📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

Japanese Language Reading
502

7th of April
Day 7

I read more than ten pages of 銭天堂 today! Twelve (I think) to be exact. I just finished Chapter 6, so I’ll read the seven-page long epilogue tomorrow.

I guess I’ll be reading 君ノ声 next. It’s a manga my Japanese friend recommended to me. To be honest, it’s completely not what I’m into — I prefer novels over manga, and it seems to be centred around romance. Anyhow, I’m curious about what Japanese people my age are reading, so I’ll finish that as quickly as I can, then move onto かがみの孤城.

I’m both excited and scared about that book lol. It was (is?) an intermediate book club pick (EDIT: nope, it was an alternate book club) and according to Natively is harder than 魔女の宅急便 and similar in difficulty to コンビニ人間. So that’s going to be a challenge for me! But I hope I’ll be able to understand enough for it to be interesting, because it’s won at least one award, apparently.

On second thought, maybe I should read コンビニ人間 first. What do you guys think?

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5.4.
Since I finished listening to this week’s part of the audiobook of d’un monde à l’autre the day before, I got started actually trying to understand everything :tm:. Something about reading intensively is just so much more satisfying to reading extensively to me. I guess I’m just really bad with ambiguity. :sweat_smile:
I set an alarm for 11 minutes (the time I usually spent listening a day), managed about a page in that time. I rewarded myself by listening to that page again, and actually felt like doing another short session.
It was exhausting though. I did manage another story from my graded reader, but not nicolas. :slight_smile:

6.4.
I continued my intensive reading of d’un monde à l’autre. I did another two 11 minute sessions - and then another couple minutes since I was a paragraph away from finishing chapter 1! :partying_face: That was my goal for the week, actually. I wasn’t expecting I’d want to do double the time each day, hehe. So, it’s time for a new goal! Chapter 2 is almost twice as long as chapter 1, and there’s still 4 days left in the week. I guess it’s possible!

Seems like we read about the same! Haha. I guess you can just stop by from time to time and catch up with my :snail: progress~
It’s interesting that you’re getting 時をかける少女 shoujo vibes from this! I didn’t at all, but I also didn’t like that book so I don’t often think about it. Oh, or did you mean the movie? I can sort of see that, actually! I really liked how the shift was described in d’un monde! If the author had left off the ‘…’, it would have been very unobtrusive and confusing. :grin:

My progress since last time

Le petit Nicolas (95→NA/148p)
La quête d’ewilan: d’un monde à l’autre :headphones: (48→/NA334m) :open_book: (0→3)
A1 5 Minuten-Lektüren Où est le thym (1→2/20 stories)

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I’ve not read コンビニ人間 yet so others that have may be able to give a better judgement, but I have read かがみの孤城 and most of 魔女の宅急便(reading it in a book club and we all keep getting busy lol).

I would say that as someone fairly new to reading in Japanese (I’d only read two novels before this one, one of those being way too hard for me at the time (NO.6) and one being the first Harry potter where I’m sure I leaned a lot on my familiarity with the original book) - かがみの孤城 took me a little while to get used to the writing style/voice and I ended up taking a pause about half way through the first book and going and reading 世界から猫が消えたなら.

That said, when I came back to かがみの孤城 after that I found it pretty okay, and by the second volume it had turned into an easy read. That’s the perk and the drawback of this book haha, it’s pretty long - which gives you a good chance to get familiar with the style and common vocab - but also is pretty intimidating at the start! It’s a really good story though, I would reccomend giving it a shot!

Comparing it to 魔女の宅急便…I think 魔女 is probably somewhat easier as it’s more explicitly a kids book, but in some ways that works against it for me as it has huge big strings of hiragana and quite flowery language at times that can be harder to parse and it also just (in my opinion) isn’t as interesting to read as かがみ which has more of an plot to drive it forward. But yeah, in don’t think it’s all that huge of a jump so I’d recommend giving it a try if it seems interesting!

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Well thats adorable :blush:
Thank you for the suggestion, cats are one of my favourite things!

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Last night I read 31 pages of 三毛猫ホームズの推理 putting me at part 2, partially through section 3 (or ~37% for those on ebooks if it’s easier). I should note I’m aiming for around 30 pages a day because I want to finish the book with ample time to return it to the library before I go out of town later this month. I hope no one feels rushed by this - it’s my own deadline :sweat_smile:

@omk3 I agree! The more I read the more this feels very “classic” detective novel-y, and while I love classic detective novels, it’s not the style I go to this author for and I’m kind of glad he moved away from it. He does it ok, but he does his own thing better. Not to put off anyone else from reading this though - I am enjoying the book still.

Spoilery thoughts:

Case in point 雪子 telling 片山 that a) she wasn’t crying because she wants vengeance and b) 森崎 wanted her to date 片山. Like she keeps getting more and more sus, but the cat likes her so hey, maybe not.

Also - the entire scene with 和美 felt unrealistic. She’s horny and therefore she’s like, “meh, might as well take an offer from some rando on the street who’s looking for a sex worker” and then when the guy seems totally uninterested once in her room she doesn’t have the slightest bit of suspicion? Like, what? I don’t buy it.

(much more minor spoiler)

But Holmes straight up taking ownership of 片山 had me laughing. I used to have a shoulder cat. Shoulder cats are the best :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

New names! With no spoilers attached.
佐々木和美ーささき かずみ
富田ーとみた

Also, since it was reading in Japanese - I learned a handy new phrase/compound word reading reviews of a book I was considering buying last night (these definitions are copied straight from my dictionaries):

読後感 (どくごかん)

  1. 本や他人の文章などを読んだあとの感想。
  2. one’s impressions after reading a book

Unfortunately the sentence was “すごく面白かったという読後感はありませんでしたが、登場人物の過去など興味はわきました。” and many of the other reviews said similar so not sure if it’s worth my time/money. :frowning:

I thought コンビニ人間 was slow and a bit uncomfortable to read due to the character dynamics. I got the overarching meaning, but I to this day don’t understand why it’s such a popular recc for first book. To me it’s like suggesting an art film to someone just getting into cinema.
I loved かがみの孤城, the main complaint I see about it is that it’s long so you don’t get such a fast immediate satisfaction of “I finished a book!”.

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:tulip: Day 6 :tulip: :house:
Read: 終遠のヴィルシュ -Error:salvation-
Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Almost cleared the first of the remaining endings. There were a lot of complicated kanji that were hard to look up this time that slowed me down quite a bit.

New Vocab

A lot of strokes in some of these
齟齬 （そご）inconsistency; discord; conflict; discrepancy; contradiction; failure; frustration (These are some funky looking kanji)
棚上げ （たなあげ）shelving (a matter, plan, etc.); pigeonholing; tabling; putting aside; putting on hold
躊躇う （ためらう）to hesitate; to waver​
前置き （まえおき）preface; introduction; preamble
基 （もと）base; basis; foundation; root​
不意をつく （ふいをつく）to take by surprise
咆哮 （ほうこう）roar; howl; yell; bellow
躯 （むくろ）(dead) body; corpse
たらしめる to make; to make (something) what it should be; to cause to be​
延命 （えんめい）keeping alive longer; prolonging life; life extension; life-support
生真面目 （きまじめ）overserious; deeply sincere; very earnest
歪 （いびつ）distorted; crooked; irregular; warped
歪む （ゆがむ）to be perverted; to be warped (of a view, mind, etc.); to be distorted; to be cross-grained
所在 （しょざい）whereabouts; place where one is; position; location
司る （つかさどる）to rule; to govern; to administer

Also headed to Book Off today to sell some of my old English manga and found some new books to read!

bookoff
bookoff946×1056 259 KB

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Day 7

こぐまのクーク物語: はじめての海とキャンプ: 70% → 100% :tada:

This is the first book in Japanese I finished! There were some sentences I didn’t manage to decipher, but all in all, I feel more familiar with frequently used grammar, picked up some vocabulary and noticed that my reading speed increased, compared to day 1.

I was also positively surprised by the amount of kanji I knew based solely on 8 levels of Wanikani. The very last sentences of the book further confirmed this sentiment:

月明かりが、夜の海に金色の道を作っている。夏は、もう少しつづきそう。

Next I’m going to read one of the 10ふん1年生 books.

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yes quite. Especially because I have family with similar limitations as the main character, the book hits home hard and the ending seems unrealistic. My understanding is it’s recommended because of the relatively short sentences. (Is that true? I’ve only read it in English)

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It’s been awhile since I read it and I’m not sure I have my copy anymore to check but I don’t recall the sentences being flowery or lengthy at all. I’ve also heard it promoted due to most of the vocab involving convenience stores, but if everyday vocab is the goal I think a romcom would fit better :sweat_smile:

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Agreed. I was unable to finish reading コンビニ人間 in English because of the long misogynistic rants. I can’t imagine trying to read it in Japanese.

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:tiger2: :books: Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220407 :cherry_blossom: :raccoon:

Tanuki Scroll VII: あごとかかと :person_fencing:

Short read today, today’s Edo tale. About two samurai who start a swordfight, one samurai gets his chin chopped off the other gets his heel chopped off. Then an old man comes along and is like “まあまあ… stop fighting” they stop fighting and run off with their severed body parts.

They both go to the doctors, but there’s been mix up! One guy ends up with a heel for a chin and the other gets a chin for a heel.

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

New Things

顎「あご」ー Jaw.
踵「かかと」ーHeel. Not just of the human foot though, can be the heel of a shoe or sock.
罅「ひび」ー Fissure; Crack

BONUS KANJI*
*from Jisho suggestions
讍 - I made it big so you can appreciate how cool it is better. Jisho says it isn’t in any words :frowning_face:

Have I come across this before ?? :melting_face:
I swear there was an emoji that had little ??? above its head, oh well, I’ll just melt instead
街角「まちかど」ー Street corner

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april 7 :cherry_blossom: home post

Starting off this morning with 夜カフェ. I’m having a bit of trouble with this book. The content isn’t difficult, but I’m not used to the format / vertical text alignment… Every time I try to pick up this book it feels like all the lines get blurred together and I keep losing my place.

I’m realizing that my only experience with reading so far has either been manga (which is vertical, but it’s way easier to parse since it’s separated by speech bubbles so I don’t lose my place) and Satori Reader (which is all text but horizontal so I’m used to it).

I’d assume the solution is simply to get used to it by reading more. So for now I’ll just keep on reading. Other than that I’m enjoying the book so far!

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ペンギン ハイウェイ！

I watched the movie with my friend and it did not turn out like I expected! lol
I wonder if the manga is similar

Link to trailer with english subs for the curious Trailer on YouTube

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In case you need it, here’s the :volleyball: club’s vocab list by chapter Google Sheet if you’d like the reference! Scroll along the tabs at the bottom all the way to the right to get to the eariler chapters.

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Continued reading about Tokyo. This booklet is somewhat boring. Reads more like a tourist pamphlet and I have so far known about almost all places it has mentioned and did know the history (although it was fun to learn the terms that I shared yesterday).

But I will soldier on. If I had a bit more time I could knock it all out, but time is a bit short for a while longer. Happens. :blush:

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Day 5 :four_leaf_clover:

Yesterday I was totally humiliated by Death Note so today I decided to switch for a book from my huge backlog and something light at that. So I’m back to literature for children for literal babies (fitting for me, language-wise ofc). And it means よつばと time! The local book club is sooo crowded so I’m better off to 1v1 this manga at the moment. Thank you @Beyond_Sleepy for your sweet posts, they were the ultimate decider.

Also, I tidied up the :hibiscus: home post :seedling: a bit and flattened the calendar since the way it was before was really bothering me.

:pleading_face::point_right: :point_left:

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Day 7

Today I started to read section 2, chapter 1 in 透明カメレオン!

I only read three pages before falling asleep :sleeping: I have a horrible headache, so I think I’m going to call it at that for today. Unfortunately, that means no vocab.

Better to do a little, than to burn out!

:cherry_blossom::house_with_garden: My Home Post :house_with_garden::cherry_blossom:

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Day 7 - Calendar

Although I was rather busy I managed to get trough 夜カフェ chapter 10 and I’m now 4 pages into chapter 11. As much as I do like the book, I sorta want to read something else. Usually, when reading in German or English, I read two books at the same time. Sadly I’m still not able to do this with Japanese at the moment. It’s not that I forget about the plot or anything, but getting back used to the way that specific novel is written just takes way too much time. Hope that made sense :sweat_smile:
Well, should finish 夜カフェ around Sunday or Monday, I guess.
Still not sure what to read next. At the moment I’m thinking about ふしぎお菓子屋銭天堂 2 or maybe 魔女の宅急便 :thinking:

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I have this problem too!
I bought some reading rulers to help me keep my place, and its really helped me.The ones I have are opaque, with a transparent stripe so that I can focus on one line of text at a time which is especially useful when I need to look away from the book to check vocabulary and then find my place again :slight_smile:

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11 pages of かがみ, reading ahead for the かがみの孤城 (Kagami no Kojou) Book Club :mirror:. It was a bit slow going at the start because of some complicated expressions being used, but that’s okay because I’m reading ahead anyway. Story-wise, although there weren’t any clear answers per se (はぐらかす was a much-used word in this section :wink:), I think we are going to learn some new stuff in this next part :smiley:

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