古見さんは、コミュ症です。 → first 2 chapters of volume 2
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar → 2 sections
Fiction/Nonfiction in English → V is for Vulnerable (start to finish; nonfiction) and some chapter of a fiction book
I wanted to start April 1 strong, and I have by reading a bit of all three different things I want to focus on.
I started volume 2 of Komi-san as an easy-ish manga read to have on the side of my two hard main reads (VNs). There were a few words I could have looked up, and a couple of kanji I recognized from WK but could not place… But I decided not to look it up. Lost some more exact comprehension but nothing beyond that.
Read a bit of the grammar dictionary. Only one section left for this week, so I guess I’ll finish that early.
Lastly I had a bit of an interested experience with the fiction book I'm reading.
I do enjoy reading romance a lot, especially regency romance ones. And I’ve read a few from this author and enjoyed them, but I started the first couple of chapters last year I think and then put it aside, because the plot revealed it was about to go away from all the things I enjoy most. (The high society part, with balls and intrigues. Otherwise I might as well not read a historical romance.) And today, after reading a couple of more chapters, I decided to skip the middle and jump to the end. The end I’ve been interested in reading for a while, because I kept peeking at it as I tried to read the opening to gain enough interest to get there (I don’t really care about spoilers because they do not spoil the reading experience for me in general, plus all romances ends the same: the couple gets a happily ever after ).
And I find myself being immediately pulled into the story towards the end and not feeling like I missed much (I guess I missed the couple falling in love, but since nothing else about that part was of interest…). I’m a few/couple chapters from the end so I will probably finish it before I go to sleep.
This is the first time I’ve completely skipped the middle of a book. Can’t say I ever thought I’d be able to do that, well, I guess most of the time I wouldn’t be interested in the end if the beginning wasn’t engaging enough. xD
Today I restarted かがみの孤城. I have had the audiobook for ages and had listened to the first chapter or two, but I was dissatisfied with the amount I was missing, so this time I decided to listen to it while reading along. I’m looking forward to reaching the parts I haven’t listened to before, because so far I’m finding it rather tedious. I hope this changes soon.
And for some pure reading, I also started 神去なあなあ日常 by 三浦しをん. This is a joy to read so far. It’s written in a lighthearted manner, and had me chuckling several times. I’m still at the very beginning, with the protagonist just having arrived at Kamusari. Looking forward to his first experiences there.
I’m reading through A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar - Characteristics of Japanese Grammar. I want to read some actually Japanese as well, so I’m re-reading the reading exercise in the first chapter of Tobira.
Today I finally finished the Grammar Term Section of “A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar”, which was last week’s section of the book club. I am a little behind, because reading a physical book is difficult at the moment (I have a 16 month old toddler here, and when I want to read a book it becomes the most interesting thing in the world for her - which most of the time results in me not being able to read at all ).
Then I finished this week’s reading of ルリドラゴン (p. 80 → p. 86)
And I continued with this week’s reading of the Visual Novel 999. Which is by far the most difficult thing I am reading at the moment. I have to look up many words/kanji. But thanks to various tools it is easy to do
I am still not finished with this week’s section though, and I hope I will get the chance to continue tomorrow.
Hi, I join Thanks to @windupbird for hosting yet another reaching challenge!
March was quite a challenge for me, mainly because the book I was reading did not strike a chord with me. So I decided to drop it and read something I know I’ll like.
二ノ国白き聖灰の女王:滝の回廊
A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar: Grammatical Terms
Getting through the beginning of 二ノ国, which is a lot of tutorial dialogue still. I plan to read 本好きの下剋上 on slower days later on when I’m inevitably going to have to grind levels and have gone through unlocked マジックマスター pages.
Read last week’s assigned reading for DoBJG. Thankfully, I’m not too far behind and can easily catch up at this point. My main focus is getting through 二ノ国 as I want to actually go through a game from start to finish in Japanese and life has been getting in the way. Thankfully, it’s easy to look up things with all the furigana.
Joining casually again. Going to have to bump book goals out to one every two months–work never let up (it’s getting worse ) and with everything else I just don’t have the time.
My plan is still 30min of reading on work days, with longer on off-days. Still one manga a week, a book every 2 months, and a game as long as it takes (P3P on back burner during the 999 VN club reading)
Day 1: April 1st
What did I read?: ペンギン・ハイウェイ
How much did I read?: 8 pages
How long did it take me?: 37 min
Woooo first day of the challenge! Welcome everyone old and new
I inadvertently started off the challenge by…finishing a book in English, because of course I did Although it wasn’t really what I was supposed to be doing, it marks the first time I’ve finished an English-language book in…a while, so that’s good at least If anyone’s wondering, it was called The Attic Child and I thought it was pretty good - the writing style was just ok imo but the story was intriguing and I definitely teared up a few times near the end
I did eventually pull it together and read some of Penguin Highway, too And I learned a neat word/expression: 万が一, meaning “(if) by some chance; by some possibility; in the unlikely event that; 10000 to 1”
i gotta confess, i always get really nervous about diving into native materials because i get so scared that i won’t understand anything and end up reaching way beyond my ability. naruto has been a longtime favorite series of mine, since i was a wee pre-teen watching three-part episode uploads on youtube every week, so for some reason I’ve always held it up as this suuuper advanced language goal, that maybe someday i might be able to understand it without subtitles or translation… so imagine my surprise when i tested the waters today only to find out that, not only could i read it easily, but also laugh along with the jokes and cry at the sad parts all without needing to stop to look up vocab words
i did jot down a few words in my notebook to look up later, so I’m excited to add those terms to my SRS app. but I’m just incredibly jazzed that i get to read something I’ve always seen as this nebulous future fluency goal
@lady_nelle I’m so excited to see that you’re playing 二ノ国! it’s one of my favorite immersion activities for the language level and chill vibe, but i never have time to play lately i look forward to your updates!!
both volumes of 先生もネット世代 The Net Generation Teacher! It’s so good. This is definitely easier to read on paper than pixiv lol. Anyway, Ueda-sensei looks a lot like Mima. I think Nata-sensei might have a type. It’s soo weird though reading a normal b&w manga by Nata Kokone, I’m so used to the full-color クールドジ男子.
5 pages of 透き通った風が吹いて, leaving off on pg 43
Some vocab of note:
木苺 (きいちご) [n.] raspberry. They don’t even grow on trees…
拍車がかかる (はくしゃがかかる) [expression, ラ五] to spur on; to expedite; to encourage
未然に防ぐ (みぜんにふせぐ) [expression, ガ五] to prevent; to take precautions. Lit. “to prevent before it happens” —a bit redundant lol
ガチ恋 (ガチこい) [slang, n.] being in love with an actor, idol, etc.; a person who is so
ダダ漏れ (ダダもれ) [colloq., n.] big leak; uncontained leak
真っ只中 (まっただなか) [n.] right in the midst of; right at the height of
チクる [colloq., ラ五] to tattle; to tell on; to inform a superior of someone’s actions
寡黙 (かもく) [n., な-adj.] taciturn; untalkative; quiet; reticent; uncommunicative
I read most of this week’s レベル7 reading and only have a couple of pages to knock out tomorrow. Might get to dive back into one of my non bookclub books after!
Pretty good start to the challenge today! I started looking into next week’s potential Zero Escape reading, and also read some more BU$TAFELLOWS which has continued to be wild but now I must go to bed, tragically
Solid advice, thanks! While I was grumbling to myself that she sure took her time and left way too long pauses for effect, it somehow never occurred to me to try and speed up. It’s going much better now (and she sounds much less timid, finally!).