📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2021 🏖🏖

Japanese Language Reading
#723

Summary post

Day 28: June 28th
What did I read?: ふたりのライオン
How much did I read?: 23 pages (1 chapter+)
How long did it take me?: 1 hour (half of which was probably me trying to look up what turned out to be names of high schools or other proper nouns…why)

Randomly felt like getting into this manga today for some reason. :woman_shrugging: I bought it years ago. I read an unofficial (:eyes:) English translation of it at some point but I don’t really remember what happens. Originally found it as an Amazon Japan recommendation, I think. :thinking:

Anyway, I don’t know how I got onto this today, but I read for WAY longer than I was originally going to. I would’ve kept going, too, but I could feel my brain giving out on me so it seemed better to stop :laughing:

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#724

:ballot_box_with_check: Day 28
:ballot_box_with_check: Day 29

Yesterday I only squeezed in a couple of pages. Today I made up for it by reading all by finishing chapters 14 and 15! THE PLOT TWIST.

I really, really don’t want to stop. But there’s only one chapter left, and I want to save that for tomorrow.

New words/phrases:
  • 居心地いごこちいい = Comfortable
  • 思想化りそくかする = to idealize
  • 動どうじる = to be perturbed
  • 根回ねまわし = to make necessary arrangements (taken from the literal action of digging around tree roots before transplanting)
  • 重箱じゅうばこのすみをつつく = to nitpick
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#725

I love your word highlights, thanks for sharing, some of these will make their way into my Anki =D

Home post

  • June 28th からかい上手の高木さん chapter 4 page 11 panel 4

I used to struggle with ~ちゃう, but today it came up and it was so exciting to be able to read it as part of 止まっちゃう.

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#726

So glad to hear that you’re enjoying and able to use some of these words! :laughing::sparkles:

When you finish the first book, I def wanna hear which chapter was your favorite! I just bought the second one cause the first was sooo good. Hope you enjoy it as much if not more :notes:

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#727

Hello! I’m super late, but I’d like to join. Having something external always helps me. I’ll go until the end of July, to start.

Not sure how to make those calendars like y’all, but they look rad. For now I’ll just use paper and post here from time to time to keep updated.

Reading List/Goals:

  • One point from 気のきいた短いメールが書ける本 per day
  • Finish ベルセルク（9巻）
  • Finish 精霊の守り人
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#728

Hello! :durtle_hello: Welcome aboard! :grin: :sparkles:

You can check how someone formatted their post by clicking the reply button on that post and then clicking this button in the top left:

image

(Just make sure not to actually reply to that post if you decide to borrow something :wink: )

You could also copy the format of a calendar I posted here if you want :slight_smile:

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#729

Day 1 (June 29)

Read：気のきいた短いメール（2 points/4 pages)

Super useful information for work and for job searching, so I’m highly motivated to read! I knew the topic was good, but it immediately answered some questions I’ve had forever, which made my really glad I set the 1 point a day rule.

Specifically, my question was when to use さん vs 様 in a business email (spoiler: always use 様 or さま at the start, same as a paper letter, unless they have a specific title like 先生 or 課長). I’d been wavering between 〇〇さんへ and 〇〇様, so now I can be confident in putting 様 and ditching the awkward さんへ.

Second point was on email signatures. I learned that mine is way too long and unwieldy lol.

Edit: Read 2 more points on the train back for a total of 8 pages!

Edit 2: Read 24 pages of ベルセルク before bed

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#730

Thank you for the warm welcome!!

And for the formatting tip!!! That’s super helpful, I’ll have to go back and add it to my first post when I get a minute.

Thanks for creating this thread, I think it’s a real nice idea~

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#731

Oh nice, I’ll use this format too, thanks for posting it bud!

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#732

I don’t think I’ve read enough light novels to be able to compare the difficulty of these books :sweat_smile: So here’s a wall of text regarding each book instead:

夏目友人帳

The 夏目友人帳 light novel I have in my main post has very limited furigana and as such I’ve paused reading it until I’ve learned more kanji on WaniKani.

名探偵コナン

When it comes to the 名探偵コナン light novel I had already seen the movie (without subtitles) which made it a lot easier to vizualise the places that were being described as well as some of the actions of the characters (e.g. fight scenes). I think it’s a pretty good first light novel for fans of the franchise - furigana everywhere, it’s written in modern Japanese, has a lot of katakana words and the author reuses the same phrases/vocabulary throughout the story. The book was 200+ pages and I did end up saving 1394 new words/phrases to my vocab list but I’d say that’s a given with how new I am to light novels. The number of words I added went down drastically with each chapter since the author kept reusing phrases and words.

ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂

ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 is something that I’ve had on my wish list for the past 9 months or so, long before I purchased the other two short novels, which is also the reason why I remember it as being way above my level. I’ve currently read 17 pages and have already saved 123 new words. It does have furigana but it also has a lot of words written in hiragana, e.g. 雰囲気 which I’ve only ever seen written in kanji in other works. It is a children’s book so I guess it makes sense that they would opt for hiragana instead of kanji but that also means I’ve been having a harder time deciphering where an unknown word starts and where it ends. :upside_down_face:

I guess I’ll quickly need to finish ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 now so that I can confirm which one is easier. :stuck_out_tongue:

Will do! With the way things are going I think I’m going to enjoy this series a lot. :sparkling_heart: Magic wish-fulfilling shops where everything goes horribly wrong are straight up my alley. Reminds me of Pet Shop of Horrors and xxxHolic.

