📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2021 🏖🏖

Japanese Language Reading
#805

Got my second Covid vaccine yesterday evening - don’t think I’ll be reading much today - I was good when I woke up, but am now headachy and having some mild chills. I tackled a chunk of わんわん探偵団 this morning while I still felt good. I’m at about 20% done now - having the odd moment where I’m not totally sure what’s going on, but also finding I don’t need to look up lots of stuff, which is cool. I keep telling myself I will read more of my books before getting more, but I really don’t have a lot of prose-type books, so I went with buying it anyway.

Yesterday’s manga reading was tougher than usual - not sure if I was missing a meaning in the vocab I looked up (or maybe thought something was 2 words, but it was really a phrase), or missing something cultural/unspoken, but was having a really difficult time figuring out why the interpersonal stuff was going on and what people were fighting about. Summarized to my husband later and realized that I did have the gist (because I could more or less explain what happened and it made sense), but my understanding was fuzzier than usual. Definitely 2 chapters I’d like to revisit at some point to try to get it a bit clearer.

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#806

132/153 of Forbidden scrollery complete

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#807

Summary post
July 2

・Read a chapter of Honzuki 5. (67% → 71%) Interesting chapter :eyes: Not much of the super detailed tedious stuff, which is a nice change of pace for me.

・Read a chapter of SAO 8. (p 282 → 313) Finally some action. Lots of fighting related vocab - I’d be lost without furigana on those kanji. Thankfully, was tons of furigana :+1:

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#808

Main post

Day 32 :ballot_box_with_check:
Satori Reader: The River Sanzu, Episode 8.

Kinda tired today, trying to slowly adapt to a new sleeping schedule so this little will have to do.

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#809

Read more of 1Q84 Book 2 last night. My friend in Japan sent me her secondhand copies of 2 and 3 so now I can read them wherever I want. So, I read it in bed ahha, i havent read a book in bed since I was like 10, when I used to read Harry Potter before bed every night.
I was a little worried before I received the book because its a 文庫本 (ぶんこぼん）, a small A6 font size book but surprisingly it was completely readable.

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#810

Wiki post

July 2 Update

I finally did it. I managed to start reading 君の名は. I read through the first chapter (which is a lot less impressive than it sounds since it’s only 4 pages with lots of spaces) and was surprised to see that I comprehended more than I could the last time I tried this back in February. I haven’t really actively learned any more vocabulary or kanji since then. The increase in stamina and speed however, are both definitely apparent, since these four pages only took an hour to complete. I’m sure I’d pick up more by trying to really write out and break down the sentences and look deeply into each grammar point, but I don’t have the energy for that today. Mostly just feeling proud I managed to read.

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#811

Summary post

Day 32: July 2nd
What did I read?: ふたりのライオン
How much did I read?: 34 pages (1 chapter)
How long did it take me?: 1 hr 12 min

Still so wholesome :blush::smiling_face_with_three_hearts: We met the cat and it was adorable. We also met…probably the literal two other people Onizuka knows lmao. The last couple pages of this chapter had me dying though :rofl: Oh Junpei. He was asking if you liked cats, not Onizuka, you dork

I had such a productive work day today, and I actually feel totally caught up with work right now for the first time since…I don’t even remember, quite honestly, I haven’t been or felt this caught up in a long time. Which means I can actually enjoy my long weekend! I’m hoping I’ll be super in the mood for reading this weekend and get a lot of reading time in. ^^ Watch me say that and spend the whole weekend mindless in front of the TV.

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#812

Day 5: July 3rd

At SO’s apartment.

気のきいた短いメールが書ける本：メール術
・返事を保留する (4 pages)

Groggy from being hungover a bit this morning, so 4 pages might be today’s limit! Glad I managed something at least.

I will still shoot for my 100 daily catchup reviews after posting this, I promise myself.

Edit: Finished volume 9 of Berserk before bed! Around 70 pages, I think. Now just need to hunt down volume 10: I know they don’t have it at the nearest 2nd hand store to me…

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#813

:ballot_box_with_check: Day 33

A little embarrassed to count today towards reading. I read like A PARAGRAPH in my book, 僕はイエローでホワイトでちょっとブルー. But, I’m gonna count it because without this challenge I wouldn’t have even picked up my book at all.

Tomorrow is the JLPT, so I focused more on reviewing Grammer today :sweat_smile: Good luck to anyone else taking the (real/mock) test this time!

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#814

Good reading this morning - more manga - As I’m reaching later chapters in Love so Life, I’m finding them a bit more text heavy - although I suspect if I look back at the first chapters, what’s actually going on is that I’m more able to read the text-heavy parts so I’m noticing and working at them more instead of skimming them and moving on to the shorter, easier bits. End of this chapter was a cliff hanger, but I can’t keep reading right now because I’m headed out to see other humans, so I guess I’ll have to wait to find out what happens (though it’s also a flashback to when the main character was younger, so I do have some idea how it must work out)

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#815

Not in much mood to do anything today. I’ve forced myself to read 1 page of IBCCoffee out of approximately 20. I yet to find end of reading this week and schedule.

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#816

I was travelling (and also otherwise busy) last week, but - thanks to this challenge - I managed to read every day :tada:

June 24 - 25: Continued the fourth story from the 理髪店 book (but still not finished…)
June 26 - 28: Chapter 1 of 冷たい密室と博士たち.
June 29: The week’s assignment of 殺人出産 (and the start of a new story!)
June 30: The week’s assignment of コーヒーが冷めないうちに
July 1 - 2: Continued the fourth story from the 理髪店 book some more (but stiiill not finished…)
July 3: The week’s assignment of 人間失格.

My reading is getting more and more fragmented due to four bookclubs :sweat_smile: and one book that I’m reading on my own. So far I’m keeping up well, though… :muscle:

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#817

I continued to read the アポカリプスの砦 manga I will have finished the first volume soon. They are not save in prison. The zombies are attacking, people are running for their life. The protagonist found some friends in prison, they are crazy but without their help he would have already died.

Also I read some lines in video games and visual novels. It’s really hard to decide what to read next. I just have too many videogames and visual novels accumulated over the years. Maybe I should do a poll the next time I post here.

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#818
Reply to momoni

Yay! :sparkles: I’m usually bad with advertising stuff to other people, so I’m happy I succeeded for once.
Double POV happens sometimes in later volumes too, but the structure is more free deeper in the series, so not absolutely every moment gets double treatment. :stuck_out_tongue:

And btw, I realized that on Natively, HameFura’s level is influenced purely by me & Naphthalene :stuck_out_tongue:

Summary post

:heavy_check_mark: Day 7
July 2

  • this week’s portion of 不可解なぼくのすべてを3 (finished volume)
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#819
Reply to Aislin

I may or may not have been lurking in the extensive reading thread for a while which prompted me to start reading the series to begin with. Like mentioned in this thread though the extensive reading thread is kind of scary with people reading what feels like a couple of books per month, so I assumed the light novel would be way above my level. :sweat_smile: Your encouraging words made it feel like something I could actually tackle, so you most definitely succeeded. :slightly_smiling_face:

Nevermind, I’m absolutely terrified of reading it again. :sweat_smile:

Main

July 2
Read 11 pages of 青春オカルティーン plus some tweets and youtube comments in Japanese. Some people here have mentioned how hard it is to get over the hurdle of reading long messages in Japanese since their brain instantly thinks that they won’t understand any of it anyways - same. This really pushed me to stop ignoring comments etc and actually try and read them. Sure enough I was able to understand a lot more than I thought I would. :confetti_ball:

July 3
Read an article of NHK Easy News where I only had to look up 1 word. I remember checking that page out last year and not really finding it “easy” at all back then. :sweat_smile:
Also read 14 pages of 青春オカルティーン. The amount of text per panel makes this a really slow read but the lack of furigana also makes it excellent for reinforcing a lot of kanji readings.

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#820

Summary post
July 3 I read a bunch today! :books:

・New book club: 人間失格(にんげんしっかく). Read about half of the first week’s portion. Am reading the free version on Aozora so I have no way of knowing how much exactly I’ve read. I thought it was going to be a tougher read, but went fine so far :eyes: :sparkles:

・Read Kono Oto Tomare vol. 2 I think it took me around 4 hours? :thinking: Feels like it took a surprisingly long time. Will try to read the next volume tomorrow.

・Read a (long) chapter of SAO 8. (p 314 → 351) More battle scenes and thus vocab related to fighting. One thing I’ve found very interesting is that I’ve learnt come across both kun’yomi and on’yomi of kanji and words I’ve never seen before over just a few days. “What a coincidence!” kind of feel :joy:

Vocab

萎(な)える “to lose strength”・萎縮(いしゅく) “withering”

戦慄(せんりつ) “shiver”・戦慄(わなな)く"to shiver"

斧(おの) “axe” I knew this one tho :eyes: ・戦斧(せんぷ) “battleaxe”

燻製(くんせい) “smoked food; smoking (fish, meat, etc)”・燻(いぶ)す “to smoke (something)”

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#821

June 2 & 3 updates

Finished 鬼滅の刃３ yesterday, and ナルト２ today. The last bit of that 鬼滅の刃 vol was a bit tough in places, partly because there was one character who I think was talking in a kind of archaic style or a dialect (there were quite a few vowel substitutions that weren’t just the typical shonen な->ね which threw me off a bit trying to parse things) and then a page long monologue from a character that talks entirely in katakana (even the particles!!) . Another fun volume though! I feel like it’s at a really pleasant level where it’s challenging but not so much that it feels like a struggle/not fun.
ナルト I have to admit I mainly read because I didn’t have much time today and I wanted to finish it off. It’s a nice easy read as a) I’ve seen the anime, and b) half the time if I don’t understand something but am too lazy to look it up then Naruto or one of the other kid characters will be like “uhhh…I don’t understand” and it will be described in a different way. Makes it easy to read without looking up too much. I did notice that almost every word I looked up today I had already looked up in one of the other things I’m reading…which maybe tells me I should start SRS-ing vocab…but I don’t want to/WK is enough for me rn so I’ll just keep on looking them up over and over haha.

That’s me back to only book club reads. Need to decide what’s next tomorrow (I say like I don’t already know it will be 鬼滅の刃4 instead of one of the many other things I have already bought or got free from bookwalker :sweat_smile:)

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#822

Main post

Day 33 :ballot_box_with_check:
Satori Reader: The River Sanzu, Episode 9.

Tired, part 2.

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#823

Summary post

Day 33: July 3rd
What did I read?: ふたりのライオン
How much did I read?: 144 pages (3 chapters - finished the manga)
How long did it take me?: 4 hr 45 min? Or 5 hours maybe? (some rando kept calling me and leaving blank messages on my phone while I was trying to read earlier this afternoon…while that was happening I paused my timer at some point and forgot to restart it, so that’s why I’m not sure -_-)

I didn’t intend to finish this today, but…somehow that happened xD I read one chapter and took a break, thinking maybe I’d finish the rest off tomorrow, but I wanted to see how things resolved so I picked it up again.

The first chapter I read today was a very text-heavy and backstory-heavy chapter so it took me a while to work through. (I feel like I always spend lots of time on these types of chapters…my need to make sure I understand increases like 50-fold :sweat_smile: Backstory is very important to me lol) But it was worth it. Now we know how all the rumors started… Onizuka so did not deserve to have such a crappy high school experience, but the fact that he still doesn’t seem to regret it because he feels like it was the right thing to do is just :heart::broken_heart: I think his grandpa would be so proud :heart:

…On a lighter note, Onizuka apparently gets drunk in like five seconds :joy: That was quite cute.
And I love how his response to finding out Junpei has feelings for him was basically dude, why are you freaking out, that’s fine lmao, he’s so chill about it :joy: I love him so much
And it ends with them playing with the cat again and having a first kiss, how cute is that :3 Kind of wish this had a continuation, but I don’t think it does. May check out some of this author’s other work, though. The growth of their friendship and Onizuka’s character development was just sweet and heartwarming to watch :heart:

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#824

Day 6: July 4th

SO’s apartment.

Read:
気のきいた短いメールが書ける本：メール術
・仕事のお願い（4 pages)

For several months I’ve been giving myself a vacation from studying/job searching/working on weekends, and it’s been nice, but to keep up with this challenge I want to read at least a little on Sat/Sun as well. I feel like 1 section plus daily 100 catch up reviews is enough

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