📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

[MissDagger]

@Daisoujou

Mostly this, yeah. Sometimes a few chapters are pretty directly connected, but that’s more of a technical correction than anything meaningful for you because every volume break provides a pretty natural stopping point; it’s only mid-volume that they do that.

I figured as much, and it actually makes me more likely to like Yotsubato. When every story is just one chapter, it doesn’t give as much room to sometimes tell bigger stories. Good to know that those never happen across volumes though, that I appreciate mightily.

JLPT testing quality digression

@Daisoujou

And the test had me almost constantly feeling uncertain between 2 answers even on stuff I knew, because it’s really made to catch if you know something “well enough” but not entirely (which is basically all my knowledge haha), but I guess I did decently despite how it felt.

Many questions that that happens on are specifically written to hinge on a couple or only one sentence/phrase to find the correct answer. Basically making you a detective to figure out what this very bad communicator tried to actually convey.

These kinda “haha tricked ya!” questions on test I find to be especially worthless, because the likelihood of these situations happening in reality (without being able to ask for clarification or later context (in case of a text) making the meaning clear) are infinitesimal.

I find so much of it poor at actually testing language skill. Reading texts and answering questions about them especially should be about comprehending the text as a whole, not catching you out on this one sentence in the middle that showed the reversal while the rest is written to be ambiguous for the sake of making that one sentence critical to understanding the whole piece.

Instead of testing you on language, it seems to test you on how well you can understand poorly communicated messages.

Alas, when it comes to school things (such as tests and similar) I feel like school have forgotten what they are trying to actually test, and I’m left being the only rational one between me and school. xD Hubris, I knew thee name.

Edit: Just making the post smaller by using a detail tag.

[Daisoujou]

Adding onto my little JLPT digression

@MissDagger

Many questions that that happens on are specifically written to hinge on a couple or only one sentence/phrase to find the correct answer. Basically making you a detective to figure out what this very bad communicator tried to actually convey.

These kinda “haha tricked ya!” questions on test I find to be especially worthless, because the likelihood of these situations happening in reality (without being able to ask for clarification or later context (in case of a text) making the meaning clear) are infinitesimal.

Oh absolutely. Totally agree with everything you said. The listening is worst for that. They have a mini section that tests overall comprehension of a whole conversation by basically just asking about the whole idea, and I got a perfect score on that section. But a section a little before it? I felt like I understood everything, answered with reasonable confidence, and got something like 4 out of 5 wrong heh. Part of the listening section is designed in that way where the conversations are this unnatural little maze designed to at some point use every word in the answers. Sometimes they change their minds in the dialog and if you miss that one line, oops. Totally aggravating.

So yeah, whole comprehension is the way to go. I guess their sorta rapid fire answer section was interesting as well – basically people say one sentence then you have 3 choices for what’s a natural response. Felt like it at times tested some subtleties of communicating in Japanese but in a good way. I did well on that section too but I have to say it was stressful. For some reason it takes me a moment to really zero in my focus on Japanese listening so when operating on single tiny sentences, I had to try to focus so hard to not let half of the prompt just pass me by.

[wiersm]

Finished the big chapter near the end of かがみの孤城, so I’m really happy with that! Only one more chapter and the epilogue to go. I’m tempted to just continue and finish now, just like others in the book club have done.

[Redglare]

Summary post

May 17th

・薬屋のひとりごと 2 (20% → 25%)

Finished chapter 4. The chapters in this book definitely feels longer than in the previous book.

[potatonaught]

May 17

My friend saw Spirited Away for the first time last night, and it reminded me about to check on tickets to the livestream of the stage adaptation.

The frustration thing is that even on vpn, Hulu Japan won’t let me create an account, and without an account, I don’t think I can purchase a ticket through the store.

DEAR COMPANIES, LET ME GIVE YOU MONEY, GOD!

Anyway, I probably won’t get a chance to read much else tonight (watch me go read something right now) but I’m counting that webpage as enough.

[lucylavelle]

May 17th!

I finished the first volume of ふしぎねこのきゅーちゃん today.
I’d definitely recommend it for anybody who wants something with low text density thats easy to stop and start when you don’t have much time.

I’m definitely going to read the next volume too, but I’m reading quite a lot of different books at the same time right now, so I’m going to try to finish off one or two of them before starting another new one!

(Home Post)

[Daisoujou]

I’m running short on time today, and something’s been really wrong with my wrist/hand, so I’ll keep it short. Read a little over 7000 characters again, so still hitting that goal.

There’s nothing too exciting in the image part here – but I need evidence there were zombies. (Well ok it was a dream )

More N1 stuff: “ないとも限らない” (not necessarily).

New word: 蝕む (むしばむ), either “to be eaten by worms” or “to spoil/ruin/affect adversely/etc.” Extremely intuitive word, even the kanji is like bug + eat.

[Naphthalene]

@Daisoujou

New word: 蝕む (むしばむ), either “to be eaten by worms” or “to spoil/ruin/affect adversely/etc.” Extremely intuitive word, even the kanji is like bug + eat.

Well, you have to know the word 食む, but when you do, it’s a a free word indeed

[pocketcat]

Today was 59% → 64% of モテ薬, if I have more time later in the evening I might read the next chapter as well as it’s also on the shorter side. There was finally a meaningful story development, but it felt like too little too late at this point.

I also impulse bought 硝子の塔の殺人 and read the prologue. Seems like fun, pretty easy writing style so far. I had no idea ガラス could be written as 硝子, though. Throw it in there with 珈琲 and 煙草

@potatonaught

The frustration thing is that even on vpn, Hulu Japan won’t let me create an account, and without an account, I don’t think I can purchase a ticket through the store.

DEAR COMPANIES, LET ME GIVE YOU MONEY, GOD!

I feel this so much. I actually primarily have a Viki subscription just to support more dramas being licensed for international viewing since the majority of what they put on their platform is romcoms and I’m just not that into those. They do occasionally have good stuff (they once had Signal and currently have ミステリと言う勿れ!) but overall…meh.

[MaraVos]

Read 10+ pages today!

夜カフェ２ is getting so good! The author, 倉橋(くらはし)-sensei is getting into a much more nuanced perspective on bullying. I love that the wise, fun, admirable aunt straight up says いつもいい子でいる必要もない。 And Ryouma-kun nicknames ハナビ 線香ハナビ (I just think that’s such a cute image and I love it for ハナビ). I think the story really benefits from having backstory from the first book. Also, this is not really a book you can sit down to thinking “alright I’m gonna pound out some pages”. You gotta be ready for the iyashikei vibes haha. In some moods that frustrates me a little, but at other times it’s really nice. I guess that might be why I keep swinging back and forth between feeling like I’m making great progress and feeling like I’ll never make any progress.

[DIO-Berry]

Yeah, I think it’s interviews for the more obscure or changed names, like Hol Horse being from Hall and Oates. Some are still unconfirmed I believe, like Holly, but I’m pretty sure hers is from The Hollies, since they’re old enough and a rock band. Others are written the exact same way as their namesake or in a way that matches either the spelling or pronunciation better (like ヴァニラアイス instead of バニラアイス).

[dunlewy]

I just finished “Hikoichi and the Living Umbrella”. I am laughing. After making “living umbrellas” to make some money, Hikoichi sells one to the Lord. Telling everyone the umbrella would open when it rains and close when it was not raining, Hikoichi fooled the Lord, because, of course, the umbrella didn’t do that! When it rained and the umbrella didn’t open by itself, the Lord complained. Hikoichi said, “Let me see that umbrella. Why, it hasn’t eaten for a long time. It has died.” My FAVORITE Hikoichi story so far!

[windupbird]

Summary Post

Day 47: May 17th
What did I read?: クマとたぬき Vol 2
How much did I read?: 13 pages
How long did it take me?: 16 min

More soft animals! A whole pack of soft animals :o

My weird lighting and my editing combined to make it look like they’re running at sunset lol - it wasn’t intentional but I love it

Look at the tanuki putting its little feeties in the water

A couple good words

• 突風 (とっぷう) - gust (of wind); blast
• 間引く (まびく) - to thin out (plants, seedlings, crops, etc.); to cull (apparently in the old days it could also mean “to kill a newborn child due to financial difficulties” )

[2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz]

May 18th (Calendar Post)

ハロー、メランコリック！ => 30 pages (35 min)
隣の席の佐藤さん => 26 pages (28 min)

Completed ハロー、メランコリック！ yey~

And started a new manga, 隣の席の佐藤さん. Author seems to really like going for some quite rare kanji with no furigana - hopefully that’d be good practice for my kanji.

Some fun panels from today’s reading:

#lendMeYourFace

はん⁉

はあぁ…？

And the award for world’s cutest band-aid goes to…

Also, interesting vocab I ran into:

[omk3]

Day 47

告白 ~ 80-90%

Read a big chunk yesterday, and hope to do so today too. As with most books, I get impatient when I see the end approaching. I talked before about how I almost sympathize with the current narrator - well, not really any more. It’s really hard to side with anyone in this book. Usually as long as a story is told from someone’s point of view, that’s more than enough for me to get in their shoes and be on board with their motivations. Not so here. I do get to understand them and even feel for them up to a point (some more than others), but then they lose me. And this is where the various cruel twists and turns of this story even get humorous for me. Not sure if it’s intentional, but I did actually chuckle at several points as this drama unfolded, even while my heart broke at others.

I ran into a proverb yesterday: 窮鼠猫を噛む (a cornered rat will bite a cat)
窮鼠 is a cornered rat, or cornered animal in general.

@Daisoujou

but I need evidence there were zombies

ゾンビ！ I too ran into this word in my book, soon after our zombie/vampire discussion! Fun seeing it in katakana.

@dunlewy

Hikoichi said, “Let me see that umbrella. Why, it hasn’t eaten for a long time. It has died.”

Poor umbrella!

[natarin]

May 17 Home Post

Well I was busy today and my physical manga aren’t currently easily accessible so I decided to read a tiny bit on bookwalker just to check off today, and I ended up reading like 70 pages of 妖怪(ようかい)アパートの幽雅(ゆうが)な日常(にちじょう) accidentally so that was fun, but now it’s time to sleep for sure.

[omk3]

Oh cool, is that the manga or the novel? I have the first three volumes of the manga from another time they were free (they still are, I see), and plan to get around to reading it at some point. Judging by how many pages you read, I assume you liked it?

[pyororon]

May 17th
Finished 悪魔のパズル two days ago, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would it was a pretty cute story, might read the second one at some point. Books around this level feel pretty comfortable to read now, although there was a lot of more fantasy related vocab I had to look up in this one.
Then today and yesterday I started reading 真夜中のパン屋さん 午前0時のレシピ which I found when I was browsing kids books on bookwalker. Turns out it’s probably one of those cases where it’s just a normal novel with more furigana added in the kids version, although I think this one’s aimed at slightly older kids because only some words have furigana. Way more difficult than the other books I’ve read but It’s really interesting so far, apparently it was adapted into a drama at some point too. So far it’s about a kind of prickly girl who due to some circumstances ends up staying at this bread shop that’s only open throughout the night that tends to attract customers with interesting circumstances. (Man would I love it if a bread shop like this was in my neighborhood, I’d buy bread every night )

Story thoughts so far

The book started out by describing the bread shop “Boulangerie Kurebayashi,” which is run by these two guys and only open at night. Late at night on April Fools, in an unusual occurrence a high school girl suddenly visits the shop, holding a luggage bag. She asks for Kurebayashi Miyako, and the man running the store is really surprised and reveals that’s his wife and asks what’s up. The girl then says that Miyako is her older half sister and asks if he’s heard anything about her, which really shocks the guys at the bread shop, and that’s where the prologue ends. The first chapter opens with a focus on the girl, Nozomi who’s describes as いつも腹が立ている。Which is understandable reading the next part, after this her life so far is described and her mother abandoned her with her grandparents until she was six, then took her back with her to Tokyo and started leaving her with a bunch of random people (some of which apparently weren’t the nicest) for anywhere from a half day to ten days at a time. This continued until she was in high school when it stopped and she assumed that maybe her mother was finally trying harder, until she wakes up on April fools and all of her mother’s stuff is gone from the house, leaving behind only two letters, one of which said that she’s going on a trip and It’ll probably be long so she canceled the rent for the room and Nozomi needs to leave before the next day, as well as that she found her a place to stay with her much older half sister. Nozomi is pretty sure that her mother must have lied to the person by saying they were sisters since she researched herself about her dad and he refused to meet her and has a wife and sons. There it goes back to the events of the prologue and she asks if she can meet Mariko only for the husband to tell her that she passed away about half a year ago. And that’s where I had to stop I really can’t wait to see what happens after this

Vocab (lots of bread related words)

焼きたて （やきたて）fresh made; freshly baked; freshly roasted
調理パン （ちょうりぱん）dressed bread; bread to which something has been added (sandwich, pirogi, etc.); stuffed bread (rolls, buns, etc.)
捏ね上げる （こねあげる）to knead thoroughly; to work up
クープ coupe, that line cut in the middle of bread before baking (I think)
バタール bâtard, type of bread
托卵 （たくらん）brood parasitism (planting one’s eggs in another bird’s nest, as demonstrated by the cuckoo, etc.)
もぬけの殻 （もぬけのから）completely empty (of a residence, etc.); vacant; deserted​
万年床 （まんねんどこ）bedding that is never put away during the day; permanently laid-out futon

[enbyboiwonder]

Home

I planned to go to bed early both yesterday and today, but yesterday I ended up passing out even earlier lol. Ugh, my staying up late playing Heroes is catching up to me already, it makes me feel old.

I read the preview for the first volume of both the とんでもスキルで異世界放浪メシ manga and LN (although I didn’t finish that one yet as it’s unexpectedly long), as well as the spin-off manga スイの大冒険. I don’t normally go for isekais, but I came across a post reccing some on tumblr, and that was one of the few that sounded interesting, so I may give it a go at some point. Never thought I’d make a wishlist for isekais, but here we are lol

Also the good thing about this one is there’s a lot of the same vocab as in DQ Heroes since it’s set in the same type of world, so I’ve already come across at least some of it so far. Which would definitely help with the novels since they have little furigana, while both the manga have full furigana. Also I haven’t read a single fantasy since I started reading in Japanese. I literally grew up on the sword and sorcery genre!

The first thing I did though was play DQ Heroes. I recruited Jessica and Yangus, and made it to the dwarven city (or at least, to what I think is the last stage outside of it). I think the next one might be the farthest I made it to playing on Steam (and in less time), but I’ll find out today. Even though the reading is a lot (and I mean a lot) more slow-going, the gameplay is much easier since this is actually made for the Switch, whereas the one on Steam is just the PlayStation port, so while I think you can map the buttons onto your keyboard however you want, the screen still just shows the PS buttons, and it’s difficult for me to keep track even with a key taped up above my laptop screen, and I often end up pressing the wrong keys. I’ve only failed a mission once this time around, versus… a lot on the PC.

Oh yeah, and it’s easier than I thought to keep everyone at a similar level. When I mentioned it before, it was while my only playable character was still Luc, and I’d forgotten that everyone in your party gets the same amount of EXP from stages, even if you don’t play as them. Everyone back at Patty’s Party Planning Place (a.k.a. Luida’s Tavern) also gets EXP, though I’m not sure what percentage.

Also, there are getting to be fewer words that I gotta look up. That I gotta re look up, sure, but I’m guessing I’ve gotten to a big portion of the words that show up more often in this game. I mean, undoubtedly there’ll be more, since I’m still near the beginning, but.

Some vocab of note:

胡散臭い (うさんくさい) [い-adjective] suspicious; shady; questionable; dubious; fishy
贅沢三昧 (ぜいたくざんまい) [四字熟語, noun] indulging in every possible luxury
古 (いにしえ) [noun] antiquity; ancient times. The longest reading for a single kanji I remember seeing. Also, this came up in Heroes the day before(?) but in kana, so when I came across it in とんでもスキル in kanji (and one of the few with furigana, to boot), I decided I may as well add it.
洞くつ (どうくつ) [noun] cavern; cave; cave system; grotto. Though it appears as written in DQH, it seems it’s usually written 洞窟.

[polv]

@polv

I am a little sorry that I looked up … It’s basically a spoiler without scrolling .

Now, I realized that spoiler prevention is as easy as, searching in Japanese vocabulary + " JoJo". Not a completely perfect avoidance of spoilers, though, but at least hundred times safer than Wiki.

@natarin

read a tiny bit on bookwalker just to check off today

I wonder what kind of device people here use to read on Bookwalker (or Kindle)? Smartphone? Tablet?

Please round up the number, btw.

• Smartphones (5-inch or lower)
• 7-inch tablets
• 10-inch or larger tablets
• Something else electronic

Personally, I also read on working shifts, but I might not be holding a tablet. As for now, I would read JoJo on a Smartphone, and regularly switching to dictionary apps (Akebi, Kotobank) and web browser. Tablet feels more productive and more like learning, though.

Kotobank is better, but I still use Akebi to send to Anki. Also, Akebi, like most other JE dictionaries, can parse conjugations.

Death Note might be possible, but won’t work well (for me) with novels like Yoru Cafe (mainly because - too long a section); and perhaps not yet Yuru Camp.

---

May 18, Wed calendar post

Week 8 of Spring 2022’s progress

This week, I have energy to post like several days straight, lol.

I also look a little more into Netflix, and reach a conclusion of, I am not ready to listen on Netflix. Though, I might make reading club’s watching along, an exception. 遺(い)憾(かん) isn’t it? Somehow, JoJo likes to use 遺憾.

But now I have an additional reading goals, but not yet the grammar (i.e. maybe later).

• 3 freestyle articles / blog posts, to be read seriously (one of them is already selected JoJo’s)
  • Probably will be 5 per week, starting next week.

Interesting vocabularies

• 真(ま)蜱(だに) tick - the second Kanji seems specific to tick / mite - see also 姫(ひめ)蜱(だに) (this one is from 呪術廻戦 EP.1)
• パープリン - バカ・アホ・気違い - 漫画東大一直線に出てくる用語で、「(頭が)パーなのでまるで脳がプリン」を意味する。 - par (on the level of Tokyo Uni), but pudding (プリン) brain
• 館(やかた) mansion, much bigger than 屋(や)敷(しき)
• 断(だん)末(まつ)魔(ま) death agony (painful death), can also be written 断末摩 (last Kanji is for rubbing)
• 事(じ)務(む)的(てき) of business (like business talk)
• お辞儀(じぎ) bowing for politeness. Typing お in front makes JE dictionary smarter.

Same reading (and pitch) for 児戯(じぎ) (child's play) and perhaps a few other words

• 神(しん)秘(ぴ) mysterious (seems like doings of god)
• ひと月(つき) also written 一月 and means 一ヶ月
• 試(し)練(れん) trial, ordeal - I guess it works for trial of courage too.
• 好(この)みはうるさい difficult to please. An alternate meaning of うるさい.

More spoiler’ish, but I want to show it anyway

• 昇柱器 (しょうちゅうき, ツヨロン) - https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1139239036 - pole climbing equipment, I think

First third of JoJo part 2's training

Now JoJo and Caesar fell into HellClimb Pillar (yes, there is only ・ between Climb and Pillar)

And, also young JoJo’s personal history… at おまけ!

Persons and places

• ジャン・ギャビン JoJo’s fav actor - Jean Gabin seems to be a famous and influential French actor from 1940s on.
• Fictional names
  • ジョセフ・ジョースター Josef Joestar (I can’t correctly spell this in English before.)
• Fictional places
  • エア・サピレーナ島(とう) Air Supplena Island - supposedly can be reached from Venice, Italy. / ref = Air Supply. I think I have heard their songs before.
  • 地獄昇柱 Furigana’d HellClimb Pillar , but I assume it can also be read 地(じ)獄(ごく)昇(しょう)柱(ちゅう)

Vocabularies

• 感(かん)心(しん) admiration
• 矯(きょう)正(せい) correction
• 支(し)障(しょう) restriction, hindrance - Lisa want to correct JoJo’s breath with restrictions
• 投(とう)獄(ごく) imprisonment (who do you think this JoJo really is?)