It’s back! I was looking forward to this, it’ll be my third challenge, and every time it has helped me with motivation to read. Part of that is the challenge itself, but the best part for me is reading other people’s updates and seeing everyone’s progress.
My goals for this round are:
-Read a whole lot of バリアブルバリケード, hopefully finish the common route and a couple of individual routes
-Keep up with the かがみの孤城 bookclub
-Keep up with the 夜カフェ bookclub
-Finish the オレンジ manga series (3 volumes left)
-Maybe: Keep up with the 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん bookclub
It might be a lot for the amount of free time I usually have but I have a break coming up so that should make it a little easier…hopefully.
In previous challenges I’ve updated my home thread almost daily but haven’t posted much, this time I might try to do at least weekly progress posts. Let’s do this!
Day 3: Read some バリアブルバリケード ~30 min
Day 4: Read バリアブルバリケード ~1h
Day 5: Read バリアブルバリケード ~1h
Day 6: Read some かがみの孤城 + read バリアブルバリケード ~30 min
Day 7: Read バリアブルバリケード ~15 min
Day 8: Read バリアブルバリケード ~15 min
Day 9: Read an NHK easy article
Day 10: Read some かがみの孤城
Day 11: Read some かがみの孤城
Day 12: Played a little Girl’s Mode in Japanese
Day 13: Read some かがみの孤城
Day 14: Read some かがみの孤城
Day 15: Read some かがみの孤城
Day 16: (Missed)
Day 17: Read バリアブルバリケード ~30 min
Day 18: Read バリアブルバリケード ~30 min
Day 19: Read バリアブルバリケード ~45 min
Day 20: Finished かがみの孤城’s Week 19 reading + read バリアブルバリケード ~30 min
Day 21: Finished かがみの孤城’s Week 20 reading + read バリアブルバリケード ~30 min
Day 22: Read a little 夜カフェ
Day 23: Finished chapter 2 of 夜カフェ (Weeks 2 + 3)
Day 24: Read バリアブルバリケード ~15 min
Day 25: Read chapter 3 of 夜カフェ without a dictionary, went well but will re-read tomorrow.
Day 26: Re-read chapter 3 of 夜カフェ and read chapter 4 (caught up!)
Day 27: Read free sample of 差がのがばいばあちゃん + read バリアブルバリケード ~1h
Day 28: Read バリアブルバリケード ~30 min
Day 29: Read バリアブルバリケード ~1.5 h
Day 30: Read バリアブルバリケード ~45 min
May summary
Day 1: Read some かがみの孤城 + read バリアブルバリケード ~15 min
Day 2: Finished かがみの孤城 Week 21 + read バリバリ ~30 min
Day 3: Read 1 chapter of オレンジ + read バリバリ ~20 min
Day 4: Read 夜カフェ chapter 5 + finished reading 差がのがばいばあちゃん chapter 1 + read 1 chapter of オレンジ + played バリバリ ~1,5h (wow, productive day! It shows I had some free time)
Day 5: Read 差がのがばいばあちゃん chapter 2 + read 1 chapter of オレンジ + read バリバリ ~1h (another productive day! Having free time is the key I guess)
Day 6: Read some 差がのがばいばあちゃん + read some オレンジ
Day 7: Read a chapter of オレンジ and finished Vol.4 + finished chapter 3 of 差がのがばいばあちゃん + played バリバリ ~30 min
Day 8: Played バリバリ ~1h
Day 9: Read 夜カフェ chapter 6 + read 差がのがばいばあちゃん chapter 4 (finished Week 3) + played バリバリ ~15 min
Day 10: Read some かがみの孤城 + played バリバリ ~ 45 min
Day 11: Read 3 weeks worth of かがみの孤城 (!!!) + played バリバリ ~1h
Day 12: Read 1 差がのがばいばあちゃん + read one オレンジ chapter + played バリバリ ~ 30 min
Day 13: Played a little バリバリ but ran out of battery and forgot my charger D:
Day 14: I was sick so only managed 1 NHK ease article to check the box
Day 15: Still sick, so NHK easy article again
Day 16: Randomly started DQXI in Japanese and played about 1h + read a chapter of 差がのがばいばあちゃん (Done with Week 4) + played バリバリ ~ 30 min
Day 17: Read this week’s かがみの孤城 + read 1 chapter of オレンジ + read some 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん + read バリバリ ~1h
Day 18: Read 2 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん chapters + played バリバリ ~ 30 min
Day 19: Fever came back so I couldn’t do anything
Day 20: Still sick
Day 21: Tried to read some バリバリ but I wasn’t understanding much as I was still sick
Day 22: Nothing again
Day 23: Read some かがみの孤城
Day 24: Read some かがみの孤城
Day 25: Finished かがみの孤城 !!
Day 26: Played Dragon Quest XI in Japanese for ~1h
Day 27: Read 夜カフェ chapter 7
Day 28: Played Dragon Quest XI for ~1h
Day 29: Played Dragon Quest XI for ~1.5h
Day 30: Read 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん chapter 9
Day 31: Checked out the JP sites of a couple of games
I’ve only been in the community for a couple of weeks so I hope I’m doing this right!
Discovering the book clubs here started my entire reading journey. Reading has never really been a hobby of mine but somehow I’m extra motivated when it’s reading in Japanese (it’s probably the learning and challenge that comes with it). This challenge will be such a fun way to track my progress along with everyone else!
I have a couple of Aoitori Bunko books and the collection of HoneyWorks light novels. I’d likely be reading Aoitori Bunko books for the most part as the HoneyWorks light novels are still too difficult for me atm.
I don’t think there is a way of doing this “wrong” honestly Just post in here whenever and however you like and tell us about your progress - looking forward to it!
Claiming a home post here! These calendars are super neat; being able to just click on a day to fill it is wild.
As for what I’ll be focusing on during the challenge… I’m currently reading 薬屋のひとりごと with the Advanced Book Club, so that’ll almost certainly fill up my weekends. I think I’d like to really focus on my stacks of manga I have lying around as well, finally get through a few of those series.
Books/Series I'd like to start/finish during this challenge
(Probably going to list more than I can realistically achieve, but I can at least use this as a reminder of the things I’d like to focus on.)
Last time I tried this, I was very bad about posting my own updates although I read almost if not everyday. So I’ll probably only check off the days most of the time.
Goals
The spirit of multilingual reading going on here has me inspired to make this challenge about my non Japanese reading instead!
I’m currently making my way through Le Petit Nicolas, so it’ll probably be mostly about that. I’m about half way through right now. I’ve been taking it very slow and not reading more days than I do, so maybe this thread can change that.
Should I actually manage to finish this book in these 2 months I guess I’ll challenge l’étranger, which is sitting on my bookshelf as well.
I also have a Spanish graded reader, but I haven’t felt motivated to work on my Spanish at all this year, so I probably won’t touch that one.
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Reading: Le petite Nicolas (73→169/148p) 14.04.22/20.04.22
A1 Graded Reader: PONS 5 Minuten-Lektüren: Où est le thym? (0→37/127p)
La quête d’ewilan: d’un monde à l’autre (0→252/334m) (0→80%)
I think I’ll update a list of books I’d like to read this challenge throughout today (thereby ensuring I never get to them, of course). Probably my biggest hurdle will be dragging myself away from binging on translated webnovels; if I can successfully redirect my focus to reading Japanese ones, that’ll be a victory. (Most of the ones I’ve been reading have been Chinese, so no luck switching over there…)
I might also try and use the challenge to build consistency with my other languages! I have a graded reader I’m using to practice my Mandarin, some French webtoons I’ve reading, and a few novels in Spanish that I’m less than 20 pages into, so I’ll probably try and pick up one of those as well. After the Winter Challenge my Japanese reading is (mostly) consistent, but everything else is a bit so-so, haha.
I’m not going to pretend that I’ll keep up with a home post or update every day, but I’ll be challenging along with everyone in spirit and maybe even in comments sometimes! My reading list is a little nuts right now…
夜カフェ with BBC will probably be mostly a weekend thing
霧のむこうのふしぎな町 … I’m already more than halfway through, so I want to keep reading just a little bit on days that I don’t read 夜カフェ (which feels a lot easier)
よつばと！ (vol 8) but only on days that I feel in the mood
それでも歩は寄せてくる … this one is really exciting because it’s the first thing I can read that actually feels like a leisure activity! So I really want to read more, but I have to wait for the next two volumes to arrive and they haven’t even shipped yet!
Then after that, like @Magillou I have a bunch of books already that I’d like to work on, in order to make more space on my “unread” shelf, which is currently full. (So that I can buy more books.)
replies
What is this minimersion of which you speak? I want to read this book (someday), too!
Ooh, yes pls.
@fustian_garb I’ve been putting off brushing up on my Spanish conversation skills for the exact same reason! But now it seems like I’m going to need it for summer vacation this year, and it would make me so happy to be able to converse with people (at least a little) in Spanish … At least I will be practicing different skillsets for each language, I guess.
I also have made a resolution to start reading some articles from the Dutch newsletter Onze Taal whenever it reaches my inbox, in an attempt to slow the rusting process a little. It only takes a few minutes a week, and makes me feel a lot more at ease that I won’t lose the language I worked so hard for in my twenties, and which holds memories of some of my favorite people in the world …
I dabbled the first time this challenge happened last summer. For at least a month, I read every other day. And now I’m back, hoping for at least that much.
I set a very modest yearly goal for my Japanese reading, basically a volume/book a month and I’m already 3 behind… Oops? Well, I was starting from nothing, so no surprise.
And seeing everyone else work on extra languages is awesome. I’m not doing that, but my normal reading habit has been dead for a while now. Escaping into fiction have been a hard sell for the past couple of years. But I’m mostly past that now.
So I might make this challenge also be about my regular reading, or getting back to regular reading, which will be in English, which is my second language but I’ve been fluent for over a decade so not a study language for me anymore. (I honestly haven’t read regularly in my native language (Swedish) since I stopped going to school.) But I’m not sure I want something that formal for it. Hopefully I can just start picking it up.
= read Japanese
= also read in English/regular reading
For June, I’ve decided to track three different reading things, so I’m not gonna be super strict with myself about reading each one every day, but I want a lot of those boxes ticked for all three.
JP = Japanese reading so what this challenge have been about
EN = English fiction, aka something I managed to do for the first fourth of the challenge
NF = Non-fiction, I have some work related blog posts, newsletters, etc. that I need to read as well as many non-fiction books, so this is gonna be about reading a bit of this every day
This will be my first challenge joined! I have been trying to read every day before this, though there were often times where I wouldn’t read anything for a day or two in a row, so I’m hoping for a full 61-day streak with this! Edit: Make that 91, as I’m extending this through June, until the next challenge starts.
I’m aiming to read at least one chapter of manga per day and to keep up with the 夜カフェ book club, as well as the SPYxFAMILY book club once it’s started. My original main, concrete goal was to finish 2.43 清陰高校男子バレー部 代表決定戦編① (which may currently be above my reading level but I’m obsessed with this series and it’s currently my main motivator for learning Japanese. I can also understand at least the gist of most of it, which is exciting!) by the end of May; however, it became clear relatively early on that that was not going to happen. Now, as long as I at least read something every day, I’m happy.
英語で:
・Inkheart - Cornelia Funke
＊Café con Lychee - Emery Lee
＊The Book of Three - Lloyd Alexander
◎Meet Cute Diary - Emery Lee
◎The Love Hypothesis - Ali Hazelwood
その他:
・Colloquial Kansai Japanese - DC Palter and Kaoru Horiuchi Slotsve
I had this same experience. I still can’t really motivate myself to read a book in English. It’s awkward because I’m a bookseller. I’ve had to tell a few customers “I haven’t been reading a lot of new fiction lately …” But we did just get the English translation of Yotubato! in, so at least I can recommend that with a clear conscience!
You guys are nuts. Previously it was only a placeholder but still got the Nice Reply award
Regarding my Strategy this time around I also put in some thought already. I divided my reading materials into Basic, Main Material and Extended.
The basics are a fallback if I’m not feeling up to something hard or don’t have the time for lookups that day. Most days I should at least be able to fit a chapter of Slam Dunk in (which I started in the last challange and continue to read; 5/20 already down) or Happiness. When worse comes to worst at least a News Web Easy article from Todai mobile app.
The main material should be the bulk of what I read during the challange. The two bookclubs are perfect for that. The beginner will probably only last me for the weekends and also the intermediate Baachan probably wont last me the whole week. So whenever I feel like doing some work and have caught up with the clubs I will put effort into finishing Tobira (8/15). I also started Tobira in the last challange and even though I basically know 99% of it already I still haven’t read the articles and find the practice/review of the grammar pretty useful.
Plus since I’m swabian I just can’t not use a book I bought…
The extended material then is for times when the main material runs out or I have a bunch of unexpected time on my hands.
I really don’t expect this happening though since this time around there’s easter and also the wedding of one of my very close friends so I’ll probably rather struggle to keep the streak up this time around.
Last challenge had the added benefit of a 2 week vacation and the slow start of the new year to make it much easier. Let’s see how many days I can handle this time!
Also really already looking forward to all the lovely daily updates of the light novel and manga kind. With all the pretty pictures and explanations for them. Definitely a hightlight for me in this thread.
I on the other hand will be sticking to posting a review update every week and just reading on the other days.
It’s the minimersion server! A discord server that focusses on learning by immersion in a few different languages. The community is really positive and friendly and once in a while they do immersion weekends in which movies are streamed and other fun stuff happens
During the winter challenge I bit off more than I could chew and tried to read too many things at once that were too high above my level. I need to make sure I don’t do that again, especially with finals coming up. But I will try my best to read every day!!
april
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may
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natively + bookmeter
(i am brand new to bookmeter so i’m still trying to figure it out)
Daily Updates
note: I’m not planning on writing an update every day but if I do write something I’ll link it here
Going to try and get through more Satori Reader stories since I want to finish them all by August. This spring I want to finish the intermediate stories or at least be done with most of them.
I’d also like to keep up with the 極主夫道 book club because I adore that series, it might be one of my favorite manga now. Right now I’m also really getting into 神々のトライフォース (the manga not the game) b/c I’m a big Zelda fan so I’ll be reading that too
NOTE: See updated goals for June in my June 9 post! (and here are my goals for May in my April 30 post)
Are there other language-practicioners lurking in the shadows?
ハピナス (with ABBC)
夜カフェ（１）(with BBC)
５分後に以外な結末 ①赤い悪夢
探偵チームＫＺ事件ノート 消えた自転車は知っている
Just post in here whenever and however you like and tell us about your progress - looking forward to it! 
Le petite Nicolas (73→169/148p) 14.04.22/20.04.22
(0→252/334m) 
(0→80%)
]
I’m hoping to get better at reading quickly so I appreciate the structure this challenge provides.
(So that I can buy more books.)
I want to read this book (someday), too!
