September 8th 大海原と大海原 read 2 pages taking me to the end of chapter 1 and it took me 15 minutes. The book club starts in 2 days and I’m 2 chapters / weeks ahead =O
Vocab sheet
Added 12 new entries to round out the vocab sheet for chapter 1 (65 ch.1 entries) and it took me another 20 minutes.
Still really impressive!
S-E-V-E-N-T-E-E-N
十七
XVII
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
It’s great being able to see that progress within yourself, a good check-in for how much progress you’ve made, and this goes right back to an excellent point you made previously…
My previous “one day dream goal” was just to be able to read ~stuff~, anything at all, even if it was completely painful. When I visited Japan I picked up a few supposed beginner friendly manga and dreamed of one day being able to crawl through them, imaging myself spending huge amounts of time on each page.
Even though reading is still difficult, it is important to remind myself that even this far was previously thought to be an ambitious goal that’d take me years to begin. So thanks for helping me keep that in mind, for the reminder, and the kind words
My pleasure and seriously right back at you
I’ve found sharing this journey and hearing about your progress and excitement to be extremely motivating, that goes to everyone else in this/these thread(s) too =D
wwhhhatttttttt =O =O =O
But you’ve read so much!
So you started on your own, wooooow.
Omg! This is so cool to see as I remember you talking about one panel being a struggle some time in the last challenge. And now 2 pages in 15 mins, that’s such amazing progress, very well done amazing what can happen when you just keep going, bit by bit.
Are you looking for something to read even after this challenge is over? Don’t look any further - the Intermediate Book Club is currently voting for the next pick! Reading will start on October 23rd, right when the Autumn Challenge is about to end!
I wanted to ask you for some time - how do you pick which articles you read?
I suspect you may have already explained this in the summer thread, but I totally missed it
I meant to put this to my main post on this thread as well, but completely forgot!
But I use “random article” on wikipedia - or おまかせ表示 on JP-wiki - and open three tabs, then pick the one which looks the most interesting.
(At first, in the summer thread, I used to just roll with whatever the first one was but sometimes there’s pages that are hardly even a sentence.)
日本語: I read a fair amount of パノラマ島綺譚. (to 40%) Getting a little antsy, as I’ve noticed I do with slower books. It’s not a race, self.
中国語
中国語: I read 大寒. The last few days have had me thinking that I’m grateful to my past self for deciding to always learn the kanji for words, even it’s infrequently used. Some of those are popping up here in Mandarin with similar meanings, like 又 and 等 and 但(し). Hopefully these nice surprises keep happening.
Day 8: September 8th
Satori Reader: Secret, episode 34.
Random words
額 = ひたい forehead
ぽたぽた = dripping
休憩 = きゅうけい rest (from something you were doing).
定期的 = ていきてき periodic, regular.
和らげる = やわらげる to soften, to relieve.
脱水症状 = だっすいしょうじょう dehydration.
通り抜ける = とおりぬける to go through (enter from one side and coming out from another).
照り付ける = てりつける to shine down upon (strongly).
a few more but I don’t want to spam the post too much.
This episode was full of unknown words and a couple new kanji, a bit more challenging than the average. Perhaps I added too many words at once to the SRS but that’s fine, I don’t need to learn them all at the same time. In fact I’m not really studying new words at the moment, I’m only adding them to the backlog. I hope that rereading the series at some point will help me refresh them as well.
Also, as was expected, I come accross words that I studied in WK at some point, but that I don’t remember at all. It do be like that sometimes .
Thanks =D
I definitely remember those days, spending probably like 30 mins on a single panel.
Although my inner critique thinks this is at least partially because I’m going through an easier manga… but I definitely feel like I’ve been improving!
Day 8: September 8
What did I read?: ハイ☆スピード!
How much did I read?: 4.5 pages
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 21 min
Well, Haru is still in the worst mood ever (poor sick and grumpy baby needs to be wrapped up in a blanket and put away from the world for a little while). But we have definitely lightened the tone from yesterday
I can’t decide which of these is my favorite word of today: ロマンチスト - romantic/dreamer or 人工衛星 (じんこうえいせい) - man-made satellite
Let me tell you why
They’re a few months away from elementary school graduation, and the whole class is coming up for ideas for projects to commemorate the occasion. In the end, everyone votes to do this flower bed under the sakura tree thing. Afterward, Rin’s all, oh Makoto, you agreed with the flower bed idea, who knew you were such a ロマンチスト~ But then we find out what Rin’s idea was
Riiiiin why are you like this You absolute dork. This is the most Rin thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life, omg Launching a satellite with letters about their hopes and dreams and friends inside of it, that’s not something a ロマンチスト would do at allll You’re in the sixth grade you dork, where the hell are you gonna get a satellite? Rin just living his life as the main character in his own story, as usual AND HARU AGREED WITH THIS IDEA, APPARENTLY, which makes this whole scenario 500 times better. Was it just because he really didn’t like the flower bed idea? The world may never know. But it’s extremely cute either way.
Some other good words from today:
寄せ付ける (よせつける) - to allow (someone or something) to come near; to let get close
愛しむ (いつくしむ, more commonly spelled as 慈しむ) - to love (someone weaker than oneself); to be affectionate towards; to treat with tender loving care (what a cute af word)
耳障り (みみざわり) - hard (on the ears); offensive (to the ear); rasping; rough; harsh; grating; jarring; cacophonous
過ぎる (よぎる) - to go by; to cross; to pass by; to flash across
I added over 1200 to mine this summer after reading my first novel I was hoping to learn as I went but it quickly became apparent that that strategy was doomed to failure. I don’t add sentences to my flashcards but I’m surprised how often when I’m learning the cards, even 2-3 months later, I can remember the part of the story when the word cropped up. Obviously I’m hoping that by the time I get towards the end of the backlog I’ll have learnt some of those cards by other means but I’m happy to just gradually work through them.
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 Also, thank you for hosting this!
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
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.
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…
Guess what word came up in my reading today???
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.
:0!!! AMAZING!!! (now THIS is what makes me love learning Japanese)
Welcome, welcome!!
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?
(with the plot and nearing the end of the book).
.
I was hoping to learn as I went but it quickly became apparent that that strategy was doomed to failure. I don’t add sentences to my flashcards but I’m surprised how often when I’m learning the cards, even 2-3 months later, I can remember the part of the story when the word cropped up. Obviously I’m hoping that by the time I get towards the end of the backlog I’ll have learnt some of those cards by other means but I’m happy to just gradually work through them.
Also, thank you for hosting this! 
