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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). This concludes a process I committed to in late 2023, and formally initialized in mid 2024. enter Japan on an HSP visa with 80+ points (see this blog post for details) live in Japan and hold the 80+ points for one year apply for PR don’t mess anything up while under review get…
One and a half years since I started working in Japan ; eight months since the last post . Overall, life’s going smoothly. No major breakthrouhts or setbacks, just slow and steady progress here and there. Below a few bits and pieces that I feel like mentioning. Output Things I got done during my first year were predominantly organizational in nature. Setting up life so to say. Compared to that,…
(This blog post is written in German b/c it’s about the German game Stadt, Land, Fluss — an almost equivalent to categories .) Im September kam mir die Frage in den Sinn, seit wann es eigentlich Stadt, Land, Fluss gibt. In der Wikipedia waren keine Informationen zu finden, manuelles Suchen im Web lief ins Leere, und LLMs konnten auch nicht weiterhelfen. — LLM-Systeme mit Zugriff auf…
After Japan and Singapore , Taiwan is now the third Asian country I visited — albeit only for a few days. It’s always been on my bucket list of travel destinations. What set things in motion now was a co-worker telling me about 2025 開源人年會 / COSCUP 2025 . The event was packet with talks right up my alley like Open Source for Open Science Wikidata: Wikimedia’s knowledge graph in a world of…
(This blog post will be in German b/c it’s about a particular situation of filing taxes in Germany.) Vor fünf Jahren hatte ich im Zuge meiner Einkommensteuererklärung nach Master-Studium schon mal ein paar Erfahrungen und Tips geteilt. Meine jüngste Steuererklärung bietet nun wieder Anlass, dem Sammelsorium an Informationen im Internet zum Tehma ein paar Darstellungen aus eigener Perspektive…
It’s been half a year since my last update , and in total about nine months since I moved to Japan . While a lot of the early hustle and bustle of setting things up gave way to ordinary everyday life, there are still a few things here and there that I have not been able to check off the to-do list. Two that I now finally managed to get done are registering a legal alias and getting a credit card.…
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. Two weeks of a “grace period” between immigrating and my first day at the job, and two months of trial-by-fire since then — here are some bits and pieces from along the way: In transit We start on the way from Germany to Japan. I noticed a neat…
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 residence to the list. This time, it will be a work visa — specifically, a highly skilled professional visa (HSP). Below, I’ll write about the…
Over the course of the past five years, I pursued a PhD while working as a research associate at a university. In this post I want to briefly reflect on the experience. For a bit of context: here in Germany, bachelor and master students are students — take lectures, write exams, pay administrative/tuition fees —, whereas people pursuing a PhD are part of the teaching and research body — give…
Next update on Korean studies after over half a year of mostly stagnation. Shortly after the last update , Korean studies completely went on the back burner. This mostly was due to other things requiring my attention, but I guess another partial factor is that the stubborn “monolingual” sentence mining approach I took with 바른 한국어 just wasn’t working out as I had hoped. In hindsight, I think…
Quick update on Korean studies after roughtly 2 months. After taking a proper look at 바른 한국어 I completely switched to the series in favor of seemile Korean . Each lesson is packed with a considerable amount of new vocab, which is why it takes me quite a bit of time to go though each, as I put most of it into my Anki deck (currently at lesson 5-1). One of the words introduced is 기숙사, which brings…
Over Christmas and New Year’s I had spent some time creating Anki decks for Hangul and Cyrillic. Being able to “read” Korean as well as Ukrainian, Russian, etc. seemed like a fun skill, worth the necessary upfront effort and time necessary for continued retention. Of course, in both cases I would only be able to turn writing into sounds. To make sense of writing I’d need vocab and grammar, which I…
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. Events and activities Went to Karuizawa for a seminar where (aside from work) on the destination platform, I ran into Japanese guy that had once joined the Japan meetup I organize in Karlsruhe. we went to an onsen with…
Seamlessly continued the everyday adventures, weekend trips, and occasional purchases. I found much pleasure in starting small conversations with people around me like staff at shops or restaurants, instructors of workshops, etc. And sometimes these even led to some special treatment or me getting some helpful info I otherwise wouldn’t have not gotten. Daily life When I came to Japan for the first…
The yen is cheap, the ‘rona is tamed, and the Japan is vast and full of opportunities! In terms of daily life, work, and free time activities I’m faced with a constant stream of novelty as well as opportunities demanding to be prioritized, as there isn’t enough time to take them all. Below’s a list of what made the priority cut. Daily life I transitioned from watching 鎌倉殿の13人 online (back in…
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. This post will cover everything up until I entered Japan. Applying for travel grants About half a year after I started my PhD COVID-19 hit. Not happy with the thought of finishing it without any international…
Because of reasons I came from a two week stay in Singapore back to Germany and less then seven days later departed for Japan . Trying to adjust my inner clock from GMT+8 to GMT+2, only to then adjust to GMT+9 within a week seemed not really worth it, so I decided to just live on my own “Tarek Central Time” for a week. While sleep schedule shenanigans haven’t worked out great for me in the past ,…
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 operates and how PhD life in general is like in a different country. Below some general impressions—mostly regarding Singapore itself (not the…
A bit more than a year ago I decided to create a new flashcard deck for recognition only vocab. The deck mostly grew through words I picked up in books, as well as a steady stream of me remembering stuff I could already read (but not write) through natural exposition over the years. The deck grew, containing 100 new kanji, 200 , 300 , and most recently 400 . Imminent checkpoints ahead always…
@ 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 . The stupid Magicka power-up images are too tempting. I even created an additional one for a milestone that’s likely to come up within the next weeks or months. In any case—besides self-imposed rules and motivating milestones, this time 干支…
99 kanji , 119 words, 112 days since the last checkpoint . And again, round about the same time span. I highly doubt I’ll reach 400+ in another four months, though. This time—especially towards the end—felt like I was pushing the limits of what I currently feel makes sense to put on flashcards and actively study. Maybe if I start putting names and their most common readings into the mix? Or 旧字体…
In 2016 I stumbled upon うぶんちゅ！ , a Creative Commons licensed manga about Ubuntu, published between 2008 and 2013. Over the years I’ve been translating chapters 9 and onwards at a snail’s pace of one chapter per year. This year, I thought I’d complete the series with chapter 14. For translating chapter 14 I wanted to find out the intended reading of 壱宮 —the school in which the story takes place.…
@ 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 . Round about the same time span. Nothing super insightful to point out in terms of vocabulary sources though — books, TV, podcasts, YouTube, Tiktok, and the odd “oh yeah I actually already know this” like 餃子 , 焼売 , and 小籠包 . As…
@ 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. So here’s the first checkpoint for recognition only kanji. 102 kanji , 95 words, 124 days (since the creation of the recognition only deck) In part I add…
(This blog post will be in German b/c it’s about a particular situation of filing taxes in Germany.) Da es zu den Themen Werbungskosten, Einkommensteuererklärung während/nach dem Studium, usw. reichlich Informationen von gut informieren Quellen gibt, will ich hier nur auf die Punkte eingehen, die ich bei meiner eigenen Recherche vermisst und schlussendlich selbst in Erfahrung gebracht habe. Das…
Spent 4 weeks in Ōsaka (Mar 16–Apr 11). While a certain pandemic currently wreaking havoc across the globe did add some (first world problems level) stressful moments here and there, COVID related things were largely interesting to observe rather than concerning, and the trip overall really enjoyable. As public transport was off limits (except for a Kagoshima trip that had been planned and booked…
100 kanji, 733 words, 1020 days 1 ; 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 years ^_^’ As a comparison to the 1020 days this time, I took me 1301 days from 0 to 2000. Given I stopped to actively search for new…
Spent 6.5 weeks in Ōsaka. Having had many things to do in mind and being aware of the limited amount of time, things felt a bit rushed at times. Nevertheless pleased with how the stay went in general and what I got done. :) Book hunt After finishing 『九州は横浜のどこですか？』 on my Kindle last year, I struggled to really get into another book. Only my physical copy of 『日本語雑記帳』 found its way into my hands from…
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. What I found was JE-EJ dictionaries, 広辞苑第七版 for €89.99 and people in forums suggesting apps that wouldn’t work offline. On my most recent desperate search I even came across a geoblocked dictionary app—to top it all off by a…
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. While I wholeheartedly suggest you always search for DRM free sources for your e-books first, there are cases where Amazon simply seems to be the only available source. In the following I’m going to show a viable way to handle Japanese e-books from…
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. Rather than squeezing a lot of activities into the short time left I was able to pretty much go with an everyday pace. Nevertheless I ended up doing some stuff I’m really happy I was able to do before I left. general I decided to write a German Wikipedia…
Month eight — second to last. D: The runway lights back home are already switching on — one by one. Some better balanced I/O compared to last time: general was able to take a week off to show my family around here in Tokyo had a peek into an interesting enthusiasts’ sphere at the HHKB user meetup vol.2 spent the good part of a day in 横浜 and 川越 rode crazy rollercoasters at Fuji-Q Highland got a…
Month seven — two more to go. Quick review: This month felt a bit packed. A lot of nice output and interesting input though. So all in all good progress — I only wish there was more time to get hyped about upcoming and let sink in recently experienced stuff. Anyway, I/O: general saw 琵琶湖 and 近江神宮 got out a new chapter of my うぶんちゅ！ translation was at ニコニコ超会議2018 — for work, actually; kind of…
Month six — two thrids done; one to go. Going by the initial schedule this would’ve been my fifth day back in Germany. Glad I still have time to enjoy Japan now that it’s finally not cold anymore. Maybe it’ll be sick of the heat and humidity in July making it easier to go. ^_^ As always, stuff happened: general bought a 座椅子 enjoyed a sunny Saturday in 隅田公園 , sitting on a stone wall reading a book,…
