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

[Zakarius]

.☆:STARDATE: 20210911:☆.

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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.

[MothKau]

Original post

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”!

[Redglare]

Summary post

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

[valkow]

Home post

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.

[fustian_garb]

@Zakarius

Also, what is it with most Japanese sites looking like they’ve come straight out of 1999?

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.

[Akifuyu]

Main post

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

[Natsuha]

Today I felt sick and tired, so just 70 more pages of Chi’s New Home vol.1

[rikaiwisdom]

Summary Post

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.

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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.

[windupbird]

Summary post

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

Please enjoy a relaxed and happy tanuki taking a bath

look at those little pawsies

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

@Zakarius

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.

@iterimpius

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

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

@Zakarius

I 100% agree with this. Tanuki for the official mascot!

I fully support this idea I may have added some tanuki flair to the participant list post

[iterimpius]

home post

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:

修羅しゅうら = fighting; carnage; conflict; strife

引ひけを取とらない = not losing out (to); holding one’s own (against)

門前払もんぜんばらい = turning another away at the gate or front door

[chrisosaurus]

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

[TheGreywolfMunch]

Day 12

It’s not even that late, but I’m so tired… I only got through half of a difficult page in Kiki lol
I’ll read more tomorrow

[NicoleRauch]

Uh, seems like I did not post for quite a few days… this week was super busy so I lost a bit of steam, both wrt reading and also wrt posting. Let’s see how it went:

Sep 8th: Read a bit more than a page of 糞尿譚 (until 47/158)
Sep 9th: Read about a page of 糞尿譚 (until 49/158)
Sep 10th: Started the 3rd week of BBC 小川未明 stories
Sep 11th: Finished the 3rd week of 小川未明 stories (and wrote a post about various grammar points)

Huh, that doesn’t look too good Will try to read a bit more today…

[Aislin]

Big thanks to everybody who answered my question about overflowing wishlists and backlogs, although your answers were not reassuring

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@windupbird

stupid mental energy balancing act

I don’t think it’s stupid, I think it’s very relatable * big virtual hugs *

[Axazel]

Day 12

Read chapters 6 and 7 in 手紙！
On one hand: woo! I doubled my pace and still understand the story!!
On the other: but… I didn’t look up any of the words I didn’t know, or check my pronounciation

Words I didn't post from yesterday:

• 頬はこけ (ほほはこけ) = hollowed cheeks
• 度が入っている (どがはいっている) = prescription glasses (…入ってない = non-prescription)
• 言わんばかり = as if to say, as though

Main Post

[Thud]

Main Post

Last update has been a week already… I finished reading through Polar Bear Café Today’s Special volume 1. It was good, as there’s a variety of stories and difficulty in it. A lot more focus on sidecharacters you hardly noticed in the first series. I did feel it was slightly more difficult than the first series. Not entirely sure where that lies, maybe the vocabulary use. As Today’s Special does have longer words/kanji compounds in my experience. I did feel I learned quite a bit from it. There’s a yojijukugo that I found pretty neat in it: 適者生存 which comes close to the phrase ‘survival of the fittest’. The little character notes are also fun to read as they have summary of the characters on them and for the animals this typically means they also list what type of animal they are.

Gonna continue this pace with volume 2.

[Zakarius]

@windupbird

I may have added some tanuki flair to the participant list post

At first I only noticed the tanuki hiding in the leaves in the title, then I scrolled down…
Those dancing tanuki are so great!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

And bathtub tanuki!! (!!!) This makes me so happy

I’m so making note of this manga for later reading.

@iterimpius

That was super fun! And the whole website actually is such a find!! Thank you for that

I’m glad I found something useful you could use! Definitely gonna be using this site again.

[valkow]

Home post

Day 11:

日本語: I read some of 鋼の錬金術師, some of パノラマ島綺譚, and a fair amount of からかい上手の高木さん.

Reminder to self to read more 小川未明童話集.

中国語

中国語: I read 回家.

S	E	P	T
日	月	火	水	木	金	土

Calendar week two, fire with no misses!

[_ishi]

９月１２日：

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What did I read:

• 大海原と大海原, Pages 1-5

Help. To my own surprise, I was able to get most of the grammar. It’s just the prologue, so nothing really interesting happening yet, but it sets a good ground for future events still. Also much more interesting to read than watered down text in beelinguapp :")

Words I didn’t know: 変わらぬ, 過ぎ去る, 幾度, 照らす, 想い, 揺らぐ, 祈り, 続ける, 今宵, 緊張, 城, 記憶, 取り戻す, 使い魔, お呼び. Basically solid half of the vocabulary for said pages. I knew some of kanji, though, so I was more or less able to guess the meaning in some cases.

[Redglare]

Summary post

September 12
・Started Honzuki 6. (0% → 2%)
・Also read Kono Oto Tomare vol. 18