You’re assuredly right, I never run out of new things to learn either (and can’t imagine a time when I will), and at first, when you understand 60~70% of what you’re reading, the constant dictionary look-ups are necessary. However with that said, when that figure comes up to the 95~% area, looking things up becomes less necessary, and instead of the flash-realization of a dictionary, you get the subtler context-based understanding because you can generally infer what the meaning is with a good degree of certainty.

You’ve got a nice blog yourself! Best of luck with the studies.

Although I think you’re way ahead of me in terms of Japanese fluency, I get what you’re saying. I’m not past the point of learning useful vocabulary (and could stand to benefit from studying some more textbooks), but just reading blogs or books in Japanese and kind of passively picking up new terms or expressions (or kanji) is quite rewarding.

I think because a lot of the issues were with vehicles sold abroad, it was impossible to avoid covering the problem, and so they went full-tilt on it. I think it must have been two or three weeks straight where I was constantly seeing articles or TV clips of Akio Toyoda on the verge of tears apologizing at press conferences.

I read the Nikkei every night at the library before I head home, it’s kind of fun watching the various major news stories develop and evolve, they really move in waves. Right now it’s still all about the US military base in Okinawa and the proposed move and all the political hullabaloo surrounding that.

As for what I’m *really* doing, I just wrapped up a large section of a paper on how Japanese auto-makers have been moving and shaking to produce cheaply in what is still a risk-laden market. Good thing I boned up on my Japanese economic terms before this semester started.