三毛猫ホームズの推理 ~17% to 21%, chapter 1 section 4 to halfway through section 5
This section was pure katakana madness, ranging from (no spoilers really) アラン・ドロン (Alain Delon) to ラフマニノフ (Rachmaninoff) and ツァラトゥストラ(Zarathustra)! I also find it hilarious how, like in so many movies, (mild spoiler) the camera focuses on the cat (instead of a lamp on the bedside table) whenever there’s sex happening off screen/page.
I had imagined the Read Every Day Challenge going very differently for me. I thought I’d be reading a few pages here and there, one day from a book, another from a manga, in a relaxed, casual way, just so there would be some Japanese reading, even a few lines, every day. Instead, at least these first few days, I’ve been intensively and obsessively reading the same book at full speed (my current full speed anyway), regretting that I just can’t find the time to read even further each day. While this means I’m really enjoying the book, I’ll probably need to make myself slow down soon before reading starts eating away from the time I should be devoting to other things. I should also remember to take my time and practice my kanji recognition a little more. Right now, as I’m reading, I just don’t want to stop and spend a second or two on that kanji that I know (I know) but don’t immediately recall, I just quickly look it up (the joy of ebooks) and move on. Taking my time to properly “see” those kanji would surely be of greater benefit in the long run. No furigana manga are good for that - no easy way to look up anything.
Words and expressions of the day
後回し - putting off, postponing
小生意気 - cheekiness, impertinence
順を追う - to go through step by step
おせっかい - meddling, nosiness
時代遅れ - old-fashioned, behind the times
下心 - secret intention, ulterior motive
場違い - out of place, inappropriate
折り畳む - to fold up, to fold into layers
脅迫状 - threatening letter
確たる証拠 - definite evidence
接吻 - kiss (how did I not know this until now)
口付け - kiss (ditto)
主人公 - protagonist, main character
ばつが悪い - awkward, uncomfortable, embarrassing
口を挟む - to cut into a conversation, to interject
More speculations among the characters about what is going on and maybe (cliffhanger!) we will find out next week if they can get some clear answers (we can probably all guess how that will go…).
Nice word of the day: 竜巻 - tornado
(I might have encountered it before, but it’s still a nice compound)
In unrelated news: I beat level 40, so yay for me! \o/ Two thirds done!
Today I translated 1 page of よつばと！I got really tired and cold after being suddenly accosted by bad weather when out on a long walk, so I barely had the energy to do even this much I’m just heading to bed now, I’ll read everyone’s updates tomorrow
The flowers above the “Day #” links to my post for the previous day, and the flowers below link to the next day, except for the latest day ofc, they link somewhere special
Yay, I finished the book :3 I went through the highlights I’ve marked through the ebook and found the answer to mysterious 4-particle combo. Turns out it was its own word/grammar structure:
…君ならではの[noun]…
Yeah, at first I thought it was なら+で+は+の and couldn’t make sense of it, but is actually ならでは+の, which I’ve learned on BunPro recently, so that’s awesome. ならでは - Japanese Grammar Explained | Bunpro
In other news, I had to fight the urge of starting Honzuki 10. I did open the book to take a peek at illustrations and characters pages, but I didn’t start reading the prologue. Good job me >:3 Gotta stay focused on the book club books. Celebrates one tiny piece of self-control
Finished the first chapter of Death Note today. Was really caught off guard when I was able to recognize most of the kanji in 国際刑事警察機構会議. A year ago I presume such a wall of kanji would’ve scared me nuts.
Speaking of the plot, a lot of time had passed since I watched the anime so I totally forgot how much of a psycho Light truly is.
Also, had to make a little hack when looking through the thread. Present to you a mandatory love dispenser (copy-pastable in F12 console):
window.onscroll = function(){$("button[title='like this post']:not(.likedtomyhearthscontent)").each(function(){$(this).click();$(this).addClass("likedtomyhearthscontent")});}
Today I read half of the 4th chapter of 透明カメレオン! Today is just a short update, since it’s late and I am very sleepy
I’m noticing a pattern in this book: the author likes to inject random dark mystery. So far it isn’t really effecting the plot… but the fact that the author keeps putting scary/weird vibes out there makes me wonder if he’s preparing us for horror, or simply just trying to keep us readers on our toes?
Not a spoiler, but related to the book, every section ends with the main character introducing the next song for his radio show. I’ve been thinking in addition to my reading that I’d take time to listen to the song afterwards.
This is exactly I’ve started to feel! The only additional feeling is that I know I’m unintentionally “setting a standard” that I’ll feel awful not reaching later- actually today, since it was a half a chapter. I’m going to try and take it a little easier too
Day 5 / Calendar
Today I’ve read a couple of pages of Takagi-san again, because that’s more convenient to read on the go, than Yoru Café. I love these kinds of stories, they are always so heartwarming.
A light reading day today, very busy day and while I had some commuting time I was TIRED. However! What’s fun is that すべてがｆになるis an easy enough read now that I can apparently read it as an exhausted brain day chill pastime. I’m at 76% now and I’m so impatient to find out what’s going on!
No today as too tired. Hopefully will be able to get back to it tomorrow!
It pretty much requires you to participate in the polls thread which I am yet to become acquainted with. I had the Regular for a bit once when I was trying out that sweet thing called total escape from irl stuff and was really lurking in every recent thread.
Well, things aren’t great. I feel bad about kinda falling into a lot of complaining leaking into the reading topic but it’s usually relevant to why I’m not reading or struggling to, heh. I dragged through about 1000 characters and feel like I’m gonna go have a migraine so I guess this is where this post ends. I still read today, so that counts. If I manage to not have that migraine, I do want to read more later, maybe…
I was hoping to push through and finish the book today, but ended up spending a lot of time deciphering a couple of pages, where a conflict between characters happened. One sentence was particularly hard to decipher:
I think it means: possibly, there is no mother and this animal is just one animal, so there’s no point in continuing to look for her. I’m still not sure what grammatical constructions are used in はじめっから and 来たの. I’d be grateful if anyone could confirm if this is correct meaning and what those grammar points are .
For context: characters saw a baby crab on the beach and started looking for its mother, saying how the mother is also certainly looking for her child.
I think you got it mostly on the head. はじめっから looks to me like a casual form of 始めから which would be a combo of because and from the start. こいつが、一ぴきだけで 来たの かもしれないぞ。to me is ~this crab, it probably came alone. I don’t think 来たの is anything special by itself, this explanation here seems relevant and how I interpret it as well. Ctrl+F for , I was referring to the の in ないのかもしれないね if that doesn’t take you right to the comment.
So altogether something likePossibly he never had a mother. This crab, it probably came alone. So (looking for mom) might be a waste of time
New book time
I started 死神の精度 - a book made up of a bunch of connected short stories and really short chapters, seemed like a decent idea as a 2nd book on the side. I kind of forgot to check the difficulty level before buying it so was glad to see that it seems to be okay for my level.
I keep running into word play things these days - in this one scene 死神 dude is talking to this woman who doesn’t think much of herself and this conversation happens: :「わたし、醜いんです」 とぽつりと言った。 :「みにくい？」 私は本当に、聞き間違えた。目を細め、顔を遠ざけて、「いや、見やすい」 と答えた。
I also played some 999!
First of all (@natarin), everything in this post about that section with Santa and the bookmark was just 100% also my reaction?? Relatable. That whole thing was really funny. Santa really is something else huh
More 999
Can you quote things from other topics?? Really not sure, I suppose I’m about to find out
I did the exact same I honestly saw an elephant in that picture but that wasn’t an option
I don’t think anyone would be with that outfit!! Poor guy, at least 紫 has, like, clothes
Current adventures: Finding my way out of a kitchen and almost freezing to death.
The actual puzzles in this section were really easy, the hard part was trying to follow 紫 on her strange pseudo scientific tangent about the crystallization of glycerin?? Was honestly a little lost sometimes, but I think I got the gist. Who doesn’t wanna learn words like sublimation, graphite and melting point in Japanese? (昇華, 黒鉛 and 融点 if anyone was wondering )
I also came across a decent amount of N2 vocab in that kitchen. Actually very useful, thank you 999
I settled on something else for now but it’s likely I’ll still read かがみの孤城 at some point. I’m sure the book club threads will still be there waiting to be read
I’ve been reading about the many uses of soy beans and how to make different foods (natto, soy sauce, miso, etc.) from them. Amazing how level 0 graded readers can make this interesting! I’m learning some new vocabulary, too.
Another busy day - almost ended before I had the opportunity to do WK or read. sigh The streak must be kept alive at any cost.
Had a quick read of the English version of 夜中の汽笛について, あるいは物語の効用について during my morning commute. It gave me a slightly different impression of the story - the story just didn’t feel the same. Though, it did help me navigate some grammatical points that were hazy previously :3 But contributing this alone for the challenge felt like cheating, so I did some actual Japanese reading with the little time I had left in the evening.
To continue with the cat theme (that I am generally attempting here), I went for: 大工と三毛猫. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but I definitely didn’t see the eye ball licking coming… Well, more like eye licking, but even then - that was one heck of an uncomfortable read. Anyways, I did get some cute new cat vocab out of it, so I guess it was worth it.
Home post 
I’m just heading to bed now, I’ll read everyone’s updates tomorrow 
I went through the highlights I’ve marked through the ebook and found the answer to mysterious 4-particle combo. Turns out it was its own word/grammar structure:
.
:「わたし、醜いんです」 とぽつりと言った。
:「みにくい？」 私は本当に、聞き間違えた。目を細め、顔を遠ざけて、「いや、見やすい」 と答えた。
Relatable. 
The streak must be kept alive at any cost.