October 9
(I lost count which day)
Read three pages of Kiki in about half an hour, and just finished Chapter 4! Coincidentally that’s also Page 99, so I’ll have read more than 100 pages by tomorrow. Chapter 4 took me a looooong time haha
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Day 39
I read (thoroughly, not skimming) the text in animal crossing.
Not that I need an excuse for a relaxing day, but I have two! One, I read more than ever before yesterday, and I’ll be reading a lot tomorrow I guess (since I’m on a plane for 10 hours 
). Two, today was my last day in Japan for a while! I’m soaking up every second I can <3
Waves eagerly back
Thanks for the welcome! (⌒▽⌒)
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:: TANUKIDATE 20211009 :: Day XXXIX: この音とまれ！ pg. 23-31 & １０月９日：塾の日 
8 pages today of この音とまれ！, currently 31 pages in and these two have done nothing but shout at each other, calm down guys 
And read today’s 記念日, which is cram school day!
Surprise (!!), it’s another pun: [10 (じゅ) と 9 (く) ] - じゅく —> 塾
There’s a comic with this one, which I struggled to read because it was so small, then I found the link to the bigger version. Which has job details and is basically a giant ad for going to cram school (and to become cram school teacher).
~ New Words! ~
強制的 (きょうせいてき) - Forced / Compulsory
トラック - Truck, putting this here because it’s also Trucking Day and my New Words list was looking a bit lonely.
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Day 38:
日本語: I read a lot of 伯爵と妖精 19.
中国語
中国語: I read 检查作业 and 唠叨. I added 唠叨, 如何, 不用, and 答应.
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I’ve decided to ditch audiobooks for now.
I always complained in various threads that I hate listening and that I feel like, while my hearing is fine, I’m not processing human speech correctly.
But I assumed it isn’t something measurable - that while of course problems with processing speech might be connected to other disorders (like autism spectrum), it’s entirely subjective and that typical auditory tests are all about the physical ability to hear.
…So, I was wrong. Yesterday I stumbled upon the term “auditory processing disorder” (APD) and everything fits so perfectly.
Fortunately, testing if I have it seems to be easy enough and can be done within one visit. I already contacted a clinic specializing in auditory disorders and the quickest date is the second half of November, which isn’t that far away.
So, while eventually, the way to work on APD-related problems is putting extra work into polishing the hearing-the-speech skill (there are pro therapies out there, but everyday stuff counts too), I want to wait with audiobooks until I talk to a specialist.
…Now I also wonder if it would be enough to get to do the listening part of JLPT in headphones if I would get an official diagnosis. 
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October 9 I did a read instead of other stuffs 
・Honzuki 6. (42% → 47%)
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October 9th
Final Fantasy XIV
Random words
- 称賛 = しょうさん praise, admiration, commendation.
- 装着 = そうちゃく equipping, installing, putting on.
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Day 39: October 9
What did I read?: 夜は猫といっしょ Vol 2
How much did I read?: 30 pages
How long did it take me?: 21 min
I was very much not feeling that great today, so it seemed like a good time to start reading the second volume of the kitty manga. This cat is so squishy 
All these illustrations of the guy petting the kitty are making me want to pet one too. Alas, I do not have one 
Here's some good words
- 不服 (ふふく) - dissatisfaction; discontent; disapproval; objection; complaint; protest; disagreement
- 威嚇 (いかく) - threat; intimidation; menace (this was written in kana but I like how the second kanji literally looks like people standing there trying to intimidate you xD)
- なでなで - patting; stroking; caressing (“children’s language,” according to Jisho)
- 痺れる (しびれる) - to become numb; to go to sleep (e.g. a limb); to get an electric shock; to tingle (from an electric shock) (I’ve very pleased that I know how to say “my leg is asleep” now)
- 気が立つ (きがたつ) - to be wrought up; to be on edge; to get irritated; to get excited (about); to be unsettled
- のしのし - walking heavily; lumbering
I also found a little leaflet inside the manga that’s literally just advertising a bunch more cat mangas to me - thanks, random leaflet, I’mma have to check these out 
lol I definitely already own one of these
well this looks adorable and I want it
I want that 365 day color book, too, it looks so pretty :o
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How do you get the black arrow in your post?
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if you make a reply to their post and within the reply editor click the left most button ‘quote whole post’ it will show you the markup they used.
which will give you something like this
I think in this case it might be ‘hide details’ from the editor
For example
[details="Text goes here"]
This text will be hidden
[/details]
which looks like this
Text goes here
This text will be hidden
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Home post October 10th finished graded-reader 桃太郎, and then read 9 chapters (10 - 18 incl.) of チーズスイートホーム (1) =O =O =O
I’m starting to find the graded readers a bit tedious to get through, I used to be excited enough from the prospect of reading in Japanese at all, but now they’re kind of like pulling teeth as I find the material quite meh. The last few I’ve found myself skim reading parts of them, as they often have lots of fairy-tale-esque repeatition - being able to skim like this is pretty cool I guess.
Was kind of feeling a little over the slice-of-life nature of チーズスイートホーム so trying to push through it so I can finish it up, hopefully to come back to another volume at a later date. I think this is mostly due to my low Japanese level kind of restricting me to slice-of-life manga, which is not a genre I typically read a lot of, so I’m feeling a little ~ “burned out” on that kind of content. I tried to push through a little bit, and then just kept going as I got closer and closer to my goal of finishing it.
大海原と大海原 has been a breathe of fresh air, as its the first manga which has truly felt like I’m reading it for the story/plot and not just because of my reading level. I’m likewise excited for 王様ランキング for similar reasons, but trying to read at least a bit more of チーズスイートホーム first.
