📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

Summary post :bookmark:

May 30th :seedling: Actually got packing and stuff done today, so was a bit busy.

・薬屋のひとりごと 2 (84% → 88%).

Finished chapter 19. Thoughts: First we get to experience Maomao’s father’s point of view of the garden party :eyes: Might be first time? I can’t remember. Seems like he only views people as pieces on a shogi board. And he doesn’t relate to seeing pretty people as pretty. That’s kinda interesting, he’s like "yoku wakaranai :face_with_monocle: :man_shrugging: ". Second half, I think it was Jinshi’s point of view? Maomao encounters father and challenges him to a game of shougi :eyes: Turns out he, as the military strategist, never loses a game of shougi, but Maomao knows how to beat him. That was fun. Turns out he’s super weak to alcohol.

Word: 腹癒せ (はらいせ)
Meaning: retaliation; revenge. Literally “stomach heal/cure” :eyes: ?
yes hello doctor, my tummy has the aches. Oh, so the cure is revenge, you say? Okie, if that will make me better shouganai desune :relieved: :hocho:

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Summary post

10,000 characters read again today! This was also the point where the VN clearly tried to steer to a bit of character development and making Shiki more likeable, so it was generally a nicer read, haha.

In two days, the day the challenge is over, it’ll be the real, exact mark of me having done this for a year! Celebrated in my study log a little early after that practice test. I’ve done at least some studying every single day, so that’s pretty cool. I also have gone very slightly ahead of schedule to finish up 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん, so I think by tonight or tomorrow I’ll be able to officially say that just under the wire, I finished 3 books in this year. Summer Pockets will be a little late.

Cool word I want to share: 夢うつつ (ゆめうつつ), sounds like it describes the state of being sort of half between dream and reality, struggling to distinguish them.

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Day Something

  • ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 14巻

start-27

ah yes. Planes.

and frogs

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May 30

Read another reader waiting for a friend. We then finished Belle. It was… interesting. Glad I could see it from the comfort of my home.

Progress on Tadoku graded readers
44 / 44 level-zeros
14 / 14 level-ones
10 / 10 level-twos
3 / 18 level-threes

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May 30th (Calendar Post)

少女漫画主人公×ライバルさん => 74 pages (82 min)

Completed all four volumes just in time for the end of this spring autumn challenge. Coincidentially, this is probably the manga I enjoyed the most among everything I’ve read these last two months.

Final fun panels:

#frozen

Angels have descended

Sadly I can’t properly represent how hilarious this panel is in context without getting into spoilers.

Blushing ライバルさん round 1

かっこいい!!

主人公さん failing to contain her laughter

image

Blushing ライバルさん round 2

それだわ~

何何何何⁉
Blushing ライバルさん round 3

I am going to miss these two too much. I am also really sad the author doesn’t seem to have any other series yet. sad cat noises

Interesting expression I ran into:

Need to figure out what to read for the final day of the challenge… haven’t quite decided yet.

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May 30 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

Today I finished up chapter 1 of 海辺(うみべ)のカフカ and played a little AI: The Somnium Files. My brain wasn’t super on top of it today :joy: 海辺(うみべ)のカフカ felt a bit harder than it has but I think that was just me. It’s almost the end of the official challenge huh; hopefully I can end on a strong note tomorrow!

Odds are good I’ll still be here, it feels too much a part of the process now :joy:

I didn’t watch it in Japanese (I can’t even imagine, I was lost anyway) but yeah it was a time lmao, I’m not sure I knew what was actually going on even once but it was pretty!

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Home

I only managed about 4 pages of 海辺 yesterday and not much else. Apparently I was more deficient in sleep than I thought, because I fell asleep in the afternoon. Anyway, this was the first time I had ever seen コンビニエンス・ストア spelled out and not just shortened to コンビニ.

Some vocab of note:

謎めく ([details]なぞめく[/spoiler]) [カ五, intransitive] to be enigmatic; to be puzzling; to be wrapped in mystery
契約 (けいやく) [noun, する verb] contract; agreement

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:tiger2: :books: Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220531 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

Tanuki Scroll LXI: 空から降りてきたごちそう :basket:

Read today’s hyakumonogatari, from Gifu prefecture!

About a magical basket full of drink and food that descends from the skies. But one day an even bigger basket falls down full of monsters.


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

Learnthings

ぶら下がる「ぶらさがる」ー to hang down from something; to dangle
覗く「のぞく」ー to peek (through a hole or gap)
酒盛り「さかもり」ー Drinking gathering

Feel I should recognise this but don’t
「ひも」ー String; cord

Kanji
the kanji for かご (basket)

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Main Post

Finished the cruise arc in spy x family, ends on a good note. It had a lot of moving parts and action, which makes it harder to find a natural stop point. I ended up reading more chapters and looking up less words then usual. The rest of volume 9 is a collection of different stories again, so I’ll probably take it easy finishing it.

This completes two months of reading for this challenge. Not sure if I’ll keep reading every day in June, but I expect to still read plenty.

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Summary post :bookmark:

May 31st :cherry_blossom:

・薬屋のひとりごと 2 (88% → 100%) Finished the book :sparkles:

Thoughts on book (spoilers)

Much like in the first book, a lot of the chapters felt episodic in nature, but at one point some of the cases were tied together into one case. I liked that. That case ended there for now, however, since the characters involved managed to escape, this subplot will probably continue when/if they appear again later in the series. Maybe it’ll turn into a character arc involving the tall girl (Seirei).

The ending wasn’t as much of a cliffhanger as I thought it would be. Some kind of rumor about a mysterious medicine with the ability to cure all kinds of sicknesses, which for Maomao is very intriguing. The ending didn’t leave me desperate to buy the next book immediately, but I’ll definitely consider continuing at some point. Jinshi is still a mysterious character. We know a tiny bit more about his background, growing up with Gaoshun as a foster father of sorts, it sounded like. But there’s definitely more we don’t know about him yet :eyes:

We learned about Maomao’s parents and their background. Rakan and Fonshen. Things seemed to be going well for the two of them, meeting up regularly to play shougi and go, when suddenly Rakan had to leave for a while (three years?) and after he came back Fonshen was gone. (Was kinda weird how they seemed to only play games together, they surely must have done other stuff too since Maomao exist. Babies don’t spawn from just holding hands, you know.)

I have more thoughts on this book, but it seems like they’re shy today and don’t want to come out.

In short: I liked the book. Will probably get back to this series later at some point. Definitely learned a ton of new words from this series.


I’ll write an end of challenge summary post later, though if other people are going to continue posting I might as well continue too :books::books:

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Read two chapters of ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 🛵 Volume 6 and they were laid-back and full of love as usual, although those sunburns after swimming in the sea did not look healthy.

And that’s the last day of May for me. So far, I’ve only missed one day of the challenge because I was too sick to read last Friday :confounded:. I’ll continue to read plenty in June, but maybe not every day.

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And the Spring Challenge is over! :tada: :sparkles:

Thanks to everybody who participated, I had a great time reading all your posts.

Here is my report of the challenge!

In short, I started a lot of books, experimented a bit (also with books in other languages which was a very nice twist), and managed to finish two books. (And started even more books.)

Unfortunately I need to report that I did miss one day: May 28th. My excuse is that I travelled with a Japanese friend on that day, so I basically spoke and listened to Japanese all day (from morning till night), so maybe this makes up for it a little bit :sweat_smile:

Next up: I will continue to read basically every day, just like usual. I’ll update my report accordingly, but I don’t know how much I’ll comment here (I’m not a regular poster in here anyways, so…). A few (or a few more) interesting book clubs are coming up, so there will be plenty material for me to indulge in!
See you all again in July?! :upside_down_face:

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After a couple 1 to 2 page days (due to lack of time/energy/focus), managed 6 pages of
霧島くんは普通じゃない today. (Although still mostly lacking energy and focus.) I was entertained when Miu got 霧島くん back for licking her finger by sniffing him while he was sleeping on his desk. :joy: I love that they are both unintentianally creepy, not just one of them.

New segment! Mara tries to recall words from the day’s reading.

  • まゆ毛 and まつ毛 One means eyebrows and the other is eyelashes. Can I remember which is which? … Nope.
  • さける to avoid. I have definitely read this one before multiple times.
  • 居心地 (いごこち) comfort, generally followed by が悪い in this book
  • 視界 (しかい) 視線 is line of sight, 視界 is field of vision. pleasingly logical.
  • 瞬間移動 teleportation! also pleasingly logical.
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The Wanikani mnemonic for it is pretty good: avoid people who have had too much sake (as opposed to よける which is to dodge a projectile such as a yo-yo).

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Thank you for the challenge! I enjoyed reading everybody’s posts, about meanings, grammar points, cultural stuff, personal challenges and generally spreading joy. I also got a ton of book ideas for future reading. Thank you all for sharing.

I only missed three days in May. I thought « I have covid, I can spend my day reading Japanese ». Duh, I was so tired.

Other than that, we had quite a beautiful weather overall as you can see below. Also, 2 election days.

