Nicole needs a thread to herself -- A Study Log of sorts

Japanese Language
1

Hey and welcome! After almost 5 years on WK and the forums I figured it might be about time for me to get my own little space where I can keep track of things and keep references to the most interesting sites on here. Which doesn’t mean you are not allowed to post here, of course :smile:

Studying

Reading Challenges

Past Reading Challenges

Book Clubs

Ongoing:

Upcoming:

General Book Club links:

How to run a book club:

Other Pages around Reading

Book Prize Reading Challenges

Listening Challenges

Kanji

Japanese

Various pages:

Dictionaries

JLPT

Forum Stuff

Recommendations for Reading

65 Likes
Master List of Study Logs
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 :cherry_blossom: :seedling:
2

What I read in the Winter Challenge 2022 (January - March 2022)

Ongoing:

  • :church:   大聖堂 (The Pillars of the Earth) (new project with Japanese friend)
  • :prince:   星の王子さま (The Little Prince) (this is my sauna book because I’m not allowed to read digital books there)
  • :twisted_rightwards_arrows:   ifの悲劇 (had this in my pile for sooo long already)
  • :sailboat:   沖で待つ (new project with German friend)
  • :cloud:   雲をつかむ話 (reading ch. 1 with the German-Italian Reading Circle)
  • :shinto_shrine:   聖お兄さん (started 100 years ago with the book club but never finished)
  • plus I need to clean up a few manga that I started but never finished

Finished:

  • :barber:   海の見える理髪店 (need to finish this one for good! Only 60 or so pages to go)
  • :crossed_swords:   鬼滅の刃3 (started recently but did not get very far yet)
  • :bread:   しあわせのパン (I want to watch the movie but I need to read the book first)
  • :abacus:   笑わない数学者 (with the book club, started on Dec 24th)
  • :cat2:   青の島と猫一匹 3 (started a loooong time ago)
  • :notebook:   Death Note 1 (with the Beginner Book Club)

Abandoned:

  • :house:   本陣殺人事件 (with the book club, will appropriately start on Jan 1st)

 

Jan
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
01 :barber: 02 :barber:
03 :abacus: 04 :abacus: :church: 05 :church: 06 :house: 07 :prince: :house: 08 :abacus: 09 :church:
10 :church: 11 :house: 12 :house: 13 :house: 14 :house: 15 :abacus: 16 :church:
17 :church: :crossed_swords: 18 :church: :crossed_swords: 19 :church: :crossed_swords: 20 :crossed_swords: 21 :prince: :crossed_swords: 22 :abacus: :notebook: 23 :crossed_swords: :abacus:
24 :church: 25 :church: 26 :church: :cat2: 27 :church: 28 :cat2: 29 :abacus: :prince: 30 :church:
31 :church: :twisted_rightwards_arrows:
Feb
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
01 :twisted_rightwards_arrows: 02 :twisted_rightwards_arrows: 03 :twisted_rightwards_arrows: 04 :twisted_rightwards_arrows: 05 :abacus: :prince: 06 :church:
07 :church: :bread: 08 :bread: 09 :bread: 10 :bread: 11 :bread: 12 :abacus: :bread: 13 :church: :bread:
14 :bread: 15 :bread: :cat2: 16 :bread: 17 :bread: 18 :bread: :abacus: 19 :bread: 20 :bread:
21 :abacus: 22 :abacus: :twisted_rightwards_arrows: 23 :twisted_rightwards_arrows: 24 :sailboat: 25 :sailboat: 26 :abacus: :sailboat: 27 :abacus: :sailboat:
28 :church: :sailboat:
Mar
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
01 :church: 02 :sailboat: 03 :sailboat: 04 :sailboat: 05 :prince: :sailboat: 06 :sailboat: :cat2:
07 :cat2: 08 :sailboat: 09 :notebook: 10 :sailboat: 11 :sailboat: 12 :notebook: 13 :notebook:
14 :notebook: 15 :notebook: 16 :notebook: 17 :notebook: :cloud: 18 :cloud: :shinto_shrine: 19 :cloud: 20 :cloud:
21 :cloud: 22 :cloud: 23 :sailboat: 24 :sailboat: 25 :sailboat: 26 :sailboat: 27 :sailboat:
28 :sailboat: 29 :sailboat: 30 :sailboat: 31 :sailboat:
19 Likes
3

