[2024] 多読/extensive reading challenge

They say it’s down for system maintenance…

7 weeks sounds like a long time, though.

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Yeah, it says that. But 7 weeks means something else is going on. I wonder if it’s a randomware kind of thing, or something along those lines.

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Wow! More than 1000 edits on the table! We are doing it, people!

In related news, I have just finished my 29th book this year, and I am thus only one book away from my stretch stretch stretch goal. Which I am probably going to pass as well.
I also managed to get 6 books done this month alone, which is as much as the whole of last year.
From bookmeter:
readInNovember

(That number is a bit disingenuous, since I finished Haruhi on the 2nd of November, so the page count is a bit inflated; averaging with October, it’s more like 5 books per month/51 pages per day)

Well, getting that milestone of 6 books in a month is also why I rushed to the end of キッチン, sorry @NicoleIsEnough and the other members of the book club :sweat_smile: I haven’t been even that present in the threads… I did like the book, though! (I’ll write more on that topic once we get to the official end)

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That’s quite impressive, @Naphthalene! I think I got 4 books done in my best month, but I’m way too much of an irregular reader, so there’s no way I can keep up that pace for one year as I tend to shift my focus to other things after a while.

I also started reading キッチン today after the description in the book club thread piqued my interest – and also because it’s only 200 pages. I got 24% done, so I guess it’ll be a quick read. Not sure where things are going from now on, but I really like the gentle nature of the book.

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Well, that pace is a recent change. Until August, my reading was almost exclusively focused on the book clubs (so, not much reading) with just a little bit from whatever other book I was reading at the time. I actually complained (?) about that in this very thread. I was only reading a bit more than 10 pages per day on average according to bookmeter.
Part of that was due to me procrastinating from reading the second and third 新世界より. They were
quite massive and, honestly, the first part of 2nd one wasn’t really fun to read. I do not like buying new books when I have unread ones, so I was a bit stuck. Anyway, the obon season got me enough time and motivation to finally read through the 2nd volume, then a business trip abroad in early September (12h flight x2) gave me the opportunity to just crush the 3rd one in two literal sittings (although, those were long sittings).

Boring anecdote

On the way out of Japan, I was sitting next to another French person who chatted with me during the meal time. He was amazed that I could just keep reading Japanese forever (I think that was about 6 hours in?). We talked a bit about how I have been learning Japanese, and he told me “I actually thought that, once you became adult, it was impossible to learn enough Japanese to get good enough to read books.” I obviously answered that no, it’s completely possible. Then he asked how long I have been learning Japanese, I replied “10 years+, while living in Japan”, he paused and then went “… yeah, that’s as close to ‘impossible’ as it gets.”
I tried to mention that it’s possible to do it much earlier with the help of a dictionary, and that there were much faster learners than me, but I just couldn’t change his mind. :woman_shrugging:

Being done with those two books opened the floodgates, I bought a bunch of books (and borrowed a bunch from the library too) and went from just under 2 books per months (14 books total in 8 months) to 5 books per months from September onward (so x2.5).

I do not know if I will keep this pace next year; it is quite time consuming. I’ve been thinking to switch to watching anime/drama/movie instead, to focus more on listening comprehension. That being said, I’m not really into anime and I don’t even know what to watch. None of the descriptions of the Jdrama I checked seemed particularly interesting either :confused: So that’s still an interrogation mark.

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Meanwhile, I have 7 unread books and I’m thinking about buying more that I have no immediate plan to read. :upside_down_face:


Tell me what you like and I’m sure I can come up with 5-10 recommendations. :wink:
Unless you really just don’t want to watch any anime.

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Well, recommendations can’t hurt. So far, I’m just thinking of watching the anime/drama of the various light novel I am checking, but I haven’t got around to it.
I did watch all three seasons of haikyu this year, and it was pretty fun, but that’s about it.

I don’t really have anything specific that I like, so any suggestion is welcome as long as there’s no fan service.

