: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? poll 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? poll Thoughts and ideas welcome! :christmas_tree: :jp:

December 2 Kanji writing Origami Song Onomatopoeia Grammar Mystery book reading Kanji writing [image] Origami [image] 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.)

僕も”慈悲”読みました、とてもいい話ですね。慈悲とは、

[image] Beyond_Sleepy: 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! [IMG_20221202_082328894] 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 [IMG_20221202_070107823] 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 [image] eefara: You’re right, that’s a は, not a の. :thinking: I need to sleep on it, I think. 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).

:u7981: Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 02 :secret: Two stroke kanji: 刀 [Handwriting] Sword; saber; knife Kun: かたな; そり On: トウ Practice Attempts [Practice] 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.

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

:spiral_calendar: :christmas_tree: Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 2 :christmas_tree: :spiral_calendar: December 2nd :fountain_pen: Kanji writing Kanji writing practice [Kanji_writing_calendar_Dec 2] 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:

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: アカドレベンンダトー :sparkles: 月火水木金土日 1 乙 2 了 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. [Advent 1] 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. [Advent 2] 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: 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(). I’m not sure I fully get the ending: . 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:

[image] omk3: I may also remove Onomatopoeia, although I do come across way too many instances of it. 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.

Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 🎄 🇯🇵

Japanese Language

Twelvewishes December 2, 2022, 6:00pm 78

Day 2
Back to home post

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

Topic		Replies	Views
Drawing Kanji and Vocabulary Japanese Language	166	6593	October 6, 2021
:jack_o_lantern: :bat: October grammar challenge :bat: :jack_o_lantern: Grammar	276	3086	November 8, 2025
Biggest Realizations / Mind Blows You've Experienced Learning Japanese: Emoji means what?!?! Japanese Language	971	67205	November 20, 2025
:leaves: Shenmue Tree - a Study "Lounge!" :fallen_leaf: Japanese Language	481	11335	January 19, 2022
Beyond Sleepy’s (pillow fort?) study log Study Logs (Public)	378	12816	December 28, 2023

Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 🎄 🇯🇵

Related topics