📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

[Daisoujou]

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.

Anyway, I’m reading every day. That’s cool.

[pocketcat]

@Daisoujou

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

[Daisoujou]

@pocketcat

Which is to say that some of native reading speed is not actually reading all the words

You know when you say that… yeah, you’re right. I’ve got another visual novel I’m reading on the side in English (it doesn’t help that it is genuinely one of the longest ever and I’ve been doing this for over 80 hours lol), and there are plenty of lines, especially since I frequently have it auto advancing, where I’ll realize I really didn’t quite get what some of the words there were. But I end up like “eh, good enough, I got the vibe of the sentence.”

Anyway though, I didn’t mean for that bit to sound too self disparaging or anything if it does! It’s more like, I’m recognizing that at times it can feel like a VN or book is dragging me through something for too long, but that’s often only relative to my pace. Things I can spend a day doing might be more like a quick footnote to a session under more expected reading circumstances. It’s more light defense of the work rather than a lament or anything.

[enbyboiwonder]

Home

Well I’m feeling like an idiot now. Apparently the nomination post for 海辺のカフカ mentioned the random, uncomfortable sexual parts, but I never even went into the Advanced Book Club thread, much less looked for the nomination post, never even thought to. I just saw the book’s home thread when it was first created, recognized it as one I was at least vaguely interested in reading someday, and decided that now with a book club was as good a time as any. Despite knowing nothing about Murakami but his name. Coulda saved myself some trouble.

It’s kinda funny though how I had separately come across Journey Under the Midnight Sun/白夜行 in English and Japanese. I went into my Amazon US wishlist since I was sure I had at least one other Murakami novel on there and came across two translated Higashino Keigo novels I’d added in 2017 (the other being The Devotion of Suspect X, which, after finding from the Wikipedia page that the woman and daughter still go to jail in the end, I decided not to read, since I feel they’re completely justified in killing her abusive, stalker ex-husband). I decided to look for Journey Under the Midnight Sun in Japanese and realized, wait, it’s this one, 白夜行, that I’ve had open in a tab for weeks, waiting to read the preview! (I have no idea how the hey to read the JP title though.)

So yeah I dropped 海辺のカフカ. I can’t get into one half of the story even though it seems interesting so it feels like I should! and I don’t know if there’ll be any more uncomfortable sexual scenes and I don’t care to find out. Since I still seem to have some sort of mental block that’s preventing me from continuing 2.43 for some reason (I don’t get why?? I love the series?? I’m excited about it?? But my brain has decided it’s just not the time, apparently), I’ll be picking up 明日をくれた君に、光のラブレターを.

I read the preview for 契約コハビテーション. The MC is a businessman, though I don’t know how old he is, and the LI is right now only guessed to be a college student, so I dunno what their age difference is, so… I dunno. I think I’ll leave it as a maybe for now, keep an eye on the scanlation and see if anything past ch 1 ever gets uploaded so I can see.

I read act 4 of ボーイミーツマリア. I forgot I left off right before Arima’s backstory.

Ah, man.

The way his expression changes when that teacher calls him a girl… At age 7, he mostly thought of himself as a girl, but it seems he was already thinking that he wasn’t really one, or at the very least not the way his mother was trying to raise him as one (less because his body’s different and more because of his interests and the expectations of him and whatnot, I feel. idk I’m not really the same since I’m afab but I started feeling that I wasn’t really a girl at that age too, though I didn’t learn about nonbinary genders until college. Was definitely forced to be a girl though, in a way I wasn’t and didn’t want to be). His mother’s a former actress, and she really wanted a daughter who could achieve what she was never able to, so even if Yuu had been afab, she still wouldn’t have been a good mother. As it is, she had a hand in his trauma and directly contributed to his difficulty in figuring out his gender and identity. Does he only feel a connection to femininity and can’t say for certain that he’s a boy because of how he was raised? (Does he still see “being a girl” as some sort of safety, even after everything? He can’t act on stage as a boy in front of others, after all, can only dance as a girl after that teacher was somehow allowed to see his performance last year when he got out of prison, despite that he’d raped him and then tried to mutilate him with a knife. Whose effing bright idea was that to let him go?) Does he only feel so strongly that he’s not a girl because of what that teacher did to him? Is he a girl, a boy, both, neither? Figuring out what your gender is can be difficult enough even without trauma surrounding it.

Well, after this is when things should be getting better again.

