📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

I’d assume so. @windupbird have so far done all of them (except the original).

Thank you for your service so far and in the future, @windupbird! o7


June 19

Three pages of Zenitendou today. I’m moving up in the world! And for once it didn’t feel like it kicked my butt. I keep thinking I should reread everything I’ve read so far, to experience the story in a less start-and-stop-start-and-stop fashion, but I think I might just finish the whole short story first; and then reread.

Turns out that maybe what I need to focus on in this more intensive read is to pay attention to particles and such, because they will probably answer any question I have or anything I’m thinking of diving deeper into. :sweat_smile:

24 Likes

Yes! I’ll be putting up a thread for the summer challenge next weekend, with the challenge to start July 1st ^^ Would love to have you join!

:saluting_face: :saluting_face:

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(📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱 - #12 by DIO-Berry)

  • ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 15巻

6/19
175 - end (202)

Gotta love Hol Horse, “My stand is a gun.

Also, please enjoy some of his namesake

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Home

The sound of cicadas and the sight of cottonwood fluff floating on the breeze… I almost don’t mind the 100° heat. (Almost.)

Also we’re nearly two-thirds of the way through June and I’ve still only finished 1 book. I gotta change that.

…Which is to say that, aside from starting SPY×FAMILY for the club today, I also started another manga. My brain’s been really bleh lately, and I can’t really get myself to focus on the other books I’ve started. I chose 晴れのち四季部: A Warm Sunshine, and the Four Seasons Club since it seemed it would be easy. It’s a (full-color!) 4コマ, and it’s somewhat like a gay(er) GSNK except instead of ch 1 starting with a confession that gets mistaken for a declaration of intent to help work on his manga, ch 1 ends with a declaration of intent to join his after-school club that gets mistaken for a confession. (And even after Haruno realizes how Yamato took it, he basically just goes, ‘wellp, guess we’re boyfriends now’ lmao) Yamato’s a returnee, and the first thing he does is declare that he’s starting a four seasons club (to appreciate Japanese culture and beauty and whatnot), and he spends like the whole first chapter trying to recruit members and specifically Haruno (Haruno: I’m not joining! Don’t think you can lure me in with food! *joins anyway*) and developing a lil crush on him. It’s hilarious and cute and everyone’s a dumbass. Anyway I read ch 1 桜 and ch 2 鯉のぼり.

Anyway I keep wanting to read Yamato’s surname (一瀬) as いちのせ. It’s ひとせ, which apparently is an actual, if uncommon, reading. (My IME will only let me type it either as いちのせ or separately). Haruno start calling your boyfriend by his given name challenge. He already calls you by yours. (Haruno’s is a [I assume] unique reading of the kanji 日乃, but that’s easier for me to remember somehow.)

I read ch 1 of SPY×FAMILY. This week’s assignment was only half of it, but I don’t like leaving off partway through a chapter. I know Loid and Yor are more or less the same age, but Loid’s age (why??) is one of the things redacted on his profile, and he looks really young with his hair down, so I wonder if he’s younger than Yor is. Actually, I rather like the idea of him being younger for some reason, so I kinda hope he is lol. Anyway, I’m really enjoying this manga so far. Anya’s adorable and hilarious (and also I love the little sparks that show she’s using her ability?), and it’s nice seeing Loid trying so hard to be a good father to her even though he’s bad with kids.

I need more bookmarks.

Some vocab of note:

満開 (まんかい) [noun, する verb] full bloom (esp. of sakura)
蕾 (つぼみ) [noun] (flower) bud
恐らく (おそらく) [adverb] perhaps; likely; probably; dare I say. My first time seeing it in kanji, and I’m happy to report that I knew exactly what I was, even if I don’t understand how this word came from this kanji. Ohhh, scratch that, it’s apparently a slight shortening of the expression 恐らくは, which means “I fear that it’s likely that.” That makes sense now.
鯉のぼり (こいのぼり) [noun] carp streamer
動じる (どうじる) [一, intransitive] to be perturbed; to be agitated
日の目を見る (ひのめをみる) [expression, 一] to see the light of day; to be revealed (to the world); to be realized
児戯 (じぎ) [noun] mere child’s play
念のため (ねんのため) [expression, adverb] just to be sure, just in case, to be safe, for caution’s sake

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June 19 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

I played some more バディミッションBOND! when I could stop myself from playing Hollow Knight, the switch is a dangerous rabbit-hole lmao It’s still wild; it’s really just ルーク gradually accumulating weirder and weirder people to hang out and solve crimes with :joy: They certainly make an interesting group. And the speech patterns keep expanding; at this point I’d say ルーク is fairly standard guy with some police slang thrown in here and there, アーロン is aggro shounen to the extreme, モクマ I think is playing on ninja concepts but also just like… weird lmao, and new man チェズレイ is polite and elegant but in like a scary way :joy: And today there was a random guy using like 拙者(せっしゃ) and でござる and it was cool not being super thrown by that, just “ah yes samurai speech” :grin: So yeah very interesting! Definitely getting exposed to a lot of specific vocabulary which is a good learning opportunity :man_shrugging:

buddy mission stuff!

So I officially met チェズレイ and oh boy is he something. He started talking and I was like “ohh I know that voice, uh oh” :laughing: It’s Namikawa Daisuke aka like Oikawa, Hisoka, Jellal, y’know that kind of voice, so that really set the vibes from the beginning haha. So yeah I like him so far! I’m just also terrified of him :joy: but I think that’s probably wise. He’s pretty cool though; his whole thing is being crazy good at disguises, man of 100 faces, where have I seen that before haha. But yeah it’s cool, and can also like… control people through music? Unclear exactly what the mechanics of that are (I suspect it might be connected to the experiments that have been mentioned :eyes:), but it’s made for some really cool sequences of him doing do-re-mi scales as people do his bidding, pretty wild. His morals are also questionable :joy: He’s absolutely killed people but like… bad people? So jury’s still out a bit I suppose, he’s pretty morally gray though.

The チェズレイ and モクマ dynamic is interesting too; they’re obviously presented as kind of a pair in the opening and such but I didn’t expect them to be quite like this :joy: It’s a whole thing because モクマ “saved” him as he was trying to escape as part of his plan, which チェズレイ didn’t really want obviously but still as far as モクマ knew he was risking his life to save who チェズレイ was at the time which is something alright! So yeah it’s like… what モクマ did didn’t actually benefit チェズレイ, but the meaning is still there you know? So there’s a weird sense of gratitude, of course accompanied by the clash of モクマ being insanely competent and also a hot mess :laughing:

Poor モクマ is going through it, he’s just befriending more and more attractive people and I don’t think his heart can handle it :joy: But there was also an indication of some angst with him too? I guess チェズレイ can kind of read people’s hearts or something because he said he felt that モクマ actually wanted to die when he jumped out of the airship to save him and that’s… ouch? It didn’t really go into detail, cut over to the other two being chaotic pretty quickly, but that’s really rough. This game keeps going into darker territory than I expect, I don’t know why I keep being surprised but… yeah, I hope モクマ’s alright :cry:

Anyway some fun screenshots bc I have no self-control:

Yes this is how fight scenes work… “don’t shoot, I have a surfboard!!” yeah… yeah :joy:

See モクマ is cool sometimes!! You’d never believe it from the way he normally acts but I guess that’s the trick huh

The man himself after being forced to unmask and so feeling like honor-bound and saying like “my body is yours now” and they’re all like “why!! Why are you saying it like this!!” He’s just like that huh :joy:

Rip in pieces モクマ, you will be missed :saluting_face:

Aww that looks super cute!! You had me at GSNK haha, another one for the infinite list

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Main Post

Finished volume 2 of YKK. Not much too say except it’s good and wholesome. I found the little backstory of gramps and doctor to be neat. Dude has always looked like that lol. Continuing with volume 3 today.

Also finished chapter 2 of Spy x Family novel. It was a bit of a weird one, uncle Yuri got called in to babysit Anya. Wanting to leave a good impression with his sister, he took Anya to career orientation I believe. There’s an open day program for various careers where they showcase things to kids. So one of them is with the police and they did an interrogation. Can see how that goes lol.

I’ll probably start reading chapter 3 tonight. Haven’t been able to read anything else, but that’s okay.

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:tiger2: :books: The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220620 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

No Longer Tanuki Progress: 35.11%

Third of the way through now, think some of the new words are slowly sinking in.

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

Learnthings

モダニティー ー Modernity
見栄坊「みえぼう」ー A person who looks good (and knows it - is the nuance here); vain person
算術「さんじゅつ」ー Arithmetic
親愛 「しんあい」ー Deep affection
非合法「ひごうほう」ー Illegal; unlawful
居心地「いごこち」ー Comfort
底知れず「そこしれず」ー Bottomless; Never-ending; immeasurable
日蔭者「ひかげもの」ー A person who hides from the world; someone who can’t be seen by the world (such as illegitimate children hidden from the outside world so people don’t know of an affair, people who are wanted by the law and are in hiding etc. though can be, as here, in a less direct sense - someone who is so full of shame or disgust for themselves that they cannot bare to face the outside world)
糟糠「そうこう」ー plain food
糟糠の妻「そうこうのつま」ー A devoted wife; someone who has stayed with you through poverty, hardship, rough times etc.
侘しい「わびしい」ー Miserable; wretched; lonely; dreary
「すね」ー Shin; lower leg
痛苦「つうく」ー Anguish
千変万化「せんぺんばんか」ー Ever-changing; innumerable changes; infinite variety
烈火「れっか」ー Raging fire
除名「じょめい」ー Expulsion; striking a name from a list; excommunication
牢屋「ろうや」ー Jail

Forms
慾 = 欲「よく」(Want; greed; craving; desire)

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Summary post :bookmark:

June 20th :seedling:

・ 詩的私的ジャック - Jack the Poetical Private (0% → 5%)

Read a tiny bit yesterday and a bit more today.

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Jun 21, Tue :cherry_blossom: calendar post

Week 13 of Spring 2022’s planning

  • Committed, and paced - for the sake of discussion
    • Death Note Ch.18
    • SPY x FAMILY Ch.1 (Actually, I have read and watch the first half for this week.)
      • With anime watching along, but no sooner than reading.
      • I really want to fast forward to see Anya’s classmate. He is at least in Vol.2 (which I haven’t bought yet).
    • Night Cafe :shrimp: Ch.10
      • Actually, I know there are currently 12 volumes in the ongoing series. I can’t even properly read the first one – Wow.
    • Shadows House – I have read to Ch.2. The story is a little intriguing, but not enough addicting.
    • Happiness – I can remember to the end of Vol.2 well. Didn’t resume reading for a while. Technically, I have read ahead to 2/5 of Vol.3, and I already purchased all 10 volumes.
  • Other books
    • JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 2 vol.3
      • Kars’ letting JoJo go (2)
      • Half of Caesar arc (3/6)
  • Gaming. I feel that this one may digress from the language learning itself, if it is too difficult on the control.
    • ATRI falls off the priority, as I feel the vocabularies are too difficult and not worth pursing now. I don’t want to turn on English subtitles either.
      • Nonetheless, I have purchased the full version of this one for cheap.
    • If I find a new one, I will play. Some VNs or text games might be approachable, only if it gets me addicted. (And within my available devices. [1])
  • Listening
  • General Japanese and grammar

  1. Should I download an emulator? But don’t know if I will be able to find ROM at this age. ↩︎

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June 20th!

I read chapter 25 of Mitsuboshi Colors today. It was a fun one.
I was planning to read more tonight as Mitsuboshi Colors is usually quite a quick read for me, but I had a bit of a long day today so I decided to take it easy!

(Home Post)

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June 20

Zenitendou - 18 → 19 (2 pages)

Almost skipped reading today since I left it until so late, but I guess I decided to stay up late instead. :sleeping: Thankfully the next two pages for Zenitendou were fairly easy. Although I definitely found one sentence interesting in how I didn’t understand it at all, until I got I put it in to DeepL and then ichi.moe. By getting both a translation and then a break down, I figured out how it worked.

Well, better than not getting it, I guess. ^^

どかか / だれか / similar still get me confused to this day. Not what they mean exactly, but you can bet anytime they show up in a sentence, I will be scratching my head trying to figure out what the sentence means. :sweat:

On happier notes, I think everything is ready for :tangerine: :email: (Orange) book club. It feels crazy to realize I will be leading a book club starting in less than two weeks. (Have I mentioned I haven’t managed to keep up with even one WK book club yet? (As in kept reading rather than dropping/falling behind for various reasons.) I better do with this one. :joy: :grimacing: :joy:)

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(📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱 - #12 by DIO-Berry)

  • ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 16巻

6/20
start- 73

Decided to read until I was ready to pass out. I only did one arc though. I think I probably could have read more but I got really tired of Polnareff :joy: His lines are pretty easy to read, but I’m just not a fan of his character. Hopefully the focus shifts to someone else quickly, but I don’t remember.

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Home

Today I watched the first ep of 絶対BL with JP subs. I can actually pretty much follow along without having to pause every few seconds either for lookups or to play catch-up, but I definitely wouldn’t be able to do it if the audio wasn’t JP too; right now, the audio helps me catch things I missed in the subs and the subs help me catch things I missed in the audio.

I read 晴れのち ch 3 梅雨 and ch 4 プール掃除. We meet Haruno’s former senpai from the MS soccer club 鳴子(なるこ)(あずま) during a thunderstorm lol. He’s dropped by to check on his former kouhai because he’s worried about him and also to try to get him to join the soccer club in HS as well (“Drinking tea and eating sweets? That’s not club activities, that’s a date!”). Haruno still seems to be under the impression, at the beginning of ch 3, that they’re not dating, but he still doesn’t try to, like, deny it or correct it or anything. At the end he seems to have accepted that this is what they’re doing now. He’s kind of an airhead. And! Yamato kisses him on the forehead, and though he gets embarrassed he doesn’t really mind and lets it become a thing, and then in ch 4 he’s the one to kiss Yamato on the mouth! (after Yamato already tried to kiss him earlier but Haruno, unawares, thwarted him lol) He thought, “Well, if Hitose says we’re dating, then we must be,” and he decided that if he kissed Yamato the same way then he’ll understand how Yamato feels every day. He’s really out here thinking a kiss on the mouth is the same as a forehead kiss.

Haruno, yer gonna kill him lol

They are truly moron4moron. (Though on the one hand, not knowing what 流しそうめん is can be excused since he lived abroad for most of his childhood, but on the other hand, confusing his mix-up for Haruno’s: アホ.)

I also played 46 minutes of DQXI. I know the exact time because I started playing at 11:14 p.m. lol. I found slime island (a quest took me there), and though I came across a LMS, I wasn’t able to defeat it :/ Camus even has Metal Wing (plus dual wielding!) and Sylvia Metal Slash now! But alas.

Some vocab of note:

不審死 (ふしんし) [noun] undetermined manner of death; suspicious death
ガリ [noun, slang, derogatory] overly skinny person. From the onomatopoeia がりがり “very skinny; emaciated; all skin and bones.”
胃袋を掴む (いぶくろをつかむ) [expression, マ五] to attract someone with food
どっぷり [onomatopoeia, な-adjective, adverb] totally (immersed in something, e.g. liquid, work); addicted
入梅 (つゆいり) [noun, する verb] entering the rainy season; beginning of the rainy season. It is, of course, also written 梅雨入り. This spelling seems to be a case of the 音読み compound still being read with the 訓読み (though it can actually be read either way).
未練 (みれん) [noun, な-adjective] lingering attachment; lingering affection; regret; reluctance; ruefulness
鈍感 (どんかん) [noun, な-adjective] thickheaded
思い立つ (おもいたつ) [タ五, transitive] to set one’s mind on doing; to get the idea of doing; to make up one’s mind

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June 20 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

I started off with some 海辺(うみべ)のカフカ today and my brain was not vibing with the way this scientist guy was talking :joy: I’m sure it’ll be fine when I go back to it, I just did not have mindset for it at the time so that’s a later adventure!

I did play a bunch more バディミッションBOND because of course I did; it has a lot of goofs and it’s always fun actually finding them funny, that can be rough with the language barrier. All the characters are just wild enough that it comes across no matter what :laughing: Like I’ve said all the speaking styles are pretty distinct, but seeing more of how チェズレイ talks has been interesting. He’s definitely polite in like a “serving the young master” kind of way, but since he’s the way he is it’s also kind of condescending :joy: But yeah he even uses stuff like 殿(どの), plus a whole bunch of music terms and metaphors for flair, so he’s an experience for sure.

~ BOND things ~

Some wild stuff happened plot-wise for sure, but a lot of it was just fun interactions which like!! Yeah I’m down! :grin: Give me goofs before the angst inevitably hits again haha. ルーク is so precious, he went to モクマ’s like meet and greet for ニンジャジャン because he loves heroes :pleading_face: He’s by far the most wholesome character, good balance for the unending chaos surrounding him, RIP this man.

アーロン is… less than delicate :joy: And yet ルーク thinks pretty well of him:

Cue アーロン straight up growling and ルーク being like “I think my standards are broken” lmao. アーロン growls like… a lot, he really lives up to the beast name; he even sleep-growls?? Absolutely wild :joy:

This man… it’s pretty impressive coming off as extra by the standards of this world but he is sure there, absolutely amazing :joy: I’m really curious to learn more about him actually, he’s interesting; like yeah his whole human manipulation thing, and the crazy disguise skills, but I’m curious what’s actually going on with him as a person too. Like yes he has no problem being rude to people within his polite facade, but it doesn’t really seem like he thinks very much of himself either? It’s like everything’s an act, everything has a purpose; there are definitely some identity issues in this man. He fully offered to present himself as an entirely different person if ルーク preferred that, and I don’t entirely think he was kidding, which… yeah, he’s complicated! Him and モクマ are really interesting too; he continues to be the only one seeing through モクマ’s goofy facade to how he really feels about things, though today that feeling was intense rage towards チェズレイ sooo… complicated again :laughing: But yes he’s also absolutely savage:

I’m always big on characters so none of this is any surprise really, but I really like all of them :grin: they’re a lot of fun!

22 Likes

:tiger2: :books: The June Tanuki Den: Date 20220621 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

No Longer Tanuki Progress: 38.61%

I’ve been reading aloud while reading, but because it feels weird to talk at normal levels alone, I speak hushed. I feel that I have mentally conditioned my Japanese speaking abilities to only be done in whispers, if I need to speak at normal levels in Japanese I’m not sure if I’ll actually be able to :thinking:

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

Learnthings

同様「どうよう」ー Same; similar; equal
小遣い「こづかい」ー Pocket Money
慄然「りつぜん」ー Terrified; horrified
電報「でんぽう」ー Telegram
上策「じょうさく」ー Excellent plan; good idea
情死「じょうし」ー Lover’s suicide; joint suicide
出席日数「じゅっせきにっすう」ー Number of days someone has attended somewhere (like school); attendance days
武装蜂起「ぶそうほうき」ー Armed uprising
用箋「ようせん」ー Stationery; writing pad
くたくた ー Exhausted; worn out

Fun with Hiragana
へのへのもへじ ー A way to make a face with hiragana (popular to do as children)

Poor attempt:

へ へ
の の

じ is supposed to be at the side to make it look like the side of the face.

Here’s what it looks like:
へのへのもへじ

Forms
聯絡 = 連絡「れんらく」(Making contact; getting in touch; communication)

Magic P

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June 21

:candy: Zenitendou 1: page 20 → 21 (2 pages)

I’m still going at what feels like a super slow pace, but I feel not used up at the end, more like done. Like, yeah, I’ve used 60% of my tank, don’t wanna go too low or run it empty because tomorrow it won’t be back to full then.

At this rate I’ll finish the first story in another 4-5 days. Feels very slow, but I’m also enjoying the ride. And I am reading comprehensively so some sentences take a little while. Trying to nail down those areas I’ve often glossed over because I found them confusing. And not paying enough attention to particles is still kicking my ass.

This author really loves putting commas after the subject particle, and I keep missing that, so I dismiss the first part of the sentence from my mind and the second half becomes not very clear because it is missing that vital subject. :joy:

I’ll get used to it eventually.

Happier news. Still playing Atelier Sophie and pretty happy with my listening comprehension. I think I basically catch every word I actually know, and I’m catching the grammar constructions used and figuring out what roughly is said as long as the sentence doesn’t include a lot of unknown vocabulary. I’m also enjoying how casually I can do it with English text right there. It doesn’t feel like studying at all, just playing a game with some additional benefits.

Also, I’ve been looking into potentially joining a university Japanese course, emailed the institution today to see if I could get an answer on how I prove my Japanese skills, because I want to join the N3 level course which is about where I am (halfway-ish through it). But the diploma from my one year at Japanese school doesn’t mention level of Japanese at all. :sweat: And I’ve not taken the JLPT… The first time ever I’ve thought 残念 about that. xD

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June 21!

I noticed that Hana ni Arashi is free on Bookwalker for a few days, and since Natively rates it as a similarish level of difficulty to Yotsuba I thought I’d give it a go during my lunchbreak.
And then I ended up reading 5 chapters and my whole lunchbreak had disappeared :smiley:

(Home Post)

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Oh nice, I am glad you are enjoying it! I added it to Natively a while ago and really enjoy the series, its super cute. I still need to catch up though cause I’ve only finished the first 8 volumes and the newest volume 11 comes out soon

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It was actually your review that encouraged me to try it!
Thank you for the indirect recommendation :slightly_smiling_face:

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june 21 :cherry_blossom: home post

It’s finally not raining here so I decided to read outside :smiley: I read a couple pages of 夜カフェ chapter 8 and 極主夫道 chapter 37, but my main focus today is 神々のトライフォース. I really want to finish this manga today

edit: I did it! 神々のトライフォース is finally finished!!

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