📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

I’d say why not read after you’re done studying for your exams for the day? You could go for any amount you feel like and since you’re not neglecting your studies you probably won’t feel guilty, while still allowing you to keep up with Japanese. [edit: rereading your post, you might already do this, woops!] I’d probably also stop new SRS words for a bit if you use SRS.

At the same time, nothing wrong with stopping the challenge if you feel like it’s taking a mental slot that you need right now. At the end of the day it’s an artificial thing to work in your favour; you can stop it when it’s no longer useful, and resume it when it is. You could also forget about the “every day” and go for whatever frequency works.

Just some ideas :slight_smile:

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Same. Let me know once you’ve figured something out yotsubaNLT

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I was feeling like this too!

I’m thinking of switching to manga I’ve already read or something else like picture books, the next time I feel burned out or pressed for time.

Basically anything fun and purposefully short, only to check the box :thinking:

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Didn’t have much time for reading yesterday and the day before (and no time for posting) but I did read one chapter of デスノート ・ Death Note 📓 Vol. 2.

Today I read a chapter for Week 4: 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん 👵🏼. I hope to catch up to that book club tomorrow…

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Due to making replies to so many people, I put it under detail tag to make the post take less space. :joy:

Replies

Well, seems it works even when just reading about someone else reading about someone else who read a book where someone yawned. :joy:

I hear you on this. I’ve gotten in the habit of checking ages so as to avoid this kind of situation in manga. Unfortunately I don’t know how to make Amazon not recommend something. I rarely look at recommendations.

I also really enjoyed the Officer Ryou stories. They were a bunch of fun.

@omk3 There keep being such pretty art in that manga. I will keep enjoying the pictures you’re posting, that will be the only way I enjoy that manga. :joy: (Heck I can’t even see medical drama TV-shows, despite knowing it is all fake. Gets to me every time. I get dizzy and nauseous. That is how I figured out becoming a nurse/doctor was not in my future. xD )


坊ちゃん stuff now.

@Naphthalene Thank you so much! :tada:

坊ちゃん replies (once again for space)

To me, it is very weird that a teacher would say: If you don’t understand, wait until you do. They should explain more/better, not flippantly tell students to just understand eventually. xD

Now it seems to obvious. :blush: Man, より confuses me at times, especially when a lot of stuff is cut away.

If there had been a period somewhere in there, it wouldn’t have confused me as much, haha. Stylistic choice, I guess. Meaning that just because it is all in one sentence, doesn’t mean that all parts are related to each other. (Or was there some grammar in that sentence that made that clear?)

Realized too that in a very overarching way, 困った does harken back to the beginning of the sentence, but only because 坊ちゃん should have been in a good mood since the lesson went better than expected. But (が) then a student came with a hard maths problem, ah 困った feeling indeed. xD

Also, yeah 困った is a bit hard to translate. Troubled? Also possibly annoyed. (Also probably embarrassed in this case, haha.)

Thanks for all the help. :smiley:


April 28

Started and finished chapter 4. It was a very short chapter, covering 2 whole pages and 2 half pages, but the two whole pages was just dialog, so barely as much text as 1 page would usually be.

But, due to asking for help earlier, I now had a similar sentence I understood perfectly. <3 All the help is doing such a difference. You guys are amazing.

I had a little problem with two sentences. I think I understand them, but for one, I wonder if there is anything I’m missing to make it clearer in who says what (I can figure out who has to say what, because of the story, but it wasn’t clear to me from the writing). And the first one has a confusing し that I’m not sure if it is the counting reasons し or another one my dictionary suggested (meaning: and, besides, moreover, what’s more, not only… but also).

Also under details because post go looooooong

し sentence: 暑いし暇で、することがない。 Context (might be needed??): 坊ちゃん needs to be the night guard for the student 寮. The sentence before talks about where the room is in the dormitory, and the following sentence says he decided to go to an onsen for a bath in the evening.
Not at all sure exactly what it means. Well, I know the words, from warm to free time to not needing to do anything? Is it just: it is warm, I have free time and nothing to do.

That just seems like a weird sentence to me, but maybe that is what it means and it is an explanatory sentence for what comes next (aka his decision to go to an onsen)?

I guess maybe in Japanese it isn’t weird? ¯\(ツ)

Who is saying what sentence:

二人とも、宿直のおれが外を歩いているのを見て「今日は宿直ではなかったか」と聞くので、「ああ、そうだ」と答えて帰ってきた。

Wait, actually, typing it out, I think it became clearer. I missed the を見て before when reading. So they (the 二人 in our case) see 坊ちゃん out walking and say “Are you the night watch tonight?” and 坊ちゃん answers “ああ、そうだ” and continues to return to the destination of the school 寮 (or is it that he arrives there at that moment? Anyway, not my main point). So yeah, missed て form confusing me again, but as with another sentence (that I didn’t need to share because I fully got it!), earlier answers by Belerith (took off the tag because I don’t want to spam you ^^) means I understood it. :smiley: (It was about ばいい again. And a different version of 始めから: 最初から)

Also had a ものか that I still remembered because I had to look it up before and shared it. This sharing thing is useful. ^^


Edit:
It is after midnight my time, so Friday:

Happy birthday @potatonaught! :confetti_ball: :birthday:

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April 28th!

I read a chapter of Shirokuma Cafe today. It was one of the longer chapters for this manga, at 11 pages.
I’m enjoying this manga a lot, there is something really relaxing about it.

(Home Post)

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Summary post

Well indeed, I read quite a bit later yesterday. I also read today for well over 12,000 characters until I totally finished the Kamome route! :partying_face: That took just a little over a week so if I can keep up this pace, things are looking good… I have 3 to go, and then however much remains for the big finale true end.

I really liked Kamome’s route a lot! There were actually a few touches I didn’t truly expect from where I was, and it ended up with enough weight to really hit hard, but still overall just very pleasant. And not in the pure romance way you might be expecting. While this game does have romance, most of the routes really terminate in helping the girls accomplish something important to them or helping them to work through something, which is a nicer payoff than it just being about the relationships. In some of them the protagonist could really be just as aptly described as a really good friend, minus a little kissing or something along those lines, heh.

Bit of a spoiler image, one more time before we move to the next route

As I said, I’m doing one more expected easy route and then the ones I was somewhat avoiding. Curious to see if they’re indeed noticeably harder. All the same, despite bumps in difficulty, I’m really starting to feel like I have Summer Pockets down. And I know I’m saying that after reading enough to fill multiple books, haha, but I mean less “yeah I can handle this” and more “this is a solid reading level for me” as in, it’s something I’m just comfortable with. Finally have that feeling that over the long run, this has kinda leveled up my abilities, constant new words notwithstanding. It’s both a benefit and a detriment as a learner that visual novels are so long. The good part is that I imagine until I’m very far out in my studies, the completion of most will take so much time and feature so much practice that I have to have noticed my progress by the time the end comes.

So yeah, good day. Feeling great about my amount of progress, at this moment. And I’ll have that posted here to refer to when I change my mind soon :stuck_out_tongue:

I wouldn’t forget to include a new word though! How about 回し者 (まわしもの), a spy or secret agent.

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My favorite picture is when Ryou got his man!

I finished the latest Officer Ryou book today. He, of course, caught the fake Santa, recovered the stolen goods, got the story and his picture on the front page of the newspaper, and got his girl a nice Christmas gift. Once again, Officer Ryou saves the day!

Tomorrow is another Ryou story!

New Word:

クリスマス Christmas

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I’m glad to help!

Well, since I'm here already

More like it is hot, but yes. That sentence really gives me summer break vibes from my childhood. It’s too hot to do anything outside, but there’s nothing to do inside either, and I’m just bored to death. :rofl:

It doesn’t feel weird to me, at least. Also, going to the onsen (especially the 露天風呂 part) is really nice when it’s hot outside.

Well, you already got it, but I just wanted to say, that’s pretty insane work ethics from the character. “Being on watch is too boring, I’m going to the onsen” :rofl: Good thing someone caught him.

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More 坊ちゃん

I guess the part I find weird is that it is a sentence by itself. And that the part about deciding to go to the onsen wasn’t the second half of the sentence. Maybe I’m just getting so used to this story having long sentences, basically putting together everything in one sentence so when it didn’t, it felt weird and unconnected. Which is why I started wondering if there was something to the sentence I was missing, but apparently not.

Whatever got you the idea he has a good work ethic. :joy: The ones who saw him was the principal and the head math teacher too, not that I think either of them cared.

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More 坊ちゃん

In this case, the disconnect is necessary. It feels like he is just bored at first, then has the realization he could just go to the onsen. I’m having trouble explaining what I mean, but something like “I am bored so I’ll go to the onsen” versus “I am boooored… Oh! I know! I’ll go to the onsen.”

That book is starting to sound pretty fun, actually. I should check if they have it at my local library :rofl:

Didn’t you say it’s past midnight for you, though? :sweat_smile: Like, two hours ago.

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Summary Post

April 28
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Vocabulary
  • 殺害 = さつがい murder, killing.
  • 部下 = ぶか subordinate.

Been a few days since last mission, did another one today. Only one or two left.

Nice! I’m glad to read that :tada: . Time to ride the fun wave this time :sunglasses: .

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Only got to read after work today, not before as I prefer. And then only read one page of 霧のむこうのふしぎな町 before the mental strain became too great and I switched to 夜カフェ2.

Feeling a bit bummed actually, like my progress is just SO SLOW. Although I only finished one novel I have read about three quarters of two other novels as well, not to mention five elementary school readers and eleven manga volumes. And yet, 霧のむこう continues to kick my butt. :frowning: I know I’m just being impatient, but I also kinda feel like maybe I’m a little slow.

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The magic spell continues. Each time this topic came up, I yawned. It didn’t help that I was already tired because I’ve been getting less sleep than usual these days.

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April 28 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

I played some more Zero Escape! It’s still a lot of fun, finals season is just kind of wrecking me (頑張(がんば)れ other finals people! :muscle:) so I can’t play as much as I’d like but that’s alright, it’ll be over soon :laughing: Onward!

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April 28th (Calendar Post)

私の拳をうけとめて! => 66 pages (80 minutes)

Felt absurdly sleepy today so I couldn’t read as much as I’d have liked.

Some fun panels:

やべ~

えっへん

creak noises

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That cover is seriously gorgeous! I want to read it now too despite having no other context!

When walk through book stores I’ll take photos of books to add to a “pretty books” Google photos album, this book 100% belongs in there.

I remember that story! I also started using those graded readers maybe a year ago now and I am still reading some of the later entries in the series, they’re really great for learning to read.

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Summary Post

Day 28: April 28th
What did I read?: ダイロクセンス Vol 1
How much did I read?: 20 pages
How long did it take me?: 24 min

Didn’t have a ton of time to read today, but still really enjoying this! I low-key love the main detective character in this, she’s great xD And I’m extremely intrigued by Rui :eyes: I think he’s where the title of this must come from.

Things took quite a turn today

So first we get the thrilling conclusion of the 知恵の輪 contest - Rui tries to sabotage Sumire by gluing her puzzle shut (he’s a little sneaky sneak and randomly carries glue around, apparently). It almost works, but in the last round of the competition, she uses her hulk strength to break her puzzle open anyway and she wins the camera xD It looks like everything is about to wrap up nicely but then suddenly
~RANDOM MURDER~
And Sumire goes into detective mode :dark_sunglasses: :sparkles: (Which is another reason I love her, she’s so competent and professional when it’s time to be competent and professional~) She’s gathering eyewitness accounts, when out of nowhere Rui drops a knowledge bomb regarding the perp. (How does he know~) He’s about to just peace out, but Sumire’s like “the hell you are” and offers to give him the camera if he helps her track down the person. The precious camera :o

Idk why I feel the urge to recap everything but I’m enjoying this manga xD

Good words
  • 閃き (ひらめき) - insight; flash (of inspiration, wit, etc.)​
  • 脳筋 (のうきん) - muscle-brain; meathead; hot-blooded idiot; person who charges in before thinking
  • 背に腹は代えられない (せにはらはかえられない) - you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs; you can’t solve a problem without making some sacrifice
  • ケチ付ける (けちつける) - to find fault (with); to cavil (at); to carp (about); to complain; to pick holes (in)​

I’m so exhausted, time to go to bed :upside_down_face:

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Home

I finished ch 1 of クールドジ男子. This time around, I noticed Souma (4) in the izakaya where Hayate (1) works! In this volume at least, each chapter focuses on a different character, and the current chapter’s will meet the next chapter’s at the end of their own chapter, so it naturally kinda leads into the next, and then at the end of Souma’s chapter, he runs into Hayate. But Souma actually makes a brief appearance in the middle of Hayate’s, too! Even though he’s at the beginning of the volume before the story starts, I didn’t know his name then and I didn’t pay any mind to him when I first read it (in English); I just thought he was some random customer.

Oh, and each of the main characters is named after the order they’re introduced in: 一倉(いちくら)(はやて), 二見(ふたみ)(しゅん), 三間(みま)貴之(たかゆき), 四季(しき)蒼真(そうま), and then at the very end of vol 2 we meet 五十嵐(いがらし)元晴(もとはる), so I don’t know him yet.

Apparently, it’s getting an anime adaptation this October! I’m excited. Hmmm this is making me wanna read the novel too now. I do have it, but it was lower priority. I’d figured I’d decide between it and 風が強く吹いている once I’d finished (or caught up on) 2.43, but, hm.

Update: Ohhh my god, and Umehara Yuuichirou is voicing Mima! I’ve been using his voice for him! Granted, because he looks a bit like Aoki, but still!! I love his voice so much.

Some vocab of note:

やらかす [サ五, transitive] to fail; to blunder; to make a mess
即決 (そっけつ) [noun, する verb] prompt decision; quick decision

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They really are great for the beginning reader, aren’t they? I was scared to start reading, which is why I hadn’t done it yet. But these readers are so much fun, I actually love reading Japanese now. I’m no longer intimidated by reading.

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