📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

May 19

And today I finished Roman Holiday booklet. The story picked up considerably from the boring part early on. Note for authors: when half your main characters (and there are exactly two) are asleep, interesting/fun conflict is hard to do. :joy:

(Side note: if you want to read some more commentary from me about graded readers, I did a post over in that book club.

Tomorrow, or today maybe if I have time, I will dig into native content. So I guess it is time to check on the poll and close it. /be right back


Poll results and my reflections on it

Thanks everyone for your votes and comments. It honestly helped me pick what I am going to read next and feel confident in my choice. Before then, I was pretty wishy-washy about what to pick, so your votes made a difference.

Lets go from the bottom up, shall we?

結婚しても got the short stick for sure. :joy: But perhaps you all agreed that I should try and revive the off-shoot book club and therefore voting for me reading it alone, made no sense. ^^ That is my interpretation of the no votes anyway. :rofl:

Something else was the suggestion of Fruits Basket, and it is high-ish on my list, so I made it fairly easily accessible too when I re-arranged my boxes of books. Aria got almost no love, haha. Poor Aria.

I’m not sure exactly when I will pick Aria, but for some reason I’m feeling pretty hype about it? Maybe because despite seeing it mentioned a lot around the forum (when it was an active club and for some time after), I actually don’t really know what happens in it at all. I know it is slice-of-life-ish, but how much? How much overarching plot is there? It does have an end, so supposedly something gets finished/changed (I hope anyway). But options higher in the poll is definitely higher on my reading list for now.

Sailor V was about as popular as the other low ones. Make me think that maybe I’ll just read it after Sailor Moon, like I originally planned. (Of course, I didn’t know that it was a prequel (I think) and started before Sailor Moon, when I started Sailor Moon.)

I’m skipping discussing Orange for a bit, and instead sticking with Sailor Moon. I found it interesting how many voted for me to continue that despite my somewhat negative commentary on it. Not sure what it means. Maybe we’re all just a bunch of completionists? :joy:

Just to be clear, I’m not putting anyone down for picking that. I would have left it off the poll if it truly didn’t interest me. ^^

Edit: I realized I forgot to get back to Orange, it has been covered pretty well in replies to the poll. It is high in my priority because it is one long story, but also only 6 volumes long. So not a super long time commitment while also giving the satisfaction of reading a proper story (instead of slice of life). And would hopefully have more even difficulty than Sailor Moon which always gets harder towards the end of an arch when the enemies are more present.

When it comes to manga, I think my plan looks like this:

  1. Read volume 1 of Yotsubato.
  2. Continue with volume 2 directly, or finish of the current arc in Sailor Moon (or possibly both)
  3. Profit?!?!?! :stuck_out_tongue:
  4. Keep reading Sailor Moon or switch to Orange, while possibly reading Yotsubato on the side.
  5. I don’t plan this far in advance.

As for Zenitendou… I honestly don’t know where I wanna slot that in. It got enough votes that clearly I should try to get to it sooner rather than later (it gained second place!). I’ll probably check in how I feel when I’ve finished the current arc of Sailor Moon. So maybe I won’t read more Sailor Moon or start Orange at that time, but slot Zenitendou there (so step 3 4).

So later today or tomorrow, Yotsubato is on the menu. /nom nom nom


On a slightly unrelated note, considering the difficulty of 坊っちゃん, would that be considered hard enough for Intermediate book club? I’m just kinda curious where I kinda fall in my current reading ability. ^^ I’ll probably be looking to join BBC for the next pick.

(Even if I can deal with IBC’s difficulty, its weekly volume might be more of a hindrance right now. I want to have time to read my own picks. :3 )

Edit: PS, I leveled up today. <3

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Like you guessed, the book club difficulty levels are often rather around “how much are you supposed to read in one week” instead of “how hard is it” - simply because it’s so hard to judge difficulty :woman_shrugging: Thankfully now we have Natively which helps a lot.
And yes, Beginner book club picks tend to be somewhat simpler (but that does not always work out) and the “Hard” category of the Advanced book club is named like that for a reason, but for Intermediate and Advanced-Fast, I cannot really draw a line when it comes to difficulty.

For your graded reader version of 坊っちゃん, I haven’t seen enough of it to determine its difficulty. Could you maybe post one or two pages of it to give us an impression?
Of course it would be “safer” to join the Beginner club first, but don’t hold yourself back when you are interested in reading Spy x Family and/or TUGUMI with the club. Usually interest trumps current skill level by far.

For your poll, I mainly picked Zenitendou because I wanted to say “read a non-manga book!” :grin: So it’s up to you what you make of it.

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I’m not sure, might be first or last of that pile. First because it is compact, last because this is most adult piece of literature I have. Either way it will be june at earliest.

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About ARIA

Err, pretty much none? I guess the character trying to become 一人前 in her profession of choice, but that’s not something that happens over night so the whole thing is just her making friends and discovering the world.

I wanted it to continue forever :sob:

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I knew it! :joy:

Although, now that I look at it again, this may be the only case in history where reality is actually cuter than the anime equivalent? :thinking:

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:tiger2: :books: Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220519 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

Tanuki Scroll XLIX: 魔物のふろしき包み :package:

Read today’s hyakumonogatari, this one features the return of VERY STRONG MAN but this time he’s a baggage carrier who laughs like this: がはははは.


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

New Things

貫目「かんめ」ー A unit of measurement, about 3.75kg

Forgotten Things
担い「にない」ー carrying; shouldering; bearing.
I knew the kanji but couldn’t remember how to say it


Never have I opened a spoiler tag so fast.

This is my sentiment too, how can they even exist??

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Happy forums anniversay @Zakarius !

May 19

I didn’t read anything yesterday cause I was hanging out with friends who were only in town for one day.

Tonight is more Dragon Quest! Looking forward to it.

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Replies

But then you would know without a doubt that the rest of it was (so much) easier than the hardest sentences that I posted here. :joy:

So many things I wanna read. Spy x Family has certainly come on my radar, but I’m also trying to stop myself from buying more books before I’ve finished some more of those I own. I want to be a bookworm, not a book collector :rofl: (Which kinda defies my wish to join book clubs. The internal struggle is real.)

However, point well taken! ^^ I will certainly let interest be my guide for whether I join a book club or not.

Ah, I forgot this point. You were probably not the only one. ^^ Manga seems so much safer to start, a lot of the time. With pictures to help and all, but it can also be a mess of casual language. (More on that in a bit, lol.)

Does sound fun. I don’t mind a slow progression without an overarching plot, but only as long as everyone doesn’t feel completely stuck in a time bubble (like many sitcoms are/was).

Awwww :pleading_face:


So I couldn’t stop myself from peeking into my next choice. I’d forgotten just how different truly casual language is. :sob: :joy:

Thankfully, I had a master course in learning how to read it waaaay back in 2019(?) during the 結婚しても愛してる book club. But I also need to remember it, haha. I don’t even think Sailor Moon gets that much contraction and slang. Or maybe my memory is poor on that.

Still, I remember looking at the first few pages of Yotsuba& when I originally bought in 2018/2019, and I think I struggled through a few pages and then gave up. While I could strangle the dad for his very casual way of putting together sentences (on top of contraction heaven) at least I understand what is happening, and with a bit of help from the book club I get even better comprehension. ^^

I think it’ll be a smoother read once my brain have once again remembered what casual language is (and I’ve gotten used to the author’s style/the characters’ speech patterns). :joy:

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Summary post :bookmark:

May 19th :cherry_blossom:

・薬屋のひとりごと 2 (30% → 31%)

Just a tiny read. Can’t wait to finish exam tomorrow, my back can’t handle any more studying.

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Well, I’m certainly another one. :smiley: This is exactly why I voted for Zenitendou too. I firmly believe that - unless someone is already somehow very strong in understanding spoken language before starting to read - books are just better suited in getting beginners comfortable with reading.

Everyone’s mileage varies of course, but here are my reasons:

  • First of all, there’s just so much more text - and that’s a good thing. You can finish several volumes of manga, and still not have read as much actual text as you will in one novel (it heavily depends on the manga of course). More text → more exposure → comfortable with walls of text in less time/effort/volumes.

  • Second, in my mind at least, nothing supports understanding of text better than more text. At least for me, text gives me much more context than I can get from a picture. I’m not sure how to explain it, but I’ll try: Often the text in a manga is not directly related to the picture you’re seeing, it’s just more extra information. The picture and the text may work together, but not always in a straightforward way. The text may be contradicting the picture, or be about something entirely different (eg characters cooking, but talking about astrophysics). It’s not necessarily easier to follow just because there are pictures - manga are not picture books. In a book on the other hand, there are no other clues as to what is happening, other than text. So the text needs to support the reader’s understanding fully. Which is why more (text) context -in my mind- leads to better understanding.

  • Third, a manga is almost entirely speech, with all its drawbacks. Contractions, interrupted sentences, slang, random sound effects, you name it. You can find all these things in books too, but at least there’s more regular text around them to, again, provide all the necessary context. This point does not apply if you’re good at listening comprehension though. So for children, for example, who learned first by listening, I bet manga are easier. Not for me though, because I started learning by reading, and listening comes next (and is left behind, but that’s another story).

  • Lastly, and that’s personal, I just enjoy books more. I don’t know what it is. I’ve always loved reading, in any language, and prefer reading to listening or watching as entertainment any day. Similarly, while I have read comic books and graphic novels in the past, and I am reading manga now, for some reason they tire me faster than a book would. This I really can’t explain. I just know that I can easily spend hours reading, but will stop much sooner if what I’m reading has pictures. Sensory overload? No idea.

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After a while of playing 13 sentinels and then fire emblem, I’m back to novels again, or more specifically 三毛猫ホームズの推理 :cat2:

I’m at 90% now and my main critique of this book so far is that there’s not nearly enough ホームズ! I’m intrigued to see if the ending raises my estimation of the book, as others seemed to really appreciate the finish. So far it’s kind of middle of the road for me…probably half of the reason I got sidetracked by video games for so long :sweat_smile:

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Hard relate. Manga just feels a bit more tedious to me to get through, although my page count goes up quicker as there’s far less text overall. I think I like being able to imagine everything for myself? I’m not sure. I was a huge bookworm as a kid, though, and the only difference in adulthood is less time!

I actually didn’t read yesterday and might not have time to today as I must shortly log off and do Life Things :tm: :grimacing: Been a wild week between work and social obligations. I’m doing much worse on this challenge overall, but generally keeping a good pace on my reading goals despite that so… :person_shrugging:

It just avalanches at the end. Good fun, but not sure it will rock your world :sweat_smile:

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May 19th!

I have house guests tomorrow so I really need to clean my house. So obviously instead I’m procrastinating by doing just about anything I can think of other than cleaning…
Including reading some Shirokuma Cafe. Today Panda met Grizzly, and there was a panel I really loved that had a lion and a tiger playing pool.

(Home Post)

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I finished “女の子” from Set 1 Graded Readers, Level 1. The girl had every toy, etc., but was usually alone. She didn’t speak, but watched out the window every day and saw all the traffic and people moving around. Every day, she sees a boy walking to school and he says “Hello”, but she says nothing to him. One day, he stopped and gave her a flower. That day, she spoke and said, “Thank You”.

This book was easier than some of the Level 0 stories. (Or maybe I’m just learning more?)

