📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

May 23 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

Well um… I finished ZTD? Really did not expect that to happen today :flushed: With that I’ve completed my goal for this challenge of finishing the Zero Escape games so that’s pretty wild! ZTD was definitely a different experience; toward the end especially it felt less like “reading” and more like just watching a show with subtitles and pressing buttons sometimes, but I found myself keeping up with the dialogue speed just fine which felt great!

My playthrough took a bit over 33 hours which is so much shorter, wow. A lot of that is definitely just by nature of it having a more set pace what with all the cutscenes, but like… I still paused to look things up and figure them out as I needed to, so that’s a major improvement from the like 80 hours VLR took me, not to mention 999 :joy: so that’s really cool! It’s always nice to see clear progress like that :grin:

ZTD things bc what even happened today

There was just so much… シグマ and ダイアナ and ファイ and デルタ… especially デルタ, like what?? He was just there the whole time?? I was just flabbergasted when Q (or I guess ショーン huh) turned around and shot him, absolutely baffling. But シグマ and ダイアナ too, that whole set of scenes was wild, these dynamics are so complicated :joy: their daughter who’s like the same age as them and their 120-something-year-old cult son, and the different temporal experiences and awarenesses they all have and just… oof it’s a lot

And mind control?? We really just threw that one in huh, as デルタ said his motivations are numerous and complicated and wow I can’t wrap my brain around any of it, I’m sure I’m forgetting about a billion things but it was information overload!! Today was a lot :joy: Zero Escape reveals are always like this huh

Now… I’ll have to actually decide what to do next :sweat_smile: The 海辺(うみべ)のカフカ book club is starting up soon so I have that to look forward to, but odds are I’ll start up another game before long. I still have Story of Seasons if I want a brain break :joy: I’m probably looking at AI: The Somnium Files as my next game I’ll pick up, but who knows! I’ve been known to be impulsive with these things haha. We shall see :eyes:

The end of an era :')

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May 24th!

I read two more chapters of Shirokuma Cafe today.
I like that after some chapters there is a one page recipe. I’ve been learning a lot of cooking related vocabulary from reading 夜カフェ so its fun to be reading another book where it’s so useful at the same time :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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:tiger2: :books: Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220524 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

Tanuki Scroll LIV: キツネと油あげ :fox_face:

Read today’s folktale, from Tokyo prefecture!

About a fox doing what a fox does best - pretending to be human. This time the fox is pretending to be a samurai, and then pretends to be a patrol guard while telling the story of the fox pretending to be a samurai for double bamboozlement.


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

Learnthings

見回り「みまらり」ー Patrolling; one’s rounds; watchman.
Here it was paired with 役人「やくにん」so a patrolman or guard officer person.
番所「ばんしょ」ー Guard house
顔色「かおいろ」ー Complexion

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Summary Post

May 19-20
Final Fantasy VII


It’s been so long again, I thought an update was in order. I haven’t read today (yet?) but if I don’t update I’ll forget completely the little I did.

I’ve been sick this last week with fever and very little drive to do anything at all :sob: . The fever is gone but my throat has been killing me at times and I’m also sleepy and tired most of the time. I was wondering if it was finally covid but nope, two antigen tests came out negative on different days. Just plain seasonal fun.

So anyways, I’ve barely read anything, only those two days. However I’ve actually been doing Japanese every day, almost binging the anime 古見こみさんは、コミュしょうです。on Netflix with Japanese subs and I’ve been having so much fun with it because it feels very comfortable to understand. The anime itself is also quite entertaining with fun characters (and a lot of puns to their names pointing to their personalities) and has a lot of cute moments (though it also had a couple things I didn’t vibe with, but whatever, am I getting old?). I’ve been having so much fun with it precisely because I watched it completely in Japanese and that’s been a nice boost to my confidence. It’s not particularly hard to understand or anything but it still has fast speech here and there and I haven’t needed to rewind that much. I did pause frequently to read Komi’s notebook handwriting though, there’s a ton of that and it’s important to the plot.

My relationship with anime is so weird. I can go without watching any for the longest time, months or years, and then I get hooked on something again and binge a lot. Then it either makes me want to watch more series right after and I do, or I go back to not watching anything for another long period, and then repeat. Now that I’m confident about watching them in Japanese I really want to continue watching anything else that has Japanese subs on Netflix. Unfortunately not everything does even with the language set to Japanese, and that’s meh, but it is what it is. At this point I will watch anything that has subs and seems interesting enough. I feel like watching something is much easier for me to do than reading something right now energy wise, so maybe I should consider that as a strategy to boost immersion exposure going forward. I installed an extension called Subadub that converts Netflix subs so that you can use Yomichan on them and it’s really convenient.

Also I like podcasts. I find listening quite entertaining overall in whatever form. I might consider tracking some other data like that in the next challenge in a summary box or something just as a small log other than reading.

Also FF7 already reaching spicy parts :eyes: . Going great. Ahhhh biting my tongue.

