I see I guess that’s part of the problem that I have with FFXIV too. You can read at your own pace when there are dialogues between quests, duties and such, but when you’re doing something, the text flies away crazy fast and there’s no way I’m catching anything of the battle dialogues or pointers. One of the biggest reasons I don’t play it in Japanese is actually because I don’t want to kill my party because I don’t know how to read something most enemy spells have a fairly quick cast, and I simply can’t read katakana or kanji at that speed. Not to say that if I need to explain something to somebody or them to me, how are we going to communicate? “Avoid so and so when they cast X” … “when they cast what :')” . So I end up putting it in Japanese, playing around for a bit solo, then back again to English after a short while because I’m extremely overwhelmed.
Same I can’t read full hiragana now, gimme that kanji.
1Q84 Book 2: 38 Pages, 1hr 35minutes.
Read about twenty pages, was close to the end so decided “Ah screw it, just read it til the end” and finished it off.
Man, this book series is so damn interesting. I went ahead and bought the rest of the series after I finished it so I have the rest of em to look forward to.
TL;DR からかい上手の高木さん 9 difficult pages (and a few trivial / picture-only pages), this is a lot at least for me.
Longer version of my abnormal day
The longer version is that I didn’t get to sleep until 2am and then at 5am a nasty tooth ache woke me. I took the day off work to see a dentist, thankfully it looks to have just been my gum (?!?) and there is nothing wrong with the tooth, but after all that and only a few hours sleep I wasn’t feeling up to work even after the pain subsided.
I decided to instead spend what was left of the afternoon on the balcony reading and trying to relax a little so that today didn’t feel like a complete write off.
Reading からかい上手の高木さん, today all up I read the final 6 pages to finish chapter 7, and started chapter 8 )reading pages 2, 3, and 4). I then wrote out the next 5 pages to make tomorrow smoother.
I timed myself for part of it. Reading the last 6 pages of chapter 7 took me 1 hour and 40 minutes. This included writing out and breaking down every line by hand in a notebook. I didn’t time the rest, but I’d guess in the realm of 2.5 - 3 hours total today, although a lot of that was me being inefficient.
This means I’ve met my stretch-ish goal of finishing chapter 7 before the volume 2 offshoot club starts. Although now I’m a few days early… so I’m going to see how much of the remaining chapters I can squeeze in, or at least write down.
19.7.
Yesterday I read 13 pages of 使ってはいけない日本語, finishing chapter 3.
I also read the remaining pages of chapter 6 and chapter 7 of 1Q84. Commencing catching up!
Then I read the free manga recommended in the extensive reading thread, ルックバック. I really, really liked it. Not gonna lie, I cried. Really good.
And then I read SとN, which is an actually very cute BL manga. Much appreciated after the roller coaster that was ルックバック.
What can I say, it was a slow day at work. Today’s log is going to be much shorter. Or at least contain less books.
Extremely tired today, taking a nap didn’t help and feel only worse, as result read only 6 pages of Forbidden Scrollery(2). Well, actually it was 2 pages and 4 pages with no text to be honest, but whateves, I managed not to break the streak. I might lost the count for the streak, but I didn’t break it.
main post
Today I finished the first volume of the 聲の形 manga. What should I read tomorrow? Maybe that pervy manga. Shouko is so cute I would totally hug her. I’m sorry but cute things are my weakness. All this bullying made me really sad. Why can’t people be nice to each other?
20.7.
I think I’m done reading for today, so I’ll do today’s log on the day!
Today I read a bunch of manga! Volumes 3&4 of 異世界妹 (the 電子版, which are only around 80-90 pages each), and chapters 1&2 of volume 1 of かしましめし, which is about food, and enjoying life or making life bearable by enjoying food. It’s actually nice so far. The art is kind of… Flowy? Stylish? I like it.
I also read a chapter of 1Q84. 3 more chapters until I’m caught up again.
^From yesterday
Bookwalker app told me I was at 40% in the book when I left it yesterday, but at 43% at the same location when I continue reading today? This is the third day in a row that the percentages have been inconsistent between sessions
Today I was so exhausted before I even started reading and so it was difficult zzzzz. I read another 3% of NO.6 (which according to my rough maths based on page numbers listed on Amazon is around 6 or 7 pages) and I really wanted to keep reading as I was half way through a really interesting dialogue but could barely keep my eyes open. I will be back for you tomorrow, conclusion of interesting dialogue!
Something else that’s semi-related to this challenge (well, reading at least). When I first started learning Japanese, I had some spare audible credits so I downloaded the Japanese versions of harry potter 1 & 3 (if I knew then what I know now about some of JK Rowling’s views about trans people…maaaybe I wouldn’t have but at the time I was just like “oh hey I loved these books as a kid and they are available on UK audible”) Even though when I got them I pretty much could understand nothing, up until now ive usually put them on for half an hour when going to sleep at night (when I wouldn’t have the energy for.more active listening anyway). And then yesterday night I put it on and after a bit just kind of realised “oh wait, this is understandable content now?”. I listened to some more on a walk today and yep, while there are obviously some words I don’t get, on the whole it’s gone from “this is just pleasant noise with some names I recognise” to “I can follow along comfortably and get most of this”. I’m probably helped by having read them in English as a kid but still it feels very cool! I’m not sure I’d reccommend my method of “just listen to things even if you understand nothing”…but it does make for some fairly fun comparison lol.
