Wist

You're more disciplined than I ever was. Your approach sounds very sensible. I prefer online resources too. I also prefer learning from native material instead of textbooks. It does sound like a grammar dictionary would help you though. The exposure to lesser used constructions might prevent some panic as hopefully you won't have to run into any completely new grammar on the test. Though I'm completely with you on needing examples. Do the Shin Kanzen books have example sentences? How long have you been doing your three passes reading technique? I've never been disciplined enough to do something like that on a regular basis. But it sounds like it would be effective. Has it helped you remember new vocabulary too?

I took and passed the N2 six years ago. I took and failed the N1 five years ago. I never retook it, but I probably ought to. It's great you've identified what you're weak with. I don't have much advice to offer, but I'll try. A few things I wouldn't worry too much about are katakana reading speed and onomatopoeia. You'll have time to parse any awkwardly long loanwords if needed. And I'd be surprised if onomatopoeia featured with any prominence. Personally, after registering, I found learning from a grammar dictionary more helpful than anything else I did to prepare. And from the sounds of it, you're not too confident in your grammar. So I would suggest focusing on internalising the grammar in your grammar book as best you can. Otherwise you might find you aren't sure under what circumstances you can use the possible answers in the grammar section, or what some of them even mean. Note that some of the grammar is literary or otherwise esoteric, but not actually very hard if you've been exposed to it. Fortunately, books like the one you have tend to include those esoteric constructions. You didn't mention listening, but I'll mention that if you can mostly follow TV, movies, radio, conversations, etc, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about. The dialogues for the listening section are very slow and clearly enunciated. I don't know what to suggest for vocabulary or reading. Though actually, while this may not be immediately helpful for the JLPT, you may find reading easier books helpful for breaking your immediate "look-up unknown words" habit. The fewer words you understand in a text, the more difficult it will be to use context clues to fill in gaps by surmising meanings. This article (no longer up, but accessible through archive.org) shows what it's like to read a text where you understand 98%, 95%, or 80% of the vocabulary. An easier text gives you more space to work out meanings and lets you read more overall without draining all your stamina. Reading something with repetitive language you've already read in English can help a lot too. It eliminates the cognitive load of interpreting the story (which I would consider a different skill). You might be surprised how much reading a translation of something like The Hobbit can improve your reading comprehension. I think you understand right about という, though I'm not confident I understand what you're asking, or if you're evn asking a question. But I'll give you my understanding. If you're asked what someone said, you could answer with the idea: 「彼女が静かということだ」; or the quote: 「彼女が静かだという」. With the idea, the clause doesn't require だ: 「彼女が静かというのは、誰に聞いたか」 or 「彼女が静かというのが信じられない」. I don't know why this is... but it seems the nominalisation of いう covers it. いう must be nominalised in any case because it's not a verb (you're saying "this idea", not "this idea was spoken"). With the quote, the clause needs だ if it ends in a noun or a na-adjective: 「彼女が静かだといったのは誰？」 or 「彼女が静かだといっても、信じられない」. The clause is a complete thought, and いう is a verb explaining what happened to it (it was spoken). As such, you can conjugate it or make explicit who did the いう: 「先生は彼女が静かだといっても、信じられない」. Hopefully I'm not wrong... I haven't checked this in ages. And I'm sorry I don't have a better informed explanation of why the grammar functions as it does. Best of luck on the exam!

I'd like to see fog of war handled differently. Historically, fog of war has covered the entire battlefield which slows down chapters. It was overcome with torches, advancing your troops, or advance knowledge of the chapter. But I think it would be more interesting as a terrain feature rather than a characteristic of the entire battlefield. For example, imagine if you couldn't see over interior walls. Or deeply into a copse of trees. Or over a mountain. It would create some bottlenecks and require extra caution in parts of the map without slowing the pace of the entire chapter. The developers could create a little uncertainty about enemy army size and composition without making the player completely unaware of where anything is.

Usually when I experiment in the kitchen the results are horrifying. But sometimes I'm lucky and hit on something worth making again. There was a year when I had kimchi on cheese and crackers (with or without salami) perhaps twice a week. I discovered it after I tried making kimchi and overdid the spice. I wanted a way to temper the heat so I wouldn't have to throw it out. Turns out a slice of cheddar cheese does the job perfectly!

@AmericanBuizel, what's your opinion of the video and what were you hoping to discuss?

The last few years I've bought fewer games and it's worked out well. Though this year my list ended up larger than I can manage. And my backlog is still substantial. Beat in 2016 LittleBigPlanet 3 Zero Time Dilemma Final Fantasy XV Beat so far in 2017 The Last Guardian FE: Shadows of Valentia Hope to beat in 2017 FE: Birthright Bravely Default Horizon: Zero Dawn Zelda: Breath of the Wild Nier Automata Gravity Daze 2 FFXII: The Zodiac Age Realistically, I'll probably drop Bravely Default (25% and not enjoying it much) and finish Horizon and either Nier or Zelda. I might finish Birthright (~90% through) too.

You are as enlightened as you are refined.

I have tea multiple times a day. It's the best choice. I don't even care the kind of tea. I do heretical experiments like mixing different types of tea or adding obscene ratios of milk/cream when the mood strikes. Cocoa is no good because I hate the taste of chocolate. And coffee is a barbarian's brew. Evidently I'm biased against bean based beverages.

Thank you!

I've been avoiding spoilers like the plague, and still kind of am. But I beat the final boss last night, and I have a few questions. Can I ask about three things quickly? My questions concern supports, the post-game, and the original Gaiden. Thank you!