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Day 54 :heavy_check_mark: :izakaya_lantern:

夜市 ~ 44-50%

Started the second story in the book, titled 風の古道. It’s off to a good start. Nothing much has happened yet, but it’s pleasantly eerie.


Nice words:

木漏れ日 - sunlight filtering through trees
逆光 - backlight (in photography), illumination from behind
桜並木 - row of cherry trees lining a street


Random word:

小便小僧 - Manneken Pis

this


Or any other peeing boy, I guess…


Slightly less random words:

お稲荷さん - Inari (god of wealth, harvest, fertility, tea, and more importantly, foxes)

On Inari from Wikipedia

The god has been depicted both as male and as female. The most popular representations are a young female food goddess, an old man carrying rice, and an androgynous bodhisattva.No one view is correct; the preferred gender of depiction varies according to regional traditions and individual beliefs. Because of their close association with kitsune, Inari is often believed to be a fox; though this belief is widespread, both Shinto and Buddhist priests discourage it. Inari also appears in the form of a snake or dragon, and one folktale has Inari appear to a wicked man in the shape of a monstrous spider as a way of teaching him a lesson.

きんぴらゴボウ - braised burdock root, chopped burdock root (and sometimes carrot) cooked in sugar and soy sauce.

this


Looks a little like green beans, but I bet it tastes very different.

Having no idea what a burdock is, I looked it up too:

The plant:


The flower:

The burrs:

The roots:

image
It’s supposed to grow in Europe too but it really doesn’t ring a bell at all…


I also read this week’s two chapters of 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん.

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Any recommendations? I’m still trying to find some nice podcasts. :slightly_smiling_face:

I’m glad I know the Japanese word for that now :smile:

Yes, we have lots of burdocks growing on the road sides here in the Netherlands, but they don’t stand out much (because they look just like a lot of other weeds most of the time) but in the autumn I often see the burry seed heads.

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I finished NO. 6 volume #3 :tada: Feels nice to finish a novel again, it’s been a while :sweat_smile: It would really help combat my ‘start 50 books at once’ tendency if these books didn’t constantly end on almost-cliffhangers. Next volume seems like it’ll be fun - prison break :eyes:

I also started 親愛なるあなたへ by カンザキ イオリ. I tried this completely on a whim because I liked the cover (very deep reason, yes) and then kept reading because the vocab level is super comfy and the writing is really readable too.
I’m 15% in right now and have no clue where the plot is going yet - apart from some romance, probably? It’s a high school story - middle grade or YA book I’d assume. The prologue had a bit of a suspense kind of vibe, but everything since then has been more slice of life/drama-ish. So :woman_shrugging: Will have to see!

I’m also totally like that, with both anime and TV shows in general. I’m really not a 1-2 episodes a day kind of person (unless the thing is airing weekly and I have no choice) - binge watching or no TV at all, there is (…almost…) no in between :see_no_evil:

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If memory serves it’s a bit earthy but I enjoyed it. Burdock kind of reminds me of parsnip.

Also short story reccs - might need to double check when I’m less busy but both 人間椅子 and 幽霊 by 江戸川乱歩 were a lot of fun, but obviously old grammar and vocab. I recall 人間椅子 in particular being a bit tricky to parse, but I read it awhile ago and am not sure I’d still feel that way.

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Summary post :bookmark:

May 24th :seedling:

・薬屋のひとりごと 2 (44% → 48%)

Finished chapter 10. Notes: There was dumping of a huge pile of thrash, encounter with tall girl, and mysterious stable potato. Will Maomao request for bigger private room? Will we get to know tall girl? Will we get to know what Jinshi does during his business trips? One can only continue reading and hopefully find out.


Likewise! You said you put reminder to one month later, so that was unexpected :joy:

Seems like this series might be going in the direction I think it might be going :eyes:

btw, I totally didn’t see red when you said “in a month”… It’s not like I’m aiming to finish this book before this challenge is over or anything like that dakara ne! Hmph! :triumph: :P

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Ooooh that’s one of my favorite Japanese words! It appears in 鹿の王 like 20 times or so :smile:

Burdock

It’s not common to eat it in Europe (I think I once heard that people eat it in the UK but I’ve never heard about people eating it in Germany at least). But in Japan it’s very popular, or at least in Fukuoka where I came across it first, in the shape of ごぼう天うどん. (I think I also had it in Shikoku). If you’d like a detailed description, maybe this post will entertain you: https://twinspeakeatgo.com/noodles-in-fukuoka-burdock-tempura-udon-and-champon-ramen/ (pro tip: don’t read when hungry :drooling_face:)
I like it a lot!

Oh and I totally forgot to reply:

Yes, exactly. If you’d like a more in-depth review, @Myria wrote a nice one in the Akutagawa Challenge thread not too long ago.

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May 24
Started chapter 2 of Kiki. Mostly breezy, but wow can some sentences go on for a while. And it usually ends with のです。lol thanks exposition


Yessss, I’ve been doing this too with Komi and it is so fun to be able to engage with an anime this way.

