First day of the challenge has happened to be on a Friday, which for me is bookclub day 1. Since I am usually tired from working all week, I usually go for the easier manga bookclubs.
からかい上手の高木さん (16 pages)
それでも歩は寄せてくる (18 pages)
ハピネス (42 pages)
大海原と大海原 死の海編 (20 pages)
I guess I should also count Flying Witch, which I am re-reading with a read-aloud bookclub on Friday nights
Flying Witch (32 pages)
Total manga pages read: 128
It’s my first time trying to actually build stats around my reading, which is something I’ve been wanting to try for a while.
Some non-spoilery panels from today’s reading:
それでも歩は寄せてくる is as always, a treasure-trove of endearing facial expressions.
大海原と大海原 art style never disappoints. I am really sad the Pixiv version doesn’t have better resolution images.
We finally got to meet the first three characters! So far 袋井満 is my favorite character ^^ He’s the number 1 delinquent of the school. I’m really looking forward to the introduction of the other two characters. So far it’s a hard read, but I manage to understand the gist of it, so that’s enough I can always read it again when my Japanese is much better!
I’ll be in this!
Reading in Japanese is a struggle for me right now, but I enjoy it.
Currently reading:
Happiness (with the ABBC)
Bleach Vol. 2
Harry Potter 1 (occasionally)
NHK news easy (occasionally)
Apr
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Update 7th April:
Lots of reading!
I’ve gotten excited about reading Harry Potter again and and spending most of my time on that (usually with lots of word/phrase lookups). I’m still in the first half of the first chapter… I think I’ll be on the first chapter for quite a while!
And bleach is my before bed book, so I don’t usually look anything up - I just spot the bits I already know (which isn’t much! )
This is my first time joining the every day challenge. My goal is to read 5-30 mins per day in Japanese. I want to avoid falling behind SRS (basically Anki) because of reading too much, so I’m setting the minimum reading time to 5 mins. I am always bad at writing down reactions, but I’ll try to force my self to write something down (Maybe twice per week).
April 1stHome
Since it was Friday I had the free time to read (and write) quite a bit.
Read: マグメル深海水族館
Finished Prologue (16 pages)
Time: 7 minutes
I’m excited to keep reading this one. I find the concept of an aquarium where you could go all the way to the deep sea and actually see the creature there in their native habitat super interesting (and kind of terrifying.) Seems like I’ll get a lot of katakana practice with all of the different creature’s names introduced. Also I really love the art especially in pages with all of the different creatures.
無脊椎動物 invertebrate
ダイオウイカ Giant Squid
潜む to lurk; to be concealed
吊るす to hang
生息 living; inhabiting
Giant Squid fact
Each chapter seems to provide some facts about the creatures featured so I decided I’ll try and roughly translate one for fun. Giant Squid
Body size: About 6-14m
Habitat depth: a few hundred - 1000m
In the largest class of the world’s invertebrates, it’s huge eye can grow to as large of a diameter as 30 cm.
It was nice to come along a lot of words I learned recently on WaniKani here (巨大,眼,直径).
Read: ジャックジャンヌ ー夏劇ー
Started short story 1 “only one life” (8 pages)
Time: 44 minutes
Oh boy reading a light novel really is different, especially a paperback one. It took me a long time to look up words I didn’t know. It seems like what’s holding me back here the most is vocab. This light novel has short stories about each of the main characters from the game Jack Jeanne (one of my favorite games) and so far seems like a really interesting deeper look into each of the characters. Definitely a difficult read for me but I love the story enough to push through. Plus Sui Ishida’s illustrations are another bonus.
Way too much to include it all so just my favorites and ones that use kanji I’ve learned here
うだつの上がらない lacking potential for advancement
際立つ to be prominent
一線を描する to draw a line (between)
至宝 greatest treasure; pride (of)
鮮烈 vivid; striking
混迷 turmoil; chaos
佇む to stand (still) a while; to loiter
大手企業 big corporation; major firm
一対 pair; couple would not have been able to figure out the reading of this one
押し花 pressed flower
空回り going round in circles; going nowhere
Interesting details
It was interesting to see the word つとめる using the specific contexts for the different kanji in the same passage, 勤める referring to working at a company and 務める referring to playing a role.
Also I really liked the way this line was written,
まるで花が開くようにー
「…はーい、オッケー！」
満開の花をそのまま押し花にでもしそうな勢いで、パンと大きく手を打つ音が響いた。
showing the transition from the beginning where they were acting out roles back to their actual selves.
I read 三毛猫ホームズ up to Chapter 1, part 1. This section had plenty of new words for me (def. more than the prologue), and they mostly don’t look high-frequency. I added them to a folder in my dictionary but won’t study them unless they show up again.
I was going along, mentally grumbling about all the new words I was encountering, and then
at the very end of the section... (spoiler inside)
The place he took the taxi to was Fuchu?!
No wonder the taxi driver was complaining about how his taxes are being used! Where is the police station? I don’t recall it being mentioned, so I was assuming it was somewhere in Yamanote-area Tokyo. Fuchu is really far away. And this book is from the '80s, when taxis were much more expensive than they are now. I totally understand the taxi driver’s feelings. I’d be outraged too if my taxes were being spent like this.
赤川 definitely saved that for the end for extra impact
This thread is so hard to keep up with, and the challenge has only just started!
Ah, don’t be. On second thought, adding the same cards multiple times is still reviewing of sorts, right? I do somehow magically remember several of my previously added cards, so I’m sure it still somehow works
What are the odds that we’d run across the same word on the same day in different books, and decide to share it?
I missed this before. Hope you get well soon!
