📚📚 Read every day challenge - Fall 2022 🍁🍂

Japanese Language Reading
2082

Dec 31, Sat of Extra week of Fall 2022 :maple_leaf:

  • 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.)

I think I saw this before somewhere...

In some year number? Some ads?

image

  • 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
15 Likes
2083

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

17 Likes
2084

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

Wooo congrats! :tada:

9 Likes
2085

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? :joy:

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

6 Likes
2086

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

14 Likes
2087

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.

14 Likes
2088

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!

18 Likes
2089

Home post :bookmark: // :maple_leaf::fallen_leaf: Dec 31 :snowman_with_snow::christmas_tree:

・ 本好きの下克上 16 (0% → 7%)

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

Replies

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

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 :snowman_with_snow: Or like how tiny drops of nectar becomes a jar of honey :honeybee: :honey_pot: or how several leaves can fill a whole garden :fallen_leaf: :maple_leaf: …You get the idea :joy:

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

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 :joy:

Cheers for now and happy new year! :sparkles:

19 Likes
2090

December 31st!

Today I finished reading chapter 22 of Orange, which means I’ve completed the original series :slight_smile: 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 :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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

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!

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!

19 Likes
2091

:maple_leaf: :jack_o_lantern: :snowflake: :christmas_tree: December 31 :christmas_tree: :snowflake: :jack_o_lantern: :maple_leaf:
Home Post

BU$TAFELLOWS :moneybag:

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. :joy:

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! :fireworks:

See you in the winter challenge!

16 Likes
2092

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…

17 Likes
2093

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!

18 Likes
2094

:snowflake: :christmas_tree: December 31st :christmas_tree: :snowflake: (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 :joy:

Read:

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！！:tada: :tada: :tada:

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

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

20 Likes
2095

Different computers/devices/sites are in English and Japanese and I legitimately have stopped noticing unless for some reason I have to do something out of the ordinary. Wait until you have the moments where you forget which language something was in.

Growing up monolingual I always wondered what being bilingual felt like and while I don’t consider myself fully bilingual yet, I think moments like this are a taste of it.

16 Likes
2096

December 31 :maple_leaf: Home Post

Still 2022 here for a bit longer; I played some more BU$TAFELLOWS to end off the year! As always there are interesting plot things turning up, and lots of fun character interactions :grin: I feel like I still have a decent amount to go in chapter 2 but honestly it’s impossible to tell, we shall see :man_shrugging:

And with that not only is this challenge over, but a whole year of reading :astonished: I basically started reading seriously on January 1 in the winter challenge, and went from struggling through a couple pages a day to… I don’t even know anymore :joy: So yeah I wanna do kind of a year-end round-up post!

What’s still probably the wildest to me is I played 5 visual novels this year :flushed: Between the three 999s, AI: The Somnium Files, and バディミッションBOND, that alone is so much more than I ever would’ve expected at the beginning of the year! I also read exactly one novel, the 上 of 海辺のカフカ, and I’ve still not gone back to it lmao but it’s one to add to the list regardless. I also had the 人間椅子 adventure back on halloween; those are really the only prose things I finished. I also read 32 manga over the year, 21 of which were all the ブルーロック volumes that existed when I bought them. Aside from that I read bits and pieces of various other things, overall it’s really amazing thinking about how much I did this year that felt completely impossible beforehand! I’m so glad I could do these challanges with you all, and I look forward to getting up to more reading chaos in the new year :')

19 Likes
2097

Home

I read 2 pages of Stage of the Ground, leaving off on pg 27. Yukito seems not to like his parent(s? The only word used is 親), though we don’t know why yet. Actually, I think it is only the one parent, since they seem to be a person known as “大天使” who founded the local baseball team エンジェルズ that Yukito will sometimes play on (as an unwilling 助っ人 rather than an actual member). Unless I misinterpreted; the writing in this feels harder than the other novels I’ve read. 幸斗の親＝大天使, I do know that much, though.

I read 極主夫道 ch 86-87. The schedule was just slightly late, as 86 is the xmas chapter. These two woulda been perfect for last week.

For the first time, I leave off in the middle of a chapter of HQ (or any manga for that matter) because I got dragged into family game night before I could finish it and it is now past 1 a.m. I’ll be finishing at least the chapter after this, but on the 31st, I only read ch 323-327 (and a few pages of 328). I had wanted to finish one last volume of manga in 2022, but alas.

I also finally watched the rest of 劇場版 Tiger & Bunny -The Beginning-! I’m pretty sure all of the latter half is original to the movie and it’s not just that I’m not remembering Robin from the show (sure, I have a poor memory and I did watch S1 over a month ago in two nights while I was tired, but I feel like I would have at least some sense of familiarity if this had been in the show), but in any case, I didn’t have too much difficulty following along with the subs.

Yeah I dunno if I just haven’t been reading the right fics, if I should be reading Nathan-centric ones rather than just taibani ones, but I’m surprised I haven’t read any yet (all from the first few years after the first season aired, since I mostly read chronologically) where Nathan’s anything other than a cis gay man. Because there’s a lot of evidence in the first season that she could be transfemme (whether trans woman or nonbinary), and especially with her being sexualized in the exact same way as Karina in the movie, in that scene where they’re all suiting up before going after Robin? For this many people to be writing them as a cis guy is. uh. I’m gonna be charitable and just ask if they’re blind.

Some vocab of note:

否応なしに (いやおうなしに) [expression, adv.] whether one likes it or not; inevitably; unavoidably; compulsorily; by force
瀕死 (ひんし) [noun, の-adj.] on the verge of death
あざけり笑う (あざけりわらう) [ア五] to laugh scornfully
根拠 (こんきょ) [noun] basis; grounds; reason
毛頭 (もうとう) [adv.] (not) in the least; (not) at all; (not) a bit

明けましておめでとう！

16 Likes
2098

Happy New Year everybody!

This challenge has seen my strongest quarter so far :tada:

image

I managed to read every day in the past 3 months, and each month marked a new record page count (= Seitenzahl :wink: )

In total, I finished 12 books during this challenge:

  • :sunrise: TUGUMI (with the Intermediate book club; finished Oct 8th)
  • :pirate_flag: Flesh&Blood Vol. 5 (with the F&B club; finished Oct 22nd)
  • :pirate_flag: Flesh&Blood Vol. 6 (with the F&B club; finished Oct 29th)
  • :chair: 人間椅子 (with the Halloween Book Club; finished Nov 4th)
  • :beach_umbrella: 海辺のカフカ（下） (with the spin-off book club; finished Nov 10th)
  • :maple_leaf: 秋の牢獄 (with the repeat club; finished Nov 26th)
  • :pirate_flag: Flesh&Blood Vol. 7 (with the F&B club; finished Dec 2nd)
  • :pirate_flag: Flesh&Blood Vol. 8 (with the F&B club; finished Dec 9th)
  • :prince: 星の王子さま (The Little Prince) (sauna book; finished Dec 10th)
  • :pirate_flag: Flesh&Blood Vol. 9 (with the F&B club; finished Dec 18th)
  • :pirate_flag: Flesh&Blood Vol. 10 (with the F&B club; finished Dec 23rd)
  • :stew: おいしいごはんが食べられますように (with the Compulsive Readers club; finished Dec 30th)

OK admittedly one is a short story but :woman_shrugging:

Reading that much took me a loooong time though :sweat_smile:

image
image1126×1063 97.4 KB

That’s 2:45h on average per day.
(Hm, now that I think about it, that’s fairly ok though :thinking:)

Anyways, thanks everybody for sharing your reading and your thoughts in this challenge! I did not write as much but I had a blast reading this thread :blush: See you all in the Winter challenge!

20 Likes
2099

Yes, super powerful! :smiley:

Oh for sure. I’ve gotten to basically a bilingual state with English (native Swede). And me and a Swedish friend who is married to a Brit, are both at that stage. And when we talk we might flow from Swedish to English and back (and forth and back) without noticing. We also have the habit of speaking Swedish when it is just her and me in the room and then instantly switching to English—even mid-sentence—when her husband enters the room. He finds that quite amazing/amusing. xD

Not sure I’ll ever get to that stage in Japanese, since I don’t have any reason to speak Japanese in my day to day life, but I can get there with reading at least, more or less. And listening.

I still read this as Bad Missions Bond :joy: before remembering that it is バディ. xD

:partying_face:

13 Likes
2100

Main Post

Final post of my challenge, a year too late :stuck_out_tongue: . I’m feeling much better, although not quite there yet in terms of energy. Managed to read a bit last night and stopped it at page 100. That’s where I’ll continue into this year. The challenges have helped me to read something every day, even if it was the tiniest of reads.

The results of it is that I was able to read for an entire year a big variety of stuff, although I feel like I had just scratched the surface and I’m only just now discovering what I like and don’t like in Japanese. There’s still so much out there I haven’t touched, especially when it comes to books. I’ll be taking this all with me into this year and obviously continue reading what I like. My approach this year will be a little different, as I want to kinda see what is out there and be less restrictive about it. Now that I know what I can do, I don’t have to proof it again. Still be challenging myself in new and exciting ways while sharing it with you all.

I hope 2023 will be a good year.

17 Likes
2101

:phone: Home :broken_heart:

December 31

人間椅子 -

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険62
84 - 225/226? end

This volume was so good and I’m so glad I met my goal by the end of the night!

I’m going to start my 2023 Winter reading with some dropped/paused books I have. Mainly the prefecture stories one and human chair. Then it’s back to JoJo.

Hopefully I’ll be able to do some graphs for my reading amounts either tomorrow or the day after.

17 Likes