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

hello everyone! I just came across this thread earlier today, and I want to join too, is it okay if I do, even with a late start? I had been checking the summer reading challenge during summer and wanted to try so bad, but real life and work were so hectic, I was never able to maintain my daily reading. Reading along the thread, especially what windupbird said truly resonated with me :pleading_face: Also, thank you for hosting this! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

building a habit of reading and being consistent is what works best for me, but attaining that consistency and forming habits… yeah, I’m not so good at it…

Also, I’ve never done this before, so any hints would be welcome… I guess I will make a home post with the calendars (oh goodness, how to copy that T__T ) and my reading materials, and refer back to it everyday? is that how you normally go about it? Thank you!

Also, don’t mind me, I’m casually going to follow everyone on bookmeter :laughing:

15 Likes

Absolutely join in!

In terms of a homepost, just choose anyone’s post with calendar and copy-paste it in. Don’t spend too long fretting about what you’re going to be reading - it doesn’t need to be the same thing every day, it doesn’t need to be loads, you’re aiming for something every day no matter how small.

11 Likes

thank you for the warm welcome and advice! I will do just that! And you’re absolutely right… whenever I pick up too many things to read/study/do, I get overwhelmed and end up not seeing through half of them… :sweat_smile:

10 Likes

Guess what word came up in my reading today??? :rofl:
I only managed two pages so far today instead of a whole chapter as work is annoyingly getting in the way of japanese! I’ll try to finish the chapter on the train home but if not, it still counts.

10 Likes

:0!!! AMAZING!!! (now THIS is what makes me love learning Japanese)

Welcome, welcome!! :maple_leaf::fallen_leaf:

Posting may not always be possible, due to a busy schedule and such, but I try to post everyday if I can. I found that it adds just the right a amount of (little) pressure and (a lot of) reward to keep reading each day!
Also, even on days where you only read a liiiiitle, liiiiitle bit be kind and count it towards your streak! Reading a even little bit is still reading, right? :laughing:

13 Likes

Home post

September 9th Started chapter 2 of 大海原と大海原, I read 6 pages, and it took me 1.5 hours - although that included adding 43 entries to the vocab sheet. I’m honestly really really happy with 15 minutes per page including populating the vocab sheet.

I feel I’m starting to get a hang for this books common vocab and the speaking patterns of some of the characters, I noticed in particular when a new character appeared and I had to spend more time trying to figure them out.

Today the word 鮫[さめ] came up which I’d never properly learned but which I could identify thanks to @windupbird mentioning サメーズ -サメとアザラシ- in their reading during the summer club - a great example of the bonus tangential learning I get from this club =D

13 Likes

I’ve included 2 options for calendars in this post, both of the same calendar.

If you expand the first details section you should be able to just copy & paste the calendar (you might need to remove the ```).

Alternatively, if you reply to this post, and then from within the reply editor select the top left button “quote whole post” it will copy my entire post into yours - which you can then edit keeping only the contents contained within the second “details”.

I’ve included some brief instructions on using the calendar below.

Blank calendar - copy and paste
||||Sept||||
|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
| 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[]|    |    |    |

||||Oct||||
| :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: | :---: |
| 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[]|
Blank calendar - reply and quote whole post
Sept
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
Oct
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
Calendar instructions

Once you have a calendar you will see a bunch of cells like 31[] which will render as 31

If you put a lowercase x inside the box like 31[x] it will render as 31
If you put an uppercase X inside the box like 31[X] it will render as 31

13 Likes

Got it, thank you!

2 Likes

:fallen_leaf::house_with_garden: vasi’s home post :books: :maple_leaf:

Sept
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30
Oct
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Goals

:moon_cake: keep up with daily reading, no matter the amount! be kind to myself
:moon_cake: post here daily to keep myself accountable and interact with everyone as much as possible! seeing everyone’s posts and progress works as the best motivator after all! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
:moon_cake: try to slowly add in mandarin reading in my schedule as well… i’m still beginner level, and seeing too many unknown words scares me so much, so I hope I can work aroun that.

:dart: Another reason I’m why I’m reading is because I want to get in as much reading practice and immersion in time for the December JLPT, and reading is one of the best approaches for me.

Materials

I will keep updating this as I go, but here are the ones I have at hand and which I’m already committed to (or trying to get committed to) by some extent:

:maple_leaf: 日本の歴史366
:maple_leaf: 暁のヨナ (漫画)(bookclub :heart: )
:maple_leaf: 完全マスター読解 (教科書)
:maple_leaf: MARS RED (漫画)
:maple_leaf: Todai app for news

Updates

Status: 51/ 52 days
Week 1 (9-12 September)
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day3 | Day 4 :fire:
Week 2 (13-19 September)
Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 | Day 11 :fire:
Week 3 (20-26 September)
Day 12 | Day 13 | Day 14 | Day 15 | Day 16 | Day 17| Day 18 :fire:
Week 4 (27- 03 October)
Day 19 | Day 20| Day 21| Day 22 | Day 23 | Day 24 | Day 25 :fire:
Week 5 (4-10 October)
|Day26| Day27|Day28| Day29| Day30| Day31|Day32 | :fire:
Week 6 (11-17 October)
Day 33 | Day 34| Day 35 | Day 36| Day 37 | Day 38 | Day 39
Week 7 (18- 24 October)
Day 40 | Day 41 | Day 42 | Day 43 | Day 44| Day 45 | Day 46 :fire:
Week 8 (25-31 October)
|Day 47 | Day 48 |Day 49 | Day 50| Day 51| Day 52 :fire:

Lastly, after stalking everyone’s bookmeters, I think it’s only fair that I share mine as well, lol
Bookmeter
Goodreads

15 Likes

No, it’s not okay… it’s perfect! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: It’s actually the best occasion, since we will be having a longer break until the Winter one just to make them fit better, so it really doesn’t matter at all if anyone starts late, you can still do the 61 days if you wish.

Hmm perhaps the thing that I could recommend the most is, as long as you do a little bit, no matter how small, you’re right on track. I try not to miss any day because I’m way too stubborn and missing once tends to derail me further. But honestly if you do end up missing some days for some reason, don’t worry at all, the important thing is that you’re doing more reading than you were doing prior to the challenge, and that’s reason enough to feel satisfied. Also I’d say don’t feel like you have to read a lot everyday; there are days where I just read one episode in Satori Reader and call it a night, and occasionally some of those are pretty brief. Of course, the more you do, most likely the faster you will improve, but the important thing is trying to avoid burnout. I did burnout a bit last challenge when I pushed it from 61 to 75 days. Reading the right amount for you everyday is much better than not reading for a month, IMO. You can always bump that up if you feel like it.

The way I and for what I’ve seen many others do it, is post a daily update with that day’s work and a little commentary if I want to add anything. Then I go to the home post and update it, as well as this thread’s second post with the summary of everyone and the days we’ve completed so far. I don’t really track reading materials because I just add whatever I feel like reading that day, but I do have a few resources that I resort to, those being a couple of video games and Satori Reader. I also don’t track time spent reading because personally for me I don’t need it, but that’s definitely a personal preference, many others do indeed track it.

For the templates you can quote anyone’s post and then copy it, the one you like the most. I’m not sure if it copies the checkboxes but those are just simple [ ] put together without spaces. To check them you can either click on them after the post is created or edit them with an x in between, like this [ x ] .

I’ll post my template if you’d like to use it, but you can use any, I don’t think anybody would mind :wink: .

Template
| | | |Sep| | | |
|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
|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 [] | | | |

| | | |Oct| | | |
|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
|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 [] |

<br>

Status: In Progress
Completion: 0 / 61 days (0%) 

[details="Daily division"]

[details="September"]
(September logs go here)
[/details]

[details="October"]
(October logs go here)
[/details]

[/details]

Edit: the template copies these as well ``` at the beginning and end; just remove them in both places. But I see you already created your post so it might not be needed :wink: .

12 Likes

Aah, Thank you so so much for all your tips and advice And thank you for sharing your template, even though I ended up somehow writing one up by getting bits and pieces from everyone else’s from above (I suck at this formatting thing btw).

Honestly, thank you both for this, I think this is the thing I need to remind myself the most when it comes to such tasks and challenges, because I tend to be too strict with myself… But you’re both right! What matters is the effort and the fact that we do strive to read everyday, even if it’s just a little bit :relaxed: I will keep this in mind! <3

As for daily updates, i think I will save writing those for the end of the day, or beginning of the next!

Thank you so much for this, it’s so useful!!!
And thanks for following back on bookmeter! よろしくね!

11 Likes

:ballot_box_with_check: Day 9

I read all of chapter 3 in 手紙!Today I got a little more back story as to why the older brother is so desperate to get his little brother into university.

I would feel the same too if my mom literally worked herself to death trying to pay for me and my brother to go to school. And worse that she died right after they got into a huge fight that kept her awake, crying until her 5 am work shift. So he blames himself more.

I learned many words as usual, but there was one special one today: 棒に振る (ぼうにふる) = to waste, make a mess of. The origin comes from selling fish and veggies from a balance pole, until all of the items are sold off. Even if all the items sell it doesn’t increase profit much, hence this expression.

Main Post

15 Likes

Streak Count: 7

Well, whaddaya know~ I read today.

It wasn’t very smooth sailing, but it could have been worse. Tripped over not knowing some vocab in sentences like「日雇い労働者の不法就労及び不法斡旋行偽により警察に摘発された」so I was a bit annoyed, but hey ho. It’s how we learn to hate everything about construction and general business dealings.

Happy reading, everyone!

Edit: oh, and the reason why it was annoying to look up words is because it’s not digital. So that’s a matter of looking everything up myself, without copy-pasting or a tool like yomi-chan (though I never use that anyway).

17 Likes

.☆:STARDATE: 20210909:☆.


Day IX: グレンデリウス :dolphin:
Okay, not a dolphin, but it’s the closest looking emoji I can get.

Prehistoric animals, yessssss.

オフタルモサウルス科プラティプテリギウス亜科… I now regret my decision to read this. Though halfway through the article it starts using the Latin names, because not even Japanese wiki is mad enough to katakana those words.

I like that the Latin animal classifications have their own Japanese equivalents (very, very cool):

Animalia - 動物
Chordate - 脊索動物
Vertebrata - 脊椎動物
Reptilia - 爬虫類***

*** 爬 is a really nice looking kanji, though by the looks of it, it is only used for very specific scientific things involving reptiles. I always feel a little sad when I find a interesting looking kanji only to find that it is either super archaic or extremely specific.

17 Likes

9月09日:


What did I read:

  • パーティーで;パートI
  • パーティーで;パートII
  • パーティーで;パートIII

This is a series of really simple dialogues between people on during Christmas party. What they discussed there is where are guests from and what food to eat. After that they are going to dance and play games.


New words:

  • しちめんちょう - Turkey;
  • めい - Niece;
  • もも - Thigh;
  • かんぱい - Cheers
  • はんえい - Prosperity
15 Likes

Home post

Day 8:

日本語: I read a fair amount of パノラマ島綺譚 and a lot of ミステリと言う勿れ (finished v8).
Read-aloud: We read a chapter of 7SEEDS.

中国語

中国語: I read 冬天去哪玩儿.

15 Likes

Hello and welcome, Vasi, I see your profile pic on bookmeter is HuaHua :eyes: :sparkles:
Have you read the books? :3

9 Likes

Thank you Redglare! It’s great to be here!
yes, it’s HuaHua, and yeessss I have read the books :eyes: O(english translation- bless the Watermelon Goddess)
i love the series so much T__T

7 Likes

Fellow fan :DD I finished it earlier this year, was hyperfixated for a few months. I remember trying to read it a few years ago and couldn’t get past the 2nd book when XL had all the horrible stuff happen to him, but this time I managed and I’m so glad I did! And then got to the book 4. Absolutely crazy, is all I can say. But book 5 was the best :eyes: :butterfly: :revolving_hearts:

Btw, hope you’ll like it here in this thread! :DD

7 Likes

Summary

September 7
:maple_leaf: 7
total: 74/100

  • 授乳 (9 → 11%)

September 8
:maple_leaf: 8
total: 75/100

  • 授乳 (11 → 16%)

September 9
:maple_leaf: 9
total: 76/100

  • 授乳 (16 → 21%)

Caught up with the 授乳 book club! Time to read the threads :sparkles:


I was doing so well not getting interested when ABC was reading him, but now, thanks to your discussion here and @Axazel comments about 手紙 I became interested again.
I even considered pushing him to my English queue, as he wrote so many books that even if I get hooked and read everything that got translated I’ll still have tons of content in Japanese left, but… that the problem. I’ll have tons of content if I get hooked. :thinking: And it’s not like my English queue is looking so good either :roll_eyes:
I’m really trying to be resistant, and pass on so many recommendations, but even then there’s so many left… What to do :sob:


Welcome @iterimpius ! :wave:t2:

15 Likes