Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 🎄 🇯🇵

December 2

Kanji writing
Origami
Song
Onomatopoeia
Grammar
Mystery book reading


Kanji writing

Origami


It came out horrible, I know. I can’t do precise folds to save my life, and this needs to be super precise. Oh well, it still works as advertised.

Grammar

Nをよそに= ignoring/disregarding sth, being untroubled by sth

Onomatopoeia

あたふた in a hurry, hastily (to describe waving of the hand in denial)

I want to apologize to everyone about the choice of origami. It’s fiddly and annoying and takes ages. It is however fun after construction, perfect for relieving the stress that making this origami caused in the first place. :sweat_smile:

(I decided to remove the grammar task. I read a lot yesterday, yet I didn’t come across any grammar I thought worth looking up. (If found one today so I added it back for now. I also went back and added one for yesterday…) I may also remove Onomatopoeia, although I do come across way too many instances of it. I’m keeping it for now and I’ll see how it goes.)

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Day 2

<day 1 day 3>

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僕も”慈悲”読みました、とてもいい話ですね。慈悲とは、人に様々な事を与えること、それが原則と言っているが、原則はあくまで原則で、実際には何を、いつ、どの程度など、相手の状況を考えて与えることが本当の慈悲ではないかと言っているような話だと僕は解釈しました。

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Oh, I love the previous post/next post tabs you’ve got. :open_mouth: The format’s really cute!

Advent Calendar, Day 2
(Day 1)

Winter Song
Kanji Vocab + Writing
Calendar Translation

Kanji

For my kanji today, I decided to go with 九!

I was trying to make sure I didn’t have too much curve on the second stroke. :thinking:

Words:

  • 119番 - It’s important to know your emergency numbers! This one is for fires and ambulances!
  • 十中八九 (じっちゅうはっく) - in 8 or 9 cases out of 10; in all probability (四字熟語 alert!)
  • 九生 (きゅうしょう) - referring to the nine lives of a cat
  • 九九 (くく) - multiplication/times table
Calendar Translation

Pic in a separate div:

Pic

大失敗カラーです… (場所はあえて言うまい) 構図は割と好きですが…ヴィルトに絡み付いた鎖はブラッドが断ち切るという事で。ブラッドの服の陰影が細かくて厚塗りが大変でしたが上手く行った方です。やはりロングコート(?)は風になびくのが使命!天命!!万歳!<ー酒飲んだ?

I really messed up on on the coloring… (I don’t want to talk about where they’re at.) I’m fairly happy with the composition…like how Blood’s going to cut through the chains winding around Wild. Getting the shadows on Blood’s clothing to both be fine and stand out was tough, but I think it went well. And of course, having his long coat (?) blowing in the wind is a must! A mandate from heaven!! Banzai! ← Was I drinking?

Line I’m pondering this time is “Getting the shadows on Blood’s clothing to both be fine and stand out was tough, but I think it went well.” Any feedback welcome!

Personal Advent Calendar

For my personal advent calendar:

  • Tea: Peach
  • Chocolate: White chocolate
  • Game My choice for something from the Persona series. I’ll definitely be bopping to the P3 soundtrack today for sure and I’ve got my PSP on charge to play some Persona 2 (gonna try 罰, see how well my Japanese stacks up). Soon P3 and P4 will be on Switch; can’t wait for that. Would love to replay both fully!
  • Pokemon Card pack: N/A. Next one will be Sunday.

Translation talk from day 1

季節は移り変わり窓 doesn’t seem to bring back anything relevant, doing a fresh search. So it’s either a specific concept that I’m searching for wrong, or the author (杉浦志保) was getting poetic or something?

Looking back over your thoughts, @NicoleIsEnough, I’m trying to decide how literal 窓 is supposed to be taken here, given that the theoretically sick boy is in a hospital. Maybe a little bit of both literal and symbolic? Maybe it should be read as the 窓 itself is 移り変わり; either symbolically as saying the scenery outside the window is changing, or literally in that the boy is changing windows he looks through as the season(s) pass(es).

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:u7981: Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 02 :secret:

Two stroke kanji: 刀

Sword; saber; knife
Kun: かたな; そり
On: トウ

Practice Attempts

Surprised that this one is an N1 kanji.

Seems my hand is still wanting to curve all the lines rather than make them nicely straight, also need to work on those little flicks at the end of some strokes. Without it a grid it’s hard to get each line in proportion with the other and not get wobbly.

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Day 2:christmas_tree:
Back to home post

Wow that origami today was a tough one. Really fun to fiddle with, though.

