Yesterday I went to the sauna again (after quite the break, for various reasons) and read a nice chunk of The Little Prince. Afterwards I convinced @Myria to read this week’s assignment of 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん to me while I was cutting some vegetables. This way we could both read the section AND get food at the same time! The nicest thing was that I could not only make her rewind and replay sentences just by voice control, she also has a built-in dictionary functionality that I could access to get explanations of unknown words. 5/5 would definitely use this service again 
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I read 三毛猫ホームズ🐈 chapter 1, part 2. It was 20 pages and since it’s the beginning of the book, and we’re establishing the setting with new vocab, and I’m not used to the style yet, that felt like a lot. I’m glad the next section will be shorter.
@omk3
I used to live in Tokyo, so I notice place details when a story is set there. There are a lot of parts of the city I never had occasion to go to, so I don’t always recognize everything. But the places mentioned so far have been on the train lines I often took.
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It really was a lot! I had to break it into two parts, even if I had already read the first part before.
I’d be very interested in your comments if you notice anything that may go over the head of a reader with absolutely no local knowledge (like me) then. 
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Here’s my contribution to this challenge.
| Apr | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
| 01 | 02 | 03 | ||||
| 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
| May | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 月 | 火 | 水 | 木 | 金 | 土 | 日 |
| 01 | ||||||
| 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 |
| 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 |
| 30 | 31 |
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I’m a little late to the party, but I’d love to join this challenge with all of you! I’m planning a trip and starting a new job very soon, but learning Japanese is still a big priority for me. It’s been a goal of mine to read more (and learn more grammar) this year, so this is right up my alley. I won’t maintain a home post with a calendar, but I’ll pop in and write updates occasionally 
It’s also really entertaining to see what everyone else is reading!
Right now I’m reading ハピネス volume 1 with the book club, articles on NHK News Easy, and also working my way through the Ace Attorney trilogy on my 3DS!
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That assessment is making a lot of sense now that I think about it. It still doesn’t feel like upper N2 grammar but I am only a few pages in so I will re-evaluate at a later point in time. It just kinda made me question my own abilities when seeing that.
Also makes sense. Then again I’ve been binge-watching 名探偵コナン while crocheting/stitching so it is safe to say that while I might not be able to read all the kanji, the vocabulary is very familiar, lol.
I call it the Latin Learner Problem - murder, politics and war? Not a problem. Holding an everyday conversation and asking how someone is? Nope.
Yeah, that sounds somewhat familiar. I’m taking it as a reminder to dig out my 電子辞書 from wherever I stashed it 
First off: Thanks for welcoming me 
The website is a great idea I’d love to see expanded on.
Again, it makes sense that books of the same series are about the same level. I’ve read 容疑者Xの献身 partially in German (DNF due to various reasons outside my control) so my understanding of its difficulty might be even more skewered towards easy because I know partially what is going on.
I’ll give the thread a good scroll to see what is going on/what the plans for the page are. I might have a suggestion but I’ll give it a good thinking-over first.
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Doing end of week posts instead of daily.
Short daily updates are in my home post.
3 days into the challenge! I finished 人狼サバイバル 絶体絶命! 伯爵の人狼ゲーム which I was halfway through at the start of the challenge.
Some no spoiler thoughts on 人狼サバイバル 絶体絶命! 伯爵の人狼ゲーム
Had a great time reading. The theme was interesting. Because the story is told from the protagonist’s point of view, I was as confused (and even a little bit anxious!) as the protagonist to what’s going to happen next throughout the story.
I’m not sure if the series is going to be a continuous plot from one book to the other or will it be more episodic. I hope it’s the former. Will be getting the next book in the series to find out.
General reading experience thus far
Tbh, I encountered many words I didn’t know or grammar that I’ve yet to learn. But my main objective for reading now is to get used to… reading, hah. So my strategy was to simply continue reading without stopping to look things up.
I could eventually infer the meaning of some words as I continued the story, but there were also some which I couldn’t. For the words I could infer, some appeared so frequently that I eventually learnt them. For those that I couldn’t, they didn’t affect my understanding of the overall plot which was nice.
I plan to revisit a book in detail if I find myself still stumbling with certain words or grammar after awhile. But for now, I’ll be focusing on simply moving forward. Go go go!
The book clubs just started a new week, so I’m in the middle of reading through the chapters for them now (ハピナス and 夜カフェ（１）). Will pick up a new book starting next week!
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just got to this one and I think it’s actually 大島ーおおしま 
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Of course it is! I suffer from kanji blindness, apparently
Everyone please disregard my list until I get over it…
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It’s been awhile since I read 容疑者Xの献身 but I suspect it got bumped a little higher into the 30s because there’s a little bit more poetic flare to the writing and IIRC the author goes off on tangents about chess which is definitely outside the expected vocab for a book on murder.
