October 27th!
Today I read chapter 42 of Mitsuboshi Colors. Only one more chapter left in this volume now!
I’m glad other people feel like this. Earlier today I wrote “Resutorant” instead of “Restaurant” and stared at it for a good few seconds trying to work out why it looked weird. 
Day 26:
Priority: 
Free choice: 
硝子の塔の殺人.
Mandarin?!: 
伯爵与妖精 1.
I’ve also been reading one a day of this, but in Japanese: 「1日1ページ、読むだけで身につく世界の教養365」. I don’t know if I’ll keep it up, not least since I certainly can’t keep the book checked out for a whole year, but I’ve done about a week’s worth. I’ll forget pretty much all of it (身につく, ha), but I think I’ll remember the Japanese names of musical notes being from イロハ. 
October 27 home post link🏡
I finished reading ごんぎつね. I’ll be honest, I peeked at the pictures at the end of the book yesterday and I saw a gun. I could pretty much predict the ending from that alone.
spoilers for the ending ahead:
So 兵十 shot and killed ごん, thinking that ごん was being mischievous, even though the fox was just doing a nice thing instead ._. I don’t like that. I wonder what the moral of the story is supposed to be. Don’t be naughty or mischievous, otherwise even your good deeds will be misinterpreted? I guess that is the purpose of this story, the reason why ごん was killed in this story.
The moral of the story reminds me of another story - the boy who cried wolf. Because the boy lied the first few times about the wolf, the villagers didn’t believe him when the wolf actually came. Moral of the story? Don’t lie, or you won’t be believed when you do tell the truth. It’s interesting how similar the morals are in both stories.
Even though the story isn’t a happy one, I enjoyed reading ごんぎつね. I especially liked the illustrations and how soft everything looked. It was kinda fun to read vertically, right to left too. As for the technical aspects, it was difficult for my level to read. There were lots of vocabulary and grammar things that I didn’t understand, so I definitely didn’t understand every sentence I read. I got enough to understand the story though, from looking up words and some grammar points. I’m glad I got a chance to read this story. 
October 27 Home Post
More ブルーロック, business as usual 
I’m thoroughly enjoying how ridiculous all the characters are, I’m very fond of them haha. I’m still very curious how things are gonna go, I can see a number of possibilities but I never know just how far ブルーロック is going to take it 
When I read it I admit the phrase that came to mind was “no good deed goes unpunished” but all the same I really liked it because of the roller coaster of emotions I experienced reading a children’s story
softlyraining’s spooky book stack 
October 27th:
名探偵コナン (87% → 100%)
I finished the volume! With several days to spare, too––not too shabby. Overall, I had a fun time reading the origin story of this iconic series. That being said, the solution to the last case: what?!
Let me get this straight: this man, mentally fragile to the point of wanting to end his life, decided not only to frame his ex-girlfriend for murder, but came up with the most convoluted method possible? Some aspects could maybe be explained away; for example, he falls onto the knife, but when Conan and the gang arrive on the scene, he’s on his stomach with the knife jutting out from his back in plain sight. However, I’ll allow for the possibility that he rolled over after the initial fall (though the positioning of the chair versus the body doesn’t really add up). BUT, the most obvious question I have is, how ON EARTH did he get the handle of the knife into an ice cube (without touching it, because only his ex’s fingerprints are on it)? He not only brought his own block of ice, I guess, but knew the EXACT size hole to make so that the knife would perfectly fit?? And then, while he waited, he turned up the thermostat so the bits of ice left over from being smashed would slowly melt away???
With all that being said (meaning my rant), the premise of the story does involve the protagonist drinking a magic de-aging potion, so perhaps I’m setting the bar higher than need be (though in some ways I don’t think I am). What’s most important is that Ran and Conan are cute. If I had more time, maybe I’d try fitting in the second volume while it’s free. I’m not opposed to reading more, especially now that I know the level of ridiculous these cases can reach.
October 27 
山の霊異記 幻惑の尾根 , 35-37%
Still on a trip, still very little reading time, so I’m reading this story painfully s l o w l y. A fellow hiker appeared out of the blue, and now they’re chatting about how many times they did this particular hike, and about the view. That’s all so far.
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
Home Post
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: