It’s showing support to all of us in the reading challenge for being awesome and keeping up.
読んでくれてありがとう 
We read for the Tanuki, from now on.
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Don’t worry, you’re doing great! We all need our rest days, as much as we want brain to be on it all the time.
And that Tanuki is very cute, the whole manga looks seriously cute.
I 100% agree with this. Tanuki for the official mascot!
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I had no idea the sticker set I got from LINE was actually a series.
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please don’t let it get to you and bring you down… y’all here said it yourselves, there will be days when things just don’t work, or when we feel so tired and drained… please be kind to yourself 
and the bit about functioning at work while giving something up, believe me, you’re not alone. and even the people who do indeed manage to juggle everything, they burnout at some point, and that’s not good 
That is sooooo cute 
most definitely, can we make this happen, pleaseee 
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Day 11
I definitely overestimated how much time I would have during the day… I honestly do think I could get through a lot more than five pages of Kiki if I had the time to, but I don’t…
But I have been reading every day since I last posted! And read two pages on average.
Today I read three, in about 20 minutes. 
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September 11th 大海原と大海原 I started chapter 3 and read 2 pages.
I also went through my breakdowns to lookup a few grammar points in A Dictionary Of Basic Japanese Grammar, as I had been meaning to do that more and now that I’m ahead I actually have the time to - rather than my usual flailing to catch up strategy.
I haven’t looked through this dictionary much lately, going back over a few bookmarks I’d placed previously it was nice to realise that I understood the points made much better than when I had first looked them up, so it feels like I am progressing.
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Day 11
Read chapter 5 in 手紙！ Today was one of those days where I left early and returned late… I didn’t know how much I could read, but I knew I was gonna read something . Can’t believe I maintained my pace, along with the challenge.
But I can barely keep my eyes open to type this, so no extra words for today 
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Whilst I’m not reading every day, at least I am reading a lot more consistently than last month. I’ll take that!
| 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 |
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９月１１日：
What did I read:
*白雪姫；パートI-III (Beelinguapp)。
A really short version of “Snow White”. Short enough to read it in 15 minutes, if not less. Which honestly makes me thinking that maybe I should switch to something else, like maybe Manabi reader or GoodReads.
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Day XI: お月さまに化けたタヌキ
All the talk of tanukis made me want to read some tanuki legends/tales. I managed to find a site (googling in Japanese is pretty hard), kinda looks like it’s for kids but oh well, I’ve had a lot of fun reading. Also, what is it with most Japanese sites looking like they’ve come straight out of 1999?
「6月21日の日本の昔話」seems I’m a little late, but… (bit of a side track here)
Looking around site there’s a story for each day of the year, some of them have audio recordings of the actual story as well (!!). Sadly, the moon tanuki doesn’t have a recording for it, but this is great! Definitely going to use it again and practice listening as well as reading. whoa this is amazing.
むかしむかし
(I am loving this so much already)
「はて？ おいら、酔っぱらったかな？」 
ウサギが餅つきをしている影がありません。
Aha, I see farmer-san, that you know the secret password to the arcade (almost).
正体を現したな、いたずらダヌキめ！
やい、馬鹿百姓。
Gee tanuki, don’t be so mean!
…I probably had a lot more fun with this than I really should have. 
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After finishing 聞き耳ラジオ on Satori Reader, I moved onto the Beginner Bookclub and started 大海原と大海原 (おおうなばらとわだのはら). I also read a page from 田口久人’s book, ”そのままでいい”!
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September 11
・Read Honzuki 5. (95% → 100%)
Oho, I finished the book 
That was fun :3
Reading chunk of text in smol font is not good for eyes, so here it is in the normal size
I started reading this book on June 9th, but have been jumping between various books and manga since then, so it’s been three months. I have no idea how long it actually took me to read this book.
I counted the amount of days I logged having read Honzuki 5 through the Summer Challenge: 14 days. + 9 days in the duration of this thread. And then there’s 4% where I must have read between the threads. But now am done! :3
Sudden turn of developments in the last third of the book I must say I enjoyed it Some of the stuff in the middle of the book was kinda boring, maybe that’s partly why I didn’t nyoom through it. But now we’re getting somewhere :3
Not sure what the next book will bring, but I’m looking forward to it! 
Note to self: Check out the Honzuki vol 4+ thread 
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Day 10:
日本語: I read some of それでも歩は寄せてくる, then promptly chucked it when I saw there was a new からかい上手の高木さん, which I read a lot of, and then I read a fair amount of 鋼の錬金術師, which I am now banned from reading before bed, so I had to brain-cleanse with some of 魔王城でおやすみ, which made me a laugh a lot and not have nightmares.