I keep thinking HP might be a good way to eventually branch out into books rather than just manga, and that reading along with the kindle version while listening to the audible version might aide in looking up unknown words, but… eugh Rowling. I’m not yet sure how to resolve these conflicting feelings.
That’s amazing progress!
I’ve previously grabbed some shorter Japanese audiobooks (e.g. some version of the wizard of OZ?!?) to try this with, but I haven’t been able to stick with it enough to know if it actually works.
I feel like I’ve forgotten most things except for the major plot thrusts and some random moments I presumably found particularly interesting as a kid.
Do you remember most of the details from your reading as a kid?
Day 50, let’s go. I go on vacation for several days starting on Monday next week. I wish to keep reading one Satori Reader episode a day, which would just take 15 or 20 minutes at night, but I also don’t want the challenge to get in the way of my enjoyment of those days. So whether I find time to keep the streak from breaking will depend on how tired or relaxed I end up by the end of each day. But the idea is that if I can, I’d like to keep reading I’m sure I’ll find 20 minutes at some point.
Day 50: July 20th
What did I read?: しまなみ誰そ彼 Vol. 1
How much did I read?: 32 pages (1 chapter - finished the volume)
How long did it take me?: 47 min
Wow, this last chapter was really beautiful. Tiny gushing: Tasuku thinking about Tsubaki is just about the cutest thing - right next to the way that Haru and Saki smiled at each other. Omg ok the last page though xD Who the heck was that?? (Guess I have to buy the next volume and find out. Oh dear, I’m so sad about that ) What I’m actually sad about is that I don’t have the next volume right now D:
Ooh, Amazon was recommending this to me Maybe I will add this to my ever-growing list of Things to Order from Amazon. (It’s gonna be a big shipment, folks)
It’s definitely a tricky choice to make! It is a very good audiobook, I like the Japanese narattor a whole lot. I’m not sure it’s a great pick for an early book to read, as JK Rowling has a pretty descriptive writing style and loves just inserting huge big long lists of nouns (eg if they are eating then everything on the table will be listed lol) as opposed to the light novel I’m reading now which has much more challenging vocab but the writing style itself is way more simple and straight-forward. I’m presuming there are probably better choices for first novels that also have audiobooks…but I don’t really know them hahah (I’m also reading Kikis and have the audiobook for that but I just don’t like the narration as much - that is probably mainly personal preference though!). I know a lot of folks in this thread use Satori reader which seems close to the combo of reading + audiobook so that might also be a good option, but I’ve never used it.
For these two (HP1 and 3), yeah, I remember them pretty well. I think I reread them a lot as a kid, especially 3 cos Remus lupin was my favourite character. I think this is helpful as if I lose track a bit in the audiobook (ie. after one of those previously mentioned massive lists of nouns haha) it doesn’t take much for me to get back into the story. But at the same time it probably gets in the way sometimes as well in that my brain can be lazy and not actually try to figure out the Japanese as much.
That’s a very good point, I had been a little worried about the complexity of her writing, but I hadn’t put enough thought into her descriptive soups…
I haven’t tried Satori reader so maybe I should.
I do have some ASK graded readers which include audio narration, but they’re all very short and quite tightly constrained - they all seem to either be short stories or folk tales, so nothing to really get invested into long term - but the higher levels might at least serve as stepping stones, so maybe I should keep going.
I still vividly remembering thinking that HP was only books 1-4 and wouldn’t have any more follow up, and I couldn’t get enough, so I just kept re-reading them over and over. 3 was my particular favourite and the one I read the most, Sirius Black is my favourite character followed by Remus Lupin.
Despite that, I don’t think I can remember any of the smaller details like Harry’s classmates names or hair colours, but my memory never was the strongest.
I have a Satori reader membership now. No idea how useful as a study resource it really is, so I just got a one month membership for now. The normal price is pretty expensive so I nicely asked and they gave me a discount on it.
July 21st からかい上手の高木さん translated 2 pages from chapter 8, and then wrote out another 5 pages make that 7 pages
Since I met my goal of finishing up to the end of chapter 7 before the offshoot club starts on the 24th, my current goal is to write out all the remaining pages (while still reading everyday) so that when i start volume 2 I don’t have to fret about how many pages to leave blank to fit volume 1 in (as volume 1 will already be filled into my notebook) =p
This’ll probably mean I’ll have a few days of less than stellar reading progress, time shall tell.
EDIT: went and wrote out another 2 pages, finished the writing for chapter 8 in 2 days, I’ll probably still be translating from volume 1 while working on volume 2.
I guess that’s part of the problem that I have with FFXIV too. You can read at your own pace when there are dialogues between quests, duties and such, but when you’re doing something, the text flies away crazy fast and there’s no way I’m catching anything of the battle dialogues or pointers. One of the biggest reasons I don’t play it in Japanese is actually because I don’t want to kill my party because I don’t know how to read something 
most enemy spells have a fairly quick cast, and I simply can’t read katakana or kanji at that speed. Not to say that if I need to explain something to somebody or them to me, how are we going to communicate? “Avoid so and so when they cast X” … “when they cast what :')” . So I end up putting it in Japanese, playing around for a bit solo, then back again to English after a short while because I’m extremely overwhelmed.
Still very good though
Commencing catching up!
This is the third day in a row that the percentages have been inconsistent between sessions 
I’m sure I’ll find 20 minutes at some point.
) What I’m actually sad about is that I don’t have the next volume right now D: