I finished the Level 0, Volume 1, Book 2 today about soybeans. I started the next book, which is a story about what family members do all day. Altogether, I read seven pages. I should have started reading a long time ago. This is fun!
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Day 7: April 7th
What did I read?: ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 Vol 2
How much did I read?: 8 pages
How long did it take me?: 31 min
This chapter is really cute so far lol, it’s basically this little girl going around town playing “doctor” with the little kit she got from Zenitendou, except the effects of the ラムネ pills she gives out are real :3 And she’s learning all about doctor-y stuff from her trusty talking glasses 
Good words
- だまりこむ - to say no more; to sink into silence
- かきまわす - to rummage around
- おさまる - to subside (of pain, symptoms, etc.); to be alleviated; to get better; to ease off
- みるみる - very fast; in a twinkle; before one’s eyes
- めんくらう - to be confused; to be bewildered; to be taken aback
- 顔なじみ (かおなじみ) - acquaintance; friend; familiar face
- てきめん - immediate (effect, result, etc.); instant; instantaneous; prompt
- かたっぱしから - absolutely every little bit; everything from A to Z; systematically; thoroughly; one after another; successively
- こしらえる - to make; to manufacture
- 圧勝 (あっしょう) - overwhelming victory; crushing victory; sweeping victory; landslide victory
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And today marks the first day of my long “weekend” of being too tired to do much of anything because of work. Fun.
[Updated with commentary]
I was too tired to read any 2.43, unfortunately. I did still do some reading, though.
Since I saw at least one other person reading the New Penguin Parallel Text Short Stories, I decided to finally pick up my copy, and instead of a Satori Reader story, today I read 夜中の汽笛について、あるいは物語の効用について by Murakami Haruki, in both JP and ENG.
I’d seen 汽車 before, so I knew 汽笛 was a steam whistle, but I didn’t know the reading (I didn’t know any of the readings for 汽, and, before, I’d only known ふえ for 笛). Conversely, I correctly guessed the reading of 効用, but I only knew it meant “efficacy” because of the translation.
The story was short, but beautiful. I liked it, though I do wish we coulda heard the girl’s story too. I’m definitely not used to reading vertical text on such large pages, though. I lost or nearly lost my place more than a few times, which hasn’t happened since I first started reading vertical text. If they’d broken it up into two lines (? columns are only vertical, and it doesn’t feel right calling them bars, so…?), it woulda been easier to read. Well, hopefully I’ll get used to it.
I also read Seed 6 of GREEN.
Summary
Makoto and Wako return to the farm the next morning because they can’t very well take a break from work, and now Makoto’s strategy is to just ignore his sister lol.
It seems Makoto went along with Sayuri’s expectations of him and entered med school because he didn’t have anything he particularly wanted to do, but then when his grandfather died (and this is when I realized I hadn’t seen him since Seed 1, set nearly a year before the main story. I’m observant), he found what it was he really wanted to do: be a farmer. He quit during his residency.
And now Sayuri’s complaining about being put to work on the farm lol. “If you eat an elephant’s worth of food, you have to do an elephant’s worth of work!”
I’m not entirely sure what was going on at the end of the chapter, though. Sayuri and Wako started fighting over whether Makoto should go or stay, and when he tried to intervene and they told him to stay out of it, they pushed him back and he accidentally tripped over and cut his upper arm on a farming implement, I got that. And that he patched it up himself when the doctor wasn’t in, I got that too. But when he had gone off to the doctor’s, baa-chan showed Sayuri and Wako a room in the house that’s Makoto’s that was just like a small lab and which seemed to appease Sayuri, I don’t get what was going on with that. But she dropped the matter and left before Makoto returned, so, that’s good.
28 Likes
I got really focused on 夜カフェ the last few days, and have been aiming to read a chapter a day, when I can. It’s exciting that I can read that much, even if it is a stretch. I was so excited that last night I browsed through a bunch of aoitori and tsubasa bunko books, reading summaries and thinking about what I might read next. I was pleasantly surprised how well I could understand them if I power past the the terrifying mystery kanji seemingly inherent to character names …
Speaking of which, I was wondering if anyone could provide a recommendation … I have been watching Nagi no Asukara / A Lull in the Sea and really loving it (I have watched ~20 episodes now.) If anyone is familiar with it, do you have any recommendations for light novels with a similar feel? I think the most relevant aspects are 1) complex relationships within a group of (more than three) friends, 2) beautiful, magical world, 3) the friends face the challenges the world throws at them together (despite the drama that sometimes happens between them). Bonus: bodies of water are an important part of the setting.
31 Likes
Day 6
I woke up in the middle of the night, so I decided to continue reading. I thought I read quite a bit, but I’m only at 56%->59% of the book. According to Kindle’s estimation, 1 hr 19mins to go for this chapter. The offshore book club for the book says 1 week for the whole chapter. I think I’ve been reading on and off this chapter for 3 weeks+. Definitely more intensive than the regular advanced book club schedule.
I rely on Kindle X-ray and the cast on Wiki to know who’s who, because there are too many names. 鶴代 doesn’t refer to other people with their legal names. Instead, she use お嫁さん(本位田梨枝)、お祖母さん(お槇)、銀さん。
あらすじ:銀さんと彼の嫁は鶴代の家に挨拶してきた。幸せそうだった。それて、長男の大助が帰ってきて、両眼がなくなったことがわかった。しかも、性格も暗くなった。時々、秘かに人の秘密を探り出そうをした。大助の妻の痩せて潰れた。鶴代は大助を葛の葉に比喩した。
Words of the day:
おりおり＝折々＝その時
けたたましい：いきなりの叫び声
秘蔵っ子：ひぞっこ。spoiled child
おもいはかる：思い測るthink deeply
いかつい：a forbidding look
屈託：くったく。くよくよすること
28 Likes
April 7 
Home Post
More VLR of course 
It seems like I made a real choice going for this route right after my first real ending, it’s… long 
but all is well, not for the characters but that’s a separate issue lmao
I’m about 44 hours into this game if I can do math, and I truly have no idea how much is actually left, but I’m making good progress I think! The power of desperately needing to know what’s going on
VLR!!
Where to begin even… I finished up the interaction from last time and um it’s heavily implied that someone is a robot?? My bets are on ルナ currently for reasons I can’t quite explain, but yeah very suspicious 
This route though, it must’ve been a locked one that I’d already met the requirements for, because it definitely gained like four more scene blocks and another fork There’s a lot going on though, they’re kind of implying that ルナ killed the old woman which uh… doesn’t make the most sense considering prior ディオ plotlines, so there’s definitely more to that whole situation. And the AB rooms move?? Wild; as time goes on and things get more and more complicated I wonder just how many of these people are going to end up being some kind of culprit, like ゼロ definitely didn’t do all of this, other people are up to stuff Though I guess one piece of that is I don’t think アリス was murdered, it seems more like the disease won in those realities. But then ルナ…? Idk man 
Congrats, that’s super exciting!!
36 Likes
April 7
Finished all the level-0s! I was only going to read for 30 mins and ended up finishing them all. Now I can say I’ve read them all instead of forgetting which ones I’ve read before.
Excited to dive into the higher levels.
Really need to finish my MEXT research plan translation, but maybe I should send it to my tutor partially complete so at least she has something to start reviewing.
Edit: week 1 of reading challenge complete!
Progress on Tadoku graded readers
44 / 44 level-zeros
x / 12 level-ones
x /10 level-twos
x / 18 level-threes
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Day 7 
三毛猫ホームズの推理 ~28% to 32%, to some place in chapter 2.2
I feel like I didn’t read as much as I’d like yesterday, but then I felt pretty exhausted for some reason. It might have something to do with the fact that I’ve been pushing myself to read in a day what I would normally have read in a week. I was about to finish a section and go to bed, when I realized that my mind did this thing when it’s actually falling asleep yet pretending it’s continuing with the task at hand, so I thought I was still reading when in fact I was dreaming. When I shook myself awake (it lasted seconds or less) and actually looked at the page, I realized that the text was completely different from what I had been “reading” in my head. I suppose I should be happy that I’m now adapted enough to Japanese that my sub-conscious can make up semi-coherent Japanese(-ish?) sentences to fool me, but it’s probably also a sign that it shouldn’t matter so much to me that I finish complete logical sections. Stopping anywhere is fine. The book will still be there for me to continue later.
So yes, today I think I will probably need to take it easy. Depending on where the mood takes me, I might read some manga instead, or start with next week’s book club reading. Or I could still read some Holmes, just make sure it’s only a few pages this time.
Words and expressions
名案 - good idea
開けゴマ - open sesame
大理石 - marble
考えあぐねる - to be at a loss, to fail to come up with a good idea
気を回す - to read too much into things, to get the wrong idea
突き当り - end (of a street, hallway, etc)
快刀乱麻を断つ - to cut the Gordian knot
出る幕ではない - to be none of your business
朝飯前 - a piece of cake, very easy (also: before breakfast)
背表紙 - spine of a book
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… We might have gone a bit crazy when we were making the schedule for 獄門島 (I for my part underestimated the long weeks) since it was just us and now it seems to have stuck. I don’t think we’ll keep it forever, and it’s open to change at any time to begin with. I don’t think anyone would mind a slower pace if it meant a chance for someone else to read along. 
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Day 8 - April 8
- 無職転生 ～異世界行ったら本気だす～ 1 - 1,73% → 11,78%
I was feeling a bit sick yesterday, so today I did a Covid test and it was positive So far it feels like a heavy flu so I’m going to relax a lot by myself for some time (since my fiancé is not positive, so even in our house I’m isolated 
)
I read some more of 無職転生 and I love the introduction to the story much better than in the anime! It gives more insight in what the MC did in his previous life and why he died. This was also depicted in the anime, but it feels like it glanced over the fact that he tried to save some people from a truck. The language used is perfect for my level of Japanese, so I feel like I can read a lot more of this than with 美少年探偵団, which is really poetical at times.
32 Likes
Day 7 
Read: マグメル深海水族館
Finished: Chapter 3, Chapter 4
Time: 10 minutes, 18 minutes respectively
Finished the first volume of マグメル! I really like this manga so far, I’d definitely recommend it if the deep sea interests you. It got easier to read near the end because a lot of the specialized vocab from the beginning is repeated. The most difficult aspect was probably reading the names of the sea creatures since they’re almost always long katakana words, and some of them aren’t on jisho. I’m curious how things will go for Koutarou after this and what’s going on with all the things that are being hinted at, so I’ll definitely pick up the next volumes.
New Vocab
出張 （しゅっちょう）business trip; official trip
オウムガイ chambered nautilus (esp. species Nautilus pompilius)
偕老同穴 （かいろうどうけつ）happy life partnership; living faithfully together till death also
カイロウドウケツ Venus’s flower basket (Euplectella aspergillum)
仲睦まじい （なかむつまじい）harmonious; intimate
海綿 （かいめん）sponge
マッコウクジラ sperm whale
工夫 （くふう）device; design; idea; plan; invention
潜水服 （せんすいふく）diving suit
赤外線 （せきがいせん）infrared rays; infrared radiation
補助 （ほじょ）assistance; support; aid; help
27 Likes
I am impressed by the pace that you both and @basilsauce have been going at while I’m meandering along getting distracted by cute gay manga 
The only problem is resisting clicking on all the fun spoiler chat until I catch up!
Speaking of cute gay manga…I finished vol 1 of ギヴン yesterday. It’s started to get more into what I remember as the emotional heart of the anime (spoiler warning, and content warning for reference to suicide) where one of the main characters is trying to process/cope with the assumed suicide of someone really important to him. But as well as emotions it also gave me a fun grammar lesson!
grammar via manga screenshots- たまえ
So I hadn’t come across the grammar ending たまえ yet so I looked up and the description was kind of like "it’s sort of ‘please/ください’ but also you pretty much only see it in media and it’s super bossy and sounds like you are talking down to an inferior’. And like, literally both times a character uses it in the screenshots below, we get 春樹はるき going 上司かよ in response 
Thanks 春樹, don’t think I’ll forget the usage of that one anytime soon!
I also read more , finishing up chapter 1 part 4. It was very funny, absolutely love the image of the guy climbing up the fire escape to presumably do something dastardly but then being like “aaah! I’m scared of heights, help!”
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Hope you have a speedy recovery! Relaxing sounds like the best plan. Enjoy some soup as well.
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Last night I read 14 pages of 三毛猫ホームズの推理. The cold I’ve been battling all week has taken over my sinuses and it’s oddly difficult to focus on reading when you can’t breathe through your nose. I finished out part 2 section 3 and stopped. This puts me at 41% read.
26 Likes
４月８日 - Day 8
Calendar
I didn’t post since Day 2, but I managed to read every day, mostly 博士の愛した数式 and I got to 27% of the book! I’m getting more and more attracted to the story and have to hold myself back from reading too much and neglecting responsibilities. 
Vocab
-
Math-related:
桁 - digit
掛ける - to multiply (ex.110掛ける2は220）
引く - to subtract (ex.10引く8は２）
分数 - fraction
友愛数 - amicable numbers
偶数 - even number <=> 奇数 - odd number -
Other:
レモンを絞る - to squeeze a lemon
知恵を絞る (I just noticed that I’d highlighted the phrase with the same verb
) - to rack one’s brain
恐れが潜んでいる - fear is lurking
初対面 - first meeting
On Day 5 I read an article on yahoo news: 4年のブランクを経てカムバックした「BIGBANG」、新曲「春夏秋冬」は人々に受け入れられるか？, from which I might add the vocab later.
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Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220408 
Today is the day that Hachiko (ハチ公 - the goodest of good bois) is remembered in his hometown of 大子内「おおしない」, Oshinai.
The dog who waited for his master to return for nine whole years.
Such a good dog, he’s got a statue and everything, every time I remember about him I just cannot take it 
“天国へ行ったハチ公は、大好きな博士と一緒に暮らしているのですから。”
Japanese found in the tall grass
New Things
忠犬「ちゅうけん」ー Faithful dog
幼犬「こいぬ」ー Another way to write puppy: 子犬
博士「はかせ」ー Expert; Learned person; Doctor (the PhD kind). wait, I’ve heard this before! This is one of the few words I know from hearing it over reading it.
絆「きずな」ー Bond, as in, an emotional bond.
出来事「できごと」ー Event; incident; affair; happening
教授会「きょうじゅかい」ー Faculty meeting
脳溢血「のういっけつ」ー Cerebral haemorrhage/apoplexy
植木「うえき」ー Garden shrubs; trees; potted plant
職人「しょくにん」ー Craftsman; artisan
寄稿「きこう」ー Contribution (to a newspaper for example)
一躍「いちやく」ー Suddenly; instantly
国内外「こくないがい」ー Inside and outside the country; domestic and foreign
次第「しだい」ー Depending on [something]; relying on [something]
フィラリア ー Filaria (a parasitic disease)
慰霊祭「いれいさい」ー Memorial service
故~「こ」ー The late; the deceased. Used before someone’s name.
亡骸「なきがら」ー Remains (of a body)
剥製「はくせい」ー Taxidermy
Places
大子内「おおしない」ー Oshinai, Odate
大館「おおだて」ー Odate City, Akita Prefecture
浅草「あさくさ」ー Asakusa, Tokyo
代々木「よよぎ」ー Yoyogi, Shibuya
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Reading felt a bit more fun today. Still not through the current booklet, but I’ll get there. (Ask graded reader, level 4, volume 2)
I’m currently reading the second book in the Seashell Cove Paranormal Mystery series I talked about, Haunted Witch. Really enjoying this one and I don’t have as much time/energy to read as I wish, but it also means the book doesn’t end as fast despite not being long books.
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Day 8 - Calendar
Still reading 夜カフェ.
Today I read the rest of chapter 11 as well as 4 pages into chapter 12. At the moment it looks like I can finish the book on Sunday and start the new week with a new book. I’m looking forward to it.
Also I read a news article on my Nintendo Switch in Japanese. While I didn’t understood it fully (I was too lazy to look up the unknown kanji), I was able to get the gist of it.
Also I noticed that I’m slowly becoming better at reading katakana.
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Day 6 ご一報 
I read a good chunk of よつばと today, I’m halfway through the first book. It really does feel good when reading is not a total struggle.
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Day 8 
Candy and Cigarettes ~37 pages
As promised to myself, I took a break from 三毛猫ホームズの推理 today and read a manga instead. I discovered Candy and Cigarettes by accident when I was idly browsing Bookwalker’s freebies some weeks ago, and so far I’m liking it a lot. There’s something about an honest upstanding citizen turning bad in his old age that appeals to me. Ditto for a cute and innocent looking under-age assassin. Add to that a shady secret organization run from a second hand bookshop, and there’s really not much more I need in a story to be happy. It’s full of fun satisfying action but what mostly keeps my interest is the delicate dynamics in the relationship of the two protagonists.
Look at the cute little angel nodding off after a tiring day of shooting down corrupt politicians after school .
Some vocab
うまい話 – offer that’s too good to be true, likely scam
返り血 - spurt of blood that splashes you when you hurt/kill someone
殺人鬼 - bloodthirsty killer
寄生虫 - parasite
裏カジノ - unlicensed casino
おびき出す - to lure out
するい - cunning, sneaky
人の道 - moral way of life, correct path
殺戮 - slaughter, massacre
(I also read a little of 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん for the IBC)
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