back to Germany after spending one year in Japan.

The computer science exams I take usually heavily rely on understanding.

I recently stumbled upon xkcd’s comic on the idea of a 28-Hour Day.

99 kanji, 575 words, 489 days; Anki stats, kanji so far.

Ever since I came back from Japan I’ve been on the lookout for fun projects in which I could utilize my Japanese.

One year in Japan; a last review: My last month in Japan began during a trip to Tokyo.

Eleven months in Japan; another review: After a packed month 9 and a calm month 10 it’s back to busy again — in a good way though. :) The semester ended with Japanese exams I took, German exams I helped out with and a lot of farewell events.

Ten months in Japan; another review: I don’t have the feeling a whole lot happened.

Nine months in Japan; another review: Looking back at what happened since the last review I wondered … did I forget to post once?

Eight months in Japan; another review: The new semester started.