I feel this so much hahaha. I mostly read crime novels and watch crime shows. I have an extensive vocab around types of death, names of crimes, body parts, etc but yesterday someone was asking me for details about the library I was at in Japanese and my mind just…blanked. I struggled through some explanations but man, explaining a murder plot to my tutor vs. explaining library membership details was a trip. The words are there in my passive vocab but not in my active. 
As for reading - yesterday I picked up 三毛猫ホームズの推理 and read the first 18 pages which puts me at part 1, end of section 1. I’ll start ch. 1 section 2 today and see how far I can get - I’m trying to get decently caught up to everyone.
I will say that compared to the other 赤川 books I’ve read, I would rank this one as more difficult. He’s using a far wider array of vocabulary and the writing has more “poetic flair” as I call it. It’s not a huge jump, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him describe a character in such detail as he did 片山, nor use such pretty turns of phrase in general. I wonder if because this is his long running series and I’ve been reading his one-offs. Maybe these are his pride-and-joy books and the one-offs were just quick cash on the side. 
Nah, it’s still helpful. Think of it as crowdsourcing information and you provided the initial template.
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I’m glad to hear it, because I had seen you describe his writing as simple and I was wondering why I was having trouble with some phrases, and why I was enjoying others so much He really seems to take joy in his descriptions in this one.
You’re too kind. My excuse is that I was already tired and it was late at night when I compiled it, but I really seem to have not entered a single name correctly 
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If you get a chance, read the 試し読み on this book - 夜警. That’s far more representative of his writing that I’ve read so far. Very straight forward, shorter sentences, dialogue heavy.
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Day 3 has come and I read another page. Sadly, not much dialogue and a lot of words I had to look up - including one word I remember when I learned it first but could not remember for the life of me remember the reading Granted, it was also used in a context that I didn not know before:
それでも草薙を見る目には警戒心が宿っていた。
So far, I only knew it in the context of “staying a night somewhere (an inn or hotel)” not in the context of a certain feeling staying in someone’s eyes. Fun to learn.
The last sentence of the page, while easy to understand was pretty hard to translate and I’m still not happy with it. I might have to look over it again and dissect it on paper to turn it into a proper German sentence.
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So it is time for my weekly Weekend update post: Homethread 3/61
I started well into the challenge and completed the first 3 days with flying colors. On Friday and Saturday I finished up my reading from the advanced book club for the week (薬屋のひとりごと) wich I will drop from now on. It was fine but my lack of vocabulary made it more time intensive than I would have liked.
Today then I completed the reading from the beginner book club which starts to get moving pretty quickly. Can recommend it to anyone still looking for something interesting and simple to read to add to this challenge. Join us we are just getting started!
All throughout this time I’m still doing my Anki reviews and reading some news articles, watching some Japanese Youtube. My Anki load is pretty low at the moment so it’s perfect to fit it into breaks every now and then. Since I do full sentence reviews it probably also counts as reading ^^.
Moving forward I will do the reading for the かばいばあちゃん club in the beginning of next week (2-3 days). Also after now having dropped the advanced book club I will probably fill some days in with Slam Dunk again. Additionally I put my Tobira readthrough on hold ever since I started the advanced book club. So my plan is to start slowly working through it again. The reinfocement of the already familiar grammar feels useful and here and there I also find some word I didn’t know yet.
Still enjoying the updates of everyody so keep them coming. I’m reading them intensely even if I only post my update every week!
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Tanuki Den (aka Homepost): Date 20220403 
Tanuki Scroll III: 弁慶 
Today I decided to read about the legend of Benkei.
Though now I really can’t remember if I did the same in the last challenge or I just thought about reading about Benkei and then never got around to it, I think it’s probably the latter
Anyway, I definitely didn’t read from this source before. The page is kinda big so I just read as much as I could. It was pretty hard and there was a lot of words I had to look up, so I will run away back to children’s stories tomorrow and cry about my Japanese abilities 
(though saying that I am always surprised at how much I can read and recognise)
Japanese found in the tall grass
New Things
郎従「ろうじゅう」ー A servant who serves a samurai or kokushi.
称する「しょうする」ー To take the name of; to call oneself
没年「ぼつねん」ー The year of someone’s death
殉じる「じゅんじする」ー To sacrifice yourself; to become a martyr
基いて「もとづいて」ー Based on; grounded on
草子「くさし」ー Written work (especially a bound book rather than a scroll), seems to be more commonly written as: 草紙
登場人物「とうじょうじんぶつ」ー Character in a drama or a play
脚色「きゃくしょく」ー Dramatization
英雄豪傑「えいゆうごうけつ」ー Hero, but like an unparalleled hero of greatness.
具体的「ぐたいてき」ー Concrete; definite
大納言「だいなごん」ー chief councillor of state. Also a type of adzuki bean!
