📚📚 Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 🌸 🌱

Day 17 - Calendar

It was a busy day. I went to the next city for Sushi with my mother in law. And naturally, afterwards, went to her home and we sat for quite some time to chat. So I hadn’t much time to read. I still managed to read two pages of chapter 4 of 魔女の宅急便 (the minimum amount I want to do each day). So at least I didn’t break the chain. Maybe tomorrow I have a bit more time.

@sycamore Happy Birthday :partying_face: :birthday:

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Day 17

みんなの日本語初級I: 4% → 24%

My goal today was to get up to speed on what I learned when previously using this textbook (up to lesson 6), as tomorrow I’ll start using it with a teacher, starting from lesson 7. So today I read through all the vocabulary, example phrases and grammar to refresh them in my memory.

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Good observation! I’ve found the same thing to be true for me.

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Summary post

Hello! Just recently got back from my trip and haven’t been able to keep up with posts but happy birthday @sycamore and @NicoleIsEnough! I’m super exhausted from the drive – it’s only about 3 hours, but I hate driving and it really takes it out of me. And right before that I was celebrating Easter with some family and their youngish kids so it’s just a tiring day. Haven’t read yet today, but I’ll get on it. For now I can’t summon the energy to do Anki just yet so I figured I’d post about what I’ve been up to.

On Friday I read the two chapters of 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん for the intermediate book club. I need to get talking in those threads again but last week I was struggling to really settle how I feel about the book and I still find it slightly hard to judge just yet. The content is fine, some stories about growing up in poverty, though it’s hard for me to engage with stories of hardship that are meant to be sort of “uplifting” the way that they want me to. It’s a tough topic. As for my understanding, it’s… ok-ish. I basically always follow what’s going on, but there’s a dialect I’ve chosen to not spend TOO much energy on right now, a good chunk of words that are very much reflective of the time and poverty (some references to real traditional Japanese objects y’know?), and something about the author’s writing is just new to me. Like, even in sentences I understand, there’s often a little attached particle or word somewhere that I can’t really make sense of its presence. And I mean, I’m understanding the point of the sentence (minus some nuance probably), but I always feel kind of unsure. I should be using the threads to ask questions more but I’d have to look back for instances, especially since I was reading away from the computer totally for this last week.

I also started スマホを落としただけなのに ! I only read the first… part of a chapter? They seem to be split further by letters. It’s the first audiobook file because I’m doing as @pocketcat recommended and listening first, then reading, then listening again (or I did for 1 anyway). It went ok! I still get caught in places cause of course I will right now, but I can figure out almost everything going on so far. The listening side was sketchier, hard to follow a lot of details, but I did get the general idea of the first section even before reading. It’s noticeably longer than the other books I’ve been reading though. Feels like I spent a lot of time on the reading side to be at like 3%, haha.

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The letters represent the perspective. Killer, main lady, dectectives. It usually cycles through each of their perspectives per chapter IIRC, but I wasn’t keeping too close of track. One quick note for you! 蛭 (ひる) means leech. If you’re listening first that scene might be confusing for a bit as it’s pretty far from a common word :joy: Should save you some pain.

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April 17th!

Today I read Chapter 3 of 夜カフェ.
I read it all in one sitting, which was fun but kind of tiring!
My reading stamina has increased so much since January, there is no way I could have read anywhere near as much at the start of the winter challenge! But I think I’ve hit my limit for today, so I’m going to go and play some games while my brain recharges :grin:

(Home Post)


Happy birthday @sycamore :birthday: :tada:

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Summary Post

Day 17: April 17th
What did I read?: ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 Vol 2
How much did I read?: 26 pages
How long did it take me?: 1 hour 40 min

Finished the book! :tada: This last chapter was kind of sweet, even though I have mixed feelings on the whole “he only teased/bullied her because he liked her!” thing, in general. But it was in elementary school, and the fact that he essentially built his entire life after that around potentially being able to make it up to her in some way sort of…cancels it out xD What can I say, I’m very much a sucker for that kind of thing :3

Unrelated to that, can we talk about how her first guest from the hospitality tea was freaking Santa Claus :joy: How random

I remember the first Zenitendou book feeling much more difficult than this one did, so that was a nice reminder that I am in fact learning something lol

