📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

:tiger2: :books: Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220515 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

Tanuki Scroll XLV: 鉢かづき姫 :bowl_with_spoon:

Read today’s folktale, from Osaka prefecture!

About a couple who a longing for a child, and one day they finally get a daughter. But when she turns 13 her mother falls gravely ill, and to remember her by she puts a rice bowl on her daughter’s head.


:seedling: Japanese found in the tall grass :seedling:

New Things

形見「かたみ」ー Memento; keepsake; heirloom
若君「わかぎみ」ー Young lord or prince

Forgotten Things
枕元「まくらもと」ー Pillow-side / bed-side

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Summary post :bookmark:

May 15th :cherry_blossom:

・薬屋のひとりごと 2 (15% → 19%)

Finished chapter 3 and a tiny bit of chapter 4. I feel like these chapters are getting longer and longer.

Thoughts: Maomao is fun and self-contradictary (did I spell that right). On one hand Maomao is kinda unintentionally savage causing Jinshi to take emotional damage, but on the other hand Jinshi lurks behind every corner and overhears things not meant for his ears and misinterprets stuff. So miscommunication is a thing, even Maomao took notice. “Gaoshun, just express what you really want to say, just tell me… Not that I tend to do the exact same thing which results in major misunderstandings or anything like that, lol”. Like, Maomao what do you mean, the series could’ve stopped short at the end of the first book because of lack of clear communication?! :scream: This girl, I swear dksdksjksd. Thank god for plot armor, right :stuck_out_tongue:

New phrase: ()きにしも(あら)ず, “not non-existent”. I can’t tell what’s going on with the kana between the two kanji. Shimo = ?. Since it is an expression maybe it’s some lingering grammar stuff from ye olde times.

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Day 45

Read 2 pages of 都道府県のおはなし as part of ABBC. Today’s pages were about ねぶたまつり in あおもりけん and リアスかいがん in いわてけん.

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There is another grammar point, 必ずしも、where Bunpro explains: “… and the 副助詞ふくじょし (adverbial particles) し and も. し and も are often combined in order to strengthen the meaning of the word before it.” :woman_shrugging:

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I missed my first day yesterday. Or skipped. I had a friend over from early in the day and she was staying over. And by the time, we finished watching Eurovision Song Contest (we watched for the weird and the wonderful that sometimes also comes with good music :joy:), it was after 1 am, and I decided that I wasn’t up for just symbolically reading something to give myself an artificial check mark—also I was very tried. :rofl:

But today I was back at it again. Although I thought I’d have to ask for help with some confusion in 四十七人の侍, but decided to carefully read through the confusion passage again. I knew most of my confusion came from me not being sure who was saying one specific thing.

So carefully I read and guess what was hiding the grass? A very important て conjugated verb that told the story clear as day who was saying the dialog. And knowing who was saying it, made it about 10000% more easily parsed. (As in suddenly what he was saying made sense, rather than me trying to figure out what it could mean when I thought it was the other guy who was saying it.)

Confusion cleared up, I reread the rest of the chapter (which was only one more page), and then embarked on reading two chapters. I’m enjoying the samurai/historical setting. (There is a reason I bought the full set of Rurouni Kenshin manga since I enjoyed the anime. I am however somewhat terrified about the difficulty so it isn’t very high on my next-to-read list. :joy:)

And maybe because I’m reading so regularly now, or maybe because I’m digging into the sentences I’m not sure about, but I really feel like my reading have taking giant steps forward. The idea of reading any light novel/novels have terrified me before. They still do, but to a lesser degree at least. ^^

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A busy day today, but I still managed to read a good chunk of かがみの孤城 🪞 Week 25 so I’m happy with that! The book can be quite a breezy read sometimes. :slightly_smiling_face:

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ohhh, seems like kotobank has a page on shimo as an adverbial particle :eyes: :sparkles: しもとは? 意味や使い方 - コトバンク

I didn’t even watch but someone told me they thought Norway was the funniest, so I checked them out. Well, the concept was hilarious :joy: “Before the wolf eats my grandma, give that wolf a banana”. So Norway sent meme lords to Eurovision this year.

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It even contains a link to the にし combo when explaining the different usages of も :eyes:

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Norway was weird, but funny.

If you wanna watch creepy, look at Serbia’s. Their performance evokes kinda medical psychological thriller vibes for me.

I liked Australia’s, it was wonderfully different that worked so well for the song.

(There was one performance that had a good pop song but the performance just clashed with the song so they kinda ruined each other somehow. The performance could have worked for a different song though, it was kinda cool, if also a bit evocative of mental hospitals. This year’s theme? :rofl:)

As I said, I don’t watch Eurovision song contest for the great music. It can have that, but it is more about the performances and what they bring. And I also enjoy those that just have good dancing/performance with a good song, it doesn’t need to be weird. But honestly, I mostly watch ESC for the weird. xD

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Summary Post

Day 45: May 15th
What did I read?: クマとカラス
How much did I read?: 47 pages
How long did it take me?: 1 hr 27 min

I finished this today and low-key cried my eyes out :sob: The situation wasn’t what I suspected yesterday, but uh somehow this is worse, WHY IS IT WORSE :sob: After a certain point I could kind of see that Crow was going to have to “go” somehow once his wish had been fulfilled, because ヤタガラス did say that it was just a little more time, but why did Bear have to forget Crow too?? :sob: :sob: :sob: They were bestie friends and now :sob: No memory, just vague feelings that someone was there helping him :cry: Like he almost remembers but not quite and it hurts me, Bearrrrrrr On the bright side, Bear made it to the other island and found some bear buddies finally :heart: But my heart though

So yeah, this manga is extremely sweet and pretty cute, but it’s not pure fluffy-happy lighthearted animal antics like a lot of the other animal-centered manga I read. I recommend it but only if you want to cry, like a lot, at the end :smiling_face_with_tear:

Soothing my soul with some cute panels

Words
  • 存続 (そんぞく) - duration; continuance; survival; persistence; retention
  • 個体群 (こたいぐん) - population (e.g. of animals)​
  • 収容力 (しゅうようりょく) - capacity; accommodation
  • 鳥獣保護区 (ちょうじゅうほごく) - wildlife sanctuary; protection area for birds and wild animals
  • 武者震い (むしゃぶるい) - trembling with excitement

Idk :smiling_face_with_tear: The whole thing definitely has more bittersweet undertones than I thought it would when I bought it, but it mostly felt like things were ok/not too sad until the end wrecked me

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I read four more pages of “Hikoichi and the Living Umbrella”. It appears that Hikoichi is in a world of trouble for deciding to sell the umbrella (which doesn’t work) to the Lord of the region. I will see how wise Hikoichi is tomorrow.

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Summary post

Well, today’s reading sure was different.

I decided to take one of those full scale JLPT practice tests (thank you @NicoleIsEnough !) so I’ve been at that for the past 3 hours. That involves reading. I took the N2 just to see how hard I could push it and what would happen.

And I umm… theoretically passed? All I can do is assume equal weight to all questions because the JLPT grading can’t be replicated, but if I do that, I got 109 points, with 90 needed to pass! The reading section is indeed brutal, wow. I almost auto-failed due to that with like a 38% on that section. Honestly might’ve gotten a little lucky cause I didn’t understand all that much :grimacing:. There is a pretty big difference between these essays and visual novels. I’m normally a fast test taker but I finished that section with only 5 minutes left, heh. Anyway, the others carried me. I’ll talk about this more in my study log another day or something; I have the worst headache I’ve had in a long time lol.

But I did it, and I’m extremely pleased and honestly slightly shocked :partying_face:. If my energy returns I’ll do a little Summer Pockets to mine words tonight, but hey, I read! Just, you know, some of the worst reading material ever since starting to study this language :stuck_out_tongue:

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There are some benefits to using a better Furigana syntax (with an extra syntax parser), and one of them is guiding to learn Kanji readings.

  • (ばん)(そう)(こう) bandage, all in Hiragana in text - first Kanji is (きずな), third is 膏 (paste in toothpaste)

Another benefit is when I don’t use auto-Furigana inserter. Should I unnaturally type in sub-vocab or omitting-Okurigana, or type in a real vocabulary? (And seeing suggestions in the IME might help learning too.)

Of course, I can just 百鬼夜行 (ひゃっ.き.や.こう) , only that it is less Kanji specific.


May 16, Mon :cherry_blossom: calendar post

I’ve just relearned to look up vocabularies along the way :rofl: (and use Google when vocabulary isn’t found)

Week 8 of Spring 2022’s planning

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Day 44

  • ジョジョの奇妙(きみょう)冒険(ぼうけん)

72-91

The talk about what newspapers published was a pain in the ass to read. I’m also glad to finally finish off the parts with Speedwagon in them, he grinds my gears (sorry to people who like him).

I hope to read the last 50 or so pages today… We’ll see how that goes

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He seems like a joke character, who always survives… (although may be helpful occasionally)

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Yeah, I think most of my dislike is from the character’s popularity in the fandom. Although that could stem mostly from my dislike of the behaviors of the Western side of the fandom. I don’t feel like the Japanese fandom overdoes it. I don’t think I’ve seen the same joke from them 20x in a row.

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May 15th (Calendar Post)

ハロー、メランコリック! => 146 pages (198 min)

A nice quiet Sunday, best days to get some good amounts of reading done.

Today’s haul of fun panels:

image

あ…

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#hugeSmiles

image

お願い~

にひ~

え?

image

image

:basketball:

image

The secret technique of ストップ!! with a pet bottle.

