📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2021 🏖🏖

[sycamore]

Summary

June 25
I had a job interview today and was pretty exhausted after it, but despite that somehow ended up almost accidentally reading the next 5 chapters of 鬼滅の刃. I just can’t control myself when there’s cliffhangers!

I’m finding this manga very readable despite having quite a lot of unknown vocab (my tolerance for that is pretty high anyway) and I’ve also been coming across a few new grammar points which is pretty cool!

Today I came across - 次第だ
& also ~ぬく

…I’ve still not quite decided what to do with grammar I come across when reading (if anything). Just now I note it down and look it up (although for both of these my trusty DoBJG won’t cut it ) or watch a 日本語の森 video the next day or so, but nothing more than that. Toying with the idea of starting to add things to Bunpro to keep track but perhaps that road leads to SRS overwhelm The other choice of course is to just keep doing as I am and hope that over time things sink in. Does anyone else have any methods that work well for them for keeping track of/learning grammar that you come across when reading?

[Naphthalene]

I haven’t been updating much it seems. Over the past few days I haven’t felt like reading (or doing anything really) so my pace has dropped to just a few pages a day, until yesterday when I just didn’t read anything in Japanese and broke my streak.

I mean, I was reading the webpage of a bunch of clinics in Tokyo, but that doesn’t really seem like something that would count toward this challenge.

[rikaiwisdom]

Main post

Day 25
Satori Reader: The River Sanzu, Episode 5.

---

I wanted to continue reading the IBC today but I ended up being very busy today. I’ll try to do that tomorrow, today one SR article will do.

@sycamore

Does anyone else have any methods that work well for them for keeping track of/learning grammar that you come across when reading?

I use BunPro as well, and if I come across something new, I check if it is there. If it is, I make sure to check both the resources linked (I really like Maggie Sensei, even if I dislike the webpage’s layout ;-; ) and YouTube, either 日本語の森 or other channels that I find explaining the point. Then after checking how it’s used, I add it for reviews, and after this it normally takes care of itself. If I happen to have any new doubts, I check it again. Oh and I also consult the reference book “A handbook of Japanese Grammar Patterns” which is great. I have the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar as well, which is amazing, but I haven’t bought the Intermediate one yet so there’s a lot of stuff I can’t find in the basic one, so I understand where you’re coming from. I really recommend the other book though, it’s a kind of "not-so-complex, straight-to-the-point kind of book full of example sentences of each grammar point’s use. Eventually I want to complete the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar collection, as well as get the Japanese (original) version of the Handbook.

A mix of all of that has done the trick perfectly so far. Then BunPro makes sure that I don’t forget about it frequently enough to give it another thought every now and again.

Also I didn’t know that 次第 was a “grammar point” in itself, thanks! I learned it from the first volume of やがて君になる . I just checked because I had a faint memory of seeing you there ^^ I haven’t kept reading it though. But it appears quite soon, either the first or second chapter. Edit: Just checked it out of curiosity, it’s on page 55 (supposing it’s the same in every version).

[sansarret]

June 25. Time: 20 min. Manga Pages: 1 (but quite a lot of text )
What: Manga からかい上手の高木さん (Volume 1), current pick of ABBC. Chapter 8, Page 16.

Finished the chapter and the club week reading on schedule!
Missed another day yesterday. Honestly without this challenge I would miss much more days.

[deejayyp]

Bunpro has a bookmark system that I use quite often, I note down grammar when I see it, look it up and then bookmark it for future study. I don’t always study it right then and there but if I see it a ton in what I am reading, it’s probably worth investing the time to study it and add it to the pile. Maybe you can do that?

[windupbird]

Summary post

Day 25: June 25th
What did I read?: 不可解なぼくのすべてを Vol. 3
How much did I read?: 26 pages (1 chapter)
How long did it take me?: 23 min

Had more energy than I ever thought I would have to read today lol, so that was a pleasant surprise. My motivation is a mysterious and unknowable force, apparently Looks like we are finally getting back to Koto…honestly I just wanted to give her a hug at the end of this chapter. Looking forward to see how things develop in the next chapter.

[Burnannator]

So far so good, I even added news reading to my schedule I completely forgot about NHK news though

[mrjohnson318]

June 23-25
Been reading Pokémon Adventures. My streak was broken again briefly on the 22nd due to life. I do want to try and add NHK News to change things up. Been mostly reading manga for the past month as part of this.

[Axazel]

Day 26

Today I meant to read half of chapter 13 in カラフル。 But I nearly finished it! The story is obviously ramping up to the conclusion (there are 16 chapters total) and it’s too good to put down.

I noticed that all this extra exposure is really helping to reinforce the kanji I’ve learned so far. My reviews kinda seem like a piece of cake now haha

Love seeing everyone keep up with their reading!

[Aislin]

I’m considering joining the party, even if it’s awfully late for that
I was reluctant before, because I knew beforehand that I would miss some days in June and it was demotivating, but now I finally may try for a streak.

