Summary post
July 18 Suddenly got busy, didn’t have much time to read
・Read 冷たい密室と博士たち, ch. 6, part 1 (37% → 38%)
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+1, TL;DR Nintendo seem great.
@sycamore
[Apologies if I’m preaching to the choir.]
There is an amazing Youtube channel called Japanese Quest where an American Japanese teacher plays video games to help people learn Japanese. His series on Super Mario Odyssey convinced me to try playing it myself and it has been great so far (I’ve previously played the game in English, which helps but I don’t think is necessary).
Reasons I think Super Mario Odyssey is a great game for Japanese learners:
- furigana
- a lot of the text is around basic actions - jumping, running, throwing, looking, etc.
- the game uses lots of visual queues, including
- highlighting key parts of a sentence to indicate objectives or place names
- inserting pictures of character’s faces into the text to make pronouns and names easier to understand
- explanations of techniques or actions are usually accompanied by visuals including videos which repeat on loop until dismissed
- most text in the game only progresses after you press the A button, giving you ample time to look words up if you choose to
- if you already own an English copy on the Switch it already includes the Japanese version, you can change your system language to Japanese and the game will switch (oh god, pun unintended).
- explanations are repeatable, so you can’t miss key instructions
- the dialogue in the game is often optional, you could probably get through reading very little
Japanese quest also has a series on The legend of Zelda breath of the wild if you wanted to see the language complexity.
Another great channel for this kind of content is Game Gengo, they have a new vocabulary series where each episode they play a different video game in Japanese and explain parts of it. So far they’ve covered Persona 5, FF8, Animal Crossing New Horizons, and Fire Emblem 3 houses.
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Day 48 
Satori Reader: Secret, Episode 2.
Second episode and it already introduced a nice cliffhanger. I see tomorrow’s episode being spicy, looking forward to it.
@chrisosaurus Thanks for the recommendations! I knew about Japanese Quest and Game Gengo, but I don’t think I’ve ever sat and watched more than a couple minutes. I might give it a go sometime 
It might be worthwile to actually mine vocabulary from the videos and put it on some SRS, it’s not actually a bad idea and seems entertaining. Some games I’d like to play myself, like FF8, but others I don’t mind watching.
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Apologies if you already knew, but both channels have their words captured in spread sheets for easy SRS population.
Japanese Quest’s spreadsheet. Super Mario Odyssey words start from row 376 (before that it was Xenoblade Chronicles 2).
Game Gengo’s vocabulary series spreadsheet. Game Gengo also link to anki decks if you wanted to use theirs, I tend to make my own, but theirs do look really good and often includes audio/visual components.
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Day 48: July 18th
What did I read?: ふらいんぐうぃっち Vol. 10 and しまなみ誰そ彼 Vol. 1
How much did I read?: 29 pages (1 chapter) and 32 pages (1 chapter)
How long did it take me?: 47 min and 1 hour 10 min
Both of these had some kind of difficult parts in them today 
So much vocab in しまなみ誰そ彼…I really enjoyed this chapter, though, and the ending of it featured some really stunning art. Now time to go to bed, since I already stayed up later than I meant to reading しまなみ誰そ彼 
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July 18 Update
Today’s reading was just a small amount, about half of the next ホリミヤ chapter, and it only took about 15 minutes to get through. I’ve spent all day running around trying to get ready to leave again tomorrow so it hasn’t left much time for reading.
I go back on vacation tomorrow for another week. This time, however, I’ve managed to pack lighter, so I can bring along a couple of Japanese books. Maybe I’ll even find the time to read them.
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July 18th からかい上手の高木さん chapter 7 pages 6, 7, and 8. I wanted to do more but I was way too tired, so I wrote out 2 more pages but didn’t do much breakdown of them yet so they’ll be my task ‘tomorrow’.
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1Q84 Book 2: 29 Pages, 1hr 30 mins. Very close to the end, will probably finish it tomorrow.
Took me about 35 days to finish the first novel so my speed shot up considerably. Probably coulda finished it earlier if I read on the weekends but meh.
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I’ve tried to avoid any spoilers until I finally have the time to sit down and properly play it myself. Tried playing it this spring with the Japanese audio and English subtitles for listening practice and I regret everything - it’s just so ridiculously high-paced that there was in fact no time to read the subtitles. 
I had originally planned to extend the challenge to August but with daily Japanese studying and reading I kind of feel like I’m not giving myself a chance to actually relax and rest this summer. Plus I only have light novels/books left on my challenge list and those tire me out so much more faster than manga. So decided to just try and finish the 2 things I have on my list and take August easier.
July 13-14
First up was ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 - read 19 pages.
July 15
Seeing the end of the challenge approaching I decided to take another look 夏目友人帳 and ended up reading 3 pages. I no longer look up everything and just try to understand as much as I can from context to speed up the reading.
July 16-18
Read the remaining 39 pages and finished ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 1 . 
I liked the ending of the ice cream story the most since it was so unexpcted. 
Have you started on the second volume yet? @Aislin did mention the stories getting repetitive and I can totally see how, so I’m not 100% sold on buying the second volume yet.
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I have created a Bookmeter account Chrisosaurus - 読書メーター.
I’ve added some books to reading / want to read (& own), and I have just figured out how to mark days which I read.
Is there a way of tracking progress within a book? like page or percentage? I’m used to Goodreads which has that, but I couldn’t seem to find the equivalent.
My Goodreads account incase anyone was interested in seeing my very slow progress crawling through Japanese manga https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/17276880-chris-hall
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Hey, welcome to Bookmeter 
You can track days but not progress within a book unfortunately (we had a little discussion about this a while ago).
(unless they changed something in the meantime that I’m not aware of…)
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thanks for the tips @chrisosaurus & @rikaiwisdom! I do have a switch and a copy of breath of the wild so perhaps that’s the way to go…maybe that can be my thing to do next month haha.
Nice! I have added you my account is here Sycamore bookmeter
I’ve had the account for a while but only have one friend on there so far so would be good to have more! Mainly so I can steal ideas for things to read next lol.
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If you do, I’d love to hear how it goes! I am hoping to “one day” try BoTW myself, but I haven’t even played the English version yet (just had a copy sitting around since launch because… priorities?).
The good news is that I’ve added / followed you back, the bad news is that my account is very new so my plan is basically the same as your plan (to steal ideas for things to read) =D
EDIT: Thanks everyone for the follows, looking forward to being inspired / stealing ideas \o/
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Ive actually only played maybe the first 5-10 hours in English as I was borrowing it from my boyfriend and took so long at that that I needed to return it lol. But he actually gave me his copy recently to keep so I have it now think it should be fun to play!
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Congrats on finishing it!! I agree with you, that ice cream story was so good. I also enjoyed the cooking tree, even if the ending was… kinda… weird? 
Aaaand the charisma bon bon one just frustrated me haha.
I bought the second volume, but haven’t really started it yet. Guess I’ll keep my expectations low, and be ready for some repeats
I added you both! I haven’t been maintaining it well, but mine is Axazel - bookmeter
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I also have a bookmeter account. It only has yotsuba and polar bear café manga on it still. Haven’t done much with it aside from tracking what I read.
I’m playing Skyward Sword in Japanese right now, probably could have picked an easier one, but it just came out and it’s nice to replay it after so long. It’s not part of this daily challenge, just extra reading practice whenever I wanna play. For now I can say that npc dialogue is easier to follow than the story at times. The important details are color coded and they mark the map, so it’s easier to keep track. You can switch furigana on or off. For now I still need it, as the kanji are stylized and there’s quite a few different readings or kanji I don’t know. I’m trying to approach it the same way as with reading manga, just reading it and moving on without putting too much thought into it and look up a few things if necessary.
I’m giving myself the time till the pokemon diamond remake is out (which I also intend to play in Japanese). Skyward sword is a long game, so I might not finish it by then, but that’s fine for now.
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Days 47 and 48
Between yesterday and today I finished chapter 7 in 僕はブルー！ I’m officially halfway through a novel that’s currently a best seller. Can’t believe it.
New words
- 見紛う = To mistake A for B
- 歩み寄る = to meet halfway (figuratively–Compromise and literally–walk towards)
- 方針 = Policy, plan (of action). Magnetic needle (see also = 磁針)
- 所得 = Income, earnings
- 突つく = to poke repeatedly (突く without the extra つ in the middle is a single poke… I guess???)
- ほつれる = to become frayed (pants)
- メッシュ = a highlight in hair, streaked hair
- つんつるてん = when clothes are too short for your limbs, “flooding pants”
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I added everyone to bookmeter 
Now I just need to figure out how Bookmeter works…
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Ooo, I liked Secret. But there is a long flashback in the middle which was a drag. Story pace suddenly halted due to it 
Unpacking the mystery was fun, though!
Day 20
July 15
- 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった…5 (4% → 9%)
- ルーンファクトリー5 (年1 冬11-12)
Day 21
July 16
- ルーンファクトリー5 (年1 冬13-14)
Day 22
July 17
- 不可解なぼくのすべてを4 (chapter 19)
- ルーンファクトリー5 (年1 冬15 - finished the main plot! will continue some more, but after a break)
Day 23
July 18
- 不可解なぼくのすべてを4 (chapter 20)
- 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった…5 (9% → 13%)
Life’s been… weird. I cannot think of the right adjective 
so weird will have to do.
But I didn’t stop reading. I’m also motivated by the thought of everyone else struggling along.
Also I think I missed one day not in reality but in recording the same day twice using the same number. * goes to check *
EDIT: Found the culprit! I marked both 4th and 5th of July as Day 9. So the JLPT tiredness was to blame
So unexpectedly I got one more new shiny day on my record 
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18.7.
Yesterday I read… volumes 3 and 4 of からかい上手の高木さん. Since the rest aren’t free to read, that’ll be where I stop with the series. It was fine, lighthearted fun, but not terribly interesting to me. I did like the way the characters’ expressions are drawn, though.
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