Bonus fun panel: this is from the あとがき of volume 2 where the author talks about how their cat takes over their chair when they go for coffee

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May 15
Slept in late. Did usual routine very slowly today. ごろごろしていた
Watched about halfway of Kaji Yuuki’s latest tokimeki stream.
Started on the haikyuu 小説. managed to read all of one page lol

I should probably get back to the graded readers… i have level 3s and 4s remaining…

Edit: Was feeling guilty so I read a quick level 3, and saw that they updated the site with a new look, new level 5 readers, and added an extra level 1. ooh boy

Progress on Tadoku graded readers
44 / 44 level-zeros
12 / 13 level-ones
10 / 10 level-twos
1 / 18 level-threes

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Read 47% → 53% of モテ薬. Another relatively boring chapter. I have ~3.5 hours left in the book so I’m just going to keep plodding along, one chapter a day. I should finish in 8 days if I stick to that. Today was more sexism in STEM and complicated interpersonal relationships. I really do think if the material was presented a different way I’d be all about this story.
Wondering what I’ll jump to after it, although the advanced book club pick, 海辺のカフカ, starts in 13 days. Maybe I’ll finish some of the books I started in between. Orrrrr I’ll go off on another 青空文庫 binge. Who knows.

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Home

Had an exhausting day at work today, and then not long after I got home, I got the worst nosebleed I ever remember getting (it lasted for like 45 minutes and I dripped blood everywhere, even with a tissue shoved up my nostril. I could feel it running down onto my throat, which does often happen, yeah, but not for nearly that long. Most of my nosebleeds take 3 tissues max, but this one took something like 10, it was awful. I hope that never happens again), so, yeah, that was fun. The only reading I did was playing DQ Heroes for a few hours. I recruited Isla (named Julietta in the original??? Why so different. But then, Akuto & Luceus and Meer & Aurora are also wildly different, and it’s not like this doesn’t happen in other DQ games…), Alena, and Clift/Kiryl! I think Terry might be next? idk, I don’t remember, but hopefully. Anyway, I have the distinct feeling he’s gonna end up being my highest-level character by a longshot… well, barring Luc, whom I chose as my MC this time around. But Terry’s my favorite DQ character, and any time I come across someone who hates him (also that one person in the comments on Steam who’s being all misogynistic and whatnot and is like Terry’s Actually A Woman Crossplaying As Link, And Here’s Why. Well screw you, he’s trans/nonbinary now, so there [“I traded my gender for this cool sword. No regrets.”]), I just love him even more, and I already loved him a lot to begin with, so yeah. Don’t hurt either that he’s one of the easiest for me to play as. Julietta/Isla is probably the most difficult so far. I am so not good at judging distances, so the boomerang is less than ideal.

I unlocked the feature where you can rewatch cutscenes. I forgot this game had that! That’ll be nice.

Some stuff about the actual reading today:

Since I was tired again, the percentage of words I didn’t know or was unsure about that I looked up was probably about the same as yesterday, so: not very many. I mostly just wanted to hack and slash some monsters while listening to the DQ OST I love so much. I did figure out generally what 襲う means from context though, and for now I still remember the reading, so I feel a bit proud of that.

The way Diluc talks is fun, but also hard to read. I think he speaks Kansaiben, or at least something close to it (actually, if it were Kansaiben, I think he’d be using や a lot more; instead, it’s じゃ). At any rate, it’s very colloquial. He reminds me quite a bit of Daruk, although Daruk’s speech is definitely easier to follow along with.

“遠くの敵を攻撃できます” How the hell is that not できる being transitive? What the hell, why does imiwa only list it as intransitive, then? The “to be completed” sense, yeah, but the “potential form of する, which can be transitive or intransitive depending on usage”??? So transitive verbs don’t just suddenly become intransitive when they’re put in the potential, as I thought. That wouldn’t even make any sense, anyway.

lol it’s hilarious that they use 匹 even for the large monsters

So the Stonecloud is classified as a 空艦, and a few hours later, I came across the second kanji in Duolingo (軍艦巻き, “battleship sushi.” Okay then). Hopefully I won’t be forgetting that it’s read かん anytime soon then.

Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get to meet Terry, but also, I don’t have work tomorrow so I’m hoping I’ll be less tired and can get some manga- and/or novel-reading in, so we’ll see how much gaming I do.

Some vocab of note:

薙ぎ払う (なぎはらう) [ワ五, transitive] to mow down (the enemy)
一時的 (いちじてき) [な-adjective] temporary
氷結 (ひょうけつ) [noun, する verb] freezing; freezing over
万全を期す (ばんぜんをきす) [expression, サ五] to make absolutely sure
防具 (ぼうぐ) [noun] guard; protector; defensive armament; personal armor
健闘を祈る (けんとうをいのる) [expression, ラ五] to wish someone good luck; to wish someone success
百聞は一見に如かず (ひゃくぶんはいっけんにしかず) [proverb] seeing is believing; a single eyewitness is better than much hearsay; a picture is worth a thousand words

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