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

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.

15 Likes

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.

8 Likes

Main post

Day 11 :heavy_check_mark:

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 :joy: and there’s 11 more pages haha

I finally understood the context so I might be able to finish this story tomorrow :pray:

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

17 Likes

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

17 Likes

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.

Funny how already three of us have gotten the word しゃがみ込む in recent days :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: . 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 :sob: .

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.

16 Likes

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 :pleading_face:

Please enjoy a relaxed and happy tanuki taking a bath

look at those little pawsies :pleading_face:

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 :rofl:)

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 :sweat_smile: 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 :rofl: I may have added some tanuki flair to the participant list post :eyes:

18 Likes

:house_with_garden: home post

:heavy_check_mark: Day 3 (9月 11日) :sparkles:
posting now bc I went to bed early last night, oops

What did I read:

暁のヨナ , bookclub read aloud session! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: 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

けをらない = not losing out (to); holding one’s own (against)

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

17 Likes

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
image

19 Likes

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

15 Likes

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 :frowning: Will try to read a bit more today…

17 Likes

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


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

11 Likes

:ballot_box_with_check: 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 :eyes:

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

:raccoon: :raccoon: Main Post :raccoon: :raccoon:

16 Likes

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.

17 Likes

At first I only noticed the tanuki hiding in the leaves in the title, then I scrolled down… :laughing:
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. :raccoon:

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

13 Likes

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
:books:
:fire:
:fire:

Calendar week two, fire with no misses!

16 Likes

9月12日:


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.

16 Likes

Summary post

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

16 Likes

.☆:STARDATE: 20210912:☆.

:fallen_leaf: :maple_leaf: :raccoon: :maple_leaf: :fallen_leaf:


Day XII: 野ギツネ :fox_face:

Tanuki’s friend: the fox! 「ココン!ココン!」

I listed to the story first without reading and was surprised with how much I understood, since I feel my listening is super poor. The slow and clear narration really helps.

Also, I love the narrator’s samurai voice: – わはははははは。ついに正体を現しおったな–

I read the story without listening after, I think I managed to fill in most of the gaps in understanding that I’d missed with listening (my head’s voice made sure to make the Samurai’s voice very epic). But I’m not so sure if I got all the readings correct, so I read and listened together to check on the kanji readings.

And, as always with Japanese, I’m surprised with what they decide to have in kanji and what to have in kana. Suppose I’ll get used to what to use eventually.

17 Likes

I finished reading Chi’s New Home vol. 1 the art was awesome and it was super funny.

After that I read thirty pages of まがつき. Actually I wanted to read 金田一少年の事件簿 but I thought it may be too difficult.

15 Likes

:house_with_garden:home post

:heavy_check_mark: Day 4 (9月 12日) :sparkles:

What did I read:
日本の歴史366 This is the book most fitting for this challenge tbh haha, it’s one of those one-page-a-day books, and it’s truly so nice. I got the book around May and started it, and I actually kept a strike till August… right now I have a month’s worth of pages to catch up to, so if I just do my daily page, +1 from August backlog I should catch up by the end of month…
2 stories today, ~15min

What I learnt:

公衆電話こうしゅうでんわ = pay phone, public phone

設置せっち =establisment, installation

通話料つうわ りょう = charge for a phonecall

いのち を 絶つ をたつ = to end one’s life; to commit suicide (命を絶つとは - コトバンク )

出 家しゅっけ entering priesthood; to forsake one’s life so far and practice asceticism (Buddhism)

14 Likes