📚📚 Read every day challenge - Fall 2022 🍁🍂

[pocketcat]

I started reading 半落ち and oh my gosh, I’m feeling drained. I’m reading it in paperback and doing a very close read (I’m striving to understand every sentence as perfectly as I can to sharpen my grammar skills). I’m worried about falling behind the club due to this hence the slight early start. I’m not even halfway through the first reading and I’ve already taken so many notes. An ebook would have been much easier…

The writing is lovely, though, and taking the time to make sure I understand everything has me savoring it more.

Also I bought this the other day and omg I love it. As I get deeper into paperbacks it can be a pain to hold them open when copying out sentences. This helps so much (my hand gets so tired!) and since it’s real wood it smells soooo good. I saw other vendors had pretty ones made of resin and whatnot, but I’m glad I chose wood.

Pic from vendor page for people who don't want to click link

[lucylavelle]

December 30th!

Today I read chapter 37 of Happiness, and then a few pages of the final chapter of Orange Volume 5.
I decided I was a kind of tired for reading Orange, and I want to be able to fully appreciate it since its the final chapter of the main story so I stopped and decided to finish it tomorrow instead

(Home Post)

[natarin]

December 30 Home Post

Yay BU$TAFELLOWS day! Started the new chapter and I’m still enjoying it a lot, I’m very fond of the characters already which probably doesn’t bode well for my emotions as we get deeper into plot things but that’s a later problem I accidentally quick saved several times because quick save is the minus button, which is the log button in 13 Sentinels I see this happening lots in my future lmao, I don’t remember what Y does in 13 Sentinels but hopefully nothing game-wrecking!

@sddsdd

Hope you enjoy!! I’m not exaggerating when I say 13 Sentinels is probably my favorite piece of science fiction and maybe media in general from the last 2-3 years. When it kicks into high gear, it’s just one crazy nonstop ride to the finish.

Thank you! Another rave review to add to the list haha, I’m very excited to get further into it

@Redglare

On another note, it feels absurd how I’ve reached one of the goals I mentioned in the Summer '21 challenge

Woah that’s awesome, these threads really work huh :')

[DIO-Berry]

Home

December 30

人間椅子 -

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険61
101 - end (184)

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険62
Start - 83

I tried to be good to myself today and read a lot last night. 62 is the last manga volume I need to read to make my 50 vols in a year goal! 62 is a bit longer than a typical volume though and it’s about 220 pages instead of the usual 180-190. I’ve got a lot to read today! Later!

[sddsdd]

Home Post

Day 51 Progress:
お隣の天使様 五冊 - 26.19 → 37.48%

Just a quick little post before I rush to bed. Almost skipped out but it would suck to drop out near the very end of the thread.

Word of the Day: 概おおむね - generally, roughly, main idea. Always funny when I see too words represented with completely different kanji (大) and (旨) fused into one word with a separate kanji. Really makes the quirks of Japanese language evolution clear.

[midnightblue]

December 31st

Home post

Card Captor Sakura volume 4 – progress report

Yesterday: Finished chapter 17, continued up to page 176.
Today: Finished volume 4.

Aand done!
This officially marks the end of my late autumn/winter challenge. I didn’t have everything ready to join back in October, so my challenge lasted from November 1st to the December 31st instead.

Word or expression of the day:
実家 - (じっか) - (one’s parent’s) home

Small recap of my first read-every-day-challenge:

I’m pleasantly surprised that I managed to read around 8 manga volumes (I count the Aria: the masterpiece volumes as two volumes each) within 2 months. This is especially kind of astonishing because I had never read a full book/manga before. Years ago, I attempted reading a manga once but didn’t make it far because I got fed up with my lack of (Kanji) knowledge and I couldn’t find the motivation to push through – on the contrary, I was very disheartened and beat myself up over it.

Frankly, I think that my fate this time would have been similar – I may have tried reading Aria, put it on hiatus after struggling and opted for NHK easy articles or something instead – if it weren’t for this challenge and the corresponding book club pages.

With this challenge, I was capable of sticking to reading every day and see others thrive (and struggle) which gave me more incentive to continue reading despite struggling quite a bit. I noticed that my reading speed became a little bit faster too and I hope that it will steadily improve over time. Who knows, I may have a similar realisation and improvement like @Redglare in a year or so. _{By the way, @Redglare I’m happy to hear that you managed to achieve your goal.}

@Redglare

On another note, it feels absurd how I’ve reached one of the goals I mentioned in the Summer '21 challenge:

@Redglare

I’m inspired by senpais like @Naphthalene, @Vanilla, @Ditto20 and @Valkow, who seem to consume Japanese books in just a few days or less, and that sounds awesome. I want to be able to do that too, and reading a bunch for two whole months will surely bring me one step closer to that.