What I read in the Spring Challenge 2022

Ongoing:

  • :prince:   星の王子さま (The Little Prince) (this is still my sauna book because I’m not allowed to read digital books there)
  • :hole:   穴 (we discussed its difficulty in the Intermediate club and I got curious…)
  • :beach_umbrella:   海辺のカフカ (from May 28th, with the Advanced book club)
  • :poop:   糞尿譚 (started way earlier but couldn’t finish due to difficulty - maybe this time?)
  • :jack_o_lantern:   詩的私的ジャック (from June 18th, with the S&M book club)
  • :male_detective:   Spy x Family (from June 18th, with the Intermediate book club)

Paused:

  • :church:   大聖堂 (The Pillars of the Earth) (project with Japanese friend, but friend is busy atm)
  • :cloud:   雲をつかむ話 (read ch. 1 with the German-Italian Reading Circle, want to continue)
  • :twisted_rightwards_arrows:   ifの悲劇 (had this in my pile for sooo long already and started it but slightly lost interest in the meantime)
  • :shinto_shrine:   聖お兄さん (started 100 years ago with the book club but never finished)
  • :man_walking:   Albert Camus: L’Étranger
  • :walking_man:   カミュの異邦人 – When we read 人間失格 somebody mentioned the similarity of the two books, so I decided to give it a try (in French). Then Myria said she’d be interested in reading it as well, but in Japanese, so we will do a French-Japanese tandem :slight_smile: Which means I will read it in French (:man_walking:) and she will read it in Japanese, but I think I will also read each section in Japanese (:walking_man:) afterwards to double-check my French understanding :grin: (curious to see which version I get more out of ^^)
  • :earth_africa:   La Quête d’Ewilan: D’une monde à l’autre (maybe Belerith infected me with this book? :joy_cat: Will see if I’ll read some of it on the side)
  • plus I need to clean up a few manga that I started but never finished

Lined up:

  • :sunrise:   TUGUMI (from July 29th, with the Intermediate book club)
  • :waning_gibbous_moon:   1Q84 Book 1.2 ? (from Sept?, with the 1Q84 book club)
  • :pirate_flag:   Flesh&Blood Vol. 2 (from Aug/Sept?, with eefara)

Finished:

  • :sailboat:   沖で待つ
  • :pirate_flag:   Flesh & Blood 1 (welcome to pulp hell :grin:)
  • :older_woman:   佐賀のがばいばあちゃん from the Intermediate Book Club

Abandoned:

Nothing so far :tada:

April
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
01 :sailboat: :man_walking: 02 :prince: :older_woman: 03 :sailboat: :man_walking:
04 :sailboat: :earth_africa: 05 :sailboat: 06 :sailboat: :earth_africa: 07 :shinto_shrine: :earth_africa: 08 :church: 09 :older_woman: 10 :older_woman:
11 :church: 12 :church: 13 :church: 14 :church: 15 :church: :cloud: 16 :cloud: 17 :cloud:
18 :older_woman: 19 :older_woman: :pirate_flag: 20 :pirate_flag: 21 :pirate_flag: 22 :pirate_flag: 23 :pirate_flag: 24 :pirate_flag: :older_woman:
25 :pirate_flag: 26 :pirate_flag: 27 :pirate_flag: 28 :pirate_flag: 29 :pirate_flag: 30 :pirate_flag:
May
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
01 :pirate_flag:
02 :pirate_flag: 03 :pirate_flag: 04 :pirate_flag: 05 :pirate_flag: :older_woman: 06 :pirate_flag: :older_woman: 07 :pirate_flag: 08 :pirate_flag:
09 :pirate_flag: 10 :pirate_flag: 11 :pirate_flag: 12 :pirate_flag: 13 :pirate_flag: :older_woman: 14 :hole: 15 :hole:
16 :hole: 17 :hole: 18 :hole: 19 :hole: 20 :hole: 21 :hole: 22 :hole:
23 :hole: 24 :hole: 25 :hole: 26 :hole: 27 :hole: :beach_umbrella: 28 :no_entry_sign: 29 :hole: :beach_umbrella:
30 :beach_umbrella: 31 :beach_umbrella:
June
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
01 :hole: 02 :hole: 03 :hole: :poop: 04 :hole: :older_woman: 05 :hole: :poop:
06 :beach_umbrella: :poop: :older_woman: 07 :beach_umbrella: :older_woman: 08 :older_woman: :poop: 09 :beach_umbrella: 10 :beach_umbrella: 11 :beach_umbrella: :older_woman: 12 :beach_umbrella:
13 :beach_umbrella: 14 :beach_umbrella: 15 :poop: 16 :poop: 17 :hole: :jack_o_lantern: 18 :jack_o_lantern: 19 :jack_o_lantern:
20 :jack_o_lantern: 21 :jack_o_lantern: 22 :jack_o_lantern: :beach_umbrella: 23 :jack_o_lantern: 24 :older_woman: :beach_umbrella: 25 :older_woman: :beach_umbrella: 26 :jack_o_lantern:
27 :jack_o_lantern: :beach_umbrella: :older_woman: 28 :beach_umbrella: 29 :jack_o_lantern: 30 :jack_o_lantern:
14 Likes
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 :cherry_blossom: :seedling:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 :cherry_blossom: :seedling:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 :cherry_blossom: :seedling:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 :cherry_blossom: :seedling:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 :cherry_blossom: :seedling:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 :cherry_blossom: :seedling:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 :cherry_blossom: :seedling:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 :cherry_blossom: :seedling:
4

