December 10
Kanji writing
Origami
Song
Mystery book reading
I’m starting to think that my squares are too small for complicated kanji. I don’t have a proper kanji notebook of course, nor is it easy to get one. But I think I’d better either use a finer tip pen, or somehow find larger squares from now on.
Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 10 
Ten stroke kanji: 狸
Tanuki; racoon
Kun: たぬき
On: リ; ライ
There’s lots of cool 10 stroke kanji to pick from, but really, there’s only one kanji I could pick today and that is タヌキ！
It says on Jisho that it is the 2498th most used kanji in newspapers (out of 2500), I like to imagine that this is solely because of tanuki causing so much mischief that they manage to just break into the most used kanji.
Tanuki! If I had noticed it was ten strokes I’d definitely had chosen it! I’m sure that it’s no coincidence that both Oni and Tanuki have the same number of strokes. 
I also absolutely love the fact that there are opportunities to mention tanuki in newspapers. 
Today’s reading was 散歩生活 by 中原中也. I read along with this 朗読. I’m not sure when it was written, but the author died in 1937 and it feels very ~1920s to me and at one point a silent film star is mentioned.
It wasn’t really my style. It reminded me a little of 太宰’s drifting / mood based stories, except this came off as rather pretentious and the writing style wasn’t as enjoyable.
Kanji in Ascending Stroke Order
Strokes:11
Kun: しか、 か
On: ロク
Words of the day: 馴鹿 (reindeer), 馬鹿馬鹿しい (absurd, ridiculous, foolish), 紅葉に鹿 (match made in heaven; perfect match; great coupling; sika deer and maple leaves (a common motif in poetry and classical Japanese painting)
鹿 means deer, so it’s a very Christmassy word, I thought. It’s a Jōyō kanji, taught in grade 4. It’s JLPT level N1 and WK level 36.
Here’s a video of Japanese Calligrapher Takumi writing it along with 馬:
Here’s the stroke order:
And variations:
Dec 10 
Apparently 9 strokes is the limit of my paintbrush, time to start writing bigger I guess
Thank you! It’s my first time writing this one but I have learned to write some kanji before (although I forgot anything more complicated than 三 )
Just want to say, your kanji are really beautiful too, the spacing on the strokes is so consistent 
Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 11
December 11th
Today’s Kanji:
鹿
Kun’yomi: しか, か
On’yomi: ロク
Meaning: deer
Kanji writing
Day 11
Winter song
Kanji writing
Origami
Words of interest:
New vocab:
Advent of Ascending Kanji - Day 11
Eleven stroke kanji: 船
Ship; boat
Kun: ふね; ふな-
On: セン
It’s hard to try and keep all the radicals that make up bigger kanji contained neatly, mine keep drifting away from each other.
Today I read 凍雨と雨氷 by 寺田寅彦, along with this 朗読. It was published in 大正１０, or 1935.
I had to look up a lot of weather related words, but it was actually very easy aside from that. I barely noticed it being old aside from 我邦 being used for 我が国. I don’t really recommend it, it’s basically just a guy talking about different types of cold weather precipitation. Probably one of the more fitting works for the advent challenge, though, I suppose.
Great word:
This thread is a bit confusing. Especially after not having used this platform after a bit.
Everyone is doing a task, or set of tasks, each day for Advent (Dec 1 - 24th). Some people are doing them together, others are doing their own thing. Each day participants post an update of what they have done.
I see. Tried to comprehend what was being posted above, but got lost. I enjoy your links to the readings. I’ll have to try those myself and see how much I remember of my kanji. I felt like I forgot a lot after my recent visit with my daughter’s おばあちゃんi in 東大阪, but this thread of posters has inspired me to try once again. Shouldn’t have reset to level 1 though. Too simple and slow that far down. Oh well.
Day 11 (Correct daughter’s homework)
I’m reading out of copyright short works from Aozora Bunko. Most of what I’m reading is very old (pre-WWII) essays, so they will be quite challenging unless you’re already an avid reader and comfortable with old grammar. Frankly, a lot of it is challenging for me (despite having read a lot of Aozora Bunko works already) which is why I’m doing it. 
Some are not so difficult (children’s stories) and I try to shout those out so a wider audience can enjoy them.
@omk3 is doing a mystery short story challenge (modern Japanese), though, but it’s on the Natively forums rather than here.
Oh, no! I can see why you didn’t like the story very much! And reading your summary, it seems like the 猫の事務所 from 猫の恩返し is probably just an insignificant reference to this story (if it is a reference at all) since I don’t see any parallels between them.
And by the way, I’d recommend the anime 猫の恩返し or its original manga バロン―猫の男爵 if you haven’t watched or read it yet! (I take it from your username that you like cats! :3) And if you’ve experienced one of the versions, you might still want to check out the other one (if you liked it, that is) since there are some differences between them. The plotlines are essentially the same, but there are some different nuances, and some characters are different as well, whether in appearance or personality. The manga is by 柊あおい, same mangaka as 耳をすませば!
Oh, I can see why you’d think that, ha, ha! That term sounded interesting to me, so I found an article about it, which you could check out if you’d like:
https://serai.jp/living/268569
Read through 凍雨と雨氷 and yes. I have forgot much or have much left to grasp. Getting only around 45%. Thanks for the link to Natively.
Kanji in Ascending Stroke Order
Strokes:12
Kun: は
On: ヨウ
Words of the day: 紅葉 (autumn colours, leaves changing colour), 針葉樹 (conifer, needle-leaved tree), 根も葉もない (unfounded (e.g. rumour); groundless; baseless; completely untrue)
葉 means things like leaf, needle, blade, counter for flat things, fragment. It’s a Jōyō kanji, taught in grade 3. It’s JLPT level N3 and WK level 10.
Here’s a video of Japanese Calligrapher Takumi writing it along with a brush pen (at the 1:30 mark):
And an instructional video on how to write it beautifully:
Here’s the stroke order:
And variations:
