Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 🎄 🇯🇵

December 22

Winter song
Kanji writing
Origami

Got home late from a dinner and was able to listen and write but the origami is only 10% done :smiling_face_with_tear: will get back to it over the weekend when less busy!

Kanji writing

Origami

2 out of 20 pieces done! My lord this is a crazy one but excited to see the finished product. Sad i don’t have 10 of the same paper so it’s gonna be like patchwork. Will edit this post later once I’m done!

Edit:
Finally did it!! One day after christmas! :sweat_smile:


<<day 21 day 23/24>>

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Very quick read in the morning today! クリスマスの贈物 by 竹久夢二 with this 朗読. If anyone wants to give an Aozora story a try and they want a Christmas-y mood, this is a good one for that. A very classic type of holiday story and it’s only a few pages. Not too much for old grammar and because it’s aimed at children the kanji is lighter.

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day 22

アルスラーン戦記 漫画 – obvs easier to approach than above cos there’s pictures. Much the same as the anime, the sample covered episode one. lots of furigana different to the kanji readings, especially for titles but also for some names, as renderings of older non-japanese words and, ofc, polite speech here there and everywhere.

why are there only two days left, when did that happen

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December 22

Kanji writing
Origami
Song
Mystery book reading


Kanji writing

Extra thin marker for this one, 0.35mm.

Origami

What a time-(and paper-)consuming origami this was! :scream: Serves me right for complaining about yesterday’s being too quick, I guess. Still, the result was definitely worth it. It’s hypnotic, and so good to play with! It tended to come apart though, so I put some glue here and there, even though the video didn’t mention it.

Here it is, in all its various states:





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:u7981: Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 22 :secret:

Twenty-Two stroke kanji: 龕

Alcove for an image (usually Buddha)
Kun: れい
On: カン; ガン

Practice

There isn’t many common 22 stroke kanji, so onto the obscure stuff!

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Day 22

< day 21 day 23 >

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Oh my gosh! What a beautiful creation!! Congratulations! :partying_face:

I know you said you didn’t check the difficulty level/time required for these, but I was thinking you must have done the ordering for those two (Day 21 and 22) on purpose as a little prank… :sweat_smile:

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Day 22

しの字のおしえ

An interesting read for a cold day.

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Thank you. :smiling_face:
It really came out well, but it took sooooooooooooo long! Hope yours comes out even better when finished!
I really didn’t plan this, apart from pushing this one towards the end of the calendar because it was immediately obvious it would be very involved. But yes, if you take the average time of day 21 and 22, maybe it evens out a little? :joy:

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Dec 23

Kanji in Ascending Stroke Order
Strokes:23

Kun: かんが.みる、 かがみ
On: カン

Words of the day: いんかん (past example serving as a warning​), ひっせきかんてい (handwriting analysis), たいかん (encyclopedia), えいかんしょうかい (film festival)

What on earth is a "chicken sexer"?

image


鑑 means things like specimen, model, take warning from, learn from. It’s a Jōyō kanji taught in junior high, JLPT level N1, and It’s not on Wanikani.level 31.

Here’s the stroke order:

image

And variations:

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It’s a professional job where people look at genitals of tiny chicks and can instantly sort them into male and female. The male chicks get killed of.

They are more accurate and faster then any automation we can currently develop. But If you ask them how they do it they can’t explain their system. The brain is a crazy pattern recognition machine.

If you can stomache the contents it’s a super interesting topic to look into!

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Oh. Makes sense. Telling the sex of a newborn bird can’t be easy. Thanks for the info. The reason it needs to be done is not something I’d like to look into any further, though. :sweat_smile:

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Chicken talk

Or the females, depending on which kind of factory it is :cold_sweat:

I think there are some developments around X-raying the fertilized egg and determining the sex through that, but I have no idea how reliable that is. And, they still throw away half the eggs on either side. Which, together with the conditions of producing said eggs, is … well … :sob:

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day 23

呪術廻戦 – just as fun as the anime was! i was kinda worried the fights wouldn’t flow as well but the energy is absolutely still there and I really do wanna keep reading! Originally picked this cos I thought i’d be flagging by now and wanted smth really familiar (and therefore easier), but turns out i didn’t need it! was more like a reward than an easy option which is funny cos there’s still tomorrow yet so it’s too early for rewards but ah well

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:spiral_calendar: :christmas_tree: Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 23 :christmas_tree: :spiral_calendar:

December 23rd

Today’s Kanji:

Kun’yomi: ます

On’yomi: ソン, セン, ザン

Meaning: salmon trout

:fountain_pen: Kanji writing

Kanji writing practice

My writing just keeps getting worse and my hand started to hurt after the first half – I’m kind of glad that tomorrow’s complex Kanji will be the last one because I’m running out of stamina. :sweat_smile:

@downtimes
Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! :smile:
No idea, how I didn’t notice sooner. In the end, I decided to keep the picture without amending the mistake to have something funny to look at.

@omk3

What a mesmerising origami! It must have been rather difficult to make, no? Anyways, you did great job! :grinning:
Just by looking at it, I can’t make out how it’s constructed – at first, I even thought that it was two origami because of all the different papers and arrangements. I may take a look at the corresponding video to see it in action.

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December 23

Kanji writing
Origami
Song
Mystery book reading


Kanji writing

Origami

A regular two-paper box this time. Phew!


Reply

Thank you. :blush:
It wasn’t difficult so much as repetitive (although it did feature folding a paper in thirds, which I can never get quite right). It took a long time, and, wait for it, 20(!) sheets of paper to make. There are two kinds of paper, and the four colours you see are the two sides of those two(x10) papers.
It’s really mesmerizing when you see it in action,.

Only one more day to go! Where does the time go? :christmas_tree:

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Today I read メリイクリスマス by 太宰治 along with this 朗読. It was not a traditional Christmas story by any means. I enjoyed it (太宰 is easily one of my favorite authors at this point) but it ended on something of a sad, purposefully incomplete note. If you’re looking for a ‘Christmas story’ I don’t recommend this. If you want a thoughtful read, I do.

I gave myself a bonus day, reading a piece translated from English (which I’ve read in English) on Christmas day :christmas_tree: :santa: Feels a bit sad for it to be ending, but I’m sure I’ll do more short story challenges in the future! And hopefully my ranking of the stories on Natively helps some of the really good ones get more readers and prevents other people from reading some of the really boring ones…

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:u7981: Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 23 :secret:

Twenty-Three stroke kanji:鷲

Eagle
Kun: わし
On: シュウ; ジュ

Practice

Not many kanji to choose from now, though scrolling through Jisho I’m always surprised by the sheer amount of cool looking kanji that just have nothing associated with them, what ancient secrets do these kanji keep?

Starting this challenge I thought the hardest thing would be remembering stroke order, but once it’s been written a few times it’s quite easy to remember, a lot feel pretty natural in their order. But what I wasn’t expecting was how hard it is to try and keep the kanji in proportion to itself. My first attempt without a kanji guide must have been listening to Free Bird because no silly box could contain that eagle. I also think I was getting a little too liberal with that last, long stroke of 鳥 (not the dots), it was becoming a little too curly :grin:

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There, fixed that for you :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
I mean, we’re talking Dazai here, no? I’d be really surprised to read a happy-go-lucky story authored by him… :thinking:

Indeed! Especially as I did not participate because I could not come up with a good idea on what to do because I had set myself on reaching 1000 pages this month, and so I was a bit preoccupied :sweat_smile:
But today I had a good idea or two, so I’ll save them for the next calendar thing!

Please let us know when you do! I would like to read more stories like 人間椅子 and the like :blush:

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Dec 24

Kanji in Ascending Stroke Order
Strokes:24

Kun: うろこ、 こけ、 こけら
On: リン

Words of the day: へんりん (part; portion; glimpse; bit), からうろこちる (to see the light; to be awakened to the truth; to have the scales fall from one’s eyes​), げきりんれる (to infuriate one’s superior; to incur the anger of one’s boss), かいりん (fish and shellfish)


Our very last kanji! It’s hard to find any frequently used ones with so many strokes. 鱗 means scales (like of a fish). It’s a Jinmeiyō kanji (used in names) and 2494 of 2500 most used kanji in newspapers.

Here’s the stroke order:



image

image

And variations:

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