Good words
  • 大のにがて - dread; horror; hatred
  • ままならない - unable to do (as one wishes); able to do only with great effort; almost impossible to do; beyond one’s control; not always turning out as one wishes; not going the way one wants it to​
  • おおばんぶるまい - lavish feast; splendid banquet
  • 迫力満点 (はくりょくまんてん) - full impact; packing a punch​
  • 福々しい (ふくぶくしい) - (plump and) happy-looking
  • オドオド - timidly; nervously; hesitantly; trembling (with fear)
  • 品ぞろえ (しなぞろえ) - assortment; product lineup
  • 勝負服 (しょうぶふく) - one’s best clothes (esp. for women), normally put aside for important meetings, dates, etc.​
  • ぬけがら - cast-off skin (snake, insect, etc.)
  • 目がない - being extremely fond of; having a weakness for; being a sucker for
  • まずありえない - very improbable; vanishingly unlikely; only with a miracle
  • うでをふるう - to exercise one’s talent; to display one’s ability​
  • 目もくれない - indifferent; paying no attention; taking no notice
  • 虫メガネ (むしめがね) - magnifying glass (this word makes me laugh)

Also @sycamore

Happy birthday!


Nagisa brought you a cake and Haru…brought you a fish, apparently :joy:

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Day 17 / Calendar

Barely got enough time to start reading at half past 11 (pm), thankfully the first section of chapter 3 of 夜カフェ was very simple grammatically, so it was easy to follow along.
I’m still reading btw, but thought I’d pop in to make an update.

Learned a new word I love, あちらこちら (彼方此方) meaning (in this case) “all over the place”. I love it because it just means “that way and this way”, which describes the word really well.

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:microbe::thermometer::microbe:
\huge\color{ #111111}\mathrm{🌡Day 17🌡}
:microbe::thermometer::microbe:

\small \color{ #777777}\mathrm{★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★}

I haven’t read anything besides Anki example sentences because I came down with a fever 5 hours ago :face_with_thermometer: I’ve decided to count that as having read today and not force myself to do more than that until my fever breaks. I’m sure erring on the side of self-care is the most productive option in the long run (and that’s not to suggest that self-care isn’t also valuable in and of itself :upside_down_face:).

Happy birthday @sycamore :tada::balloon::birthday: (I’m pretty sure that’s right but excuse me if it isn’t ^^;)

\small \color{ #777777}\mathrm{★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★}

Tooltip

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 :wink:

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@NicoleIsEnough Happy Birthday! :tada:

Today I finished the second volume of The Quintessential Quintuplets (30 pages). Such an awesome manga but unfortunately I only had the first two volumes. I am burning too fast through my manga backlog I only have around 30 manga volumes left to read.

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April 6 oops :grimacing: - April 17

I missed a day x_x That streak thing didn’t last long.
Anyway, I read a combination of 死神の精度, NO. 6 and 999 on the other days. Not as much as I would like, got a bit busy with classes and stuff again, but… I’m working on it? :face_in_clouds:

I also started Spy x Family!

:wave: :eyes:


Step 1 of my plan to actually read the manga I’ve bought already: :heavy_check_mark:
I was planning on reading the first volume before the release date of the anime but… I did not :face_with_spiral_eyes:. So instead I watched the first episode first and… honestly it did not go too well :laughing: So many text heavy scenes I had trouble following. Oof. this is why I usually stick to romance and sports stuff
Read the first chapter of the manga afterwards and that definitely cleared up a lot.
It’s really cute and pretty funny so far, I think I’m going to like this :durtle_love:
My favorite line was ずっとまえからちちの子どものアーニャです :laughing:

I approve of that option :eyes:

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Summary post :bookmark:

April 17th :cherry_blossom:

・薬屋のひとりごと (28% → 31%)

Finished chapter 12. No problems (with my understanding) this time I think. Thoughts: holy, I did not expect Maomao to rage at those maids like that. And with Jinshi standing probably not five meters away too! And before all of that when she was like, ‘oh the emperor has such a long beard I kind wanna touch it’. She’s a funny one. And of course she couldn’t deny the emperor’s request of trying to cure Li Hua, as she put it “she very much would like for her head and torso to continue being good friends”

Word of the day: (かに)
:crabigator: :eyes: !!

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Day 18 / Calendar
I’m writing this up, because I’m fully expecting tomorrow to be a hectic day with next to no free time left for me. I’ve read a bit more of the 夜カフェ weekly chapter. To give some context, on the phone I’m reading on this chapter is about 10 pages and I just finished page 3. I’d say this is a good pace. If I can read some more today, I’ll update this post.

I’m realising that these update posts tell more about how minute to minute I live my life than about my actual reading journey. Oh well, will be fun to look back.

Yes, it’s 2 am, I’ll go to bed, shush.

Edit:
Had a bit of time in the afternoon, so I’ve read 2 or so pages. I’m around 40% of the way through this week’s reading. If I can do 20ish percents a day, I should be done on thursday leaving me a day to read my filler book.

