📚📚 Read every day challenge - Fall/Autumn 2021 🍁🍂🦝

Japanese Language Reading
#998

Summary Post

October 30th
Stardew Valley

Random words
  • 拡張 = かくちょう expansion, extension, enlargement.
  • 波打つ = なみうつ to dash against (of waves) → 波打つ音。
  • 貝殻 = かいがら seashell, shell.

I was wondering if there are some interesting sites or blogs that you guys know of that are frequently updated in Japanese? Since I cancelled my Satori Reader subscription I have a shortage of this type of content and I would really like to have something outside of video games for when I don’t feel like playing at all. I have two books as candidates for the next challenge if I feel brave enough for a whole book: 君の名は and 星の王子さま . But I’m missing some type of content that is just an entry on something and that’s it, that I can consume in a day. Actually @Zakarius , that site you linked in your last post(s) looks amazing and so fitting for this exact purpose. I wonder how you find it in terms of difficulty?

Oh I watched some episodes of that many years ago, but I don’t remember much. I’ve actually thought recently about starting it again, in Japanese this time around. The game has changed a lot since then though, it would be very nostalgic :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: .

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#999

hukumusumehukumusumehukumusumehukumusumehukumusumehukumusume

The site I’ve been using for most of this challenge: Hukumusume
Discourse keeps telling me off for sharing this link too often

Reading-levelwise I think it’s aimed at an elementary-middle schooler level.

Example from one of today's stories

むかしむかし、ある村に、人を化かしていたずらをするキツネがいました。
村人たちの中には、ドロのだんごを食べさせられたという人や、お風呂だと言われてこやしのおけに入れられた人など、色々ないたずらをされる人がふえてきました。

I find it a bit of a challenge to get through but not in the overwhelming sense of “I have no idea what any of this means I’ll go hide now”. There’s occasionally words and grammar that I don’t recognise but it’s all copy-pasteable so it’s easy to look things up, and they do provide furigana in brackets for the olde timey and obscure stuff. Some words, mostly historic ones, even have links to explain them better.

The stories are short so they are handy for daily reading, and a lot of them have voice recordings too (sometimes multiple different versions, and sometimes videos) so you can read and listen along which is very, very helpful. The voice actors are great, especially this one guy who gets really into it.

Not sure how often they add new stories, but there’s no lack of things to read, it even says at the top: 3136話の昔話 …which is a lot of stories. And that’s just stories, there’s loads of other things like the prefecture pages and such, and everywhere I look there’s links off to other Japanese sites of all sorts of things, so it’s very easy to get lost on a magical treasure hunt.

But yeh, I definitely recommend it for daily reading! In the time between this challenge and the next I’m going to try to read at least one story from hukumusume a day, I’d miss it otherwise.
I hope I have answered your question here and not just gone on and on about how much I love this site :rofl:

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#1000

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Two months of reading every day DONE. Finished the books on the left, half and one-third respectively read the books on the right. All these books I actually bought this time last year and I’m astounded by my progress since then. Last December I was reading a page of こぐまのケーキ屋さん at a time with a dictionary, and this year I’ve been able to read half a dozen pages before bed without a dictionary. When the ズッコケ books arrived from eBay last year, I remember feeling crushed that they had so few pictures and putting them on the shelf ‘for later’. Massive thanks to everyone for your camaraderie during this challenge, it’s made a huge difference. I will be sticking round in the thread to cheer on those of you who started on a different schedule and also continuing to read most days now I’m into the habit.

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#1001

Oct 29th: Read Demon Slayer chapter 12. Also the first bit of the week’s Ogawa Mimei story.

Oct 30th: Read Demon Slayer chapter 13, 14 and the start of 15.

Oct 31st: Finished Demon Slayer chapter 15 and read chapter 16. This concludes Volume 2, just in time for this challenge to end! (and for my bookmeter statistics yay!)

@chrisosaurus I’ve collected all the vocab again but I would like to defer cleaning up and sharing my deck until Dec 6th (or 7th). If that’s ok with you?