Is one of them a specific character? because there’s one I don’t vibe with and I’m tired of her schtick now lol

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Old Enough! is very comfy and wholesome. I’ve been watching an episode every now and then.

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:sweat_smile: I thought the reveal was at the end of the book and I might miss when you get there. “In a month” was guaranteed to be past that point, while the previous option was “next week” (so maybe not?) I didn’t mean to say you would finish in that amount of time :bowing_man:

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I watched the first episode on Netflix barely a week ago. However, my listening comprehension is so low and I didn’t find it that easy, so I shelved it for now. I’ve been watching Card-captor Sakura for a while. For which I can follow almost everything (with subs). It being a kids’ show does make it a bit less interesting. But I’m able to mostly enjoy it for what it is, plus I actually understand most of it so that makes it more enjoyable too.


I wasn’t sure I’d get to reading today because I spent about 3,5 hours doing lawn stuff. (My lawn was really tall because I didn’t mow it one last time last year, so my lawnmower grass collection bag gets full every five meters (it feels like). So it is taking a very long time. I’m about 2/3 or 3/4 done. Will finish tomorrow just in time before the first real rain of the year.

Did read chapter 5 of Yotsuba&. I was very grateful this one was so much easier than chapter four. I did miss the Ayase family, but Yotsuba and her dad were hilarious alone too.

I was also gonna say things about how weird birthdays feels like as an adult. (Mine was yesterday.) Especially when you live alone. Trying to make your own day special is hard when staying at home all day. Ah well, still had an enjoyable day (even with mostly doing as-usual-day-off activities). Too tired to really digress about birthdays as an adult though. Perhaps another day. xD :sleeping:

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Hey, belated Happy Birthday @MissDagger
:tada: :birthday: :gift: :sparkles: :rainbow:

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This story sounds so cool. I have to read the tanuki stories after I finsh my Level 1 books.

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I usually take myself out to eat for my birthdays as a single. Then go buy myself a gift! Lots of fun.

HAppy Late Birthday!

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Podcast recommendations and replies

Actually a few! It’s still somewhat uncharted territory for me and I haven’t listened much to some that I’ll list, but I have them saved out of recommendations from others and such. You might know some if not most already:

  • Nihongo con Teppei → Obligatory mention for the sheer amount of content he has released (700+ episodes). It’s still going, now under the name of Nihongo con Teppei Z. Huge variety of topics.

  • YUYUの日本語Podcast → For the little I’ve listened of this it seemed really nice. It’s similar to Nihongo con Teppei in that he speaks about different kinds of topics each time. He also has a YouTube channel with a lot of content to which he uploads old episodes of the podcast with transcriptions which I’m sure is a ton of work, as well as live streams and so on. Recently he started a history of Japan podcast I’ve been really meaning to check out, on his YT channel with transcriptions as well.

  • Let’s learn Japanese from small talk! → Two Japanese exchange uni students in the UK. It’s one of my favourites personally, they’re so silly and fun to listen to and the topics are usually really interesting about Japanese culture.

  • ゆる言語学ラジオ → Recent ish discovery. It’s cool facts about language and linguistics but in a casual setting, just two friends chatting. It does seem really fast paced but the very little I’ve listened to was very promising.

  • 味な副音声 → Barely listened to this one yet, but talks about food. Chill, relaxing atmosphere.

  • Let’s Talk in Japanese! → Similar to Nihongo con Teppei and YUYUの日本語Podcast, but this one has each episode graded in JLPT levels, which is nice.

  • さくら通信 → Another one I have saved. Huge variety of miscellaneous topics, goofy broadcasters, longer episodes.

  • ゲームなんとか → Long talks about video games.

One of them is! I’m not sure how much you’ve seen so won’t be specific about what she does exactly, but yes :smile: . It’s Yamai Ren for me.

Thanks for the recommendation! I’ll make sure to check it out and add it to my list :wink: .

That’s fine! If it helps, you might find something of use in the podcast recommendations I gave to wiersm. I’d say perhaps you can check YUYU’s YouTube channel for the transcripted podcasts; Let’s Talk in Japanese! for the JLPT level (or an estimate) you’re most comfortable with (or all); and Nihongo con Teppei, who I think also has an easier podcast if you find it too challenging yet. But if any of the rest piques your curiosity by all means go for them! I’m not sure if podcasts are anything you’re interested in but just in case, perhaps you end up liking something :slight_smile: .

Also happy belated birthday! I hope you still had a nice one!! :cake:

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that’s the one! lol

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I read six pages. John and Yuki go to Kabuki Theater six months after meeting on the plane. They arrive early, so decide to get some coffee, which they drink in the lobby. When they get to thier seats again, they find an older couple sitting there. What will they do now?

New words:

せき
席 seat

ぎんざ
銀座 Gunza, a neighborhood in Tokyo

にまい
二枚 counter for two flat items, such as sheets of paper, tickets, etc.

たち
達 pluralizing suffix for people and animals

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