📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

June 12th!

I read the next chapter of Yoru Cafe today. As always it took me a long time, about 90 minutes again - but I didn’t find it too tough to read this week, it was mostly vocabulary I knew and even though there were a few bits of grammar that I puzzled over a bit, I’m pretty sure I got the gist of it all in the end. :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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Yeah, I guess you could say that. A short summary of what I think:

  • 行ってください - is the most polite out of those four. Carries the meaning of a request.
  • 行きなさい - sounds like a parent or teacher telling their child/student to do something.
  • 行きな - I think this is mostly used between peers, I haven’t seen it much yet so I can’t tell.
  • 行け - sounds bossy and rude. Imperative form.
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Summary post :bookmark:

June 12th :seedling:

・SAO Progressive 1 (6% → 12%)

Currently longing for the days where I could enjoy the simplicity of copy-pasting words from ebooks.
googles how to set up yomichan in physical books

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June 12

Being a bit lenient with myself today. Feels entirely appropriate for this off month in the challenge. I’m counting playing Atelier Sophie as my “reading” today, despite the fact that it is only listening (since I am playing with English text). Still, I played for several hours and had several story bits.

And like with any medium, I’m encountering words I recently learned on WK. I’ve been hearing 真剣 quite a bit. Also fun when I noticed a discrepancy between the audio and the translated text. Sophie called out two names with a surprised/questioning tone, and they decided to translate that as: “NAME A and NAME B. Why are you here?” or something very like that. And I guess that is the difference between audio and text, because audio can convey tone. But it sounded a bit accusatory to ask “WHY?!”

They’re your friends, mate.

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June 12 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

I… hm. I can feel the end coming in AI: The Somnium Files so I played like… a lot today and woah, things are wild. Brain is currently overloaded with crazy plot things :joy: If I had to guess I’ll probably finish in the next day or two? So we’ll see :eyes:

AI stuff because what even happened today omg

I don’t even know where to start :joy: I had good instincts about ピュータ being sketchy but like… I don’t think he’s bad actually? Probably, clearly he and 沖浦(おきうら) and 89 are all connected in various ways and at this point I’m very unclear on what they’re actually trying to do :sweat_smile: Like I don’t think 沖浦(おきうら) or 89 would want to hurt イリス? I certainly don’t see why they would, and therefore I don’t know why ピュータ would since his main investment in all this seems to be 沖浦(おきうら) :man_shrugging: But like the last thing I saw was 沖浦(おきうら) dead in the Psync machine and 89 shocking 伊達(だて) which would indicate them not being on the same side but?? Why?? Then there’s the whole thing with the Psync machine swapping people’s minds which they clearly had to find out somehow, and that trial version requires an eye I guess? So maybe it wasn’t 89 anymore :eyes:

But there was a whole lot of backstory today; 愛夏(まなか) :pleading_face: That whole situation is really sad, and complicated yikes, 世島(せじま)'s got a lot going on too :sweat_smile: But okay listen - 伊達(だて)'s definitely his son yeah? He definitely did the murder all those years ago as a tiny child and somehow now doesn’t remember it and they’re like protecting him from that reality I guess? But yikes, that… has so much angst within it, oof. Depending on who all does and doesn’t know… like he’s raising 沖浦(おきうら)'s daughter, ouch. I… am worried :laughing: But also this Psync machine mind swapping mechanic… I feel like that must be relevant to 伊達(だて) somehow as well? Like he’s missing an eye which the prototype probably used, and he’s missing all his memories from before that time? Except for these weird snippets where he remembers doing that like temple pattycake song with イリス as 89, like… and he just has weird knowledge of stuff he shouldn’t have any idea about. Plus it would explain how we were “randomly” found on street and roped into this special agency… idk :man_shrugging:

Wow you can tell things are getting wild because I can’t shut up about it :joy: In other news there was a Zero Escape reference; there’s a lot of references to other spike chunsoft games haha

(calling a frozen corpse ALL-ICE… yikes lmao)

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June 13

Read the next story in The Best Selection from Yuu Watase (her name actually appears in this order when written not written with kanji/hiragana on the book cover). I actually flipped through it yesterday, to kinda get an idea of what the story was about. That made me think I wouldn’t like it, so today felt like it was gonna be a chore. But the story was better than I imagined it from just browsing the pages.