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#733
lengthy reply

I haven’t read that much either, but 銭天堂 always seemed like a perfect starting point for me, and until now I don’t think I saw anybody mentioning anything even more approachable, so I got curious.
I read 4 volumes of 銭天堂 (it was my stepping stone from Satori Reader) and I agree that, paradoxically, hiragana is the main obstacle here, I also had problems with deciphering where an unknown word starts and where it ends :stuck_out_tongue:. And the abundance of onomatopoeia. Yikes, :frowning: the onomatopoeia.
The main reason I didn’t read further is because stories got repetitive at some point and also I didn’t agree with some of the moral lessons :wink: but I still have very very warm memories of 銭天堂, it got a special place in my heart :heart:

I was afraid it might be more suitable for the fans and it might change the perceived level of difficulty :sweat_smile:
I don’t know anything about Conan, the number of manga volumes scares me to the bone and I’m not sure if it’s even my genre and the manga seems quite tightly packed with text, but I was willing to give light novel a chance if it would be really relaxing, only now I’m not sure if I’m the right audience. :sweat:
Btw, is it a stand-alone story?

For the record, the thing that’s perfectly my level is the novel version of 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 :wave:t2:. And I’m reading harder things too, but that’s often mentally exhausting, so I was hoping for something which requires less brain power. :smiley:
Also, I’m using Kindle so unknown kanji aren’t that big of obstacle for me, but I’m also not looking down at furigana. And it would be lovely to find something I can read with fewer checks, too.
Ironically, I feel more comfortable with novels than manga because full sentences and such. And customizable font without the risk of blurriness.

4 Likes
#734

Since I finished my current read yesterday, I went diving into my boxes on manga (I don’t have a bookcase to put them in yet), and pulled out a few different options. Three different graded readers but for Japanese children, Ask graded reader level 4 vol 2 & 3 (for learners), not Japanese learners. A manga I read about 2 years ago (I will name it in a second), a random children’s fairytale like picture book (but with quite a bit of text so not like toddler level picture book) that I randomly bought because it was pretty when I visited Japan, and lastly volume 4 of Sailor moon (still in the middle of an arc after all, can’t pause now!).

So this morning I read one story in one of the graded readers and then I started rereading the manga volume. Volume 1 of 3 of 結婚しても恋してる. I haven’t read volume 2 nor 3, so I’ll move on to those after probably.

I read maybe a chapter or two, I didn’t really keep track. When I read this volume almost 2 years ago with the ABBC, I was struggling so hard to get through every sentence of it. There is so much casual language in this manga. But now, I can read it quite easily. I guess a bit of it is memory so the true test will be volume 2 and 3, but even so I’m understand it well. I’ve come so far. :heart_eyes:

Also if any of you were part of the group trying to get a book club read of volume 2 and 3 (aka an off-shoot a couple of years later), I hope to revive that in the next few days and see if I can gather some people together to read. :slight_smile:

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#735

You okay there, buddy? :joy: :horse:

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#736

Read 4 more pages of IBC’s coffee. 8 pages to go for this week.

Forbidden scrollery: reached page 118/153(77%). With current pace I’ll finish the manga this week.

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#737

:horse: Neigh :horse:

I think I really should move onto a different article tomorrow…

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#738

Sounds like Captain has examined the lore of the horses to the fullest :horse: :durtle_tomato: Maybe there’s one about werewolves if that would be of interest…? :thinking: :eyes:

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#739

Summary post
June 29

・Read SAO 8. (p182 → p237) Yay, over halfway through the book :3

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#740

Main post

Today I’ve read:

  • Today’s NHK Easy News.
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#741

:heavy_check_mark: Day 4
June 29

  • 魔界戦記ディスガイア6 (14-2 → 15-1)
  • this week’s assignment of FukaBoku
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#742
Long reply in return

Oh yes, I completely forgot - the コナン light novel also had a ridiculous amount of onomatopoeia, sorry. :sweat_smile: Might just be standard for light novels? No? I hope not

I don’t think me being a fan had that much of an effect on my perception of the difficulty since I’ve read the manga in English. All of the Japanese vocabulary specific to the series was pretty new to me as well. I do get the sheer terror of trying to get into the series though since it’s at what, 99 volumes right now? :skull: And it’s not perfect - I only got into the series 3-4 years ago and there were plenty of moments where I had to remind myself that this was written 20+ years ago when sexual harassment among other things was apparently okay.

Not really; even though the novel itself is indeed about one murder case the characters and their dynamic would make zero sense for somebody who is not familiar with the series. Sorry if I got your hopes up. :sweat_smile:

Oh wow, really? I just went straight for the manga since I wasn’t certain I would be able to read it. According to Natively it’s the same difficulty as the 夏目友人帳 light novel which doesn’t bode well for me. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: Still, now I’m wondering if I should still give it a try and switch to the light novel… :thinking:

I get what you mean - reading a light novel that is close enough to my level where I don’t have to look up 10+ words per page would be the dream. Thanks for mentiong 乙女ゲーム though, I think I’ll give it a try and hopefully it will be a pleasant read for me as well. :slight_smile:

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