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

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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: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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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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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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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

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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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: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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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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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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Main Post

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:

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: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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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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Home post

Day :

日本語: I read a lot of 伯爵と妖精 21 (and finished it), some of パノラマ島綺譚, an exploratory couple of pages of かがみの孤城, this week’s reading of ヨコハマ買い出し紀行, a bit of それでも歩は寄せてくる, and some of 魔王城でおやすみ.

中国語

中国語: I read 不是我的狗 on MB, plus one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学 and one page of 妙手仙丹.

And challenge success! :tada: I enjoyed reading everyone’s posts, and having this challenge definitely spurred me to read more than I otherwise would have. :black_heart:

S E P T
:books:
:fire:
:fire:
:fire:
:fire:
:arrow_double_down:
O C T
:books:
:fire:
:fire:
:fire:
:fire:
:fire:
:fire:
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Summary post

Day 58: November 1
What did I read?: じじ猫くらし
How much did I read?: 18 pages
How long did it take me?: 29 min

Working lateeee
So I found me another cute cat manga to read xD It seems like the story has a very similar vibe to 夜は猫といっしょ, basically “cat doing cat things.” I love the art style a lot though, it’s very cute and has a very soft and comfy vibe to it.

Please enjoy some cute cat pictures

Sparkly cat :sparkles: :cat: :sparkles:

So precious :pleading_face:

Just when you thought the cat couldn’t get any cuter - smol kitten version :pleading_face:

And some good words

飛び乗る (とびのる) - to jump upon (a moving object)
飛び移る (とびうつる) - to jump from one thing to another
満喫 (まんきつ) - fully enjoying
塞く (せく) - to dam (up) (stream)
さらう - to carry off; to run away with; to sweep away; to snatch; to kidnap; to abduct​
一番乗り (いちばんのり) - first to arrive

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Main Post

Started reading Spy x Family volume 1 (the x is for aesthetic purposes like in hunter x hunter and is not pronounced). First chapter is very long and dense. It’s been a while since I read it as well, so I had quite a bit of trouble reading through. Was distracted during the day and when I got to it at night it was too much to read in one go, so I broke it up and read the rest after waking up. It is a spy action manga where the political relations between the two countries are explained, so it is more difficult than most the stuff I have been reading despite the abundance of furigana because it is more specialised. That said it did get better during the second half as it was more action focused, than explaining the background. I also know the manga and it should be more dialogue based around Anya later on.

some pics

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Reading Update: 10月14日〜11月2日

Materials:

:red_square: 授乳
:yellow_square: 月刊少女野崎くん3
:white_large_square: どうぶつの森 (Switch)

Despite the lack of updates, I managed to finish the challenge. That being said, I’m not fully satisfied with how I did. I’m happy that I only ended missing one day out of the two months, but one of my goals was to build a good reading habit. To me, reading a page of manga right before bed a lot of the time wasn’t quite what I envisioned. Maybe if that page took more effort on my part, then I’d feel differently. In the moment, it also felt like, “whoops, gotta read something quick to keep the streak alive.” There’s nothing wrong with that, per se. I just wish I hadn’t used it as a crutch as often as I did.

With that said, I’m going to continue the challenge into November. My goal is to have fewer “keep streak” days (i.e. read for longer than two minutes before bed). I hope to build a stronger reading habit, as well as make some more meaningful progress with my book list (I’ve really only done that with 野崎くん). Another goal for the month is to update more frequently. I think of things to add to my update posts as I read, but by the time I get around to actually writing one, I forget what those things were… :weary:

Just a brief update for today. I finally finished the first story in 授乳. It’s not my favorite of 村田’s short stories, but I still think there was enough there to keep me interested. The discussion in the Murata Book Club helped me shape my opinion. I’m honestly so grateful for the book community on WK, both here and elsewhere on the forums. I think trying to up my reading skill would be a lot more arduous without all of the sharing and support people contribute. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

:house_with_garden: (click for home post)

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:books::books: My tiny End of Autumn Reading Challenge summary :maple_leaf: :fallen_leaf:

I tried to read a tiny amount everyday, tho I realize that the “tiny” amount had to be at least 1% of the book I was reading, because that would “look like” progress. Not sure how I feel about that, all I know is that I got reading done. :woman_shrugging: Which kinda was the point, wasn’t it ? yeah xD

What I read:
・Honzuki 5 (75%-100%)
・Honzuki 6
・Kono Oto Tomare vol. 18
・YagaKimi vol. 8 (almost forgot I read this on the very first day)

Was originally planning to read the rest of the Kono Oto Tomare series, but was too busy for sitting down for a reading session like that. I’d rather binge a volume of manga instead of reading it a tiny bit every day. That’s just my preference tho. So when I finished Honzuki 5, I started reading Honzuki 6 instead of focusing on manga.

What made reading Honzuki perfect for me during this challenge, is that the books have many chapters and most of those are good chunks for a tiny read. And also because I really enjoy this series, makes me wanna read more. (Except for the less exciting part in the middle of Honzuki 5, but that’s fiiiine)

I’m happy to have participated in this challenge - at first I thought I’d be way too busy, but was convinced it’d be worth it (thx @Omun & @Thud :3 was worth it! :sparkles:) I’d write more, but I have something ramble-y in mind and this is becoming a tiny bit longer than a “tiny” summary already xD

I’m looking forward to the next round of challenge! :durtle_the_explorer: :books: :bookmark: :raccoon:

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I like how your quote from September 6 is still relevant xD I love it!

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I read some more 四月は君の嘘 manga yesterday. But today I was too lazy to read any japanese outside of texts in the tobira book.

During the challenge I read every day and I will continue to read on most days until I finish all my japanese reading material, which will take me at least until 2030.

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Summary post

Day 59: November 2
What did I read?: ハイ☆スピード!
How much did I read?: 4 pages
How long did it take me?: 44 min

The first day of the tournament is here! (It is a two-day affair, apparently, which I did not realize before) The team mood/atmosphere is awkward and lacking in confidence :sweat_smile: Not the best way to start out a competition…

A lol moment and an "ow my heart" moment

The lol moment: when they go to check in for the tournament, the check-in person sees their names written down and starts looking for them on the girl’s list :joy: Poor babes. Girly names, every last one of 'em xD And this person gets all the way down the list of girl’s names before they look up and realize, oh…it’s boys xD After they finally get checked in and head toward the locker rooms, Nagisa blames this incident on Rin’s name (because there was some female animal in the zoo named RinRin apparently?? Nagisa, what are you on :rofl:), but Rin’s like, it’s not just my fault, you have a girly name too, dumb butt xD (I mean, not literally that, but I imagine his tone to be something like that)

The ow my heart moment:
We run into Sousuke(!) in the locker rooms and he has a tiny catch-up with Rin.
…I feel like this thing that he says and my reaction to it is a pretty major spoiler if you haven’t seen the anime already (at least the first season), so I’m gonna blur it too, just in case.
He asks Rin, おやじさんとは会えたのか?
exCUSe me, Sousuke, you cannot just do that
You did not just casually ask Rin that
Sousuke knows about Rin’s pre-meet thing of going to visit his father’s grave :sob: :sob: :sob: I don’t know if I realized that before, that he knew that Rin did that, but if I did, I certainly forgot about it. Rin :cry: My sweet baby angel

Good words - some useful sports ones today

競技場 (きょうぎじょう) - field; sports stadium; arena (in this case, the pool where they’re having the tournament)
屋内 (おくない) - indoor (court, pool, etc.)
口数 (くちかず) - number of words a person speaks​ mouth number lol
不審 (ふしん) - incomplete understanding; doubt; question; distrust; suspicion
気を抜く (きをぬく) - to lose focus; to let one’s mind wander; to relax one’s attention
手近 (てぢか) - near; close by; within reach; handy (I love how literal it is)
切り上げる (きりあげる) - to close (at a certain point); to cut short; to stop early; to finish (at a convenient spot)
見合わせる (みあわせる) - to exchange glances; to look at each other
準決勝 (じゅんけっしょう) - semifinal
決勝 (けっしょう) - finals (in sports) (again, the logic of this word and the previous word is just :ok_hand:)

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