But I’ve almost got a headache after reading. Probably because I woke up with fried brain. Poor sleep last night I guess. So felt like a real mental effort to read even though it had about the same difficulty as all the other stories in this volume. (Aka it is my fried brain status that made the effort hard, not the text of the story.)

Will probably play more Atelier Sophie later because what else am I gonna do with a mostly offline brain? Listening practice will not be very valuable, but then I don’t think anything I do today will be high quality. And a nap would probably not make a difference because they rarely/never do for me. :sob:

Edit: Should mention that I am feeling better about my days again. Mostly back to my more cheerful self, even with a dead brain. :woman_zombie: ?

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Home

Yesterday’s:

Y’know I remembered that Deku calls Erik/Camus アニキ, but I forgot Erik calls him 相棒. I’m kinda jealous tbh. Since パートナー gets used more often, 相棒 feels more special. Like, (Vance? Vince?) will call you 相棒, and it would be one thing if everyone called their partner 相棒 in this competition, but no, they use パートナー. It’s just him. So I’m like, “No! Only Erik can call me 相棒!” But I’m not the only one Erik calls 相棒…

Also! It comes with voice dramas! And you can toggle the text on and off and it has a log mode where you can read the whole thing and you can jump forward and back by individual sections! So I’ll definitely be listening to/reading those at some point, though probably not anytime soon.

Anyway, I played for about 6 hours. We got the red orb back into our possession and escaped through the traveler’s gate to Homura (first イシの村 [石], then ホムラの里 [炎]… I don’t really remember the next place, so I wonder which is next), then started off toward the monster hideout in the west. I had wanted to finish the labyrinth and have Veronica and Senya/Serena join up, but I ended up being too tired and turned in. Aside from unlocking お宝ハンター/Itemized Kill, I haven’t gotten to where Erik starts calling you 相棒 yet.

Some vocab of note:

密林 (みつりん) [noun] close thicket; dense forest; jungle. Apparently this is also a slang word for Amazon.com lol
青二才 (あおにさい) [noun, derogatory] green youth; immature youth; novice; greenhorn
乗りかかった船 (のりかかったふね) [expression] having gone too far to turn back
事切れる (こときれる) [一, intransitive] to expire; to die
なんの変哲もない (なんのへんてつもない) [expression, い-adjective] completely ordinary; plain; commonplace; everyday
いてもたってもいられない [expression, い-adjective] unable to contain oneself; itching to do something; cannot sit still
金床 (かなとこ) [noun] anvil
指南 (しなん) [noun, する verb] instruction (in martial arts, performance, etc.); teaching; coaching. This comes from 指南車, an ancient Chinese vehicle with a compass whose needle always pointed south.
マセる [一, intransitive] to be precocious; to be mature for one’s age; to seem grown-up; to seem mature
無骨 (ぶこつ) [noun, な-adjective] boorish; unrefined; rustic; uncouth; clumsy; brusque
単刀直入 (たんとうちょくにゅう) [四字熟語, noun, な-adjective] straight to the point; point-blank; frank; direct

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I hit a little bit over 100k characters read in total for 生命のスペア yesterday. I think I’m averaging almost 10k characters a day but I have a lot more free time on the weekends compared to weekdays, so the average gets a bit inflated from weekend reading days :sweat_smile: The story has been decent so far, if I wasn’t tracking my total character count I would think I’m near the end but I’m only about 1/3 of the way done per jpdb’s total character count for this game. I’m not sure how the story will end when there is so much left but it has been a fun read so far! Relatively simple too, the grammar is a lot easier than I expected, its mostly just a lot of vocabulary look ups.

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:tiger2: :books: The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220613 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

No Longer Tanuki Progress: 18.23%

The main character is starting to get creepier and creepier.