Read-aloud: We read a chapter of ふしぎの国のバード.
中国語
中国語: I read 冬至.
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This is absolutely the truth, but I kind of love them for it? Unless I actually need to know their opening hours or address or something useful like that and it’s black text on a brown woodgrain background.
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Day 11 
I read 3 pages of the first story of １０分で読めるお話（五年生）
Well
Those 3 pages took me wayyy more than 10 minutes and there’s 11 more pages haha
I finally understood the context so I might be able to finish this story tomorrow
Vocab that might be useful
すたすた (walk) briskly
よろよろ tottering; staggering
隙間（すきま）crevice; gap
硫黄（いおう）sulfur
柱（はしら）pillar
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Today I felt sick and tired, so just 70 more pages of Chi’s New Home vol.1
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Day 11: September 11th
Satori Reader: Secret, episode 37.
Random words
- 救助 = きゅうじょ rescue, aid.
- 目眩 = めまい dizziness, vertigo.
- しゃがみ込む = しゃがみこむ to squat completely (apparently the difference with regular しゃがむ is that しゃがみ込む is squatting and remaining in one position, often related to a negative cause like illness and so on, while しゃがむ is just regular squatting consciously).
- 抱える = かかえる to hold in one’s arms (or under).
- 姿勢 = しせい posture, pose.
- 寒気 = さむけ chills, shiver (due to illness, fear, etc).
- 炎天下 = えんてんか under the blazing sun (lovely word, 炎天 burning skies).
- 乗り込む = のりこむ to board, to embark on, to get into.
Funny how already three of us have gotten the word しゃがみ込む in recent days 
. Today’s episode was another nice one, and although I’m back to reading late, it was nice to finally get some nice sleep today 
.
I’ve been noticing these last two or three days that I am getting better at this Japanese thing. I don’t even know how, or why or how much, but I definitely feel an improvement in ability. Magic! I had been feeling stuck for a while, so it’s a nice reassuring feeling. I’m completely sure that it will go back to “oh wow, I know nothing!” at some point, but I’m glad that at least the bar has risen just a little bit.
I don’t know, but the challenge is working flawlessly. I’m so happy really ;-; . I know this has been the compound work of a longer time and other resources, but these two challenges have been pivotal in my relationship with daily immersion, commitment and overall learning. I’ve read similar things from you so this thing must really be doing something very positive after all.
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Day 11: September 11
What did I read?: 雨と君と Vol 1
How much did I read?: 33 pages (8 chapters)
How long did it take me?: 47 min
Took it easy again today…this manga is so cute though :3
My favorite chapter was the girl’s dad coming over and fangirling over the cuteness of the tanuki xD Oh, and also when the tanuki took off its little leaf to take a bath and put a towel on its head instead
Some good words:
いても立ってもいられない - unable to contain oneself; itching to do something; cannot sit still (as in, unable to contain oneself from rushing over to see the tanuki - who can blame him)
取り直す (とりなおす) - to regroup (after some adverse event) (the adverse event in question was a spider being…there )
I may try and get back to High Speed tomorrow, I’m just wary of pushing it when I know I have Stuff I need to accomplish at work this week I feel stupid saying that, since it’s not like I don’t have the physical time to read, it’s just my stupid mental energy balancing act that I can’t really afford to get wrong -_- I also feel like I’m disappointing people somehow even though I’m sure that’s not really true…wouldn’t it be cool if feelings were rational
Thanks for the encouragement <3 I’m trying not to get down on myself, it’s just…hard.
Let’s not think of that, let’s think of happy tanukis instead
I fully support this idea I may have added some tanuki flair to the participant list post
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Day 3 (9月 11日)
posting now bc I went to bed early last night, oops
What did I read:
暁のヨナ , bookclub read aloud session! 
was super fun, as always… but we were only four members this time around, and we didn’t distribute the lines all that well… read chapters 33-34, took us almost 2h but we do translation as well, and… we deviate a looot
I also read the tanuki story @Zakarius shared! That was super fun! And the whole website actually is such a find!! Thank you for that
What i learnt:
修羅 = fighting; carnage; conflict; strife
引けを取らない = not losing out (to); holding one’s own (against)
門前払い = turning another away at the gate or front door
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Home post - September 12th I read 4 pages of 大海原と大海原, although I need to follow up as I wasn’t able to sufficiently break-down 2 panels.
In lieu of having nothing more to say, I offer these 狸
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