Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 🎄 🇯🇵

Japanese Language
1

:sparkles: Note: You can now add your own calendar, if you so wish, to the third post of this thread for easy access

There’s already an advent calendar tradition here on WK that goes back years. It’s all about uploading pet photos, and while it’s a lovely idea, I thought it’d be interesting to have another one that’s more focused on Japanese, since we’re all Japanese learners here. Sort of like a mini challenge for the first 24 days of December, leading up to Christmas. It doesn’t need to be hard, just related to Japanese and easy to keep up for 24 days.

Ideas so far
Starting from Dec 1 and for every day until Dec 24:

  • Study a grammar point a day
  • Read a short story a day (maybe holiday related?)
  • Read a sample of a random new book per day (and discover new things to read)
  • Translate a sentence (out of a book?) a day
  • Read about a different prefecture/city/area of Japan every day
  • Listen to a different Japanese song every day (maybe holiday related?)
  • Read about a different Japanese tradition every day (Christmas or otherwise)
  • Find one instance of interesting onomatopoeia every day
  • Read about and practice writing a kanji per day (stroke number could correspond to day of the month for extra fun)

I think the last one is my favourite one so far. I checked and there are two kanji with 23 and two with 24 strokes, so it’s perfectly doable. None with 25, but that will be Christmas day anyway.

Would anyone like to participate? Do you have any other ideas to suggest? There’s no reason we should only do one idea either, and maybe everyone could do their own thing and post about it. That could be a lot of fun to read about, I think.

Are you interested in a Japanese-focused Advent Calendar? Would you participate?

  • Sounds fun, I’m in!
  • I’m not sure.
  • No, thanks.

0 voters

If you’re interested, would you do your own challenge for every day of December until the 24th, or would you just visit to see what others upload?

  • I’ll do my personal challenge and post about it.
  • I’ll enjoy reading what others come up with.
  • I have an idea for a challenge where more people can participate (explain below).
  • I don’t know yet.

0 voters

Thoughts and ideas welcome! :christmas_tree: :jp:

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So I reserve the right to change my mind up til December 1st, but the first thing that sprang to mind for me is that I’ve been idly reading through this list of crimes / famous incidents and there are definitely enough to fill an advent calendar. It would also be a fun challenge for me as many of the articles have been stretching my vocab. :muscle:

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This post is now a wiki. Feel free to add your calendar here for easy access!

Ascending Stroke Order Kanji Advent Calendar (by omk3):

:sparkles: ア
カ		 ド
レ		 ベ
ン		 ン
ダ		 ト
ー		 :sparkles:
月 火 水 木 金 土 日
1 乙 2 又 3 及 4 片
5 他 6 気 7 卵 8 長 9 海 10 鬼 11 鹿
12 葉 13 歳 14 餅 15 霊 16 興 17 鍵 18 顔
19 爆 20 懸 21 鶴 22 籠 23 鑑 24 鱗
With Jisho links

Ascending Stroke Order Kanji Advent Calendar

:sparkles: ア
カ		 ド
レ		 ベ
ン		 ン
ダ		 ト
ー		 :sparkles:
月 火 水 木 金 土 日
1 :christmas_tree: 2 :snowflake: 3 :snowman_with_snow: 4 :gift:
5 :santa:t2: 6 :deer: 7 :snowflake: 8 :gift: 9 :star2: 10 :christmas_tree: 11 :dizzy:
12 :star2: 13 :christmas_tree: 14 :snowman_with_snow: 15 :santa:t2: 16 :deer: 17 :snowflake: 18 :gloves:
19 :snowflake: 20 :gift: 21 :dizzy: 22 :gloves: 23 :snowman_with_snow: 24 :star2:
With Wiki links

Ascending Stroke Order Kanji Advent Calendar

:sparkles: ア
カ		 ド
レ		 ベ
ン		 ン
ダ		 ト
ー		 :sparkles:
月 火 水 木 金 土 日
1 :christmas_tree: 2 :snowflake: 3 :snowman_with_snow: 4 :gift:
5 :santa:t2: 6 :deer: 7 :snowflake: 8 :gift: 9 :star2: 10 :christmas_tree: 11 :dizzy:
12 :star2: 13 :christmas_tree: 14 :snowman_with_snow: 15 :santa:t2: 16 :deer: 17 :snowflake: 18 :gloves:
19 :snowflake: 20 :gift: 21 :dizzy: 22 :gloves: 23 :snowman_with_snow: 24 :star2:

Aozora Short Stories Advent Calendar (by pocketcat)

師走 月 火 水 木 金 土 日
:snowman: 慈悲 ラムネ氏のこと 毒もみのすきな署長さん 愛と婚姻
:christmas_tree: 余と万年筆 めくらぶどうと虹 指環 猫の事務所 美味い豆腐の話 散歩生活 凍雨と雨氷
:snowflake: 鶴の笛 辛夷の花 サラダの謎 桜の樹の下には ねずみの嫁入り 赤い蝋燭 三人の訪問者
:gift: 故郷 嘘 雪渡り クリスマスの贈物 メイリクリスマス メイリ・クリスマス サンタクロースはいるんだ
:santa: :sparkles: :star2: :sparkles: :star2: :sparkles: :star2: :sparkles:

Japanese Winter/Christmas Song Advent-ish Calendar (Dec 1 - Dec 31)
冬の歌 (by deliana88)

Origami Advent Calendar (by omk3)

:gift: :sparkles:
カ		 折
レ		 り
ン		 紙
ダ		 :sparkles:
ー		 :gift:
月 火 水 木 金 土 日
1 :love_letter: 2 :teddy_bear: 3 :gift: 4 :heavy_heart_exclamation:
5 :love_letter: 6 :teddy_bear: 7 :gift: 8 :heavy_heart_exclamation: 9 :love_letter: 10 :teddy_bear: 11 :gift:
12 :heavy_heart_exclamation: 13 :love_letter: 14 :teddy_bear: 15 :gift: 16 :heavy_heart_exclamation: 17 :love_letter: 18 :teddy_bear:
19 :gift: 20 :heavy_heart_exclamation: 21 :love_letter: 22 :teddy_bear: 23 :gift: 24 :heavy_heart_exclamation:

Index:
:love_letter: - envelope, :teddy_bear: - toy, :gift: -box, :heavy_heart_exclamation: - ornament

@nyxqueenofshadows book sample reading calendar

:snowman_with_snow: :star2: :snowflake: :christmas_tree: :snowflake: :star2: :snowman_with_snow:
月 火 水 木 金 土 日
01 02 03 04
05 06 07 08 09 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24

this is just here for ease of access, i picked these pretty much at random

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Perfect Christmas spirit! :+1: :joy:

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I’m already pretty dedicated to the idea of doing posts in @Abstormal’s calendar, like I did last year, and it will be related to Japanese culture at least, if not directly being a Japanese language practice thing - not a very straightforward one at least. Though it will most likely involve watching video content with no subs. :slight_smile:

If I can make it into a 2 pronged thingie, I could maybe post in both? :thinking:

I’ll have to meditate on this! :person_in_lotus_position:

Edit: forgot to say I think this is a lovely initiative in the vein of our other “every-day challenges” :slight_smile:

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If you’re preparing a set of kanji with ascending stroke number that people can “open” each day then I would love to participate in learning about them and practicing writing them:)

I’m in exam mode until the 18th so I probably won’t have the surplus time/energy to make my own calendar from scratch^^;

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7
Summary

I like the Kanji writing idea. I was also thinking about getting back into writing, so maybe I can practice my meagre Japanese skills by writing one sentence per day. Then I could try to incorporate the newly learned Kanji of that day, too. Well, it depends on if someone leads the thread on which Kanji we write, because I’m never good at choosing from a large sample size.

I’m also going to take this opportunity to translate some sentences from Kiki, because so far I’d mainly been interested in the grammar and neglected actually reading…

I’ll be using this as my home post.

:snowman_with_snow: :star2: :snowflake: :christmas_tree: :snowflake: :star2: :snowman_with_snow:
月 火 水 木 金 土 日
01 02 03 04
05 06 07 08 09 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 X

I think I’ll stick to the Kanji writing and origami, with so many activities, doing output as well might overwhelm me.

More advent activities:

10 Likes
8

Yes, that’s the plan. I’ll choose a kanji a day and present it. Anyone who wants to can follow along with writing practice or whatever else they like.

13 Likes
9

I like the kanji writing idea as well. Count me in!

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10

I was gonna be like: This sounds like fun! And it absolutely does. But…

I’m going on a one week vacation in December, and I’ll have enough keeping up with read every day challenge and reviews during that time, while romping around London. So next year, probably. :blush:

I hope you guys have a lot of fun though. If my schedule looked different I’d totally join with my own advent idea.

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11

The kanji writing each day sounds like fun! I could do with the practice for that.

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12

I’m probably in, but probably only after the JLPT is over from the 5th onwards ^^.

6 Likes
13

I’m glad I inspire more advent fun! =D
I too love the Kanji a day idea! I’d love to follow along with that!

6 Likes
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Heh, ok, so I thought on this a bit. Reading about murder and mayhem may be a gift to me but it could put a damper on the thread as a whole for people not into that vibe. Instead I will switch to an advent calendar worth of reading short stories on Aozora, taken from this list: 10分以内で読める青空文庫の短編作品 | ブンゴウサーチ

I can’t guarantee all of them will be cheery and in-tune with the holiday spirit, but if I see a title that looks more jolly I’ll try to go with it :santa: :christmas_tree: :snowflake: :snowman:

I pretty much always read Aozora short stories with Youtube 朗読 too so will be linking those throughout.

edit: Here’s a tentative calendar, I know very little to nothing about most of these stories so if they end up problematic somehow I may switch one out. The 25th is a freebie because it’s a translation from English. I’ll be looking up 朗読 as I go along. Also the difficulty of these is all over the place, so if you feel like following my advent, don’t feel obligated to do every story - swap some if they feel too hard!

師走 月 火 水 木 金 土 日
:snowman: 慈悲 ラムネ氏のこと 毒もみのすきな署長さん 愛と婚姻
:christmas_tree: 余と万年筆 めくらぶどうと虹 指環 猫の事務所 美味い豆腐の話 散歩生活 凍雨と雨氷
:snowflake: 鶴の笛 辛夷の花 サラダの謎 桜の樹の下には ねずみの嫁入り 赤い蝋燭 三人の訪問者
:gift: 故郷 森の紫陽花 雪渡り クリスマスの贈物 メイリクリスマス メイリ・クリスマス サンタクロースはいるんだ
:santa: :sparkles: :star2: :sparkles: :star2: :sparkles: :star2: :sparkles:
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I was only joking though… I guess I’m glad that I didn’t add my other idea, that you could order the articles by victim numbers :sweat_smile:.

Seriously, I definitely wouldn’t mind murder and mayhem in an advent calendar, and gory details could be hidden under a details tag in any case. On the other hand, I don’t mind learning more about all those Aozora stories that are there just waiting to be read. Just please don’t feel pressured to be jolly. Anything goes. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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It looks great, you even found Christmas stories!
I had seen 桜の樹の下には as a horror recommendation somewhere. I’m very curious how it goes.

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17

I agree with a kanji a day, that’s a fun one :slight_smile:
That’s actually what I did for the Inktober challenge this year, and it was a lot of fun (even nicer that the list of words was basically predefined! Here we would need to figure out what the list would be)

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While some other things on your list sound appealing – such as the 1 song every day or the onomatopoeia one – I also lean towards the last option with the Kanji writing practice. It’s a clever idea to get some background information on certain Kanji while also getting some writing practice in. :grinning:

By the way, the only reason I picked the ‘I’m not sure’ option in the first poll is that I can’t guarantee if I’ll be able to participate every single day until the 24th. Other than that, I am interested in participating

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Count me in as well! Not sure what I’ll do yet; there are too many good ideas already.

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20

Ok, so this will be the calendar I will be filling with kanji (with links to more detailed posts) when the time comes. We already have two calendars so far (this one and @pocketcat 's). I could make the first post (or the third one?) a wiki so people can add their own calendars there if they like. What do you think?

:sparkles: ア
カ		 ド
レ		 ベ
ン		 ン
ダ		 ト
ー		 :sparkles:
月 火 水 木 金 土 日
1 :christmas_tree: 2 :snowflake: 3 :snowman_with_snow: 4 :gift:
5 :santa:t2: 6 :deer: 7 :snowflake: 8 :gift: 9 :star2: 10 :christmas_tree: 11 :dizzy:
12 :star2: 13 :christmas_tree: 14 :snowman_with_snow: 15 :santa:t2: 16 :deer: 17 :snowflake: 18 :gloves:
19 :snowflake: 20 :gift: 21 :dizzy: 22 :gloves: 23 :snowman_with_snow: 24 :star2:
If you want to copy the calendar, here's the code: 
| :sparkles:|ア</br>カ|ド</br>レ|ベ</br>ン|ン</br>ダ|ト</br>ー| :sparkles:|
| :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: |
|月|火|水|木|金|土|日|
||||1 :christmas_tree:|2 :snowflake:|3 :snowman_with_snow:|4 :gift:|
|5 :santa:t2:|6 :deer:|7 :snowflake:|8 :gift:|9 :star2:|10 :christmas_tree:|11 :dizzy:|
|12 :star2:|13 :christmas_tree:|14 :snowman_with_snow:|15 :santa:t2:|16 :deer:|17 :snowflake:|18 :gloves:|
|19 :snowflake:|20 :gift:|21 :dizzy:|22 :gloves:|23 :snowman_with_snow:|24 :star2:| |
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