Month five of six nine! Anki was not bad; sport very much insufficient; most importantly though my stay got extended by 3 months. :) Time to take a step back, shake off the oh no I’m leaving in a few weeks mindset and take a deep breath. :3 Anyway, here’s the listy thing: general went to a meetup for people interested in i18n/l10n innovations and found myself walking up to a nice reception lady in…
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. Upon closer inspection it turned out Facebook had translated their German post into the language my account is set to display. This made me very aware — for a moment — that the fact in which language…
Month four — one thrid left; review: Anki ok. Sport insufficient. Here’s the interesting stuff: general 餃子 and stuff from オリジン found their way into my food routine helped a crying little boy out in the street find his mum witnessed the following manifestation of cuteness: 3 small kids, two of them in bear costumes, waiting for the train with their mum announcement for the next train to come in a…
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. Apart from Japanese study, slow but steady progress across the board. Nothing to complain. :) Again, an attempt to convince myself that I’m actually making good use of my time here: general was…
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. Still … my deck needs some maintenance, I want to add more new vocab, read more, etc. I took part in events, explored new places and worked a bit on personal projects. Still … I feel I could do more. Maybe…
> On to the … oh wait. :( NEXT MONTH! I’m back to Japan. First month passed. Assembling the bits and pieces of a functioning everyday life. :) Register as a resident, set up a bank account, get a bicycle, find a supermarket to frequent, get a feeling for monthly costs and how much you can spend on what, connect with new people, … I have the feeling I’m almost set up. One of the few things I have…
About a year ago I came back to Germany after spending one year in Japan . Now I’m going again — for six months. :) Last time I went as an exchange student. This time I got into an internship program for Ph.D. and Master students at the National Institute of Informatics . — i.e. this time I’m actually doing something related to my studies (my exchange university last time had no computer science…
The computer science exams I take usually heavily rely on understanding . Learning for those exams means doing tasks that require applying the knowledge acquired. Memorizing facts almost never plays a big role. Quite a few exams are even “open book” — bring as much non digital material as you want. Last semester I took two psychology classes with exams that were more or less the opposite. Being…
I recently stumbled upon xkcd’s comic on the idea of a 28-Hour Day . Having been interested in polyphasic sleep for a long time (without ever trying) and this being similar, I checked whether or not it would work out with my current situation of temporally fixed obligations throughout the week. Turned out that there would be very little overlap (blue=sleep, green=obligation). And the two cases…
99 kanji, 575 words, 489 days; Anki stats , kanji so far . Whew… Haven’t done one of these in a loong time. Who would’ve tought I’d actually reach 2000 … In my first kanji progress post, 100+ , I wrote “ there will — hopefully — be a total of 21 of these in the end ” — I’m really not sure I’ll ever get to 2100. Since realizing at 1800+ that new kanji as a main focus isn’t worth it anymore, it took…
Ever since I came back from Japan I’ve been on the lookout for fun projects in which I could utilize my Japanese. Recently I stumbled upon Ubunchu! , a manga about Ubuntu. Created by Hiroshi Seo and published in Ubuntu Magazine Japan , there seem to be 14 chapters of which only the first 8 have been translated so far. Given publishing stopped in 2013 and the Google Group dedicated to translating…
One year in Japan; a last review: My last month in Japan began during a trip to Tokyo. I couchsurfed again and had 3 awesome hosts over 8 days. I went to Ueno park several times because of the ridiculous Pokemon Go situtaion , climed Mt. Fuji ( great view from the top , also a gym at station 9 ), hung around with two Taiwanese friends , went to Enoshima and attended Comiket . The last 3 weeks I…
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. This was accompanied by preparations for and the start of my trip to Tokyo and … lo and behold … the release of Pokémon Go in Japan. Up until one and a half…
Ten months in Japan; another review: I don’t have the feeling a whole lot happened. Neither does it feel like it’s been a month. Maybe my brain just melted . In any case; the end of the semester is coming closer, and with it deadlines for reports, projects and the like. That kept me busy. I also took my first JLPT — N2, went okay, results in early September. Preparations for my last month are also…
Nine months in Japan; another review: Looking back at what happened since the last review I wondered … did I forget to post once? Apparently I didn’t. During the last 31 days: A friend from Germany got hospitalized during his visit to Matsuyama, which led to me being Japanese/German interpreter for about a week. I spent a night in the intensive care unit, got to see all kinds of fancy medical…
Eight months in Japan; another review: The new semester started. This time I take 4 Japanese classes (reading, discussion, practical appilcation, business) as well as one grad school class on intercultural communication and an undergrad seminar on game development. While the latter is targeted at total beginners and therefore not that interesting for me content wise, it is Japanese targeted at…