📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2021 🏖🏖

Japanese Language Reading
#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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#825

Main post

I haven’t posted anything here for ages or updated my calendar, oops! I know I missed two days in June, so I left them empty where I think I didn’t read. Otherwise, I’ve been reading regularly still.

So, update. It’s been nearly a month since I started the challenge. I think my understanding has improved at least a little, same with speed.

I finished Takagi-san with the book club last week (thanks, all of you!) and had decided to read Volume 2 with the spin-off club, although seeing that it’s free on Bookwalker for the next five weeks, I might just speed ahead and not spend any money :upside_down_face:

As for Kiki, I’m now at 224/265 pages left to read, and 181 days left of 2021. Dang I better speed up in the later months, hopefully I’ll have improved enough by then :crossed_fingers:

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#826

Home post

July 3rd
Moving house today (the first of many such days), so was absolutely shattered and didn’t think I’d be able to get much if any reading in at the end of the day.
Thanks in part to this challenge, I forced myself to sit down and once I started going I didn’t feel like stopping.

からかい上手の高木さん Chapter 4 page 13 panels 4 and 5, all of page 14, all of page 15, and half of page 16. All up I read 8 non-trivial/difficult panels which is much more than my daily target of 1 lately. The panels today were full of lots of new constructs, but somehow I pushed through, I’m really super stoked!

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#827

Main Post

Read some more Yotsuba and finished volume 10 today. A good start for July. I don’t have any more volumes with me, so I’ll focus on reading Polar Bear Cafe volume 1 next.

chapter 66

Energetic Fuuka joined the party in a quest to buy a camera at the electronics shop. The faces she makes and the interactions with Jumbo and Dad are very good.

And the chapter ends on a very well done to be continued panel

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chapter 67

Browsing the electronics store is very fun. I love how Yotsuba is opening the fridge and commenting that there’s no food there. Fuuka takes a nap, I guess that’s post exam fatigue. Which leads Yotsuba to the discovery what is probably hard rock music:

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And they leave with batteries, very anti-climax… but at least the trip was fun.

chapter 68

Yotsuba bringing Fuuka’s bouncy ball with and discovers a fun use of it. Of course something goes wrong and she lies about it so obviously. Dad is so done with the lies and teaches her an important lesson that she probably won’t forget soon. He makes up for it by telling her that making mistakes is Yotsuba’s job. Then he sees the ball and they experiment some more with its bounciness, so everything’s good again.

chapter 69

Been a while since we saw Miura, so it’s nice. She completely forgot about Danbo and of course that almost ruined Yotsuba’s innocence. And we can’t have that, so Danbo has to be revived and they go to the park together to play. Very wholesome end.

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#828

:ballot_box_with_check: Day 34

Can I count the reading section of the JLPT? Today I read 2 pages in 僕はイエローでホワイトでちょっとブルー！Luckily the reading was really kind, and I only had to look up two words. : D

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#829

Main

July 4
Last day of vacation, so decided to read some ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 1 while I still had the time and energy. Ended up reading 27 pages, much more than I had hoped. Also read 3 pages of 青春オカルティーン.

Fingers crossed I can continue finding time and energy to read this much even when my vacation ends. :books: :muscle: I’ve been enjoying reading daily a lot but as expected it does take up a lot of time. :sweat_smile:

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#830

Read 2 more pages of IBC. Going to take a bath and read more.

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#831

I’m really enjoying reading your Yotsuba posts. <3

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#832

This seems up my alley from what you’ve written. I know you linked to bookmeter before, any chance you have the link for this too?

1 Like
#833

Summary post

:heavy_check_mark: Day 8
July 3

  • 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
    (40% → 44%)

:heavy_check_mark: Day 9
July 4

  • Reading section of the N3 JLPT
    (I’m satisfied with it, btw. I’m not satisfied with :face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth::face_with_symbols_over_mouth: listening.)

  • 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 (44% → 50%)
    Proud here, because I managed to read 1% in the queue to the exam site and I usually really struggle with reading in public places. I needed to convince myself I still know Japanese, because I was starting to doubt it during queuing.

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#834

Summary post
July 4 Taking jlpt mock exam was tiring :zzz: I’m glad I decided to read a bit before that.

・Read the rest of this week’s Ningen Shikkaku.
・Finished Kono Oto Tomare vol. 3 (read half of it before going to sleep last night)
・Read the last bit of the second side story of SAO 8. (p 352 → 360) Just one side story left!

More jlpt people :eyes: :durtle_hello:

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#835

Today’s reading was a mixed bag really:

  • First, I did the N2 mock JLPT (yay reading section :joy_cat:)
  • Then I participated in the コーヒーが冷めないうちに read aloud session
  • Finally, I listened to an audio recording of the first story of my 理髪店 book (will post more once I’m done with the book)
  • And because none of this felt like “proper” reading to me, I started this week’s assignment of 殺人出産 to top it all off. :sweat_smile:
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#836

I finished the first volume of the アポカリプスの砦 manga. The protagonist’s group stole a car and they left the prison. Outside they visited the protagonist’s home but his parents and older sister already turned into zombies. Then they noticed something strange happening. Using their bodies the zombies are building a pyramid. Lol the zombies are so silly.

I wanted to make a poll but I’m too tired today.

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#837

It meeeeeee!! (I couldn’t agree with you more, and I’m excited to not be alone :pleading_face:)

We’re on the other side now :durtle_noice:

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#838

Main post

Day 34 :ballot_box_with_check:
Satori Reader: The River Sanzu, Episode 10.

Tired, part 3 (Finale). Tomorrow IBC, hopefully; gotta catch up. 5 pages per day and I’m on track for next week.

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#839

Summary post

Day 34: July 4th
What did I read?: 不可解なぼくのすべてを Vol. 3
How much did I read?: 52 pages (2 chapters - finished the volume)
How long did it take me?: 50 min

Wow, ngl, reading this felt easy breezy compared to ふたりのライオン :laughing: Yay for Kotone coming out! I’m glad Mogumo finally had that conversation with her. And angel Mogumo was stunning :heart: Will be interested to see what happens in the next volume with Mogumo’s sister…they really did not look thrilled to see her :sweat_smile:

Absolutely! Here you go: ふたりのライオン bookmeter

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