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

Learnthings

鉄棒「てつぼう」ー Iron bar; horizontal bar (that’s used in gymnastics)
幅飛び「はばとび」ー Long jump; broad jump
尻餅「しりもち」ー Falling on your bum; also the mochi for a child’s first birthday (it’s put on their back and they look like a turtle, I’m sure someone shared some cute pictures of that earlier in this challenge or in the previous one)
囁く「ささやく」ー To whisper/murmur
見破ら「みやぶら」ー To see through something (like a lie, façade etc.)
業火 「ごうか」ー Hellfire; flames of hell
発狂「はっきょう」ー Lunacy; madness
演じる「えんじる」ー To act/play (a part/role); to perform; to put on
重苦しい「おもくろしい」ー Heavy feeling; gloomy; oppressive atmosphere
溜息「ためいき」ー Sigh
木っ葉「こっば」ー Wood splinter/chip; worthless person or thing
じっとり ー Damp (has negative nuance, like clammy)
キョロキョロ ー Looking around restlessly; fidgety eyes
四六時中「よんろくじちゅう」ー Around the clock; day and night
口走る「くちばしる」ー To blurt out
媚笑「びしょう」ー Charming; enticing smile
猫撫で声「ねこなでごえ」ー Soft, coaxing voice
下駄箱「げたばこ」ー Shoe rack or cupboard for shoes

Other Forms
見廻す = 見回す「みまわす」(to look around)
傍から = 側から「そばから」(as soon as; right after)


@Redglare, realised that yesterday was a year since I joined your first reading challenge, so it’s been a whole(ish) year of reading! I started off struggling, and I’m still struggling, but just with harder things now, so… :sparkles: Advanced Struggling :sparkles:

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Main Post

I finished YKK volume 1 today. It was quite good and cozy. Takes a bit to get used to the accents, I think vocalizing it makes it easier to parse what it bastardises all the time given it is meant to be spoken dialogue. Wanted to mark it up on natively, but forgot that they use another edition of the series so it doesn’t match up. So I removed it and my gradings, which was hard to compare when you get things in the same ballpark. Either way I’ll just continue with volume 2 of the old edition starting tomorrow.

I’m back home for a few days and I think I’ll start the second chapter of the Spy x Family novel tonight. I had considered reading one of my other books I brought with me while camping, but didn’t feel like starting something new. Maybe next weekend.

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Yes, totally, and you get used to it after a while.

I also discovered that yesterday and it’s really unfortunate, I think. I just filled out the volumes that seem to roughly correspond to what I read so far.

Feel free to join the book club threads, of course (but I expect you already know about them :slightly_smiling_face:).

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June 13th!

Chapter 24 of Mitsuboshi Colors today! I found this chapter pretty funny :slightly_smiling_face:
That’s my final bit of bookclub reading for this week, so I’ll probably start Volume 11 of Yotsuba tomorrow.

The books I ordered came today, and when I put them on my shelves I discovered that I now have exactly the right amount of manga to fill two shelves. Theres something satisfying about how nicely it fits. :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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Summary post :bookmark:

June 13th :cherry_blossom:

・SAO Progressive 1 (12% → 19%)

Goal for tomorrow: Start reading after breakfast - reviews and other stuff can wait.


Progress! :eyes: :sparkles: Well done keeping at it for a whole(ish) year! :durtle_noice:

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Read an NHK Easy article today!

From what I can gather, the penalties for cyberbullying in Japan have been made more severe, with the fine being raised from 10,000 yen to 300,000 yen, and a maximum sentence of 1 year in prison. Also the lawyers are worried about it? Maybe something about being worried how the law will be interpreted or applied to certain situations?

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Jun 14, Tue :cherry_blossom: calendar post

Week 12 of Spring 2022’s planning

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June 13 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

Well… it happened. I finished AI: The Somnium Files and I feel empty inside now :joy: This always happens, I’m like “oooh I’m almost done that’s exciting, I’ll definitely just be happy and emotionally fulfilled when it’s over!” and then I get there and I don’t feel like part of this world anymore lmao. Business as usual :man_shrugging: But yeah AI was absolutely fantastic, everyone who’s talked about it was completely right, I loved it a lot and had many feelings :grin:

Reading-wise it was a total success too! There were rough spots here and there, but overall it was a comfortable read and I definitely felt the emotional impacts of all kinds, from horror to anguish to goofs :laughing: I finished in a little under 60 hours which certainly isn’t native speed but not bad either, especially with my incessant need to click on everything always haha. So yeah, fourth game under my belt? Feels pretty good :grin: I’m excited to inevitably start something new! and play the sequel sometime once it comes out :eyes:

dumping my AI feelings

Hoo boy… today was a lot :sweat_smile: Sooo I was adjacent to what was actually going on? 伊達(だて) isn’t 瀬島(せじま)'s son but like… his body was! Man the body-swapping ended up so much more relevant to everything than I anticipated. That really recontextualizes everything huh? And 伊達(だて)… yeah I don’t know why I didn’t more directly grasp who he actually was but ouch! These relationships are complicated, oof. But they’re happy now at least mostly? Other than the people who died but well, as it turned out by the time we even started this story it was too late for them so… :man_shrugging:

アイボゥ… I knew the self-destruct feature was gonna come up (obviously) but not like that, not when we spent so much time establishing how she had endless backups and everything, that scene wrecked me! The flashbacks of all their memories and then 伊達(だて) saying he hated her for the lie… I cried for sure :joy: and then the end scene?? That whole sequence?? 41205 :smiling_face_with_tear: The big dance scene just… I’m so weak for that sort of thing, all the characters you’ve spent all this time getting to know and love together just singing and dancing and having a good time? To show how much they care about 伊達(だて)? They all put together this whole surprise for him :smiling_face_with_tear: All of them! Happy tears all over that one haha; I’ll be rewatching it for sure :blush:

I’m sure I’m forgetting things (there was a lot today lmao) but yeah it was an amazing experience! I absolutely adored it and I have many feelings about all of the characters, I wish them all the best :grin:

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Home

I read 5 pages of 明日をくれた君に、光のラブレターを, finishing the prologue! Midzuki actually has two friends: Kaito is her childhood friend since kindergarten, and she’s liked him for forever but has never thought about confessing since she didn’t want their relationship to change, and then around the beginning of their second year of high school, he and Ritsu started going out. Her childhood friend and her best friend… It seems Midzuki herself gave them the chance to start dating just by being around both of them all the time.

Every day after school, she sits at a window seat in the school library to watch Kaito at soccer practice. Since she found out he and Ritsu are dating 4 months ago, she’s always grabbed the same book to pretend to read: Natsume Souseki’s Kokoro. Today, she finds a letter addressed to her between its pages…

I played about 9 hrs of DQXI throughout the day. Apparently it’s “supposed” to take 100 hrs if you complete all the side quests and stuff, but it’s definitely gonna take me longer than that. Probably in English, too. Actually, I should get my ENG copy out and see how many hours I have on it so far and see how far I’ve gotten; I know I’m on Act 2, but that’s it. Anyway, I got Veronica and Senya/Serena to join, completed Samady/Gallopolis and had Sylv join (including placing first in both the Bronze and Silver Cups! I don’t remember when Gold unlocks), and made it to the port city of Daharune. Faris is kind of annoying, but I also can’t help but kind of like him.

Going around petting all the dogs because Eight can’t (though, well, it doesn’t look all that much more like petting them than doing the punch pose with Eight lol). (Also just because I like petting dogs.)

I also finally remembered to pay attention to what the descriptive text says for the “finish” option with the Fun-Sized Forge, and it does not say that you douse the item in icy water. It just says water. Which, yeah, is still bad (especially for the weapons; you should be definitely be quenching those in warm oil), but icy water is just bad for everything. More than bad. It’s a wonder none of the stuff El makes ever breaks.

Some vocab of note:

あれよあれよという間に [expression] while looking on in blank amazement; while gazing at it in shock
おもむろに [adverb] suddenly; abruptly. Its original meaning was the complete opposite: “deliberately; slowly; gently.” I wonder how that turnabout happened.
率いる (ひきいる) [一, transitive] to lead; to spearhead (a group); to command (troops). Until today, I’d only known this kanji to have the “ratio/%” meaning.
吟遊詩人 (ぎんゆうしじん) [noun] troubadour; minstrel
百発百中 (ひゃっぱつひゃくちゅう) [四字熟語, noun] always hitting the bullseye; infallible
摩訶不思議 (まかふしぎ) [noun, な-adjective] profound mystery. I think this is also the first word I’ve seen that was this long where each kanji corresponded to only one kana.
目がない [expression, い-adjective] extremely fond of; having a weakness for; being a sucker for

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Day Something

  • ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 15巻

6/13
start- 14

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june 13 :cherry_blossom: home post

So in my June goals list I said this:

And that’s now checked off my list! I just reread through all that I read before: i.e., the prologue and act 1. The reason I wanted to restart was because about halfway through act 1 the difficulty jumps because Zelda appears and she’s a princess so of course she speaks like one. I think I like Link’s dialogue better :laughing:

But anyway, I wanted to start from the beginning to see if I could understand it a bit better this time. And I think I do! But it still took a while to get through. I’m kinda surprised I did it in one sitting

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