奥歯「おくば」ー Molars / back teeth
前歯「まえば」ー Front teeth
哀願「あいがん」ー Plea; appeal; petition
疱瘡「ほうそう」ー Smallpox
垂髪「すべからし」ー Hair tied up and hanging down; long flowing luxurious locks
元服「げんぷく」ー Male coming of age ceremony
度々「たびたび」ー Often; over and over again
放逐「ほうちく」ー Expulsion; Ousting; Banishment
剃髪「ていはつ」ーTonsure; to shave one’s head upon entering Buddhahood
太刀「たち」ー Long sword
悲願「ひがん」ー One’s dearest wish
Historical Stuff
吾妻鏡「あずまかがみ」ー Japanese text from the middle ages that chronicles events from the Kamakura Shogunate (12C - 14C)
義経記「ぎけいき」ー Collection of tales about the legends and war stories of Minamoto no Yoshitsune.
幸若舞「こうわかまい」ー Style of dance popular during the Muromachi period.
Places
紀伊「きい」ー A former province. Now present-day Wakayama and south-Mie.
比叡山「ひえいざん」ー Mt. Hiei, in Kyoto
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Off to a great start missed the first two days of the challenge even though I’ve been preparing since last week.
Guess I’ll just start counting from the 3rd. The definite symbol of a great speedrun is a mandatory reset right at the beginning they say.
Me whining aka pity excuses
Had an absolutely insane Friday was busy with work-related stuff till early in the morning and Saturday was all about sleeping off the previous week and irl stuff. Honestly, I’m amazed how people in relationships can manage to keep up with wanikani, slight misalignment in the schedule caused two full days of missed reviews for me. (No worries though I’m already all caught up, not my first blunder.)
Actually, I’ve managed to see ドライブ・マイ・カー at the late showing on Saturday. It was truly horrendously dubbed but beggars can’t be choosers I guess, nonetheless quite enjoyed it. Someday you hear me someday I will be able to read Murakami (actually I doubt it myself.)
On a side note, the burn reviews starting to hit HARD.
The first 400-ish were totally alright, they were few and all scattered and didn’t bother me a bit but now they’re pouring. I guess they saw me slacking and totally hit the ground running.
Let’s talk weather. It’s been snowing excessively for the past few days so no spring mood for me. Yet I’ve managed to get that funny feeling of being alive for a moment over the weekend, and it’s not really a frequent visitor in my head.
— end of whining section
Today I’ve been catching up with two of the book clubs that I’m somewhat on schedule with. The 三ツ星カラーズ and Happiness. Even though I was planning to read mostly Fukaboku on the weekend, it’s all scuffed for a moment. I have lots of things in the backlog and I’m working on them.
Saw a recently learned kanji today 藤 albeit in a name 斎藤.
Side note: You guys write a lot, 250+ unread messages in a thread just from 3 days, nonetheless I’m going to check each and every one of your replies, just you wait.
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If only we wrote in Japanese, reading this thread alone could count as reading for the day
maybe the book titles and related vocabulary count?
I only read a bit of it (I have trouble concentrating on samples for some reason, my mind doesn’t fully engage when it knows it won’t keep reading anyway after a point), but I see exactly what you’re saying. Very different style of writing. Interesting how he’s able to adapt his writing like that. And he’s written so much. Is he really just one person?
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April 3rd!
Today I read chapter 14 of Mitsuboshi Colors with the Offshoot club from the BBC, then I also read Chapter 3 of Happiness with the ABBC.
I was only actually supposed to read the first half of Chapter 3, but I was really enjoying it and forgot that I needed to keep an eye on the page numbers. So I didn’t realise I’d gone too far until the chapter ended
The story is getting more and more interesting, so it was tempting to keep going! But I like reading along with the club so I didn’t want to get any further ahead than I already have.
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Day ３ - Calendar
I continued with chapter 7 of 夜カフェ today. It was a fun chapter indeed. Hope I’ll see more cooking in the next chapters but I guess so.
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Day 3 
三毛猫ホームズの推理 ~10% to 14%, chapter 1 section 3 and a little into section 4
I’m really liking all the quirky characters - every detective novel needs plenty of those, as well as a flawed protagonist( and a detective who’s afraid of blood, women and darkness is as flawed as they come, or at least in the entirely wrong profession). Now most detective novels don’t also feature a cool cat like Holmes, but I’d argue they should. 
Today's words and expressions
目を凝らす - to strain one’s eyes, to look closely
首をひねる - to cock one’s head in puzzlement, to wrack one’s brain
半信半疑 - half in doubt, half convinced, dubious
石畳 stone paving, cobble paving (“stone tatami”!)
とどめ - finishing blow, coup de grace
相好を崩す - to smile broadly
夜明かし - staying up all night, all-night vigil
I also learned that 骨を折る can mean “break a bone”, but it can also figuratively mean to take great pains, try hard (but not getting the expected outcome). In this sentence (not a spoiler, but just to be on the safe side:) 固い椅子に、できるだけ楽な姿勢で座ろうと、しばらく骨を折る。 I suppose the meaning is the latter, but who knows
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