My first goal is to finish Disgaea 6 before it releases in English on June 29th. I’ve got 4 chapters left, so one for each day. I started playing it right after the demo was released back in January (progress carries over), but then got distracted by other things.

(I know that some people think that postgame is the true essence of Disgaea, but I’m happy with just doing the main story.)

---

So far:
魔界戦記ディスガイア6 (video game) (main story)
ルーンファクトリー5 (video game) (main story, will continue postgame sometime later)

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…4 (light novel)
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 (light novel)
カラフル (YA小説 according to Japanese Wikipedia)
授乳 (Sayaka Murata Book Club)
生命式 (also by Sayaka Murata but not part of book club)

不可解なぼくのすべてを3 (BBC manga continued as an offshoot club)
不可解なぼくのすべてを4 (BBC manga continued as an offshoot club)
不可解なぼくのすべてを5 (BBC manga continued as an offshoot club)

文豪ストレイドッグス21 (manga)

メタモルフォーゼの縁側1 (manga)
メタモルフォーゼの縁側2 (manga)
メタモルフォーゼの縁側3 (manga)

Dropped:
地縛少年花子くん1 (BBC manga) (at 43%)

[Redglare]

Is never too late! Welcome aboard

[maykeye]

Day 26: finished ABBC. Was too busy reading (English version) Your Turn to Die to read anything else.

[momoni]

Main

Contrary to what I had hoped first week of vacation ended up being so busy I read the bare minimum most days and broke my streak on Friday. Oh well, I still read more than I would have without this challenge

June 21
Since I finished コナン I decided to switch back to manga for some light reading - 乙女ゲーム vol 2. Read 25 pages.

June 22
Visiting friends for 3 days so zero free time. Read 3 pages of 乙女ゲーム at 1am just to keep the strike going.

June 23
Read 7 pages of 乙女ゲーム.

June 24
Read 2 pages of 乙女ゲーム.

June 26
Forgot to read anything.

June 26
Read 107 pages and finished 乙女ゲーム vol 2. I’m really liking the series so far and will be buying vol 3 soon.

Spoilery thoughts on the series

When I started the series none of the four main guys seemed all that appealing with their abundant (tropey) character flaws. Seeing how excited Catarina was over meeting Mary and Sophia just made me root for the girls instead. With the second volume some of the guys have somewhat redeemed themselves and seem much more likable now that they’re older. And suddenly I feel like I’m in shipping hell - now there are too many options, how does one choose?!

[Redglare]

Summary post
June 26 Another short update

・Read Honzuki 5. (48% → 60%) Ended up reading a bit after I posted last night.

・Started 冷たい密室と博士たち - Doctors in Isolated Room. ( → 9%) Was just curious about how many parts (subchapters) there were in the first chapter and each of them turned out to be shorter than expected, so I ended up reading the whole first week’s part… In other news, new book club. Yay! :3

[windupbird]

Summary post

Day 26: June 26th
What did I read?: いつでもサメーズ
How much did I read?: 14 pages
How long did it take me?: 24 min

This book is so fun. Now we have some 4-koma fable retellings mixed in xD

This one is honestly my favorite, I laughed so hard

The Shark and The Hare

pffff
Honorable mention for favorite fable goes to The Little Match Seal

I feel like I’m starting to get some of these goroawase, but some of them seem like a bit of a stretch imo haha. Like, props to whoever was creative enough to come up with ホタテの日.

[sycamore]

Summary

June 26 umm, so today I finished reading the first vol of 鬼滅の刃 and it ended on a cliffhanger so ended up reading the first two chapters of the next volume too. Thinking about it now, this is the first manga with shonen pacing I’ve read where I hadn’t already seen the anime…so that’s probably why I’m finding it very addictive. While I have the energy for it I’m not going to complain though! Really enjoying it so far. Tanjiro is such a sweetheart It really is a manga that loves to use kanji for usually all kana words though - even things like 此処 (ここ)! It has furigana on everything though so nbd, it’s just funny

@deejayyp

Bunpro has a bookmark system that I use quite often, I note down grammar when I see it, look it up and then bookmark it for future study

I feel so silly that I had completely missed this feature! I went and checked Bunpro today after you mentioned it and was like “bookmark? How do you bookmark? Oh yeah, the massive bookmark icon that I somehow never noticed before!” I think that’s pretty much the perfect way to do things - thanks!

@rikaiwisdom

Oh and I also consult the reference book “A handbook of Japanese Grammar Patterns” which is great

…must…try…to…resist…buying…more…Japanese…learning…resources…

In all seriousness - it sounds really helpful! I am intruiged by the Japanese version (mainly as most of the resources I’ve been using for N3+ grammar points have been in Japanese, with the exception of Maggie sensei) but maybe it would be too tricky. Something to ponder…

@rikaiwisdom

lso I didn’t know that 次第 was a “grammar point” in itself, thanks! I learned it from the first volume of やがて君になる . I just checked because I had a faint memory of seeing you there ^^ I haven’t kept reading it though. But it appears quite soon, either the first or second chapter. Edit: Just checked it out of curiosity, it’s on page 55 (supposing it’s the same in every version).