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Today was ラムネ氏のこと by 坂口安吾. I was excited when I saw who wrote this because I’ve read another essay by this author before (悪妻論) and thought it was hilarious. This is the 朗読 I listened to which helped a lot with understanding the older writing.

Notes:
This essay was published in 1945 according to Aozora, but it feels like it was written in the 20s with the writing style
Ex:

すると三好が居ずまひを正して我々を見渡しながら、ラムネの玉を発明した人の名前は分つてゐるぜ、と言ひだした

I had to go to a 古語辞典 to find out that 居ずまひ means 座り方

Real people mentioned:

  • 小林秀雄 - Essayist. 1902-1983
  • 島木健作 - Novelist. 1903-1945 (so young!)
  • 三好達治 - Poet. 1900-1964.

New words:
殉教者 - martyr
酔い痴れる - to be trashed or to be intoxicated by something (not necessarily alcoholic)
長逗留 - to stay somewhere a long while
切支丹 - Christians (the ones first visiting Japan)
伴天連 - the Portuguese Christians (the ones first visiting Japan)
清姫 - Lady who fancied a monk, got rejected, and turned into a giant snake to kill him.

I feel like I lost the plot a bit with this one. I don’t really get what the dead mushroom expert and the villagers had to do with ラムネ氏 but it seems like the creator of Ramune is being held up as someone brilliant (possibly as a half-sarcastic joke)? Also confused with what the Portuguese missionaries translation of ‘love’, 愛, and 恋 have to do with anything… :thinking:

I hope tomorrow is a short story and not another essay :sweat_smile:

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:spiral_calendar: :christmas_tree: Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 2 :christmas_tree: :spiral_calendar:

December 2nd

:fountain_pen: Kanji writing

Kanji writing practice

I brought my pens and dotted notebook along to my day trip today. Feel free to make a game out of guessing the ones which were affected by the train slightly shaking every now and then. :sweat_smile:

This morning, I found a calligraphy pen that I had completely forgotten about. Bought it many years ago for a small assignment and thought that I could also do Kanji practise with it… ended up only using it like twice for a few Kanji in all these years which is rather pitiful. I should at least make more use of it by the means of this practice and hope that the ink is still intact and will be for a while. :thinking:

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This looks like a lot of fun! I’m going to be doing three calendars: the kanji one, the music one, and then one of my own. I have a book I’ve been meaning to read that has exactly 24 short stories in it (not counting the 2-page prologue), so I thought now would be the perfect time to try going through it (while ignoring the several books I’m in the middle of reading :sweat_smile:). For those interested, it’s part of the ラストで君は「まさか!」と言う series, subtitled 冬の物語.

Days 1 and 2

Kanji Calendar

Ascending Stroke Order Kanji Advent Calendar

:sparkles:




:sparkles:
1 2 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:

Like pretty much everyone else, I chose 乙 for Day 1. I practiced that a few times, then wrote out a word containing the kanji. My choice was 乙女座, or Virgo.

For Day 2, I chose 了. This character always catches my eye for some reason. Maybe because it feels incomplete somehow? Ironic, considering the meaning. :laughing: I struggled with this one more than the first one; I just couldn’t get the balance right. The word I wrote out for this entry was 了見, idea or intention.

Song Calendar

Winter Song Calendar - Day 1
Winter Song Calendar - Day 2

While both songs were lovely, I’m biased toward Day 1 because I quite like Kenshi Yonezu’s music. The second one probably sounded more winter-y to me, but I was happy either way. :grin:

Short Story Calendar

冬の物語 - Day 1 (Prologue, 消えないで雪だるま)
冬の物語 - Day 2 (鍋神)

The prologue is short, but it has a fun vibe. Its playfulness honestly got me in the mood to continue reading, which I suppose makes it the perfect prologue. :laughing: The 雪だるま story is cute. It was a nice, cozy story to read as I sipped on some tea. The premise is that the narrator’s friend gives her a small snowman before he transfers schools, and she tries to keep it from melting. Spoilers: as it turns out, there was a paper hidden inside of the snowman with an illegible message on it. The narrator later learns what it said: 「好きです」 :blush: The illustration on the last page spoils the ending, but it’s a cute drawing. I’m not really upset by the spoiler, maybe because it wasn’t an on-the-edge-of-my-seat kind of story.

「鍋神」is written like an old tale, and it was harder for me to understand without a dictionary (whereas the Day 1 stories I could easily read without one). A man who’s really into cooking decides to make his own donabe, but his life ends before he gets to use it. A god puts his soul into the donabe, and it falls into the hands of a young man named 清兵衛(せいべえ). I’m not sure I fully get the ending: 清兵衛 eventually dies, and the donabe-god (as he was referred to) sleeps for many years and eventually ends up with another young man, who says that he doesn’t have money. The donabe-god gets annoyed that he’s not cooking to the god’s standards, and I think he thinks the young man’s lying about being poor? So the pot ends up splitting in to, filling up with grass and broth, but no meat. It’s kind of an odd story, and it didn’t really have the same winter vibes as the other two stories I read. :woman_shrugging:

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If it helps at all, maybe check out these Onomatopoeia youtube videos?

^^ playlist has 50 videos and each one seems to cover about 3 words.

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僕も読みました!これはめちゃめちゃ難しい、意味が全然わからなかったです(笑)このyahoo知恵袋の解説をみるともう少しわかりやすいと思います!https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1312977858

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Since you are practicing your English, should I reply in English?

The link is helpful, thank you! I’m glad I wasn’t alone in finding it so difficult to understand. After reading the link, I think I understand sections 上 and 中.
下 (about 戯作者) is still confusing. :sweat_smile:

I checked to see if tomorrow’s story will be hard, but 宮沢賢治 is a children’s story writer, so I hope it will be easier!

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Dec 3

Kanji in Ascending Stroke Order
Strokes:3

Kun: およ.ぶ、 およ.び、 および、 およ.ぼす
On: キュウ

Words of the day: ついきゅう (investigation (e.g. into someone’s guilt); questioning; hounding), きゅうてき (as … as possible), あしもとにもおよばない (to be no match for; to not hold a candle to)


I haven’t yet found a calligraphy video for it. I may add one later. Meanwhile, here’s the stroke order:

image

And variations:

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:spiral_calendar: :christmas_tree: Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 3 :christmas_tree: :spiral_calendar:

December 3rd

Today’s Kanji:

Kun’yomi: あた.える、 あずか.る、 くみ.する、 ともに

On’yomi:

Meaning: give; participate; award; provide; gift

:fountain_pen: Kanji writing

Kanji writing practice

The first one turned out ‘great’ yet again. :joy:
This time, I wrote the Kanji using the calligraphy pen as well and will continue to do so until the 24th (unless the ink runs out before reaching that point).

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Day 3

< day 2 day 4 >

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December 2
Winter/christmas song
Kanji writing
Origami

Kanji writing

I used different pens like @Midnightblue . First row is using my favorite pen: jetstream 0.5. Then the subsequent ones are from a twin brush pen, second row using the the fine tip and third row using the bold/fat tip.

Origami

Was able to do the folding for the infinity cube on the 2nd but because I didn’t have tape or scissors, had to do a Daiso run in the morning of the 3rd so I could finish the rest. Unfortunately, watched day 3 origami too late and realized i also needed a glue stick for that :slight_smile: :face_with_spiral_eyes: Will post Day 3 and hopefully Day 4 tomorrow.

On that note, my fingertips「指先」kind of feel weird from all the folding! Hahaha

A day late because wow… I underestimated the origami for the day and overestimated myself! Also no extra notes for today on the song and kanji writing cause I’m still travelling! Although i did do them on the 2nd.

I also like @Beyond_Sleepy 's style of including the link to previous and next day! Hope you don’t mind I copy.

Also enjoying everyone’s posts! :slight_smile:

<<day 1 day 3>>

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Just finished today’s origami, and you may be glad to know that the glue stick is totally optional :slight_smile:

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Oooohhh!! Great! No need for another Daiso run. Thanks for letting me know!

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December 3

Kanji writing
Origami
Song
Onomatopoeia
Grammar
Mystery book reading


Kanji writing

Origami

I was out all day so now I’ve left all my reading for when I’m already tired. Hope I’ll manage it…

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I’m reading in the morning rather than evening today, so I finished today’s story, 毒もみのすきな署長さん by 宮沢賢治. I listened with this 朗読.

What a strange children’s story! I spent a lot of time looking up animal and plant names, but they don’t feel relevant to post here. I feel like I understood the Japanese, but have no idea what the moral of the story is supposed to be. :joy:

Rough summary:

A police chief joins a town where catching fish with poison is forbidden, and preventing it is his main responsibility. He takes up doing it, and is questioned by the village people. He confesses and is sentenced to death. Right before he dies he says, basically, “and I’ll do it again in Hell”. And…everyone is impressed?!

いよいよおおきな曲った刀で、首を落されるとき、署長さんは笑って云いました。
「ああ、面白かった。おれはもう、毒もみのことときたら、全く夢中むちゅうなんだ。いよいよこんどは、地獄じごくで毒もみをやるかな。」
みんなはすっかり感服しました。

Also he looks like an otter, so maybe there is some significance there I don’t know about.

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