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#1002

Home post

Day 60:

日本語: I read a fair amount of 伯爵と妖精 21.

中国語

中国語: I read 我渴了 on MB, plus one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学 and one page of 妙手仙丹. The most important word so far in this translation of からかい上手の高木さん is 赢, to win, because they talk about winning all the time and also because when I zoom in on the page it’s too grainy to read and thus hard to handwrite into Pleco… So here it is, self, 赢. :trophy:

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#1003

:fallen_leaf: :raccoon: :waning_crescent_moon: :: TANUKIDATE 20211031 :: :waning_crescent_moon: :raccoon: :fallen_leaf:

Day LXI: あぐりこキツネ :fox_face: & 天狗の間の幽霊 :japanese_goblin:

No この音とまれ！today as it’s no longer available, my fault really as I should have checked earlier but just didn’t get the time. So I read two stories on hukumusume.

First was a Japanese folktale from Akita prefecture, about a mischievous fox, and the other was today’s 百物語 from Shimane prefecture, about tricking a tengu.

The tengu one had a lot of old words and words I’d never seen before.

~ New Words ~
コツコツ - Steadily
社務所 (しゃむしょ) - Shrine Office, the place that handles shrine office work
遣られる (やられる) - To be deceived
天守閣 (てんしゅかく) - Castle tower / Castle keep
天狗 (てんぐ) - Tengu, heard of these little goblins before but never seen the kanji.
十二単衣 (じゅうにひとえ) - A ceremonial 12-layered kimono
袴 (はかま) - Traditional skirt/trousers
わらわ (妾) - An old way of saying I / me
コノシロ (鮗) - Dotted gizzard shad (fish)
小姓 (こしょう) - A noble’s page (helper)
三方 (さんぼう) - A stand for offerings to the gods
本丸 (ほんまる) - The centre of a castle, the inner citadel

Place:
稲荷神社 (いなりじんじゃ) - Inari Shrine
松江城 (まつえじょう) - Matsue Castle

一生懸命 (いっしょうけんめい) - as hard as one can, with utmost effort - this is on WK, but I’m putting it here because I keep forgetting it and I’m hoping that seeing it in the wild will help me remember or so I hope.

A lot of good words to end the challenge on, it’s sad to see it come to an end but this was a lot of fun! I’m gonna try and keep the reading up until next time, but I might skip weekends while the challenge isn’t going because it’s hard to fit the time in.

I’m gonna miss reading everyone’s posts each day. But congrats to everyone who’s participated, it’s been great to see how much progress everyone’s made, hopefully see you all in the next challenge! :raccoon:

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#1004

Summary post

Day 61: Today I read 10 pages of よつば＆！ and 6 pages of ツバサ Reservoir Chronicle. This challenge was really fun, I’m really glad I participated! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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#1005

Happy end of challenge day! Well done to everyone who read every day, or even just more than they would have otherwise! I am not in the first group but am definitely in the second which I’ll still take as a victory. I feel like throughout both of these challenges, reading in Japanese everyday has become so much less of something that feels like a study task and much more like something that I make time for daily because I enjoy it, which is really cool :slight_smile: Also my ‘want to read’ list has got so much longer through everyone else talking about the fun things they are reading!

Look forward to seeing you all again in the next challenge (which I’m hoping I’ll be less in work hell for and so be able to keep up with daily posts. Fingers crossed!)

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#1006

I started to read 四月は君の嘘 manga volume 1 some days ago. Every day I read a little bit of it. It is full of unknown vocabulary.

Tomorrow I will edit this post and add a vocabulary list. DONE

盲従 もうじゅう blind obedience
課題曲 かだいきょく set piece (of music)
訴え うったえ complaint N1
粒ぞろい つぶぞろい uniform excellence
注目 ちゅうもく notice; attention; observation N3
聴衆 ちょうしゅう audience; attendance; hearers
奨励賞 しょうれいしょう encouragement award; honorable mention
雨季 うき rainy season
狂暴 きょうぼう rage; frenzy
見とれる みとれる to be fascinated (by); to be captivated by; to be enchanted by; to gaze admiringly at; to watch in fascination
余韻 よいんlingering memory; aftertaste
不細工 ぶさいく clumsy (work); awkward; poorly made; botched

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#1007

:ghost: My tiny summary post :ghost:

:jack_o_lantern: October 31 :jack_o_lantern:
・Honzuki 7. (0% → 3%)

Doesn’t feel like I’m done with the challenge already :joy: Well done, everyone! :3 :books::books:

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#1008

Fwiw the first two volumes of this are free on bookwalker right now so I’ve grabbed them
Lucky as a week ago I was holding a physical copy in my hand and considering picking it up, I only put it back on the shelf after I started trying to trim down my massive pile of manga into something more readonable (I talked myself down to only 4 volumes for now).

volume 1 and volume 2

<3 absolutely no rush
Also you don’t need to clean it up for me at all, even just a messy list of words without definitions still saves me time, but I understand that sharing that might be less comfortable =p

Heh I’ve been thinking about this a lot and trying to find ways to minimise my urge to clean up my mess before sharing.
My plug-in right now has a few barely related parts that relate to my Anki workflow, and currently some hard coded safe guards (they will refuse to run if someone uses them on a deck name or card type not within an allow list, just so they don’t mess up something).

gulp I’ve tried to add a teeny bit of docs and uploaded it as

It needs a bunch of tidy up to be useful if you wanted to use it directly, if you do find the core if it useful then contributions are welcome, I had planned to try make it a little more general and configurable, but with wrists playing up it hasn’t been a priority.

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#1009

I finally finished. There were a couple of days that I wanted to skip but the thought of having an empty box spurred me on to read. I’ve noticed that the people in this challenge were reading to understand but I was actually doing something different. I was merely sounding out the words. I figured if I kept practising, I will eventually figure out the meaning. I mean, that’s kind of how I learnt to read in my native language. That’s why I am focussing on manga that I’ve already read in English. That way, I at least have an idea of the general storyline even if I can’t actually understand the dialogue.

I’m looking forward to the next challenge. This is really helpful for me. Back when I was learning to read in English, my teachers made sure that I read everyday so if I want to read in Japanese, I need to do the same thing.

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#1010

Summary post

Day 57: October 31
What did I read?: ハイ☆スピード!
How much did I read?: 6 pages
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 24 min

Me, thinking I'm not going to write that much and ending up writing a lot xD

We do get to see what’s on Haru’s mind - he knows he’s not swimming well, but he feels like there’s nothing he can do about it. He can’t feel that connection with the water anymore, ever since he started thinking about times. It’s just…plain old water, now, and I find that very sad :frowning_face:

Then he has an interesting conversation with Aki, who seems to feel guilty that she suggested Haru join the relay team. Something I liked from this exchange was her…basically saying that when she suggested that he join the team, she had her own idea of what Haru needed, and her own vision of what friends and teammates should be - but there are different definitions of what friends are, and what it means to be a team. I appreciated that a lot, especially as it came after this little snippet of Haru’s thoughts where he’s basically like…I know I’m weird, when it comes to the way I think about other people. My weirdness was made abundantly clear to me at the graduation when everyone else got super emotional. …There’s also this moment that feels just too feckin’ relatable. As they’re talking about the graduation ceremony, he borrows Rin’s words, about their class being a good class - like he knows he’s “supposed” to have some kind of sentiment or emotion or thought about it and he just doesn’t have any of his own, so he borrows Rin’s for the sake of not wanting to push Aki away. I can’t really describe why that feels so relatable, but it just does.

She also mentions that seeing Haru and the others swimming together as a team inspires her to want to do her best, too. Haru’s reaction to this is quite cute, like I can just imagine him being like…well it’s not like I was trying to do that xD And then - I also find this interesting - Aki says she’s been having a lot of fun swimming. And Haru thinks to himself that he’s never really thought of swimming as “fun” before. I just find that interesting.