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Happy birthday and many returns of the day!

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Summary Post

April 17
Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

Vocabulary
  • 偵察 = ていさつ scouting, reconnaissance.
  • 仰せ = おおせ command or orders of a superior.
  • 松明 = たいまつ torch.

@sycamore @NicoleIsEnough Happy birthday you two!

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April 17

Happy Easter to those who celebrate! I’m happy to be on the other end of big cooking holiday myself. Now I have time in the evenings again lol. (minus the conference I’m attending this week :sweat_smile:)

Read a level-two graded reader, and I need to reply to my teacher before I go to bed tonight. So that’s my reading practice for today although I would like to start chapter 2 of Spy x Family (:wave: @Scylie )

Progress on Tadoku graded readers
44 / 44 level-zeros
12 / 12 level-ones
2 /10 level-twos
x / 18 level-threes

Happy birthday @sycamore !!! Hope it was a good one :partying_face:

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㋃14-17 – Days 14-17

  • ジョジョの奇妙な冒険

4/14
16-35ish possibly?
4/15
Oh boy, I just have to guess for this one. I think 35-48?
4/16
Due to… stuff… I read the stairs incident in Part 3, volume 27 I think.
4/17
Back to Part 1 Volume 3, 48- 58, or Zepelli’s backstory

Short story, but long weekend. In brief, I was busy with irl stuff not conductive to reading. I’ll try to see if I can manage getting through 2 volumes of manga this week, but we’ll see.

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April 17th (Calendar Post)

Started もし、恋が見えたなら today. I think it’s the first time I read a tri-color manga - black, white and pink :sweat_smile:

もし、恋が見えたなら => 138 pages (170 minutes)

Some fun manga panels

にぱっ

ガーン

I accidentally run into this odd archaic expression when looking up something else:

image

And some interesting new vocab:

image

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Home

I’ve been saving up Amazon gift cards (mostly free ones I’ve redeemed, but there was one that I bought) to get a snowflake textbook (or, I dunno if it’s exactly a textbook per se, but it’s certainly more formal than the author’s other books on snowflakes), and I finally got enough today! It’s apparently supposed to be getting here tomorrow already, so I’m excited. I’ll try not to let it get in the way of my Japanese reading. (I may be allergic to all other textbooks, but science ones I will absolutely try to read all in one sitting. My astronomy one in uni I ended up reading like half of in one night when I only needed to read one chapter. And no, telling myself that linguistics is technically a science has not helped me any with starting/getting through language-learning textbooks.)

I ended up burning my finger on the edge of a frying pan trying to make dinner (it’s minor, but it still hurts), and as I hadn’t done any reading before then, I didn’t end up doing much today. I read a couple paragraphs of 2.43 before giving it up as a lost cause and switching to Satori Reader.

I read ch 21-30 of 壁の穴. My heart hurts for Kumiko :broken_heart:

Some vocab of note:

振り絞る (ふりしぼる) [ラ五, transitive] to muster all one’s strength, voice, knowledge, etc., as though wringing it out
香木 (こうぼく) [noun] fragrant wood; aromatic tree. This was today’s (or tomorrow’s I think, because time zones) password on ねこあつめ.
高木 (こうぼく) [noun] tall tree. I accidentally typed this one trying to type 香木 lol. I’d only ever seen this one as a surname read たかぎ.

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April 17 :cherry_blossom: Home Post

I’m getting really close now :eyes: I finished up two more main endings and I’m close to another one but it just kept going and I have to sleep at some point :joy: I think I’ll finish in the next couple days so that’s pretty exciting!!

VLR adventures

So I did シグマ and クォーク’s endings which were a trip to say the least; cyborg arms huh? Can’t say I saw that one coming :joy: but man when シグマ crushed his arm in the door, oof, the sound was so rough lmao. And things with the 老婆(ろうば) just keep getting wilder and I’m not entirely sure what to make of all of it at this point; people I thought couldn’t be involved in all this might be actually and uh… hm. Much to consider :joy:

I think I’m working on ルナ’s ending right now, which is also quite the time oh man. For one thing:

:eyes: yoooo I was right!! Crushed it :joy: But yeah like… there is a lot going on in this ending, ディオ did so many murders, and a lot of past things are starting to come together as they do. Honestly my brain is mush at this point so I can’t even begin to express it all lmao but man, stuff’s wild.

Sooo once I finish the route I’m doing right now, I only have more… absolutely wild :eyes: it approaches

@sycamore happy birthday!!! :grin:

:eyes:

Welcome back! I hope you had a good time :grin:

Same, that killed me :joy: I absolutely adore her already

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