It’s been a while since my last Japanese progress update, and honestly, coming back from Japan kicked my studying into a weird but productive new phase. In this update I talk through what I’ve been experimenting with lately—using ChatGPT as a study partner, finally pushing through my first full manga, and tweaking how I use Anki so it actually supports my reading instead of becoming the entire hobby. Some of it worked way better than I expected, and some of it was… yeah, not great. The big theme is that I’m trying to move from “studying Japanese” to actually using Japanese, even if it’s messy. I share where I’m still getting stuck (especially with vocab sticking and grammar in the wild), what resources I’m leaning on right now, and how my approach has shifted after seeing what Japanese feels like in real life. I also set a few new goals to keep momentum—because if I don’t make it concrete, I know I’ll just drift until the next update.