[2022] 多読/extensive reading challenge

Japanese Language Reading
#761

Reading Kokoro right now. I’m liking it a lot more than Botchan, I like the plot and characters more, and the writing feels more accessible. Also:

「私は男としてどうしてもあなたに満足を与えられない人間なのです。それから、ある特別の事情があって、なおさらあなたに満足を与えられないでいるのです。私は実際お気の毒に思っています。あなたが私からよそへ動いて行くのは仕方がない。私はむしろそれを希望しているのです。」

Translation

As a man, of course, I can never satisfy the aching in your heart. Furthermore, there are certain circumstances that render me of much less use to you than I should be. Of this I’m truly sorry, for your sake. You’ll have to turn from me and go elsewhere. I’m even compelled to hope that you do.

It’s giving me Moby Dick-levels of homo-eroticism. Then again it’s literally about the protagonist just gushing over this "先生” guy and the title is literally heart. So I guess this is to be expected.

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#762

Until that part (or somewhere similar I forgot), I pretty much believed that 「私」was a woman. Which made me wonder why 私 could interact with 先生 so much without his wife complaining about it :stuck_out_tongue:

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#763

I’m reading along with the audio at Soseki Project and yeah I was surprised when it started with わたくし and thought for half a second that it was a woman. And then I remembered what time period the book was written in and was like yeah that would never happen. Pfft.

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#764

Well, you are more book smart than me.
It sounds like I’m in for a lot more disillusions… :fearful:

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#765

Me: Okay, time to read a light novel!

Light novel:

com

So I bought the FloFlo list for the book and I’m studying up on the vocab.

In the meantime, I scurried right back to my comfort zone, and fired up 逆転裁判１.

It must be simpler than 逆転検事２, because the alternative is that I’m getting more proficient at Japanese, and that just doesn’t sound right. :scream:

Reading has been quick, fun, and almost… easy? I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and to feel lost and confused about what is being said, but that hasn’t happened so far. I went through the introductory case in two short reading sessions.

The regular cases are split up in investigation days and courtroom days. I read through 探偵編 一日目 this afternoon.

With things feeling much more doable, I can also read a lot longer. When I struggle with the grammar or vocab, I get stupidly tired after a while. Today I could just keep on going, because I was having fun.

With the relatively simple fare of these games, it now finally feels like reading rather than a mental exercise of remembering grammar and vocab.

I’m… a bit shocked. O:

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#766

Out of curiosity, I have some of the Card Captor Sakura manga but haven’t read any of them yet.

I know it depends on the person ie how good your grammar knowledge is etc, but how difficult would you say they are to read? I’ve been putting off reading them for a while now.

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#767

Fun fact, shortly after that conversation, both words appeared back to back in the book I was reading (and just finished, hence my posting).

As could be inferred from my recent pattern, I just read ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖4. It was an interesting deviation from the pattern that was established so far. Until now, each volume was basically a succession of three mysteries, with no real connection (except temporal). That format gave a nice impression of witnessing the everyday life of the characters. This time, though, there was only one overarching mystery, split roughly in three steps. The dramatic tension was also much higher than before. Also (kyaa spoiler) the main character confessed his love.

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#768

I was really confused when I first realized pretty far in that わたくし was actually male. Had to rethink through the whole beginning because it really changes the context. :sweat_smile:

Glad to find that I was not alone in that mistake. :rofl::upside_down_face::turtle:

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#769

According to Book Meter, 魔法少女育成計画 was the 50th Japanese book/manga I’ve finished. Also, since I’m not starting my next book (real book, not manga) until 霧のむこうのふしぎな町 in mid-December, I figured I’d catch up on my English book backlog. I’ve read 130 pages so far today, which is a nice change from 15 pages on a great day in Japanese.

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#770

Finished the first section of こころ and some of the dialogue leaves me so delighted.

Paraphrasing:

Protagonist: Hey can I join you on your walk?
先生: Actually I’m visiting a friend’s grave.
Protagonist: Isn’t it the same thing?
せんせい: Taking a walk and visiting a grave?
Protagonist: Yeah?
せんせい：… I feel like it’s different.
Protagonist: Well whatever, can I still join you?
せんせい: No.

Because that’s what you say to someone who’s visiting a grave.

And another scene…

Protagonist: Well I just got back from visiting my father. My mom wrote saying he has a kidney illness and he collapsed but when I saw him he seemed to be doing a lot better. So hopefully things are looking up.
せんせい: Yeah? Well it’s when you think they’re doing a lot better that they die. My wife’s mother died from that. Don’t be happy just yet.
Protagonist: Oh…

Because that’s what you say to someone who’s father is ill.

And a few pages later.

せんせい: Hey how much money does your family have?
Protagonist: Uh, what?
せんせい: Not to be rude or anything. But y’know you should get that squared out before your dad kicks the bucket.
Protagonist: Yeah I guess…
せんせい: Yeah seriously. Better do it soon. Cause y’know. He’s probably gonna die.

And one more.
せんせい: Hey who do you think is gonna die first? Me or you?
せんせい’s Wife: Um…

This book is so silly.

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#771

I loved, loved, loved Autumn Prison! It was a book that, for each short story, at times made me want to jump into the world and enjoy each “curse” and then other times made me feel extremely cozy and safe in my bed while shuddering at how dark and scary it got.

It also made me realize that I really enjoy books that have a collection of short stories. I haven’t really read much, Japanese or otherwise.

Anyone have any recommendations?

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#772

This is not really a recommendation (sorry for that!) but more of a meta-recommendation: I recently discovered the blog http://www.tsundokureader.com/ which contains reviews of Japanese books and so I pass this on to you in the hope that you might find something interesting there.

(Warning: those reviews are usually very detailed and contain lots of spoilers, so read them with caution if you don’t like that!)

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Some Book Recommendations with Reading Samples
#773

Wow this looks fantastic! I’ve been trying to find a book site that reviewed Japanese books that weren’t just Murakami and the like.

Thanks so much!

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#774

With the exception of the magic-related vocabulary, it’s all pretty standard conversational Japanese, plus it has furigana to help with any unknown kanji. I’d say it’s pretty easy and a good manga if you’re still not used to reading in Japanese.

Kero’s Osaka-ben can be a little tricky, but there are plenty of resources to help understand it because Osaka-ben is so well known.

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#775

Is the magic vocabulary transferable, or is it mostly katakana words specific to this series?

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#776

That’s great, thanks for such a detailed reply.

I think I’ll give it a go then once I’ve finished my graded readers as I do have quite a few of them to read so it should keep me going for a while :blush:

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#777

The only one I’ve read (apart from Autumn Prison) is とかげ by 吉本ばなな. It felt kind of hard… and wierd, but the stories were quite interesting.

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#778

It’s usually actual Japanese magic-related words. For example, 杖 つえ for her magic stick/staff thing and 魔法陣 まほうじん I’ve seen in other stories.

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#779

I did enjoy 七つの怖い扉 (新潮文庫)
As the title implies, it is a collection of 7 short horror stories.
I wonder if I should read it again, actually… I didn’t get the point of the last story, but I read this book 3 or 4 years ago so I may have missed something; I’m curious to see how much my comprehension improved since that time.

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#780

I wanted to check out prices on http://www.kinokuniya.com/us, but apparently it’s been down for 7 weeks… I wonder what’s going on…

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