That combo sent me on a tangent for a second, then I remembered that you’re travelling atm 
By the way, Bookwalker just notified me that Autumn Prison will be heavily discounted on November 7th, and the author’s other books are discounted as well (from now):
Just in case you are still looking for a horror-ish book?
Nope, just straight travelling. 
Thanks, I noticed it too. I hesitate a little because 夜市 wasn’t horror-ish enough for me, but the premise does look potentially interesting. I’ll look into it some more.
Always! In fact, I just made a thread looking for a short read for Halloween. It looks like it’s going to be 人間椅子, if anyone’s interested to join. I’ll probably make a dedicated thread for it later.
I’m joining the fun!
I’ll probably stick to graded readers, NHK Easy and textbook reading exercises as I don’t feel ready to jump into native material just yet.
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10月27日 - Reading exercises in N5 mockup test
10月28日 - 不登校の小学生と中学生が24万人 最も多くなる (NHK Easy)
10月29日 - 東京都で安く食事できる食事券の申し込みが始まった (NHK Easy)
11月9日 - 国連の委員会 入管の施設の問題をなくすように言う (NHK Easy)
11月11日 - インターネットで服などを売るZOZOが初めての店を出す (NHK Easy)
11月16日 - 17歳の川崎レナさんが今年の「国際子ども平和賞」に決まる (NHK Easy)
11月28日 - N5 Mockup Test
I have done this exact mistake.
Also after just finishing the first Magic Treehouse book in japanese I doubt I’ll ever be able to say Pteranodon right ever again. Putoranadon for life.
Home
October 27
ニャンキーズ 2
90 - 115
I had wanted to read more, but some stomach trouble already had me going to bed much later than I intended.
Also apparently I forget to change the date a lot, whoops.
I’m back to feeling neutral on Nyankees. It’s an easy read, but nothing stand out about it although the premise is fun. I think I’ll be trying to resell it just to make space on my shelves. I’m starting to eyeball Princess Jellyfish and Fly Me to Saitama for a similar examination. They both help their shelves fit well though, so maybe I’ll spare them for now. I’m somewhat eager to get back into JoJo. I want to catch up to Part 7 already. For the record, I’m on Part 5 right now, but I’ve been reading out of order, so I’ve got all the even Parts to go yet. I have all of 2 and 4 now, but I’m missing 1 volume of 6. Although I’m also missing 5 volumes of 7 so that’s moot. Not to mention that even at 2 vols a week, it’s still about 50-60 vols for me to go back to chronological order after I finish Part 5. It’ll take me a while, whoops
After a short discussion, a few of us decided we might read Edogawa Ranpo’s 人間椅子 around Halloween. If you’d like to join us, now or at any time, you are welcome to do so here:
October 28th (Home Post Link)
Read a really interesting Linguistics paper today that might be of some interest to language learners: CLARK, E. (2022). A gradualist view of word meaning in language acquisition and language use. (this should be open-access) Particularly the sections on partial meaning in adult speakers.
I’m curious if there’s any literature on 2nd language acquisition and partial meaning. Children might not know the difference between a blue-winged teal and a mallard and be fine just using “bird” until they acquire that knowledge, but if you are an adult who knows a lot about birds, then you will immediately notice the gap in your vocabulary when going to try to describe a bird in a second language. 鳥 just isn’t gonna cut it, and being aware of that disconnect between internal knowledge in one language and the lack of ability to express that knowledge in another language is probably an interesting research topic. One of my friends is currently trying to transfer a medical license between two countries that speak different languages, and has really been struggling with this. She knows all the terminology, processes, drugs, and that sort of expert knowledge, but is unable to produce it in her target language because she still needs to build up that extensive vocabulary again. This is probably true for non-expert knowledge as well. You might know a thousand words to describe different kinds of food, but lack that in a target language and be reduced to simple utterances, while being conscious that your vocabulary is insufficient to express what you are trying to express. This makes some parts of adult 2nd language learning importantly different from how you acquire expert knowledge of a new topic in your 1st language, and also how children acquire knowledge of a language in the first place: you have an internal conceptual map already, and aren’t learning much in the way of new distinctions (obviously languages aren’t 1:1 in these terms and categories, but there’s still going to be a lot of overlap), just lots of new labels for existing ones.
Anyways. Japanese time. Read よつばと！chapter 91, 92, 93, 94. Might do some more later, でも今夜は ハロウィンパーティー。Making good progress towards my goal though, only 10 chapters left and still the better part of 3 days to finish before the end of the month.