Hahaha, I think this is a case of what I have started calling to myself “unknown grammar blindness” - which is a situation I quite often find myself in where I think I’ve just learned a new grammar point and then I’ll be rereading something I read earlier (generally for book clubs) and there it will be! I guess I must have just looked up the word and not realised there was a related grammar point (I only realised this time as I was doing my lookups on the Takoboto app and it usefully highlights where theres a related grammar point).

[rikaiwisdom]

Main post

Day 26
コーヒーが冷めないうちに , 7 pages.

---

This is definitely the most I’ve read in a day so far, and I didn’t think I would read the whole thing, whoah. The new week for IBC just started yesterday and I was falling behind, I still had a few pages to read for the first week, so I decided I would do only this today. There are SO many words I don’t know that make me go waaaaaaay too slow, I don’t even know how long these 7 pages took me, around two hours, which I’m not sure if it’s too bad, but it looks ridiculous to me . This is literally the first Japanese novel I’ve ever read. I started with 君の名は for the IBC but I felt very overwhelmed and I fell behind quickly; I soon lost all motivation to keep going. I feel both comfortable and uncomfortable with this one: some passages go very smoothly, and others just break my brain in pieces for a while. If I encounter some sentence that only has one word it’s alright, but when I encounter one that has 3 or so unknown words, pain. I also go very slow intentionally because I try to fully comprehend everything that is happening while adding vocab to SRS.

Having said this, it’s honestly very fun. Today I’ve already become more comfortable than the previous days, and it feels very rusty the moment I start, but after a while the pace becomes better. I’m also mining so much vocabulary so I’m happy.

@sycamore

In all seriousness - it sounds really helpful! I am intruiged by the Japanese version

I’ve read that the Japanese version is much better if you can read it, but since I wasn’t confident in my ability to read it relatively unhindered, I preferred to buy the translated version for now ^^ . But I’ll definitely get the other one eventually. I just don’t know where I fall level wise tbh, maybe I could’ve gone with the original instead. Maybe you can find samples online to check?

@sycamore

I guess I must have just looked up the word and not realised there was a related grammar point

To be fair, I feel like it’s way too common to refer to many things in Japanese as “grammar points”, when they just seem like regular vocabulary to me. Most of these are quite evident if you comprehend how the particles work, and things like that. You see in BunPro and in many other places things like “N3 grammar, two hundred and whatever grammar points!” , like… wth xD I don’t like how everything in Japanese is branded as grammar. Grammar is, to me at least, things like verb conjugations, particles use, verb tenses, etc. Many points in bunpro are so closely related to each other you can add 3 or 4 at the same time. So when I encountered 次第 , I looked up the meaning and figured out how it was used; Jisho marked it as suffix among other things. I haven’t even added it to BunPro yet

[sansarret]

June 26. Time: 30 min. Manga Pages: 16, not looking up anything
What: Manga からかい上手の高木さん (Volume 1), current pick of ABBC. Chapter 9, Pages 1-16.

Decided to go thru the whole chapter without using my usual helpers (jisho, ichimoe, deepl).
I think I understood about 50-70% of the story (well, it is manga after all). Kanji were not the obstacle.

[chrisosaurus]

@Axazel

I hope you have a smooth and quick recovery!

Thank you very much =D

Home post

I’ve started playing Super Mario Odyssey in Japanese, so going to kind-of count that as reading (since I am trying to dissect lots/most of the sentences).

• June 24th 高木さん chapter 4 page 10 panel 4 and ~30-60 minutes of Super Mario Odyssey in Japanese
• June 25th 高木さん chapter 4 page 10 panel 5 and ~30-60 minutes of Super Mario Odyssey in Japanese
• June 26th 高木さん chapter 4 page 11 panels 1 and 2 and ~30-60 minutes of Super Mario Odyssey in Japanese

[Thud]

Main Post

Finished reading volume 9 of Yotsuba over the weekend. These were all very good chapters, making it into one of favorite volumes.

chapter 60

Here the Ayase sisters finally visits Yotsuba’s house. She does a proper job showing all the good spots.

They can’t help but clean up the place which makes the dad suspicious about what yotsuba did. Fuuka finally gets her coffee, also she can’t come to the hot air balloon race. Poor Fuuka, but at least she made a neat dinosaur.

chapter 61

Way too early for this, which makes for some good comedy material.

I love panels like these. They show off the goofy side of their characters. At the site yotsuba already forgot what they came for. There is a lot to do there, so it makes sense. There’s some beautiful spreads here with the balloons, definitely worth a look.

chapter 62

Continues straight from the last chapter, where they get to ride in the hot air balloon for a bit. Duralumin acrobatics are very good here. Remaining part of the chapter is just more fun wholesome stuff.