Well done!

4 Likes
5

Hotshot :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

It hasn’t even started yet, so an empty list is not even a lie :grin:

5 Likes
6

Aah!! Great summary post.
So inspiring. ニコールさんありがとうございます!

5 Likes
7

Loving all the little icons, so pretty! :heart:

I’ll just keep telling you all about my efforts and achievements with la quête d’ewilan, shall I? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

2 Likes
8

Oh yes please! That will probably be almost as good as reading the book myself :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

2 Likes
9

… I knew I was forgetting something. :joy: Look at that calendar though, very pretty.

3 Likes
10

Haha :slight_smile: Maybe it was for the better this way, as I decided to focus more on Japanese than French (JLPT is in Japanese after all… ^^) and your updates would have made me very jealous :grin:

Last time it was mainly red and yellow, this time around it’s almost black :thinking: Interesting! Curious to see how the next one will turn out.

You should! Or else we will go to bed hungry every night while we’re in Paris :weary: as I can currently only produce Japanese even if I try to speak French :woman_facepalming: and I suspect that won’t get better in the next month…
(but no pressure :grin:)

5 Likes
11

Looking at your Lined ups, it might turn out very yellow/orange-y, with some highlights. We’ll see! :smiley:

(Did you see that they’re doing a :cloud: chapter 2 read? I was pleasantly surprised.)

I feel some pressure. :joy: I really should though. Right now, I also produce Japanese when I try to speak anything except German or English. It’s hilarious when it’s not frustrating, haha.

We’ll just have to find an authentic Japanese restaurant or something…

4 Likes
12

What I read in the Summer Challenge 2022

Ongoing:

  • :beach_umbrella:   海辺のカフカ（下） (with the spin-off book club)
  • :wolf:   狼と香辛料 (Spice and Wolf) Vol. 1 (with the Advanced club)
  • :sunrise:   TUGUMI (with the Intermediate book club)
  • :church:   大聖堂 (The Pillars of the Earth) (project with Japanese friend)
  • :prince:   星の王子さま (The Little Prince) (this is still my sauna book because I’m not allowed to read digital books there)
  • :poop:   糞尿譚 (started way earlier but couldn’t finish due to difficulty - maybe this time?)
  • :troll:   Attack on Titan 1
  • :man_walking:   Albert Camus: L’Étranger

Paused:

  • :hole:   穴 (we discussed its difficulty in the Intermediate club and I got curious…)
  • :musical_score:   Eine kleine Nachtmusik (from 本屋大賞)
  • :cloud:   雲をつかむ話 (read ch. 1 with the German-Italian Reading Circle, want to continue)
  • :twisted_rightwards_arrows:   ifの悲劇 (had this in my pile for sooo long already and started it but slightly lost interest in the meantime)
  • :shinto_shrine:   聖お兄さん (started 100 years ago with the book club but never finished)
  • :walking_man:   カミュの異邦人 – When we read 人間失格 somebody mentioned the similarity of the two books, so I decided to give it a try (in French). Then Myria said she’d be interested in reading it as well, but in Japanese, so we will do a French-Japanese tandem :slight_smile: Which means I will read it in French (:man_walking:) and she will read it in Japanese, but I think I will also read each section in Japanese (:walking_man:) afterwards to double-check my French understanding :grin: (curious to see which version I get more out of ^^)
  • :earth_africa:   La Quête d’Ewilan: D’une monde à l’autre (maybe Belerith infected me with this book? :joy_cat: Will see if I’ll read some of it on the side)
  • plus I need to clean up a few manga that I started but never finished
  • :waning_gibbous_moon:   1Q84 Book 1.2 ? (postponed until January, with the 1Q84 book club)

Lined up:

  • :ramen:   博多豚骨ラーメンズ Vol. 1 (had to take a quick peek already :grin:)
  • :male_detective:   Spy x Family (from June 18th, with the Intermediate book club)

Finished:

  • :jack_o_lantern:   詩的私的ジャック (with the S&M book club)
  • :tangerine:   orange vol. 1 (with MissDagger‘s book club)
  • :pirate_flag:   Flesh&Blood Vol. 2 (with the F&B club, finished Aug 14th)
  • :beach_umbrella:   海辺のカフカ（上） (with the Advanced book club, finished Aug 16th)
  • :pirate_flag:   Flesh&Blood Vol. 3 (with the F&B club, finished Aug 28th)
  • :pirate_flag:   Flesh&Blood Vol. 4 (with the F&B club, finished Sept 18th)

Abandoned:

Nothing so far :tada:

July
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
01 :tangerine: 02 :jack_o_lantern: 03 :jack_o_lantern:
04 :jack_o_lantern: :beach_umbrella: 05 :beach_umbrella: :musical_score: :hole: 06 :jack_o_lantern: 07 :jack_o_lantern: 08 :jack_o_lantern: 09 :jack_o_lantern: 10 :jack_o_lantern:
11 :jack_o_lantern: 12 :jack_o_lantern: 13 :jack_o_lantern: :beach_umbrella: 14 :beach_umbrella: :tangerine: 15 :beach_umbrella: :troll: 16 :beach_umbrella: :troll: 17 :beach_umbrella: :troll:
18 :beach_umbrella: :tangerine: 19 :beach_umbrella: 20 :beach_umbrella: :jack_o_lantern: 21 :jack_o_lantern: 22 :jack_o_lantern: 23 :jack_o_lantern: 24 :pirate_flag:
25 :beach_umbrella: 26 :pirate_flag: 27 :pirate_flag: 28 :pirate_flag: :beach_umbrella: 29 :beach_umbrella: :sunrise: :tangerine: 30 :sunrise: :ramen: :tangerine: :beach_umbrella: 31 :pirate_flag:
Aug
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
01 :beach_umbrella: :pirate_flag: 02 :beach_umbrella: :pirate_flag: 03 :ramen: 04 :ramen: 05 :ramen: :pirate_flag: :beach_umbrella: 06 :no_entry_sign: 07 :beach_umbrella:
08 :beach_umbrella: :sunrise: 09 :sunrise: :pirate_flag: 10 :pirate_flag: 11 :sunrise: :pirate_flag: 12 :pirate_flag: 13 :pirate_flag: 14 :pirate_flag:
15 :sunrise: :beach_umbrella: 16 :beach_umbrella: :pirate_flag: 17 :pirate_flag: 18 :pirate_flag: 19 :pirate_flag: 20 :prince: :pirate_flag: 21 :no_entry_sign:
22 :pirate_flag: 23 :pirate_flag: 24 :pirate_flag: 25 :pirate_flag: :beach_umbrella: 26 :pirate_flag: :beach_umbrella: 27 :pirate_flag: :beach_umbrella: 28 :pirate_flag: :wolf:
29 :wolf: :pirate_flag: 30 :beach_umbrella: :pirate_flag: :man_walking: 31 :pirate_flag: :beach_umbrella:
Sept
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
01 :beach_umbrella: :pirate_flag: :man_walking: 02 :beach_umbrella: :pirate_flag: :man_walking: 03 :beach_umbrella: :pirate_flag: :man_walking: 04 :beach_umbrella: :pirate_flag: :man_walking:
05 :wolf: :pirate_flag: :man_walking: 06 :beach_umbrella: :pirate_flag: :man_walking: 07 :pirate_flag: 08 :pirate_flag: 09 :pirate_flag: 10 :beach_umbrella: :pirate_flag: 11 :wolf: :pirate_flag: :man_walking:
12 :wolf: 13 :pirate_flag: 14 :pirate_flag: 15 :pirate_flag: 16 :pirate_flag: 17 :pirate_flag: 18 :pirate_flag: :church:
19 :church: 20 :church: 21 :church: :beach_umbrella: 22 :church: 23 :church: 24 :sunrise: 25 :sunrise:
26 :sunrise: 27 :sunrise: 28 :sunrise: 29 :sunrise: 30 :sunrise: 31 :sunrise:
11 Likes
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
:books::books: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny:
13

