松山大学〔五〕

Five months in Japan; another review:

Can to kindle be used intransitively? If not there’s some creativity required to interpret this month’s subtitle.

Over the course of the past month two particular types of activities made me come to a pleasant realization. I made a few new acquaintances — people with whom I met and had prolonged conversations; and I was on the lookout for a Japanese online forum/​message board with decent activity as well as conversations on topics I’m interested in. The realization I arrived at is, that I am at a point where using Japanese finally starts not being a pain in the ass anymore.
I had passable conversations in Japanese that were way more pleasant and functional than chore-like and apparently necessary for practice’s sake. And after leaving ２ちゃんねる aside for the moment and trying out 知恵袋 I found an online platform that turns out to be easy to contribute to.
When I leaned English, being able to take part in written discussions online was an important tipping point. Once possible without too much hassle (i.e. as soon as it was more about the content of the discussions than about the language they were held in) my active use of the language and with that my proficiency skyrocketed. I could image I just hit that tipping point with Japanese, kindling a small flame that may, in the foreseeable future, turn into a raging wildfire.

On to the next month!