After the big read yesterday, I did a much smaller read today. I read one of the Sailor Moon short stories at the end of volume 4, there is one more left. It was very cute. Following a couple of days with Chibiusa. Could mostly understand it too, there were a couple of words early that was contracted or slang/slurred in a way I couldn’t figure out for sure what they were supposed to be, but nothing important. ^^
Also, I made a study log a few days ago and today I finished filling in the different sections I wanted it to have to start. So here it is: MissDagger’s (Final?/Ultimate) Study Log
I thought I could use it to talk about other parts of my Japanese study than reading. Since I talk about my reading here!
Non-fiction was read today, and I finished a short story and started a novel (in my regular English reading).
The language in this book is so much easier compared to 薬屋のひとりごと. It’s kinda crazy how the ratio of unknown vs known vocab in a book can make such a big difference in reading speed. But who knows, maybe it’s because I’ve already read this part of the book before Either way, maybe I still can finish this book within the next week, that would be cool. A milestone still yet to be accomplished.
It’s the beginning of the end of the eternal summer! Reading was hard because I’m having bad tingling and similar sensations in a few limbs that keep getting worse the past few days, and is very distracting (I may end up back at a doctor soon… doing that finances vs. having healthcare calculation again, but I’ll leave it at that ). Nonethless, I managed to read another 8000+ characters today, finishing Shiki’s route and poking around a tiny bit at the true route. Or, as the title screen says…
ALKA! Whatever that’s supposed to mean. I pressed the button to alka, and am now in a mid-alka state. That big lineup of girls, one by one, has vanished, leaving me alone with this nice picture of an environment. Anyway, it pulled out a lot of its fancy words today, but despite a lot of lookups, it wasn’t so bad. I have to say, Shiki’s route actually ended up being one of the higher emotional peaks. I don’t think they did great with the character herself, but the plot that she’s wrapped up in gets pretty interesting.
Below here is a spoiler image, which I have to share because I think it looks really cool, and very much unlike anything you'd expect from Summer Pockets
となりの怪物くん １
I am seeing quite a lot of unfamiliar words. I keep having to guess what the characters are saying and my memory of the storyline is not all that good. However, I said that I would try to read more shoujo volumes in a series so I hope if I keep at it, the words would become more familiar.
I read 7 pages of 海辺のカフカ, finishing ch 3 almost before I realized it. I liked it aside from the last page or so lol. I’d wanted to read more (though not necessarily of this), but I’m tired. Tomorrow I don’t have work, so hopefully I’ll be able to read more then than I did today.
I like how fluorescence is 蛍光. Firefly light. Fitting. (Especially since bioluminescence is a type of fluorescence. I forget what it’s called when a specific term comes to be used as a general term, but I suppose this might be an example of that.)
I’m very sleepy currently but regardless I read chapter 3 of 海辺のカフカ somehow so I’ll take it! I’d heard of the infamous Murakami scenes definitely got some interesting new words from that one haha. It’s still been a pretty comfortable read; I hit points here and there where I’m like “why don’t I know any of these words what’s happening” but then I read a few more sentences and all is okay again so that’s just life I guess
It feels good to be reading an actual book again! These days I’m bad about reading books in any language, so it’s been nice. Feels productive
What are these? I’m afraid I’m rather ignorant; I’d only heard of his name and that he’s a famous author, but nothing about his writing style or the content or anything
I don’t really know specifics but I get the sense it’s stuff like the last page or so you were probably talking about, I haven’t read enough to know how frequent they are or how bad they get but something to be aware of I suppose
Glad Nationaldag till alla oss svenskar här! (Okej, det där kändes skumt att säga. )
Read the second short story, Casablanca Memory, at the end of Sailor Moon 4 (kanzenban edition). (If you wonder why I mention the edition every time I say this, is because the short stories are in different places in each edition…) So nice to spend more quality time with just one character. Learning more about their life and such. More of this please!
This also means I finished volume 4. And I’m between story arcs. I want to probably finish Yotsuba& 2 next, and then…? I don’t know what I wanna read next. I’m a bit hype about Sailor Moon right now, but there is also a lot of series left there (I’ve finished 40%). Tackling Orange would take less time despite being same number of volumes (page counts per volume differ). Also a bit tempted with Zenitendou since so many recommended that to me.
Yesterday I read 8 pages of 霧島くんは普通じゃない and finished chapter three! (The days before that I could only read a few pages a day, so it felt good to read more.) I guess I conveniently forgot that it takes a while to adjust to the way a new-to-you author writes. Still enjoying the story! Miu has an innate curiosity about everything (especially 不思議なこと) that makes me really like her. In the last chapter, a mysterious small black weasel-like creature appeared on the school grounds, and Miu is now going to investigate. Maybe I can read the whole 4th chapter today! I’m going to give it a go at least.