Good words

言い聞かせる (いいきかせる) - to tell; to (try to) persuade; to advise; to warn; to admonish; to reason
どうしようもない - it cannot be helped; there’s nothing for it; it’s no use fighting back; it’s hopeless; there is no way out of it
自己嫌悪 (じこけんお) - self-hatred; self-abhorrence; self-loathing
苛む (さいなむ) - to torment; to torture; to harass
押しつぶす (おしつぶす) - to squash; to crush; to flatten
順調 (じゅんちょう) - favourable; favorable; doing well; OK; all right
照れくさい (てれくさい) - embarrassing; awkward
見せつける (みせつける) - to make a display of; to show off; to flaunt
伏目 (ふしめ) - downcast look
明り取り (あかりとり) - skylight

Wow, it does not feel like it’s been 2 months at all :sweat_smile: (Then again, my perception of time is chronically messed up, so - probably doesn’t mean much, coming from me xD) Congratulations to everyone finishing their challenge today! :partying_face: Even if you didn’t keep a perfect streak, if you read more than you would have otherwise, then you still came out ahead :trophy:

I will save my final (whatever you want to call it - reflection?) for when I actually finish my makeup reading days xD But for now, I’ll say it’s been fun reading with you all, and I’m happy we had so many people participating in the challenge! :3 I feel like the Tanuki Cuteness Brigade needs to start a cute manga “book club” sometime in the future, where we all just share the cute manga we find xD

13 Likes
#1011

Summary Post

October 31st
Stardew Valley

Random words
  • 特定 = とくてい specific, particular.
  • 保つ = たもつ to preserve, to keep, to hold.
  • 有効 = ゆうこう effective, valid.
  • 好意 = こうい kindness, affection, goodwill, liking.

And with this, my challenge is over! I was holding off on writing posts like “just one week left!” and so on because I thought it would add pressure to us all. I wanted to, but I feel like it would’ve made the expectation much rougher :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: . Anyways, celebration post coming soon!

You have! Thanks a lot for the thorough response :slightly_smiling_face: . You have convinced me, especially about that one guy that gets really into it. I must check it out now! But wow I didn’t know they would have +3000 stories, that’s crazy. And the info about the prefectures will be amazing to read, as I know very little about Japan’s geography. I was quickly checking some entries on different countries the other day and those seem like an interesting read as well. I’ve really liked the site so far, I will definitely be using it from now on!

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#1012

:house_with_garden: home post

What did I read:

:heavy_check_mark: Day 51 (10月 30日) :sparkles:
暁のヨナ , ch44, rest of chapter, vocab look-up and then bookclub readaloud…!

:heavy_check_mark: Day 52 (10月 31日) :sparkles:
10分でよめるこわい話 第７－１０話, 1 hour, finished the book!

ooooh congrats on finishing the book!!

honestly, cant thank you enough for this, it’s been such a pleasure reading from there!
I think you can officially be christened as the hukumusume evangelist,

whenever that happens, please do hmu, I’m so up for this already!! :laughing:

Y’all!!! I can’t believe the end of the challenge is upon us already… it went by so fast…
thank you all so so so much, it has been so much fun reading with everyone and sharing the experiences here :heart: … Personally, I’m calling this a huge win for myself, I’m not sure I’ve ever been able to keep up for two months straight like that… well, I joined 9/9 so it’s not officially two months, so I’m definitely continuing this until the 60day mark, just for a personal track… :raccoon: :fallen_leaf:

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#1013

Well eventually I want it to be cleaned up anyways :joy_cat: But currently I need (!) to focus (!!) on JLPT and therefore I try hard to not give me opportunities to procrastinate…

Wow, thank you so much! (Didn’t know one could write them in Python :joy_cat:)

Sure thing! I’ve put it on my to-do list with a timestamp of Dec 6th :grin:

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#1014

Yesss, a new convert

I humbly accept this new title :laughing:

I’m just glad I stumbled upon a site that can help people with their Japanese!

yesyesyes !! :raccoon:

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#1015

Main Post

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I finished reading volume 2 of tanuki, right on time. Last few stories were so cute and wholesome. I read the halloween chapter during halloween, which was a funny coincidence. At the end of the volume there was a sidestory about the protag being in high school, which was kinda neat. It’s probably also the most text heavy chapter in it and definitely gave me some good practice. Reached another milestone by reading 25 volumes this year, thank you :raccoon: .

