Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 🎄 🇯🇵

[alygator]

Oh my goodness! Origami combined with listening practice is also a really good idea! I was just about to start a cutting project from the Studio Ghibli store, but I’ll put that on the back burner for now and do this one instead.

So now I’m gonna be following three: Ascending Stroker Order Calendar, Japanese Winter/Christmas Song Calendar, and the Origami Advent Calendar! Yay! Scared I might be biting off more than I can chew… Hope I can do it everyday!

By the way, since this is my first Christmas season/advent calendar on WK, I was curious to know how this will work. Can we just post our replies on this topic on our progress for all calendars we’re joining? Or will there be separate topics for each calendar where we can then post related comments specific to that calendar? If I’m doing three, I’d prefer sharing a single post here, but happy to do it either way.

[omk3]

It’s the first forum advent calendar(s) for me too
I think it’s best to have everything in this thread. Just post your updates here in one post per day or one post per calendar per day, whatever you prefer. You can even make a home post (like we do in the read/listen every day threads) in this thread with all the activities you will be doing and either update that, or have links to all your subsequent posts in there. There are no rules, so do what is more convenient and fun for you.

[coicoy]

• Study a grammar point a day
• Read part of a short story/book every day (maybe holiday related?)
• Listen to a Japanese song every day (maybe holiday related?)
• Read about and practice writing a kanji per day (stroke number could correspond to day of the month for extra fun)

This is my modified version of the list, which I may follow. My goal is not to do every one every day, but to try to do at least one and as many as possible. And my goal is not Christmas per se but rather building a steady habit…

[eefara]

So looking at my options, I think I’ll do these:

• @deliana88’s Winter/Christmas Song list
• the Ascending Stroke Order Kanji calendar
• a 12-day event translation event: I have a calendar with pretty illustrations of a manga I really like, and the mangaka has author comments on all the illustrations. I’ll translate the comments one month per day. I would like to round this up to 24/25 somehow, but I’d need to look around and see if there’s anything else short and easy to translate that would fit the requirements.

Looking forward to everyone’s updates here!

[Hiroya]

I’m Japanese but I would like to participate. I will practice my English by reading your posts but I will do the Japanese short story challenge if that’s ok!よろしくお願いします。

[Midnightblue]

I’ll only do the Ascending Stroke Order Kanji Advent Calendar and post a daily picture of my tiny practice sheet in this thread.

Apart from that, I might do a tiny bit of the Origami calendar but only for a maximum of 3 days during the whole month. I’ll probably get to it around the holidays and post my successes or failures as well.

That’s unfortunately all I can muster alongside all the other daily things I need to do.

[polv]

I am thinking that, daily writing prompts by daily illustration, or daily questions, might be nice.

So far I have been avoiding writing (only occasional sound recording), where writings are easier to be double-checked before posting, or proof-read on whether my points are easily understood, or having good structures.

[DIO-Berry]

I had offered to do something on the sentence a day challenge, but the majority did not want it. Therefor I recommend checking out renshuu.org’s forums and their writing practice. You could go through old questions and use them for your advent practice you’re more likely to get feedback over here or on HelloTalk though I believe

[polv]

@DIO-Berry

the sentence a day challenge, but the majority did not want it. Therefor I recommend checking out renshuu.org’s forums and their writing practice. You could go through old questions and use them for your advent practice you’re more likely to get feedback over here or on HelloTalk though I believe

Another place is probably LangCorrect.com. Also, probably not only questions that can be prompted.

I would pull-through with image prompts anyway, probably Christmas-themed.

Unlike Every Day threads, catching up by cramming multiple prompts in a day can possibly be done.

月	火	水	木	金	土	日
			01 [1]	02 [2]	03 [3]	04 [4]
05 [5]	06 [6]	07 [7]	08 [8]	09 [9]	10 [10]	11 [11]
12 [12]	13 [13]	14 [14]	15 [15]	16 [16]	17 [17]	18 [18]
19 [19]	20 [20]	21 [21]	22 [22]	23 [23]	24 [24]	25 [25]
26 [26]	27 [27]	28 [28]	29 [29]	30 [30]	31 [31]

I intentionally made into a Wiki, because I need some prompt ideas.

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[omk3]

Dec 1

Kanji in Ascending Stroke Order
Strokes:1

乙

Kun: おと-、 きのと
On: オツ、 イツ

Words of the day: 乙おつな味あじ (strange taste; spicy taste), 乙いつ夜や (second division of the night (approx. 9pm to 11pm)

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This is the most involved one-stroke kanji I could find (surely just drawing a line for 一 would be a little boring, right?). It’s WK level 57, and means things like the latter, duplicate, strange, witty. It’s also a radical.

Here’s a video of Japanese Calligrapher Takumi writing it (2.26 mark):

How to write Chinese Alphabet Translated in English A to Z | Neat and clean handwriting

[pocketcat]

@omk3

乙いつ夜や (second division of the night (approx. 9pm to 11pm)

And here I thought 丑三つ時 was odd.

@polv

LangCorrect.com (where natives are getting tired).

What makes you say they are getting tired?

[polv]

@pocketcat

@polv

LangCorrect.com (where natives are getting tired).

What makes you say they are getting tired?

I only heard that there are only few people who would correct the writings. Other than that, I am not sure how fast responses are expected to be corrected, or totally ignored at all.

[pocketcat]

Gotcha! I’ve submitted there a few times and never had an issue getting corrected, but maybe it varies a bit day to day. I also only write short things (1-2 paragraphs) and know when I’m correcting English the very long journals are not my favorite

[polv]

If possible, I would separate vocabularies by Kanji reading (regardless of Kun, On, or Nanori), but it is difficult to judge new vocabularies I haven’t seen before.

Aedict makes thing convenient.

• 甲乙(こうおつ)つけがたい      甲(こう)の薬(くすり)は乙(おつ)の毒(どく)      乙(おつ)の味(あじ)      乙(おつ)に澄(す)ます
• 乙夜(いつや)
• 乙女(おとめ)      乙姫(おとひめ)
• 乙骨優太(おっこつゆうた)

I think 乙(おつ) itself is a slang too.

[omk3]

As this is just for some brief learning fun, I didn’t want to choose a word for each reading, just a couple of words that looked interesting to me. You are welcome to provide a more complete list if you like, but I think I’ll stick with one or two fun words each time.

[DIO-Berry]

@pocketcat

@omk3

いつ夜や (second division of the night (approx. 9pm to 11pm)

And here I thought 丑三つ時 was odd.

Japanese time is traditional divided into 12 total blocks, so it’s not as odd as it sounds. What is odd/difficult is that they divided those blocks into 6 parts each for daytime and nighttime. Evenly within daytime and nighttime though. So in winter, the daytime blocks are really short because it’s all the daytime divided into 6 parts. But then in winter, the nighttime blocks would be much longer.

Japanese clock - Wikipedia.

[omk3]

December 1

Kanji writing
Origami
Song
Onomatopoeia
Grammar
Mystery book reading

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Kanji writing

Why does it look so much better in real life?

Origami

Onomatopoeia

ふさふさ in tufts, bushy, thick, luxuriant (to describe a “carpet” of moss)

Grammar

V-る＋のみだ similar to ばかり, means “only”

I still need to hunt for some interesting onomatopoeia and grammar in today’s reading. I’ll update accordingly. (Also still debating whether I’ll do some reading specifically for the advent. I probably shouldn’t. But…)

Edit: Well, I decided I couldn’t resist adding a reading advent too. I will be reading 叙述トリック短編集, a collection of 6 short mystery stories that use narrative tricks to confuse the reader. I will be posting my updates on that over at Natively, if anyone is interested.

[Midnightblue]

Japanese Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 1

December 1st

Kanji writing

Kanji writing practice

The first one is simply terrible and I love-hate it.

To have a bit of a different feel when writing, I used a 0.3mm mechanical pencil for the first 3 rows, a 0.5mm one for the next 2 rows and a pen for the last 3.

Granted, the 0.3mm and 0.5mm almost didn’t make a difference in terms of looks, so maybe I’ll swap the 0.5mm pencil for another type of pen tomorrow.

[alygator]

December 1 - Day 1
Winter/christmas song
Kanji writing
Origami

Winter/christmas song

I really enjoyed the first winter song today! It’s a very catchy upbeat song. My process:

1. Listen to the song and enjoy the beat
2. Repeat the song while trying to follow the subtitles on the youtube video
3. Repeat following the lyrics with furigana found on a different site
4. Finally, listen to it again while reading the English translation

Doing that last bit made me wonder - is this a church song? Nothing against church songs of course. Just very curious. This would be the very first japanese church song I would have ever heard! I also wonder how others prefer to listen to songs now.

Some kanji/vocab learned from WK that I heard correctly/recognized:

• 指 ゆび finger
• 神様 かみさま god
• 星 ほし star
• 声 こえ voice

May or may not list these for every song. Depending on how much time I have.

Kanji writing + Origami

Combining these two cause I took the photo together and couldn’t be bothered to crop.