I’m enjoying the after-challenge-party here with you all! I wasn’t really planning on writing an end of challenge summary, but now I’m thinking it would be nice to at least look back and see where I was at the beginning of the challenge. I probably made more progress than I remember making.
I reckon you can catch up still. How far have you got through chapter 8? The first page was a bit of a slog but it’s gets better with a bit more character development beginning.
プラクテカル ー Practical 凄惨「せいさん」ー Ghastly; gruesome; appalling 発狂 「はっきょう」ー Craziness; lunacy 論じる「ろんじる」ー To discuss; to talk about エゴイスト ー Egoist; selfish person ぐっすり ー (sleeping) soundly / fast asleep 道化「どうけ」ー Buffoonery; antics; clowning around; clown or jester 求愛「きゅうあい」ー Courting; making advances (toward someone) 絶えず「たえず」ー Constantly; always 危機一髪「ききいっぱつ」ー Close call; by a hair/thread; critical moment 気まずい「気まずい」ー Awkward; unpleasant; embarrassing 肉親「にくしん」ー Blood relative (MEAT INTIMACY) 口応え「くちごたえ」ー Retort; talk back. (More common to see as: 口答え) 霹靂「へきれき」ー Thunderclap; thunder 万世一系「ばんせいいっけい」ー Unbroken imperial (blood)line/lineage 言い争い「いいあらそい」ー Quarrel/argument 草原「そうげん」ー Grassy field; grassland; meadow ピシッと ー With a crack or snap (like a whip) 逆立つ「さくだつ」ー To stand on end (like hair) 言動「げんどう」ー Speech and conduct; words and deeds (feel that I know this but no idea from where) 懊悩「おうのう」ー Anguish; trouble; agony (I like how it’s like saying “oh no!”)
Questionable Word ナアヴァスネス ー Nervousness. Had to google this and seems that it even has some Japanese people confused (there’s very few results and most of them seem to be about No Longer Human).
神経質「しんけいしつ」is the Japanese word for nervousness.
New Forms 禍「わざわい」ー Calamity; misfortune; evil. Another way of writing: 災い. Can also be written as: 殃.
Finished volume 9 of Spy x Family yesterday, it’s great. Where it ends is very close to where the manga is at the moment. Probably my favorite chapter is the one where becky meets loid, got some pictures of that as well as something from volume 8.
I thought it was quite natural to start reading the Spy x Family novelization. Different author, same characters and bunch of short stories. Looking at the length of each chapter, I’ll probably not be able to read a chapter per day, but that’s alright. As we’re setting up camp next weekend, I also downloaded some manga to go along with it on my kindle app.
Oh, according to bookmeter I reached 10k pages read. So we reached another milestone. One of my personal goals was to read 50 volumes of manga and it would be nice to reach the halfway mark next month.
Read a lot less today, but it’s one of those days where life is making it hard to focus. Guess hanging in there is a victory itself.
One thing that amused quite a bit is I was looking into a certain use of とてもじゃない and on a site that is describing what I believe is this grammar point, they have labelled it “N0.” I’ve ascended!
Otherwise, a few minor complaints about my current circumstances. Just observations, nothing to get TOO worked up in, but:
I’m starting to do pretty badly on Anki, and I have a feeling a big part of that is less my fault, and more that I exhausted the words I regularly see a while back and at this point I’m grabbing the Summer Pockets words (and even new kanji) that don’t show up much. It’s fine… I don’t care at the moment to go through the effort of searching for frequency, it’s just kind of a natural thing when I’ve been reading something for so long. Ready to start a new VN for the sake of new core vocab to learn better from.
I’m also having a little bit of a mediocre time with the beginning of the true route, cause without spoilers at the moment it’s… a little like starting the game over, but different. It’s not really a reread and I am curious about where it’s going, but at a slow speed, especially with me even slower today, it’s hard to maintain enough interest in this exact moment. I’m sure at anything resembling native speed this would be flying by, but y’know.
So I’ve been rereading a book series I liked in high school. Very dense, verbose writing style heavy with descriptions and emotional exposition. I skip so much. I kinda eyeball a paragraph and go “oh yeah this is all internal turmoil, meh” and jump to the next one. I have to stop myself from doing this sometimes in Japanese too, when I’m not that engaged in a story.
Which is to say that some of native reading speed is not actually reading all the words
Either way, maybe I still can finish this book within the next week, that would be cool. A milestone still yet to be accomplished.
I’ll take it! I’d heard of the infamous Murakami scenes 
definitely got some interesting new words from that one haha. It’s still been a pretty comfortable read; I hit points here and there where I’m like “why don’t I know any of these words what’s happening” but then I read a few more sentences and all is okay again so that’s just life I guess 
(Okej, det där kändes skumt att säga. 
)
Ch.8 I still can’t promise this one.
Japanese found in the tall grass 
Lots of time for reading)