I can’t believe it’s been another 2 months of reading. Personally I’m not done with it just yet and will extend the challenge for another month. The next piece I’ll read is Spy x Family volume 1. Already read it through mangaplus in English and they just showed the first teaser of the upcoming anime adaptation. This makes it a good time to start reading it in Japanese. It is a mix of light hearted wholesome moments and spy action, so I’m kinda excited to read it. :eyes:

12 Likes
#1016

:confetti_ball: Fall/Autumn 2021 Reading Challenge Completion Post :confetti_ball:

Completion: 58 / 61 days (95.08%)

Work done:

  • Satori Reader: 24 episodes.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: 26 sessions.
  • Stardew Valley: 9 sessions.
  • Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale: 3 sessions.
Thoughts on Fall/Autumn 's challenge:

  • As the summer challenge, I’ve enjoyed a lot having a daily commitment and a nice place to come back to. This challenge has been very popular again, and it’s very nice to see familiar faces and new ones alike. I’m very fond of the laid back nature of these threads, where everyone is doing their own thing but coming back to report cool stories and thoughts to the rest. It reminds me of the Shared Study Log thread I was participating in earlier this year, and now that I don’t participate there right now, it’s nice that I can get the same sentiment with a lot more participation. But on top of that, it has worked its magic and made me read virtually everyday for two months. I really like the short nature of it.

  • Having participated in the summer challenge I was already aware of some pitfalls that I needed to take care of. I learned to drop resources that I don’t feel like using, to not feel the pressure of having to finish them when I can just drop it right there and find something else. This has happened twice for me in this challenge: once with the Satori Reader story I was reading, and the other with Recettear: An Item Shop’s tale, which is not a bad game but it didn’t hook me much in the end.

  • I’ve learned to work with failure a bit more. I’ve always been very perfectionist and little failures could always potentially make me derail a lot or quit altogether. It’s not a healthy mindset to have at all and something I’ve been working on with varying degrees of success over time. It’s also not realistic, and you can’t learn anything without failing over and over again. When I missed my first day in this challenge I made it a chance to not let it demotivate me, and to keep going just as normal, even though it bothered me a bit. In the end I’ve missed 3 days, which is honestly awesome and something I’m very happy about. The fact that I kept going makes me genuinely proud. And not only that, I’m much more willing to miss days or take rest days altogether, because I would rather miss 10 days than month and a half. I’m happy that I can interiorise this more and more. Sometimes life happens and breaks are needed. And I like to keep track of the percentage, I feel like it takes away the thought of “if you fail once that’s not everyday and therefore you’ve failed the challenge”. You can very well complete a certain % of it and call it a success. My challenge consists more of “how many days can I do out of 61”.

  • I’ve learned that it would be much more beneficial for me to prioritise easier resources. As much as I would love to be fluent and play hard games, I’m just not at that point. I’ve had days when I’ve fought FFXIV so much that it was barely productive, and I could have used that time to go through a larger amount of vocabulary and grammar. Finding resources that are just for my level or close will be the next challenge. Both 君の名は and 星の王子さま will fall close, I think. I want to try a full novel next.

  • I was right in that 61 days seems to be my sweet spot. I made it to 75 last challenge and it burnt me out a bit. I will end my challenge here, and now that it’s over, I will most likely keep posting in a very relaxed manner what I’m doing until the Winter one. There are still 2 months left, and I would certainly miss this thread. It probably won’t be a daily thing, though ^^ .

Thank you to everyone that participated, and good luck to the ones that are still fighting their own challenges. 頑張ってください。 :muscle:

終わり
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#1017

Thanks! Turned out to be my 10th book this year. Which means I’ve reached the goal I set for myself this year :DD 10/10

I like that I completed it in October, the tenth month of the year. So an average of one book per month. Certainly not bad :ok_hand:

This whole thing you wrote… I love it <3

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