Starting in chapter 92, I think I noticed よつば doing something she’s never done before: speaking in katakana. She also started calling とらこ by her full name instead of just とら. She’s been reading a lot of books this volume and a little bit in the last, and you can see the level of stuff she’s reading get a little bit harder over time. Definitely growing up a little 
同系色 「どうけいしょく」ー similar color
いける ー to look good (style, taste)
超「ちょう」ー ultra, super, hyper (prefix)
真剣「しんけん」ー serious
驚くほど「おどろくほど」ー to a surprising extent (驚く ‘to be surprised’ + ほど)
痩せる「やせる」ー to become thin, to lose weight
ゴミ袋「ごみぶくろ」ー garbage bag
お祝い 「おいわい」ー celebration
蛙「かえる」ー frog
改札「かいさつ」ー ticket gate
20221028 - 吾輩は狸である progress: 64.09% 
After the baseball incident calms down Wagahai-cat goes for a walk where he spots two people talking, it’s not his fault that he listens in on their conversation, he just so happens to be in earshot, it’s not like he wants to hear what they have to say or anything.
Japanese found under the leaves
者共「ものども」ー People; also a rude way to say ‘you’
Today’s “Wait, that word can be written in kanji??”
只今 「ただいま」ー I’m home! / I’m back!; at present; just now
October 28 
山の霊異記 幻惑の尾根 , 37-40%
Finally finished the story. I feel it had the most ambiguous ending yet, unless there were clues I missed?
Couple of expressions I found interesting:
疑心暗鬼になる - to be suspicious of everything, to jump at shadows
早い者勝ち - the early bird catches the worm, first come first served
And a word:
モルゲンロート
I didn’t find this in my dictionary, but it is translated as 山の朝焼け in the book itself. I can only assume it comes from German?
And then there was this phrase:
小さな灯台の灯りのように灯っている
I wonder if it could be considered inelegant because of the triple kanji repetition, or if it doesn’t matter since it’s pronounced three different ways…
Home post 
Oct 28 
・狼と香辛料 (77% → 83%)
Finished chapter 5. Just one more book club week left!
uh-oh 
On the topic of uni (the sea urchin kind), seeing that photo made me nostalgic. Growing up on the coast, I remember the 防波堤 [1] near the sea used to be littered with spiky purple shells. Sea gulls love those. Also made for a fun obstacle course trying to bicycle past to the other side!
Sounds pretty much German to me! 
Although the German word “Morgenrot” just denotes the reddish tinge in the sky at morning in general, not only in the mountains. But there are lots of words who change their meaning when they get Japanized so I shouldn’t be too surprised 
Day 28, 28th of October
Quickly reading a story of DrDru’s before it tolls midnight 
This one was about singing and Lady Gaga! Very fun. Also some vocabulary words I want to keep in mind:
On October the 28th I:
October 28th!
Today I read Chapter 28 of Happiness. The last few chapters have been generally pleasant so I’m increasingly certain that something dreadful will be happening soon…
Day 27:
Priority: 
Free choice: 
硝子の塔の殺人.
Snatches of: 
ハリー・ポッターと不死鳥の騎士団. This book is very long.
October 28 home post link🏡
I read an article on NHK News easy about limiting food waste. At least, that’s what I think it’s about lol.
I don’t think I’ll count it for reading in terms of these posts, but I’ve started watching Violet Evergarden with Japanese subtitles. I’ve really enjoyed it so far, and when I was looking through EN Netflix there was a lot more animes with JP subtitles available than I expected.
October 28 Home Post
Finished up volume 8 of ブルーロック today!! 
There were some real dramatic moments in these last few chapters, what a time. And this volume ended at such a mean point too I must know!!
Oh I first I thought you thanked my for the Tapas comic. I just noticed you mention my stories 
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I have a few things to finish with my other project (and an other really cool one that should be published soon!) and then I will focus again on the Tile World Chronicles.
I now have the whole story about Markus planned. It’s going to span 6 chapters and hopefully I manage to make the last four of the same quality as the first two.
softlyraining’s spooky book stack 
October 28th:
魔女の宅急便 (12% → 13%)
Spent some time with Kiki today, but only for a little bit. Housework and a sour mood kept me from going back and reading more. Hopefully we’ll get some quality time in tomorrow.
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