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Here are some of my favorite anime shows:

  • Madoka Magica
  • Steins;Gate
  • Clannad + Clannad After Story
  • Shinsekai yori (but I guess you know this one already :stuck_out_tongue:)
  • Haibane Renmei
  • Planetes
  • Chihayafuru
  • Higurashi no Naku Koro ni + Kai
  • Katanagatari
  • Chuunibyou demo Koi ga Shitai!
  • Shirobako

Also, for a movie: Millennium Actress.

Several of those anime are quite dark, so without at least specifying a genre you like that’s what you get. :stuck_out_tongue: I don’t think any of them have fan service (not as a recurring thing at least; obviously rare one-off scenes that I’ve forgotten are possible).

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Oh, I have heard you and @Belthazar talk about this one before! I’ll check that one out first, then :stuck_out_tongue:

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It’s funny how I know your top 10 by heart already :rofl::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I have a feeling @Naphthalene would love that one.

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Just checked the summary on wikipedia and it does sound interesting. Thanks to both of you :slight_smile:

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I think of the ones I listed you’ll definitely enjoy Chihayafuru. Speaking of which… since season three is airing now I need to rewatch the first two seasons soon.

I would read the manga if it wasn’t a billion volumes.

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what app/website is this?
sorry, I’m newbie here.

I’m not sure I understand the question, but you are currently on the forums of the WaniKani app, which is aimed at learning a bunch of Japanese kanji and related vocabulary.
This specific thread is about keeping track of one’s reading in Japanese, possibly using the knowledge gathered from using said app.

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Ooo. I quite like most of those. Are we secretly the same person? :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’ve been failing miserably at keeping up with my goal reading frequency (got busier than I thought I’d be the past few months and dropped the ball), but I’m determined to at least finish the book I’m on (銭天堂 Volume 2) this month before I go home for Christmas. I picked up a copy of 岩田さん that I plan on taking with me over the winter break and I’m going to try to finish that before I get back to Japan (even if it’s on the plane) as my first book of 2020. The goal is then to finish at least 7 books total from January to July (original goal of 1/month) leading up to the JLPT. We’ll see how this goes from here on out :upside_down_face:

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For anyone wanting to read a pretty good manga that it’s not overwhelming, 鬼滅の刃 is pretty good. The anime finished this past season and everyone is talking about it. Vocab-wise, it’s not 朝飯前, but it’s good for N4 people grammar-wise :slight_smile: Just finished vol 5 and so far I love it as much as I loved the anime.


Good enough participation? :stuck_out_tongue: @Naphthalene

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:thinking:

I just meant you could keep the table up to date, but yes, that’s good too.

Otherwise, I have been seing adds for 鬼滅の刃, and I am curious about it. I don’t have the time to read more stuff right now, though, so it will be pushed back to “after I’m done with ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖”. I’m halfway through volume 5 out of 7. There’s an extra “10 years later” book as well, but I can wait before reading it, so the end might actually come sooner rather than later. Which I’m kinda sad about, because I just love that series.

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My friend recently visited me in Japan and she is slightly obsessed with 鬼滅の刃, which like @jprspereira said is the hot thing now. Everywhere we went, we were hunting the 鬼滅の刃 themed ガチャ or looking into the different anime stores for the goods and figurines.

Kyoto City recently had a scavenger hunt that was 鬼滅の刃 themed and each stamp was in a specific train station or tourist spot, so I took her all around searching for those as well. (Though we were only one stamp away when she left so she couldn’t cash it in for the prize.)

We even went to the Ufotable Cafe place in Osaka that was 鬼滅の刃 themed.

( I will say, it was not a good experience at all. We didn’t realize we needed reservations so we couldn’t actually eat there. They had a seperate line just to go in and buy merchandise so that’s fine. However, one of the staff members was really rude and most of the merchandise was sold out so the only thing we ended up buying were very expensive character coasters. They didn’t even let us buy a drink, only the coasters!)

I watched one episode when she was here and then I watched a few more after. I really like the art style but I hate any kind of gore in anime. Plus a lot of episodes are downers so I kind of stopped after a while.

That’s my 鬼滅の刃 story.

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