April
:cloud_with_snow: :sunny: :sunny:
:sunny: :cloud: :cloud_with_rain: :wind_face: :umbrella: :sunny: :fr:
:sunny: :cloud_with_rain: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny:
:sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :cloud_with_lightning_and_rain: :fr:
:partly_sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny:
May
:sunny:
:sunny: :mask: :mask: :partly_sunny: :mask: :sunny: :sunny:
:sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :cloud_with_lightning_and_rain:
:partly_sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :cloud_with_lightning_and_rain: :sun_behind_rain_cloud: :sunny: :sunny:
:sun_behind_rain_cloud: :sun_behind_rain_cloud: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny: :sunny:
:sunny: :sunny:

Immediate goal: finish 夜カフェ. I am currently reading chapter 8 with the Beginner Book Club

Next goal: brush up on my grammar, I forgot so much.

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Replies to old stuff, sorry

I am also realizing that that is something I want to do. I plan to take a step back from SRS after the JLPT in July, maybe forever, maybe just for a while. I’m not sure I’ll finish the flashcards I have created already, and I’m going to try not to stress about it. :slight_smile:

I’ve only watched the first stream so far, but I enjoyed it a lot. He’s hilarious!

:raised_hand: :eyes:
Did you end up creating a thread for it? I gave up on reading the rest of the replies I’d missed in over 20 days around where you mentioned possibly doing that.

Note to self: I stopped at 1738. :sweat_smile:

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Sorry, this had me laughing so hard.

I found it fairly easy to keep up after maybe 2-3 weeks into April. The only reason I managed to keep up for the first 2 weeks was because I had an unusual amount of small periods of time where I couldn’t do anything more substantial. But I can imagine that being away for almost three weeks would leave A LOT of posts to read. :rofl:

Love this challenge and everyone’s replies and I wouldn’t wish it to be less active, but I do dedicate time both to reading it and to writing my longer posts (which typically take an hour to compose due to flip-flopping around the whole thread finding quotes :joy:).

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As usually happens for me, I stopped posting updates at some point. :upside_down_face: I wonder why it’s so hard to get back to posting after a break? I’m only posting today because the deadline is looming. :sweat_smile:

25.4.-31.05
I did actually manage to read some French everday, even if it sometimes wasn’t more than a page or so. On May 5 and 14 I read my ‘no energy graded reader’, and on the 15th I believe I counted duolingo stories as my ‘read’ for the day. :upside_down_face: On the 19th I counted my re-read along with the audiobook as my reading for the day. Other than that, I read some of La quête d’ewilan every single day. I am now at 80% read. While I didn’t manage to finish the book, I am more than satisfied with the progress I made. Reading got much easier over these 2 months, and I recognize more than a few words while reading just from looking them up so much.

Today I have re-read a chapter along with the audiobook, but I’ll read a bit more new content now, too. (So my total will probably be closer to 81/82%, but that’s okay.) Having come this far, I’m confident I’ll be able to finish the book in June! Le petit Nicolas took me 3 whole months, and it was maybe half the length of this book. (To be fair, I am able to use kindle look ups for La quête d’ewilan, while I read Le petit Nicolas on paper. Still:) Progress!

I’m super thankful to this challenge. For all that I didn’t post updates this last months, the thought of this thread and my challenge pushed me to read ‘something’ on days I might have let just slide. And my inactivity here after falling off the posting wagon is a fine example of what letting it slide once twice does to my habits. :upside_down_face:

My progress since last time

La quête d’ewilan: d’un monde à l’autre :headphones: (108→252/334m) :open_book: (32→80%)
A1 5 Minuten-Lektüren Où est le thym (3→50/20 stories)

Over the course of these two months, I read: 100 pages of Le petit Nicolas. 80% =~251 pages of La quête d’ewilan. 37 pages of very short A1 Graded Stories. I also listened to 4hr 12min of the audiobook for La quête d’ewilan while re-reading the corresponding parts (75% of the book).

:pray:
Now I just need to get started speaking.:dizzy_face:

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I agree, it’s great that there’s so much activity! It’s fine as long as I stop by every other day, but as it is…
There were 600+ new posts, and if I’m going to read them I want to actually read them and not just skim over them. So I read as much as I could handle for now. :joy: I prioritized writing up my end of challenge post/recap thingie!

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I read だれがが. Five sons are sitting around drinking sake. The first son says, “Ii heard the warbler this morning.” The 2nd son said, “No, you are not hte earliest to hear him. I heard it yesterday.” The 3rd son said, “No, you are not the earliest. I heard him sing last week.” The 4th son said, “No, none of you are the earliest. I heard him last month.” But the 5th son said, “All of you are too late. I heard the warbler sing in the Spring of last year!” The End

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