In my experience the difficulty goes up a bit after the prologue, but so does the fun. I really like his style of writing so far.
Yeah, that didn’t work out. I read another 1% to 7%, but then I also realized that I hadn’t read to the end of the chapter before anyway, so at least I’m caught up with myself. I can allow myself to take it a little slower from here on.
I found that scene hilarious
I don’t think the location of the police station is mentioned, and as I’m not very familiar with Japan’s geography I didn’t pay much attention to place names, but it Fuchu really is far away from where he started off then that’s even funnier.
I am going to share my reading goals this time. Also, this is my first time joining the every day challenge. I don’t totally plan to read every day, although I do plan to “read for the sake of learning the way of Japanese language” 2-3 days per week, and write the progress weekly.
An ultimate goal is to be able to read Japanese Wikipedia (which is also pretty much the way I developed English reading skills in school).
Although and works, the color is not strongly noticeable. Also, it pretty much limits to only two icons. (It’s pretty cool that I can click on without editing, though.)
For some reasons, I can’t find anyone putting up a June calendar. It’s not too hard to be commited for 3 months, I think.
This is different from other choices, that it is in full text (light novel) format (with some illustrations).
This one actually requires some effort on my part, although I somewhat adapted to it. I think I can finish Vol. 1, at least; but maybe with bad comprehension - and could be hard to continue on to the next volumes by myself.
(2/4) JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 2 - Battle Tendency
I bought the Monochrome Version, and there are 4 volumes. (I think there are exactly the same number of chapters in Colored Version, but more volumes.)
I don’t have that much problem understanding colloquial written Japanese, so I really want to finish the series.
Whether I will continue part 1, 3-6 is, I haven’t decided yet; but I seriously consider it.
Although I started on (and bought) Vol. 13, and it isn’t really a stressful read; it is a reading without Furigana, as well as I will always try to read signs and place names, that aren’t really in the dialogue.
I will also take time to research about real places in Japan. This much is pretty normal when remembered the time I’ve been in Japan - there were both solo travels (exchange student’s free time) and travels with friends.
I am considering reading ahead, but it may also be counterproductive; as it can be both time-consuming, and I don’t really understand enough.
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 2 (2.1/4)
I am on the beginning of Vol. 2/4 where JoJo met Caesar (descendant of Zeppelli), and he has introduced himself.
It is pretty much on hold now, but probably no longer. It was on hold, because I focused more on other things that can have discussions. But then, actually I don’t care - I can take note by myself (by blogging that I haven’t revealed to the public yet).
… Yuru Camp Vol. 13 (2/7)
Will reread for more clarity, and for discussion.
I am also considering listening to easy YouTube channels, for better grammar understanding and activating my listening skills; but I pretty much haven’t started.
Whoaaaaa the cover of this looks beautiful! This sounds awesome anyone from the last challenge knows my love for sea creatures LOL, I’m 100% adding this to my list.
Yesterday was so busy I didn’t have time to make a post, so I will summarize both day 1 and day 2 of my reading practice here :3 It took me a long time and I understood very little, however I feel like progress has been made. Going from nearly no reading to reading for around 1h daily is rather exhausting, but it feels good to know that if only I keep going it will get easier.
Day 1
I panicked, because I realized I didn’t have a reading list ready. So I scoured some sites and came across this 吾輩は猫である by 夏目漱石. It caught my interest because (surprise surprise) it is cat themed. Issue is, that once I opened the book I realized this is way way way above my current ability. But I decided to give it a go anyways, since I (for some reason) kind of enjoy painstaikingly reading something sentence by sentence until it clicks one day. Also, after the very wise and poetic words of @pocketcat about perusing reading materials, I won’t feel guilty about dropping this.
It was also very helpful to have an English version of it opened up while trying to read reading.
I’ve only managed to get through the first few sentences (writing this stuff out is incredibly time consuming ), however I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the process. So far I have learnt that Cat, whose name we don’t know yet, has no idea where it was born and it had heard rumours that humans eat and boil cats.
Here’s a lil bit of what I’ve managed to do (there’s another half a page):
I decided to stick with the cat theme but do something a little (seemingly) easier: this article 「西炯子と大ちゃん」 - ネコメンタリー 猫も、杓子(しゃくし)も。 - NHK about mangaka 西炯子 and her cat 大ちゃん. I struggled a lot with the lack of kanji in some places - while I am getting better at recognizing words, a long row of just hiragana can get confusing. Nevertheless, I managed to get the gist of it - will probably return to it again to re-read it. Also, this is really helping me improve my ability to read katakana, which I suck at.
Yeah, you can get them in the standard supermarkets (Edeka, Rewe and stuff) and they are indeed very sweet and delicious. You can eat them with the skin.
Very minor reading yesterday - I was watching a movie and was so engrossed I almost went too late for reading. I got 14 pages of the third story in 遅刻してきた幽霊. It’s also seeming a bit predictable, but I will see where it takes me. Then I read 14 pages of ミステリと言う勿れ volume 3 in bed. The dialect some of the characters is using is rough. I’m getting the gist but I’m sure I’m missing details here and there.
I’m headed to the library today, so hopefully they have 三毛猫ホームズ and I can read the spoilers others have posted shortly!
Edit: re persimmons - I love them but have a very mild allergy to them delicious but painful
I can always read it again when my Japanese is much better!
)
April 1st 
(Next: 
This sounds awesome anyone from the last challenge knows my love for sea creatures LOL, I’m 100% adding this to my list.
), however I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the process. So far I have learnt that Cat, whose name we don’t know yet, has no idea where it was born and it had heard rumours that humans eat and boil cats.
delicious but painful