When I wrote the first Language Learning Reflection at the start of 2025, I hadn’t intended to come back to it with a follow-up. However, since I wrote that, a lot has changed, so I figured I have enough to say to be worth sitting here and writing another. I don’t really intend for this to become a yearly series or anything, but maybe if I have something relevant to say next year, I’ll be back again.

The main thing I wrote about last year was that my listening skills were dire, and I’d been trying to improve them by watching more TV dramas and listening to anime and seiyu-related radio shows. And since then, I’ve kept watching and listening to those, as well as all the anime-related extras released for seasonal stuff on YouTube (there’s a lot!). My ability to understand spoken Japanese is still significantly behind my ability to read it, but one big thing has made a noticeable difference.

Seiyu to Yoasobi

Seiyu to Yoasobi is a variety show that airs on Abema TV’s anime channel daily. It’s now on its seventh season, and although I had heard of it before, I’d never watched more than clips or the odd episode (which was probably still less than 5 in their entirety!). Anyway, the series begins new seasons in April, and this year I’d caught wind that Hiro Shimono seemed to be returning, and Reiji Kawashima was joining as a new host. As a fan of both, I figured this was a good time to jump in and see what it was really all about.

For the first time, it wasn’t announced which hosts would be on which days ahead of time, so for the first week, I tuned in daily to see where and how they paired everyone up and then intended to just watch my favourite pairs from then on rather than everything. Well, that never went to plan, and I’ve ended up watching every episode since because it’s enjoyable and I’ve grown to like all the hosts…

The show is streamed live (except for weekends and the break week Connect broadcasts), and although there’s an archive the day after, I tend to watch it live since it’s more fun that way and it’s on at a good time for me. Of course, being live means there’s absolutely nothing in the way of subtitles (as you’d expect) and no option to pause and rewind, so it’s do or die for my comprehension skills.

But the thing is, the structure of the show is actually really helpful for a language learner. All of the different days have regular corners that they run, so you get used to the overall pace of the show and what to expect quite quickly. That takes a burden off since you’re not spending as much time trying to work out what’s happening and spending more time listening to what they’re saying, as well as retaining the associated vocabulary for the different segments due to the repeated exposure to them. I guess in many ways it works in the same way as the radio shows have for me in gaining that familiarity with how each program is built. It also helps that these are all seiyu I was familiar with by and large, so I was used to listening to them speak.

Actually, aside from Seiyu to Yoasobi I’ve watched a lot of random variety shows this year because of Mamoru Miyano. He tends to get invited onto a lot of them and, as his fans say, anything Mamoru’s involved with ends up being fun – which is true! Anyway, because of this and the dramas/radio shows, my listening has improved, even if it still lags behind everything else. But they say you need thousands and thousands of hours of Japanese to be anywhere near fluent, and I’m surely not anywhere near that.

Ditching English Books

Another big difference I made this year happened around the middle of the year. I’d gotten frustrated with the slow and awkward direction the UK manga market was headed, particularly when Yen Press changed distribution and a host of stuff from other publishers kept coming out with iffy quality or heavily delayed beyond the US. So I decided to swap all my ongoing English series to Japanese (except my review titles, of course) and that has been going… fine. I still have mixed feelings about doing it ’cause it’s kind of sad and doesn’t feel like it should have had to be the solution (I genuinely thought at least the Yen Press situation would improve!), but it’s also true I’ve been able to catch up with a lot of series I love a lot faster, cheaper and with fewer issues overall.

I’m not sure if that alone has had a big impact on my reading skills, but hey, it certainly hasn’t hurt. More time spent passively with the language is still helping, I’m sure. I also talked about wanting to get back to reading novels / LN in my last post… which did happen, but only in November, so overall I slacked on that for sure. But now I’m over 100 pages into the first Violet Evergarden novel, which is a huge accomplishment for me (at this pace, particularly). That author’s writing is not exactly as easy as other LNs I’ve read. Next year, I hope to make a lot more progress in this department.

Other Stuff I’ve Done

The other thing I did this year was finally start making flashcards. Previously, I’d look things up in the dictionary where needed and then… just never do anything else to help hammer in that knowledge. Sometimes it would stick anyway from seeing it over and over again in whatever I was watching or reading. Still, sometimes it was just immediately lost after whatever I needed to look it up for. So I started using Mochi and making cards for vocab, which has been helpful! And before you ask why Mochi and not Anki, well, Anki’s mobile app is expensive, and I liked what Mochi offers.

The other thing I did was return to Bunpro to help me drill grammar. The service has come a long way since I first used it, and I’m in a much better place to understand the lessons than I was at the start of my journey. I also didn’t pause it or WaniKani for a long period like I usually would in the Summer. The busy period at work has been getting longer year on year, and I realised if I paused WK/Bunpro through it, then I’d just really not be spending enough time learning. So I’ve pushed on day to day, for better and worse… The thing is that even if it has been hard, even when it was the last thing I wanted to do, it still helps so much.

In Conclusion

This year and last year feel like they were big turning points for my language skills. Honestly, looking back, the main thing that always strikes me is that it was such a waste to be so wishy-washy about immersion. I missed out on so much stuff I would have enjoyed because I was too caught up in not understanding enough. But at the same time, I’m on the right track now, and that’s what actually matters.