On kanji writing, I copied your idea @omk3 to include interesting related vocab.

On origami, that was a nice simple envelope to start with! Surprisingly, I could easily follow and learned of course the word for envelope 封筒「ふうとう」. They kept saying something like おりつけます and おりあげます. Turned on closed captions but still couldn’t figure out exactly what they were saying. But I figured out the root at least. 折る「おる」and read the conjugations. I recognized a bunch of other vocab but don’t have enough time to list all of them today.

So… tomorrow I’m travelling for 2 nights, 3 days. I think I can still do it while travelling. But may not write as much notes like today!

@Midnightblue

To have a bit of a different feel when writing, I used a 0.3mm mechanical pencil for the first 3 rows, a 0.5mm one for the next 2 rows and a pen for the last 3.

I also love this idea of using different pens. But maybe i’ll save it after travelling!

day 2>>

[eefara]

Advent Calendar, Day 1
Winter Song
Kanji vocab + writing
Calendar Translation

I’m doing a separate non-Japanese advent calendar for myself this month as well; it is composed of tea, chocolate, Pokemon cards, and video games. I’ll post about the details of that under a cut.

Winter Song

I really enjoyed the song for today! (orion, by 米津玄師) The lyrics site tells me it was the ending theme to the second season of 3月のライオン. I’ve only listened to it in the background for now, but I plan on interweaving it throughout the day as I listen to stuff as I work. Hoping to low-key work on my listening comprehension as well, haha; I definitely heard 神様 in there somewhere. ^_^;

Kanji

I too am doing 乙 as my kanji for the day; one stroke kanji is slim pickings, and this one looks interesting! No pictures of my writing practice yet; I need to go find paper first.

My writing practice:

First line is pencil, second is pen. I tried to write the kanji in a variety of sizes, too, hence the slight weirdness.

Words I picked out!

• 甲乙つけがたい (こうおつ) - difficult to say which of the two is better
• 乙女座 (おとめざ) - Virgo (the constellation)
• 乙 (おつ) - second (party to an agreement); (な) stylish, chic; (な) weird, strange

I’ve always had a soft spot for names of constellations; don’t know why.

Calendar Translation

Alrighty, here’s the original, followed by my translation. I wasn’t worried by trying to match space constraints of the calendar or anything. If you see anywhere where the translation could be improved, I’d really appreciate any feedback! I’m still learning, so this may all be a bit iffy.

OG Pic

0 Cover - 友人曰く『不治の病の少年の大河ドラマみたい』微妙に合ってはいるが…という事はじゃあブラッドはそれを支える元不良少年？入院費の為に夜はホストで荒稼ぎ！？昼は看病で病院に通い！？そして季節は移り変わり窓の向こうの最後の一葉が…！！(何のドラマだ）でもそんな感じ…。

According to a friend, this work gives off similar feelings to “a Taiga drama with an incurably sick boy”. So working off of that, Blood is a former bad boy supporting the boy? And he rakes in money working as a host at night to pay for hospital bills?! While doing a daily commute to the hospital to nurse the boy?! And finally, through a window looking out over the changing season, the final leaf…!! (What kind of drama is this?) …Or something like that.

I’m not totally sold on that “through a window looking out over the changing season” line, so if anyone has a better idea of how to write that, I’m all ears! Maybe @Hiroya could weigh in if you feel confident with your English?

Personal Advent Calendar

As for my personal advent calendar, each day will have one of each:

• A tea bag (random between a fruit tea, peppermint tea, and green tea)
• A chocolate (flavor is random between normal, white, dark, or caramel)
• A game written down to enjoy as I munch on my snack (comfy replays only). I’m not intending on doing a full playthrough or anything; this is purely just to sit in nostalgia.

Here’s a pic of my homemade advent box; the box itself is one used for storing thread. I only had enough room for twelve days, so I’ll have to refill it partway through.

Every three days I’ll also open a pack of Pokemon cards (since I only bought 8 of them).
So today’s stats:

• Tea: Raspberry
• Chocolate: Dark chocolate
• Game: My choice for Pokemon gens 1-4. Will ultimately decide after work, but I’ve narrowed down my options to the GB Pokemon TCG game, Pokemon Yellow, Fire Red/Leaf Green, or Heart Gold/Soul Silver.
• Pokemon Card pack: Evolving Skies. This expansion is notorious for its awesome alt arts and terrible, terrible pull rates, so unless I get really lucky I’m not expecting much. I’ll post a picture or something of what I get when I open it!

Edit: pulls pic! Not bad, not bad. I like the Salamence.

Pic

I’m already enjoying all the mini activities! ^o^