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Your perseverance is pretty amazing, I must say 
I only read one set of Graded Readers, and while I found the stories not extremely bad actually, they were not really exciting either 
Why do you think so? Realistically speaking, you will need to learn a lot of new vocab anyways, no matter the genre. So a “low level” of vocab is never an excuse 
For “low level” of grammar, I’m sure there are manga (and books) of all genres that use complicated grammar, and those that mainly use simple grammar. I personally find it much harder to read manga than to read books, tbh, because manga use direct speech almost exclusively, which means jargon, slurs, colloquial speech etc. With books, there is of course direct speech as well, but it’s embedded into descriptive sentences written in standard Japanese. (But I guess many people disagree with this )
Anyways, no matter whether books or manga, you could always have a look at previous picks in the Absolute Beginner and Beginner book clubs - the bonus is that you’ll get long discussions for free!
What genres are you interested in, though? Maybe you can get some recommendations for easy reading material in your preferred genre(s) here.
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Day 39:
日本語: I read a lot of 伯爵と妖精 19.
中国語
中国語: I read 真的不知道 and 母爱. I added 伟大 and 肚子.
And another complete week!
| O | C | T | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 日 | 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | |
 |
|||||||
|
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October 10 So today was a tiny read day. I spent more time watching anime instead 
・Honzuki 6. (47% → 48%)
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Day XL: この音とまれ！ pg. 31-35 & １０月１０日: 銭湯の日 
Pretty tired today, read 4 pages of この音とまれ！, one of the pages was super full with writing, took quite a bit of getting through.
Also read today’s 記念日, and it’s 銭湯の日 (Public bath day) !
A bath sounds so good right now.
銭湯 is a word I’ve been getting wrong on here quite a bit, hopefully this’ll make it stick better.
It’s a pun! 1010 = 千 (せん) １０ (とお / とう) → せんとう ＝ 銭湯
Also futon day! Futon also sounds real good right now…
so sleepy
~ New Words! ~
愛護 (あいご) - Protection / Tender Care
アイメイト - Guide dog - blindness support dog. This is such a cute word! Eye-mate… that is so wholesome. There is also a link to the official guide-dog association: アイメイト協会, now I’m trapped looking at good dogs and then the main page greets with this:
「アイは I (私)」「アイは EYE (目)」 「アイは 愛 (LOVE)」
アイメイトは「私の愛する目の仲間」。
such good dogs… 
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Noooooo! I broke my streak
Yesterday was a long and stressful day, since we weren’t able to board our plane (all due to an issue with vaccine certification, resulting in a last-second PCR test and re-booking for today.)
I will certainly be reading today! And I plan to make up my lost day at the “end” of this challenge.
行ってきまーす！ 
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Thank you for the information.
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Thanks for your amazing & kind reply @NicoleIsEnough =D sorry for my verbose reply
At the start it was very much a “wow I’m reading in another language, this is amazing, I’ll never get bored of this”. Once I started manga proper it was hard to go back.
My stubbornness was at least partially motivated by cost, since I’d purchased a few sets of graded readers and they don’t come cheap.
This is mostly a naive opinion based on me looking over ABBC / BBC picks and quickly looking at things I had hoped were easy (e.g. Demon slayer).
nods
Common and repeated vocab isn’t too scary, but a sentence full of unknown vocab can be overwhelming. This is why I’ve pre-reading series to mine vocab (to Anki) before starting properly.
Through 大海原と大海原 and 王様ランキング I’m building up a “fantasy vocab” (caste, knight, sword, spear, magic, …), which I’m hoping will eventually ease me into more complex fantasy works.
Grammar has been my weakness so I’ve been trying to focus on it while reading. Long sentences are still kind of scary >.>
Interesting, I have been wanting to ‘eventually’ get into a book, but so far the one’s I’ve peeked at (時をかける少女, カラフル, 星の王子さま) were somewhat scary, in particular with lots of specific vocab which I’d have to spend a lot of time with.
The pictures in manga give a lot of context which has helped with unknown vocab (e.g. a new word appears and there is a new object in the picture), and they tend to have shorter sentences - I often have to push past some internal resistance to read longer sentences for some reason - which probably means I should be working on that…
The book clubs here seriously are the best, they’re one of the best things I’ve done for my Japanese. I’ve tried to keep an eye on them and go over previous picks, but it is absolutely possible I’ve missed some gems.
Mostly scifi / fantasy / mecha / psychological / philosophical / shounen / seinen.
Favourites include Fullmetal Alchemist, Neon Genesis, Ghost in the Shell, and recently I’ve enjoyed The Promised Neverland and Tokyo Ghoul. Most of these seem well beyond my current ability, except maybe Neverland although I’m not sure I’d enjoy re-reading yet.
But I don’t want to create work for anyone, so please don’t feel pressured to offer recommendations, for the time being at least I think I have a few things which I’m excited to read (大海原と大海原 and 王様ランキング), then I’ll have to figure out where to go next.
Oh no I’m so sorry, that sounds extremely stressful for you both, glad you were able to turn-around and get a new plan in place so quickly! all the best.
I sometimes find speech within media can be difficult for my brain to grok. 1:1 in person is easier, but even with English media (native) I find it much easier if I have good subtitles. I remember when I used to watch without subtitles without trouble, so it seems to have got worse.
I’ve tried dabbling in Japanese audiobooks to not much avail. I had some mild progress with an abridged wizard of Oz as it is short enough to listen to repeatedly (in the background while doing chores), and by the 3rd or so listen I was starting to pick out very small snippets or individual words.
For now I’m thinking occasionally listening to audiobooks but solely with the goal of getting used to the sounds rather than trying to understand anything, as actively listening is very tiring and tedious.
That’s awesome! All the best with exploring a possible diagnosis, and thank you for sharing =D
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