Some vocab of note:

いちころ [noun] losing easily; being trounced; being beaten hands down
缶 (かん) [noun] can; tin. I’ve known this word for years, but TIL that it’s ateji. It’s probably no coincidence, then, that “can” and “缶” sound so similar—they’re probably the same word.
たちまち [adverb] in an instant; in a moment; immediately; right away; at once. suddenly; all of a sudden; all at once.
シール [noun] sticker
ザマ [noun, derogatory] mess; sorry state; plight; sad sight

[basilsauce]

I finished the first volume of 少年H, the story about a boy living in Kobe during WWII. It was really hard for me so I’m not going to jump into the second half right away. I left a review on Natively but couldn’t finish the level grading. Between the vocabulary range and the amount of dialect (Kansai-ben everywhere, plus some Hiroshima-ben, plus old news quotes), it’s one of the hardest things I’ve read and I don’t have a comparison to set an upper boundary.

I picked up the children’s historical biography 武田信玄と上杉謙信 again. I started it around the beginning of the year but put it aside for a while since I was sick. I want to be done with it and get it off my shelf but it’s really boring. I thought a children’s version would be livelier but this is so dry. There are only 60 pages left (it’s a short book) and I know this is going to feel a lot longer than 60 pages of…

ナミヤ雑貨店の奇蹟 which is SO GOOD. I’m about 25% through and really enjoying how well written it is. I’m reading a used copy of the regular Kadokawa edition, but it turns out there’s also a Tsubasa Bunko version with full furigana.

[natarin]

June 6 Home Post

Well today ended up very productive; I read chapter 4 of 海辺(うみべ)のカフカ earlier so I’m caught up for this week’s reading! And then I fell deep into AI: The Somnium Files and… oof, there were a lot of feelings today. I ended up going way longer than I intended because things were happening and I absolutely could not stop in the middle, but I finished みずき’s route so it all works out!

AI stuff

I have a lot of feelings about みずき Her biological parents were garbage actually, wow! I’d still never actually seen them outside of like photographs and their corpses (yikes) so seeing flashbacks of them reframed some stuff. And yeah… not great. 伊達(だて) and I were on the same page lmao:

伊達(だて) though… 伊達(だて)'s a good dad!! The whole end part of this route made me cry. First みずき being repeatedly in danger and all that, then 伊達(だて) very directly risking his life for her and even seeming possibly legitimately dead (the shot of the bullet approaching both of his eyes and like shattering the アイボゥ screen was really cool though, angst aside) and all of the aftermath… Playing as みずき was a fun change but she was so sad, it really hurt, especially when she’d said earlier how 伊達(だて) was really all she had left and just And his somnium!! All the memories, him trying to be a good dad and both of them dealing with a really complicated situation, and in the end directly going to him over her biological parents… yeah I have a lot of feelings haha. They’re family!!

伊達(だて) may joke about his wish being like “for this boring situation to be over quicker” but they care about each other! He’s a good dad!

Well that became a rambly mess quickly lmao but anyway today was a good reading day! It’s always cool to get super into what I’m reading like that

[Thud]

Started reading Yokohama Shopping Trip volume 1 (first edition) yesterday. Wanted to read something alongside spy x family novel and I think this one looked best. Also serves as a sorta back-up, if I’m too tired to read before bed then I already read something that day most likely. I only read the prologue. From the spy x family novel I also read a few pages, the introduction of this first chapter. It’s definitely a novel and that does take me more time, there is furigana but not as much as the manga. The furigana doesn’t seem to align with the kanji necessarily, looks more like a little note. Story wise this probably takes place after volume 4, given bond is there and the last story is about the family portrait.

Played some more Persona 4 Golden recently and I’m right about to head into the first dungeon. Game introduced me to various shops, velvet room and I also talked to some NPC’s. There’s someone that’s really into bikes:

I’m about 7 hours in at this point, which is still early in. Modern persona games (since 3) are pretty slow paced, but that suits me fine for the level I’m still at so I don’t mind it that much. Not sure if I’ll tone down the difficulty eventually, so I can just enjoy story and dialogue. While initially the battle system drew me in back when I played it years ago on the vita, there’s better options out there. The main draw will be me trying to soak up all that Inaba (稲羽) has to offer. I’ll try to post more of my playthrough whenever I can.

[Belerith]

@Thud

Inaba (稲羽)

TIL the kanji for that! Oh man that looks lovely. I half want to get the game in Japanese again for a third play through (not counting ng+, heh) and another 100+ hrs, but i should probably actually finish Persona 5 first. And then maybe get Royal in Japanese instead.

[Thud]

It’s funny as I had trouble typing the second kanji from the compound and went with the counter instead. In names it can be read as ba. Name probably comes from the hare of inaba legend.

The high school is also called Yasogami 八十神, which refers to the many gods/deities. Cute wink, considering they pull from different kind of mythologies.

[Belerith]

@Thud

The high school is also called Yasogami 八十神,

Oh man, those little hints everywhere! It’s probably such a cool game to experience in Japanese!

[MaraVos]

I read chapter 4 yesterday! When I finished I realized that the chapter was actually 11 pages long (not 8 like I originally thought, for some reason). So that’s cool.

And! The vampires have arrived! Sei / 霧島くん’s older brother Kou is totally giving all the pretty girls at school anemia (at least that’s what it looks like right now). And maybe he can transform into a black ferret? Luckily Miu seems to be at least partially resistant to vampire magic.

Kou talks like this

「あれ？『鬼了テンプ』 の能力が効いてない？」

I don’t know what テンプ or 鬼了 are, and could not find them in any dictionary. Miu doesn’t seem to know either, though. But I wonder what clues 鬼了 would give me if I had a more intuitive understand of kanji …?

「セイじゃん。人の獲物に手ぇ、ださないでよ」

I’m guessing that the 手ぇ part indicates some kind of delinquent drawl? That’s all I’ve got.

One nice thing about this book is that I feel a lot more able to let go of the little things that I don’t understand. I guess because it feels more like entertainment than like a Valuable Learning Opportunity. It’s a nice change of pace!

Words I can remember

イタチ – weasel
つかむ – after looking it up about a dozen times I finally learned “to catch, grasp, grab”
首すじ – nape of the neck
目元 – area around the eyes (or expression of the eyes)
泣きぼくろ – crying mole (mole under the eye “supposedly due to having cried”)

I learned 泣きぼくろ at one point (from someone else’s word list, I think) and remembered it because I was watching A Lull in the Sea (凪のあすから) and one of the characters has one. But this is the first time I’ve run across the word myself!

[polv]

Jun 7, Tue (Week 11) calendar post

@Cathm2

@polv

Night Cafe Ch.8 I still can’t promise this one. And Ch.9 has started – should I catch up?

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.

Thanks for the encouragement. I actually read the first page of Ch.8 in advance before, and I find it not too hard (though a little on the challenging side); rather, I find chapters in this book on always a little too long…

Nonetheless, Ch.8 is divided to many small sections (5 sections, I think); and each section is fun on its own. I actually read Ch.8 on smartphone to the end as well (and opening a dictionary means switching apps – not as convenient as having two devices…)

Ch.9 is longer and has like two sections. Nonetheless, I managed to finish it in one go. (I have a tablet, a laptop, and a smartphone this time.) So, I guess I have caught up.

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I also started to do more listening. I found a little better way to use subtitles on Netflix. Nonetheless, a journey to better listening has only just started.

There was also a write-up on Listening Everyday Challenge. My guess is it will start anyway at the beginning of July. I will still probably use Read Everyday Challenge as a main plan to post weekly wholesome Japanese language learning, anyway.

I reckon that I will eventually need a place to connect seasons of learning myself, although it is currently at Extensive Reading Challenge. A post of my own would be a better place, as well as for:-

• My favorite tools, and a list of abandon tools
  • After all, I am more of a forum and outside-WaniKani user. And I installed UserScripts on smartphone (Kiwi Browser) as well.
• My mods, my creations, and tool failure – according to my experience

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Vocabularies of note:

• ブランコ swing, that you sit on (乗る) and swing/rock (揺らす) from loanword Portuguese’s balanço
• ホイッスル whistle
• バイブ音(おん) – not sure of the pronunication – vibration sound (on a mobile phone)
• 目(め)配(くば)せ signaling with the eyes / winking
• しょっちゅう always, constantly – etymology is sound changes from 初中(しょちゅう)
• 始(し)発(はつ) first departure (of a train) – opposite is 終(しゅう)発(はつ), although I normally knew 終(しゅう)電(でん)
• 懐(ふところ) purse, bag, bosom, depth of thought – I think Goo JE explains well
• 邂(かい)逅(こう) chance meeting – this vocab is from a 試し読み of Date-A-Live, Tooka part; which looks fun to read, tbh

[Zakarius]

The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220607

No Longer Tanuki Progress: 9.35%

There’s some pretty obscure kanji here that don’t have furigana, but then it gives me furigana for 空.

I um… also have an announcement, that’ll quickly be never spoken of again.

Somehow I completely forgot that I needed to times my character calculations by 100 to get the correct reading percentage. So… my reading is actually at 9%. and all my past readings will be two decimal places higher now.

I did think that my reading had been extremely miniscule, even by my slow standards.

Anywayyy…

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Japanese found in the tall grass

Learnthings

所謂「いわゆる」ー As it is called; so-called (have I come across this before in this book? Probably. This will most likely be a common recurrence until the words finally get rooted.)
目障り「めざわり」ー Eyesore; Unpleasant sight
滅多「めった」ー Seldom; rare; thoughtless; reckless
真夏「まなつ」ー Midsummer; height of summer
脚絆「きゃはん」ー Gaiters; leggings
レギンス ー Leggings
袖口「そでぐち」ー Cuff; armhole
上京「じょうきょう」ー Going up to the capital; going to Tokyo
怖ず怖ず「おずおず」ー Timidly; nervously
性癖「せいへき」ー Disposition; propensity; inclination
お正月「おしょうがつ」ー New year (especially the first three days of one)
獅子舞い「ししまい」ー Liondance (traditional dance)
手帖「てちょう」ー Pocket book; notepad; memopad

Different Forms
彼等「かれら」ー They / 彼ら

[AzusaChan]

I’ve been reading more 生命のスペア recently and kind of put the manga I was reading on hold, or focusing on it less at least. I try to hit at least 5k characters a day in the VN just so it won’t take me too long to finish (I think at that pace, it’d be almost exactly 60 days to finish this one which isn’t bad for me). I had a lot of free time this past weekend so I was able to go a bit above that. I’m at about 43k~ characters read in total and the story is about 300k long. I like all the characters so far though, they’re really cute and funny. The premise is kind of sad though so I’m a bit fearful of what’s going to happen by the end but I’m enjoying the ride.

The heroine of the story is cute and makes a lot of good jokes & facial expressions

Also a random WK vocab word (暴走族) that I didn’t expect to see in the wild, at least for this VN.

[Redglare]

Summary post

June 7th

・ かがみの孤城 下 (45% → 54%)

I have to find the book clubs threads. Stuff is happening

[MissDagger]

June 7

Read chapter 12 of Yotsuba& today. I love Yotsuba’s dojo for swimming. Do it like a fish! Think like a fish! The humor was a bit more repetitive than usual. Perhaps they should have gone to Waterworld. But Yotsuba saved the chapter with all the humor bits around her.

Feeling a bit low today. Several things in my life kinda going a little bit not right, so everything is shaded with some wrongness. Makes the whole day(s) feel rather dissatisfying at the moment.

[MaraVos]

Finished chapter 5, nine pages. Things are heating up!!

I kept track of some of these words today while reading because I didn't want to forget them.

ひざ and ひじ – reminds me of まつげ and まゆげ. One is elbow and one is knee. Do I remember which is which…? Yes! (Because Kirishima-kun totally sucked the blood off Miu’s skinned knee!!! )
こめかみ – temple (part of your head)
鼻にかける – I love this! To be full of pride, boastful. Like, so full of pride that you hang a little sign on your nose letting everyone know why!
気が散る – to get distracted
口づけ – to kiss (as a prince kisses a princess’ hand)
ooh, one more
高鳴る – to throb!

[MaraVos]

Sorry you are feeling down. Hope things start going totally right and you feel better soon.

[rikaiwisdom]

Summary Post

June 2
Final Fantasy VII

June 5 - 7
Final Fantasy VII

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I keep wanting to update but I’m playing quite late at night and I’m always tired right after so I never do. Haven’t done today yet but I’m about to so might as well just add it. Sadly not much to say without disclosing heavy spoilers, but it’s been getting more and more spicy.

[Daisoujou]

@Thud

Played some more Persona 4 Golden recently and I’m right about to head into the first dungeon.

Oh I love Persona 4, super cozy memories just looking at that screenshot. Hope you have a great time, and definitely keep us updated.

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Another quick update, but another 8000 characters! Hanging in there much better today. Not much I can say without spoiling the game structure a bit too heavily, but my general feelings remain from before. Still waiting for things to heat up. Nothing huge good or bad when it comes to my reading, just continuing the grind.