cool :sunglasses:

i always try to track what I read (mostly english stuff) in a bullet journal, but then I stop at some point during the year and when I start again I forgot what I read :see_no_evil:

I’m always envious of people who can keep with stuff like that. :saluting_face:

3 Likes
14

Thanks! I was also not sure whether I could keep up, but it looks so pretty with the icons, I just need to continue :joy_cat:
Also FWIW in May I started tracking the pages I read in a spreadsheet, which so far works amazingly well for me (I’m a sucker for data after all), and then sometimes I just take the data from there and put it in here just to be able to look at the icons :grin:

2 Likes
15

wow tracking the pages :scream:
that would totally take me out of the story. or do you just work with two bookmarks? i always take them out while reading so I forgot where I started.

even now at crucial points in the story when I also have to look up many kanji I skip them at first because I want to know what happens and later check if my deduction as to what it meant was right :sweat_smile:

i once also tracked what tv shows and movies i watched and ranked them, but at some point I lost interest. but now I have them problem I can’t remember if I have seen it already and half way through I’m like i know that one…

2 Likes
16

Oh, I just enter the current page number whenever I’m done with the day’s reading. It looks like this:

image
image1738×956 162 KB

The original design is by @Myria but I adapted it to some extent.

The best thing is that it gives me a heatmap for my reading :sunglasses: like this:

image
image1314×682 65.8 KB

(sorry for all the German labels - I think if you squint a bit it still makes sense in English generally :grin:)

13 Likes
17

Are you…a robot? :astonished:

Seriously, I’m impressed. I wish I was that organized in other respects of my life at least, but reading for me, just like nearly everything else, is more of a chaotic mess :rofl:
The kind of mess I can make sense of, and will instantly start losing things if someone disturbs it, but still a mess.

11 Likes
18

:joy_cat: I think I do have some robotic qualities, but being able to enter a number into a spreadsheet every day does not really count towards that for me…

We didn’t talk about other respects of my life, did we :rofl:
I mean, I could show you a picture of my kitchen that I’m sitting in right now, but I wouldn’t want to make this publicly visible :grin:
don’t worry, it’s not like disgustingly dirty-messy, just a bit in disorder and I haven’t done the dishes yet :woman_shrugging: I don’t care as much but I know quite a few people who would take offense.

12 Likes
19

as a german myself it makes a lot of sense :wink:

I think i might need to get some real excel for my privat laptop or just use the company laptop…

do you read several japanese books at once?
that would throw me of.
when I have several books in rotation it is mostly because one was so boring i stopped in the middle or some other caught my eye so i put it on pause. but reading several pages of several books on the same day :exploding_head:

3 Likes
20

Fair enough :joy_cat:

Oh sorry for the misinformation, this is Google Docs actually :sweat_smile: which means I can even add the last page number when I’m already in bed and half asleep

Well there are many book clubs in parallel so there is nothing I can do about it :woman_shrugging: :joy_cat:

seems I’m a very obedient robot fwiw :grin:

The thing is, some books are easier to read than others, e.g. the カフカ book needs my full focus (and also frequent lookups in some parts) so I prefer to do that while I’m still wide awake, but other books are easier to read so I can read them in the evening or in bed before falling asleep. So that’s how it happens ^^

7 Likes