I'm surprised not everyone read the title facetiously. Yes, what constitutes the 'best' of anything depends on the evaluation criteria. But I think argument over the use of 'best' here is academic and misses sight of the topic that's been presented. I think @In The Beginning 'best' interpreted and summarised what @Drew Pickles was getting at. In terms of difficulty or characterisation, Veld underperforms. But he stands out as the only final boss in the series as who isn't supplemented supernaturally. And I agree that his fighting without the unfair and arguably contrived advantages other final bosses have (ie. completely on his own merits) is 'badass' and noteworthy. In my opinion, the god or god-powered villains of many Fire Emblem games are disappointing story-wise. I suspect they are used mostly just to raise the stakes. It's an easy way to make final battles feel like they will decide the fate of the world because the villains are given the power and drive to completely reshape it. However, because it's used so often, it's come to feel like a lazy conceit. I'd like to see more 'human' villains. The threat of cataclysm due to whatever flavour of god magic a game invokes is so dramatic and distant. Believable threats from sympathetic or charismatic enemies have the capacity to be more interesting because there's more space to relate to the histories and objectives behind them. I don't think more Velds is the answer. But I think the abundance of super-powered villains in Fire Emblem somewhat weakens the series's storytelling.

An art museum can be a nice place to go if you live near one. I think museums make for easy and low pressure date spots. They're easy and relaxing to chat and get to know each other a bit better in. You can be in there for as long or short a time as you both like. And if at any point you don't know what to talk it's perfectly natural to discuss (or make fun of) whatever piece you happen to be standing in front of.

Ah, Ikaruga. Great game. Spent months on it. Still rubbish at it.

This is a sad thread. I lent my GBA to my half-brother for a trip, and his father managed to drop it down stone steps. It was a birthday present too... My father's 80GB PS3 (the mostly PS2 backwards-compatible one) died. The disc drive failed and we replaced it. A year later it died again. Two weeks after the second replacement and the PS3 never booted again. He went all digital with his systems after that. Oh yeah, my the disc drive in my wife's slim PS3 stopped working literally last week. Nearly forgot because we just swapped in my one. Everything else seems to still work fine. I'm very careful with my Nintendo handhelds though. I know a lot of people for whom the shoddy hinges failed unnervingly quickly.

I wish this is what had immediately succeeded the DS line instead of the 3DS. I wonder how well it will sell. Is the 3DS still selling well? I also wonder what the battery life will be like.

Thank you! I guessed there'd be a fair number of references. I can't answer why your story didn't do as well in the polls as it could have. But as you're keen on receiving honest criticism what I can do is tell you what edits would have resulted in me voting for it. I didn't see a response regarding author anonymous feedback so I did end up writing this evaluation after learning it was your story. Also, I don't write much fiction and you or others may disagree with some or all of the points. Still, I hope it may be useful.

It was cute, and it was self-aware, so I don't think it deserved a blasting from anyone. I hope you can finish building your Roy deck.

I think @Jotari and @EllJee (sorry if I forgot anyone else) wrote solid, honest reviews for everyone. Though I'm sorry I likely contributed to your frustration by pretty obviously sidestepping writing any criticism. I didn't trust myself to make in-depth constructive feedback, which from the sounds of it is what you're after. I think I was too cautious in trying to avoid accidentally discouraging anyone with unsolicited criticism, especially as multiple people have since made it clear they're specifically hoping for feedback from this competition. Edit: I'm not a skilled or practiced fiction writer. My story isn't exactly tearing up the polls either. But maybe I will go back and at try to write some hopefully decent criticism for each story. I'm not routinely active anyways so I could just come back in a week with my thoughts, still unaware of who wrote which stories (ignoring the few already revealed).

The patch has been delayed. But Blizzard has launched a public beta. Anyone interested in a match? I've been using the name lyscalibur on the US server. But I'll happily play on another server if anyone's interested.

I haven't seen that specifically clarified yet. But personally I'm not going to hold my breath.

Same here. I got WoL at launch but only played the campaign last year. Considering giving the expansions a shot though, maybe... That sounds excellent. Think I might poke this at some point! What have they said/hinted? I never played WarCraft much, but it would be sad if they forever left classic WarCraft for dead.

I'm really happy to see Brood War fans here. I always sucked at this game. But I enjoyed the hell out of it for years. Made and played UMS maps and mods, backstabbed in 7v1 comp stomps because I'm terrible, got crushed on PGTour and iCCup, the works! Even played my father over LAN when I got to visit him. That's an excellent idea! I would absolutely be down for that; 1v1, 2v2, FFA, UMS, whatever! How have I not heard about this?! Is it any good? What did they update?

https://starcraft.com/ March 30 patch notes here. The base game will be free. This summer you'll be able to pay for a remastered graphics add-on (the original and remastered versions will be cross compatible). I'm excited! Anyone else here happy for to an excuse to get back into Brood War?

It looks like you used "File > Publish to the web..." Try this instead: Hit the "Share" button in the top right. Click "Get a shareable link" Make sure the dropdown says "Anyone with the link can view". Copy the link in that window. This link should keep all of your formatting and be viewable to anyone who clicks on it regardless of whether you've individually shared with them. Edit: Having a lot of trouble formatting spoilers in quotes in spoilers, so I'm dropping the quotes. @Nym @Jotari @TheFreelancerSeal @Snike @eclipse @Crushie I haven't given the Draws a thorough look yet, but I remember yours very clearly! Like @unique, I was impressed by the variety of expressions. No one looks the same, which is great as I think that would have seriously thrown the whole piece off.