I can’t believe it This must be a dream or something

One thing became clear, though: I need to focus more on grammar for now. While I tend to understand the gist in general, there is still so much that flies under my radar which hinders my understanding of dialogue and other explanations. So, for the next reading challenge, I will dedicate less time for reading and thus make slower progress but I thanks to this, I will have more time to revise (and learn new) grammar.

Thanks again, @windupbird for hosting this challenge and the following one – see (almost all of) you in the next reading challenge next year! _{Soo, literally later today/tomorrow}

[MissDagger]

December 30
Home Post

Novel in English

I didn’t read in Japanese yesterday, at least not any I would count. It is so weird to me that random sentences I might have read doesn’t even blip on my radar anymore. A happy thing for sure.

Mostly I’m making this post so I could reply to a couple of people. Also to motivate myself to find some time for Bustafellows reading today, otherwise I’ll just fall further and further behind.

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@Redglare

On another note, it feels absurd how I’ve reached one of the goals I mentioned in the Summer '21 challenge:

@Redglare

I’m inspired by senpais like @Naphthalene, @Vanilla, @Ditto20 and @Valkow, who seem to consume Japanese books in just a few days or less, and that sounds awesome. I want to be able to do that too, and reading a bunch for two whole months will surely bring me one step closer to that.

I can’t believe it This must be a dream or something

Congratulations, @Redglare! Practice makes perfect better, as they say (or as they should say, perfection, bah!) Your effort matters. I hope you’re proud of yourself.

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@pocketcat That is a cool book thingymajing! (Is there an official spelling for that word? My spellchecker couldn’t guess what I tried to type. xD)

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@midnightblue Sounds like you had a good challenge! I’m happy for you.

The challenges really do make a different. When I started reading Orange in July, so after my first challenge (technically second but I had a 6 month break between first and second challenges and for my real first I think I only kept up with reading for a month, and only every other day so… I’m not counting it much), I couldn’t read one chapter in one go. Maybe about half of it. I didn’t have the stamina, and I also had to do a lot more look ups. As I finished volume 5 a week or so ago, I easily read a whole chapter in one go. In fact I read the second to last and last chapter back to back (except for a quick forum posting break xD), and the last chapter was the longest chapter so far.

So yeah, so much more stamina now. And I recognize so many more grammar structures without even thinking about them. So yeah, these challenges are great.

[polv]

Dec 31, Sat of Extra week of Fall 2022

• はたらく細胞 Black Vol.1 Ch.1

Although I like the original series, I don’t want to be too ahead of the club. (Though, I might change my mind later.)

Also, this spin-off was recommended to me a long while ago. (Too many other spin-offs, in fact.)

@JuiceS

There’s also a spin-off called はたらく細胞(さいぼう) Black which has the same premise but in a body that’s not healthy due stuff like smoking and being overweight.

I think I saw this before somewhere...

In some year number? Some ads?

• うたわれるもの

Interesting words

• めんこい = adorable
• へちゃむくれ(.) = unattractive looking; weak looking person
• おろそか = negligent. Kanji form is 疎(おろそ)か.
• 象(かたど)る = to represent; to model after
• 陥(おちい)る = to fall into (e.g. a trap)
• 乗(の)り切(き)る = to sail through a storm
• 日(ひ)に日(ひ)に = day by day
• 過度(かど) = excessive
• 怒声(どせい) = angry voice. Similar to 怒鳴(どな)り.
• 指揮(しき) = commanding
• 強靭(きょうじん) = sturdy; tough. This one has Furigana.
• 掃除(そうじ) = sweeping. Just confused because the last Kanji is usually read じょ as in 排除(はいじょ).
• 虚無(きょむ) = nothingness
• 酸味(さんみ) = acidic taste. Some counterparts, 甘味(かんみ) (sweet), 辛味(からみ) (spicy).
• 香草(こうそう) = fragrant grass
• 発酵(はっこう) = fermentation
• 遊牧(ゆうぼく) = nomadism
• 燻製(くんせい) = food smoking
• 定番(ていばん) = standard item
• 箸休(はしやす)め = intermezzo; dish served between courses
• 端麗(たんれい) = fine-looking
• 面立(おもだ)ち = facial features = 顔立(かおだ)ち
• 破顔(はがん) = giving a broad smile
• 祖国(そこく) = native country
• 人波(ひとなみ) = wave of people; stampede. Sound alike of 人並(ひとな)み.
• 精巧(せいこう) = exquisite
• 道順(みちじゅん) = route
• 経由(けいゆ) = going through
• 下行大動脈(かこうだいどうみゃく) = ascending aorta. First two Kanji are descending, and the latter three are aorta. I confuse it with 不行 in 不行跡(ふぎょうせき), which also has another meaning in Chinese.
• 新米(しんまい) = newbie / first rice crop of the year. Probably similar to 新人(しんじん) or 新入(しんい)り.
• 淋菌(りんきん) = gonococcus. First Kanji, other than crying loneliness (淋(さび)しい), it can also mean lymph, and then a Kanji substitution for Gonorrhea (痳(リン)).
• 豪快(ごうかい) = magnificent; glorious
• 悪玉(あくだま) = villain. In context as 悪玉コレステロール (LDL), and then I found 超悪玉コレステロール (sd LDL), which I don’t know much about.
• 抗酸化(こうさんか) = antioxidant
• 解毒(げどく) = detox
• 毒物(どくぶつ) = poisonous substance
• 摂取(せっしゅ) = intake
• 吸収(きゅうしゅう) = absorption
• 検出(けんしゅつ) = detection
• 受容体(じゅようたい) = receptor
• 休息(きゅうそく) = relaxation
• 大輪(たいりん)の花(はな) = large blooming flower. Doesn’t appear to have to be a ring.
• 模(も)する = to mock
• 雛(ひよこ) = young chick. Doesn’t have Furigana in context.
• 好々爺(こうこうや) = good-natured old man. No Furigana. Unexpected 々, so I take a little lookup – 好々爺の意味と読み方は？好々爺の特徴と女性の場合の対義語も - POUCHS（ポーチス）
• 翻弄(ほんろう) = having at one’s mercy. Has Furigana.
• 和気藹々(わきあいあい) = congenial and happy. Although not the first time to see this word, it’s probably the first time to see the third Kanji. Has Furigana.
• 不法投棄(ふほうとうき) = unlawful dumping
• 格式張(かくしきば)る = to adhere to formalities
• 目尻(めじり)を下(さ)げる = to look pleased

SFX

• シュワシュワ = sound of carbonated drinks, souffle
• びっしり = packed tightly
• もぞもぞ = squirming; restless
• ほくほく = beaming happily
• ずんぐり = short and stout (i.e. short fat girl)
• つべこべ = complaining, e.g. つべこべ言(い)う

[omk3]

Only did a tiny bit of reading yesterday and today, but it still counts.
And this concludes the reading updates for this year. See you all in the Winter thread, and have a Happy New Year!

[pocketcat]

@MissDagger

That is a cool book thingymajing! (Is there an official spelling for that word? My spellchecker couldn’t guess what I tried to type. xD)

Thingamajig is accepted by my spellchecker, but I’ve abused its dictionary over the years so who knows I didn’t even know these things existed and when I saw it (looking for something else entirely) I was at how useful it looked. I bought one for my mom and sister as well

@midnightblue

I’m pleasantly surprised that I managed to read around 10 manga volumes (I count the Aria: the masterpiece volumes as two volumes each) within 2 months. This is especially kind of astonishing because I had never read a full book/manga before.

Wooo congrats!

[MissDagger]

@pocketcat

Thingamajig is accepted by my spellchecker, but I’ve abused its dictionary over the years so who knows

My spellchecker seems to suggest this is the right spelling. I really wasn’t far off. So why couldn’t it figure out the word I was going for?

Usually in these situations I google it because google is usually pretty good at figuring out what word I’m going for. But I didn’t feel like it. I had a feeling I was very little off so people would understand anyway. xD

[enbyboiwonder]

Home

Yesterday’s update:

I was already a few pages into ch 1 of Stage of the Ground, but I decided to start the chapter afresh. I probably coulda started from the beginning of the prologue, but eh. Anyway, I read 8 pages, leaving off on pg 25.

The main character Yukito and his best—and it seems only—friend Suguru will call each other 親友 (Suguru) and 相棒 (Yukito) (and always in response to each other), which I find endearing. There’s one more guy who’s a main character whom we haven’t met yet, so since Suguru’s his only friend, I’m gonna go ahead and guess that Yukito and this other guy won’t particularly get along at first before they eventually become friends. Or maybe it’s just that I like a good enemies/rivals-to-friends(-to-lovers too for that matter, though I definitely don’t expect that to happen here) when done well, so that’s what I’m hoping for lol

Some vocab of note:

底抜け (そこぬけ) [な-adj.] unbounded (good nature, optimism, etc.); boundless; extreme; uninhibited. A lot of ～抜け words lately lol I just recently did the lessons for 腰抜け and 間抜け on WK.
ベッドタウン [noun] commuter town; bedroom community; dormitory town
我が意を得る (わがいをえる) [expression, 一] to approve of

[Natsuha]

Today I read 50 pages and finished the first manga volume of 化物語. Yeah the manga is pretty hard at least compared to all the other manga I read.