New Vocabulary:

なに
何も nothing, not anything

まど
窓 window

My favorite picture:

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I still have the cheapest Kindle (8th generation). I haven’t upgraded to Paperwhite yet. If it’s Japanese manga on Bookwalker, I use my laptop. But for manga (in English mainly), I specially bought a tablet so I don’t have to contend with web browsers or PC apps. My Kindle is black and white and too grainy to read manga. My phone is too small.
For my usual English novels, since I’ve started practising Japanese, I’ve been using my laptop more and neglecting my Kindle but I only have four devices in total- laptop, phone, tablet, Kindle and I basically use them in that order nowadays for reading.

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Day 48

  • ジョジョの奇妙な冒険・岸部露伴(うご)かない

I read part of the new chapter because Ultra Jump actually arrived on the physical release day for once!! I don’t know how many pages I read because at some point I switched to skimming. Yesterday was a weird day, stuff happened.

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Summary Post

Day 49: May 19th
What did I read?: クマとたぬき Vol 2
How much did I read?: 9 pages
How long did it take me?: 9 min

More headache today I always get headaches on days when I’ve had to go into the office, funny how that works

Today’s cute panel: tanuki + jizo!

My clickbait title worked :rofl:
But is it clickbait if it’s the truth

Happy forum-versary btw! :tada:

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Home

I didn’t end up cutting down very much on my book haul after all. I think the total price with shipping was about the same or maybe less than what it originally was before shipping though, so that’s something, at least? I don’t know how to hold back at all when it comes to books, apparently. Bibliomaniac, yup, that’s me, 100%. Anyway I think the first one I read from that will be ボーイミーツマリア. I adore that book so much and I’ve been thinking about it again lately. I think it’s my favorite BL to date.

Ohhh poking around on the forum today I’ve learned that Diluc apparently speaks a type of 役割語, or stereotyped speech. It’s supposed to make him seem old and wise or something. That would explain why it doesn’t feel like Kansaiben despite the similarities.

Anyway, I read the Bookwalker previews for some of the fantasy series suggested to me. If you’d like some recs, or you have some to make yourself, the thread is here, and it’s for more traditional fantasy as well as youkai stuff. The 悪食令嬢と狂血公爵 manga. The novels (at least, the first chapter; the preview extended a bit into ch 2, but that seemed a better place to stop than there) and manga of 獣の奏者, which seems interesting. 狐笛のかなた, which also seems interesting.

Outside of recs (though, technically this was one from my offline friend a while back, I just completely forgot about it and then stumbled upon it by chance on Amazon JP, lol whoops), I also read the preview for 赤い糸の執行猶予. I think I mighta read the scanlation years ago. Anyway, it seems good.

It seems previews for novels are as long as if not longer than for manga, which makes no sense to me. A single page of a novel contains a lot more information than a single page of a manga, so I’d expected the previews for those to be a lot shorter. Maybe it goes off of the percentage of total pages, or something.

I didn’t end up playing any Heroes today, unfortunately (sorry, Terry). I was busy doing other things, and next thing I knew, it was time for me to be getting to bed soon.

Some vocab of note:

鎌首をもたげる (かまくびをもたげる) [expression, 一] to raise one’s head (esp. of a snake)
しゃがみ込む (しゃがみこむ) [マ五, intransitive] to crouch down (completely, generally with face looking through knees)
生い茂る (おいしげる) [ラ五, intransitive] to grow thickly; to be overgrown; to thrive; to grown in abundance
While looking up the reading for 庭石 (it’s にわいし), I learned that Sisyrinchium (blue-eyed grass) are called 庭石菖 (ニワゼキショウ). They’re one of my favorite flowers.

Edit: Wow, I was tired last night, I didn’t realize I tried to close the dropdown with a spoiler rather than details lmao

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May 19 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

I played a good amount of Zero Escape today! It’s nice to be back to it; things continue to be wild. There was a throwback to the AB games but like even more messed up this time, so that was a trip. On to tomorrow!

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May 19th (Calendar Post)

隣の席の佐藤さん => 98 Pages (113 min)

Some more fun 佐藤さん panels

image

image

One could easily say this manga is 90% close-ups of 佐藤さん’s face :slightly_smiling_face:

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