2022 was a terrible year I read only 8585 pages according to learn natively which is pretty disappointing. Of course not everything I read is on that site therefore you could add around 200 more pages but that is still far away from the 10000 pages I wanted to read. I only finished 2 books and the 3 Shin Kanzen Master Reading books for level N3-N1, 1 video game and 39 manga volumes . In 2023 I plan to go all out and read much more than that.

[sddsdd]

Home Post

Day 52 Progress:
お隣の天使様 五冊 - 37.48% → 46.90%

And that’ll be it from me for this thread! Actually got all the reading I wanted to do today out of the way early (despite not getting any sleep today), so I figured I would actually post at a reasonable time lmao.

Not too much to talk about here regarding the challenge itself, I basically used it as an extension of what my ongoing reading practice. Making these posts daily was a nice way to keep me honest though, especially on days where I wanted to just skip. It was fun enough and I’ll definitely keep continuing in the winter thread.

My reading speed has increased somewhat over the last couple of months but still nowhere near the progress I made at the beginning, which I suppose is only to be expected. I’m also getting hit with the realization that I need more genuine grammar practice, as someone who hasn’t even finished Genki I… sometimes I’ll be reading and my brain might passively understand a sentence but the second I go back to it and realize I never really understood the grammar being used, I just lose the thread. Being able to use context is great but sometimes I feel like I’m not actually gleaning any insights into grammar from what I read, so I definitely need to be more proactive about it if I want to make that next step.

Word of the Day: 牙城がじょう - stronghold or bastion. A castle with fangs is a great little mental image for the most closely protected of defensive points.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got! Happy new year, and see you guys in the winter challenge!

[Redglare]

Home post // Dec 31

・ 本好きの下克上 16 (0% → 7%)

Last day of the year, I started volume 16 First impression: The vibe is different, going deeper into political stuff.

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Replies

@natarin

Woah that’s awesome, these threads really work huh :')

They really dooo :') I remember one time I was feeling like I couldn’t join because I knew the upcoming semester was going to be super busy and that I wouldn’t have time for hobbies, but people encouraged me to join anyway. So I did! (I’m so grateful for these threads and the nice atmosphere we got here.) In my own way, I went into TINY CHALLENGE MODE trying to read at least a tiny bit every day. Even went as far as to make the font tiny in my home post and daily updates, symbolizing the theme of tiny-ness, ahhh xD

@midnightblue

By the way, @Redglare I’m happy to hear that you managed to achieve your goal.

@MissDagger

Congratulations, @Redglare! Practice makes perfect better, as they say (or as they should say, perfection, bah!) Your effort matters. I hope you’re proud of yourself.

Wiii, thanks! Both of you x3 Looking back, it feels like it wasn’t that long ago since the day I posted the first challenge on a whim. (Didn’t think this would become more recurrent than two months a year.) Somehow, the effort of showing up and trying a bit every day stacked up like snowflakes into a snowball and then into a snowman Or like how tiny drops of nectar becomes a jar of honey or how several leaves can fill a whole garden …You get the idea

It’s all piling up and I’m proud of making that happen :3

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I usually post a summary of how each season went for me. I’ll just do a quick one this time.

In October and November I continued the books I had started prior to the challenge (Honzuki 11 and Spice & Wolf). Also went ahead and read Honzuki 12-13. December consisted of Honzuki 14-15 and parts of the fifth book in the series about Saikawa & Moe (with the book club).

Maybe because it’s Honzuki, a series I’m quite familiar with by now, but I feel like reading is a much smoother process now. I guess I can only wait to be hit by reality check when I pick up other books again

Cheers for now and happy new year!

[lucylavelle]

December 31st!

Today I finished reading chapter 22 of Orange, which means I’ve completed the original series I’m looking forward to reading the 2 extra volumes with the bookclub in the new year!
The version of Orange I’ve been reading also has a chapter of Haruiro Astronaut at the end of each volume, so I read chapter 5 of that today too so I’ve finished that today as well!
Finishing two stories feels like a good way to finish a year

(Home Post)

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End of December (and Year!) Summary: 100%

			Dec
月	火	水	木	金	土	日
			01	02	03	04
05	06	07	08	09	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30	31

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Books Completed
Happiness - Volume 7
Reasing Master Takagi-san - Volume 9
God Bless the Mistaken - Volume 1
Orange - Volume 5
Also, I feel like Haruiro Astronaut should get a mention here since I finished that too!

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Today marks the final day of the challenge, and also of the year. I succeeded in reading every single day this year, and looking back over the year I’m really proud of myself.
Last year I was amazed with myself for reading 12 manga in a year.
This year I’ve read 55 manga, and 2 light novels and I’m thrilled by how much that shows I’ve improved.
2022 was the year that I finally started to feel a little bit of confidence in my abilities, and these challenges, and all of you who participate in them have been a huge part of me achieving that. Thank you all so much - I’m looking forward to reading with you again in 2023!
And on that note… On to the Winter Challenge!

[MissDagger]

December 31
Home Post

BU$TAFELLOWS

Read two scenes or whatever to call them, two conversations? In any case, the second one finished just as 2022 was finishing too, so that felt fitting.

So I got up, got some sparkling white, put on ABBA “Happy New Year” and went right here to post this. I live so far on the edge of this community that I don’t really see the fireworks, trees are in the way.

And with rain today turning the roads to slush and unpleasantness, I didn’t feel like walking even a little to see some fireworks.

Happy new year, everyone!

See you in the winter challenge!

[Cathm2]

Well that was a successful final day of the year.

31/12 23 pages Orange (finished volume 5), 18 pages Spy Family (finished mission), 17 pages 夜カフェ (finished previous chapter plus this week’s), 4 pages Cells at Work, 1 page おばちゃんたちのいるところ

For the rest of the week I want to finish this week’s Cells at Work, read the little end chapters of Orange volumes 2-5, and catch up with the IBC.

Then maybe I’ll read something in English…

[saidahgilbert]

2023-01-01T01:19:00Z

Finished 月刊少女野崎くん 1巻 in time to ring in the new year. With this volume and オトメン(乙男) 3 before, I kind of cheated a bit. I have the English volumes for both so I ended up looking through for the English meanings instead of trying to focus on the Japanese. So now I have more comprehension of plot stuck in my head rather than comprehension of kanji readings. Anyway, now that I’ve identified that behaviour, I know what to do next year (from tomorrow on). Do not look at the English version! Even if it’s right there on the shelf. The point of the challenge (for me) is to practice reading kanji and learning context from the Japanese words. Putting it into an English context is defeating the purpose of reading it in Japanese (for me). Anyway, that’s the conclusion of my reading challenges for 2022.

Looking forward to seeing y’all in the Winter 2023 thread!

[javerend]

December 31st (Home Post Link)

We did it! 0 missed days for the whole fall challenge! And I managed to finish 2 english books today and just baaaaaaarely meet my goodreads reading goal

Read:

• NHK News Web Easy: 入管の施設で亡くなった女性のビデオ 国が裁判所に出す
• ホリミヤ chapter 44
• おいしいごはんが食べられますように page 5 - did my test read for this today. Even without furigana I was following surprisingly well. I looked up a few words just to check (I will need to find a way to make yomichan, or some hover dictionary, work with this before I try it for real), but I correctly guessed pretty much all the things I looked up! (other than readings for a few) Feel pretty confident about being able to read this soon, but not quiiiiite now.
• Japanese Slang Review - December 2022

I really gotta say, going from struggling to start reading よつばと！in september to picking up and even remotely understanding what’s happening in a real book (at least, the kind of book I might actually pick up and not feel guilty for reading in english) today is still wild to me. Even with as much progress as I’ve made, I had really been worrying that books might still feel completely impenetrable for a while; that I would open a book, see a wall of text, and just get totally paralyzed by that. Thankfully, that doesn’t seem to be the case!

Going by a lot of people’s wrap-ups, it seems that this amazement at self-improvement rates is not just me, either! congratulations to everyone, and I will see you tomorrow in the new thread! Happy new year! あけましておめでとうございます！！

Good Words

NHK
施設「しせつ」ー institution, facility
裁判所「さいばんしょ」ー courthouse
治療 「ちりょう」ー medical care
訴える「うったえる」ー to bring to someone’s attention
弁護士「べんごし」ー lawyer

ホリミヤ
断る「ことわる」ー to turn down, to reject
霞む「かすむ」ー to be overshadowed, to be upstaged
庶民「しょみん」ー common people, the masses
偶然「ぐうぜん」ー coincidence

おいしいごはん
カップ麺「かっぷめん」ー cup noodles

@MissDagger

It is so weird to me that random sentences I might have read doesn’t even blip on my radar anymore. A happy thing for sure.

Right? It’s such a cool thing to notice! Sometimes I’ll be scrolling twitter and read captions on pictures, or some short simple comic that someone has posted and legitimately not even realize I’m reading japanese for a few seconds. Feels powerful