📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 🏖 ☀

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Today I finished vol 24 and 25 of HQ and read the first 2 ch of vol 26.

Some vocab of note:

マイブーム [noun] current obsession; current kick; personal obsession
図太い (ずぶとい) [い-adj.] bold; shameless; cheeky; brash; impudent
奇を衒う (きをてらう) [expression, ア五] to make a display of one’s originality/eccentricity; to deliberately act oddly (e.g. to get attention)
ご機嫌斜め (ごきげんななめ) [expression] in a bad temper; cranky; crabby

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:spiral_calendar: Day 76: September 14th :watermelon: :crab:

spacer:plunger: スーパーマリオくん Volume 1 (94% ➨ 100%)

spacer:girl: からかい上手の(元)高木さん Volume 7 (0% ➨ 10%)

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September 14 :blossom: Home Post

Felt like reading some manga for a change of pace so picked up the second volume of ブルーロック, but I still didn’t start until I was already tired so just a few pages :joy: I’ll figure it out one day!

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September 12-15 :heavy_check_mark: :mag:

十角館の殺人, chapter 5
Grammar :いかに, いかにも、いかん, いくら, 以後、いささか、いざしらず

In the last four days I started and finished this week’s chapter of 十角館の殺人 (I only read a tiny amount on one day, but it still counts). It’s still going strong, and keeping me guessing. I still like it way more than I expected. I’ve now read a little over halfway, so unless the solution to the mystery is somehow disappointing, I don’t expect my impressions to change much.

Grammar is also going well. いざしらず was a new one to me, but several of the rest also had finer points I wasn’t confident on, so it was good reading about them.
I’m well aware that, like with kanji learned on Wanikani, likewise with grammar learned from a grammar book, I’ll still need to come across it several times in the wild before it becomes second nature. Still, having some degree of familiarity with it can only be beneficial, not to mention that I always tend to come across kanji or grammar points I just learned about.

Now, what to read until the book club’s next week starts? I could continue with 十角館の殺人, I suppose, and read up to the end of next week’s portion (not further, though!). That would probably free up a good chunk of time next week so I can read something else without too many interruptions. Alternatively, I can start something else now (continue 糞尿譚 before I forget what I’ve read so far, or read the next story in 化身), then switch back to 十角館の殺人 on Monday. I also have (too) many other books I can’t wait to start, but I keep telling myself that I need to finish the ones I’m currently reading first. :books:

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Read the prologue and a few pages of Pride and Joy. Spent most of the day watching anime with japanese subs. So I did a lot of reading. Just not the book kind.

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:tiger2: :books: The Tanuki Falling Leaf Party: Date 20220915 :fallen_leaf: :raccoon:

吾輩は狸である progress: 26.77% :nose:

That’s chapter 3 complete! I found it to be a more fun chapter to read over chapter 2, Wagahai-cat’s espionage mission was so overly dramatical it was hilarious (and again, felt very modern). The conversations were also not quite as long and meandering, it felt like there was more back and forth going on (with disparaging remarks from the Wagahai-fluffball).

Though saying that, these guys just had a massive in depth conversation about noses to close the chapter. The noses of historic famous figures; glorious, magnificent noses; the exact measurements and formulas that a perfect nose should be and adhere to…

Anyway, I have some macha tea and macha mochi to celebrate :tea:
Well, I coincidentally have mochi to celebrate, I happened upon some and impulse bought. I am using this as an excuse to consume the mochi

:chestnut: Japanese found within the acorns :chestnut:

Meowords

陣笠「じんがさ」ー Old style soldier’s hat
茶筌「ちゃせん」ー Tea whisk; hair style where the hair is tied up at the back (like a tea whisk)
毒々しい「どくどくしい」ー Poisonous; venomous - but can also mean: hateful; detestable; loathsome; sickening - and: garish; gross
呑気「のんき」ー Carefree; optimistic; careless; easygoing
今戸焼「いまどやき」ー Imado porcelain/ware
穿通「せんつう」ー Penetration
鼻筋「はなすじ」ー Bridge of the nose
峻嶮「しゅうけん」ー Steep; precipitous (also: 峻険)
単独「たんどく」ー Solo; single; independence
英姿颯爽「えいしさっそう」ー Having a fine/dashing/noble/dignified figure/appearance (yes, this word was used to describe a nose) (also, archaic word)
宛転「えんてん」ー Eloquent; fluent; sonorous

Forms
喩え = 例え「たとえ」(Example)

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September 15th!

I read chapter 5 of Flying Witch today. It was my favourite chapter so far!
Lots of cute interactions, and I found it really comfortable to read too.

(Home Post)

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september 15 :sunflower: home post

(not so) quick update since it’s been a while since I updated this challenge:

I haven’t been reading very much lately (or studying Japanese at all…) but for this last half of September I’d really like to get back into it! My goal is to clear out as much of my currently reading list as I can. Either catch up to clubs, finish books, or drop them if I just can’t push through them. I want to start the Autumn challenge with as much of a clean slate as possible.

September reading goals:

in order of priority

極主夫道7: catch up! (I’ve barely started this volume rip I’m so sorry to all my fellow club members)
夜カフェ2: catch up! only one chapter behind thankfully
Orange 1: finish! I will not continue the series for now but I’d like to in the future

I’d also like to stay caught up with the ABBC, BBC, and シャドーハウス clubs. But those won’t be as much of a priority for a bit. I want to finish what I’ve started first!

As for ゼルダ… after that Tears of the Kingdom title reveal I’m back in a Zelda mood so I really want to get back to reading 時のオカリナ, but I really want to focus on 極主夫道, 夜カフェ, and Orange first. Once I’m done with those I’ll finally return to ゼルダ

With all that in mind, I also have to remember that it’s okay that I haven’t been reading much lately. The fact that I’m reading in Japanese at all is such a big improvement over where I was one year ago. I think all the reading I got done in June got to my head and I thought I could keep that up all year :sweat_smile: I’m still happy with all I’ve accomplished thanks to these reading challenges and the WK book clubs. And as long as I read a little, even if I don’t meet my goals, I’ll be happy :slight_smile:

Ok I wrote all that above this morning before reading anything today. Now for today’s reading update:

I just read the first two chapters of 極主夫道7and filled out the vocab sheet (oh my god so many words I didn’t know in these two chapters). Tomorrow I’ll work on catching up completely since I only have one class on Fridays

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Home post

9月15日
ルーパーズ


Just another bit today. I’ve reduced the number of new words in Anki to 10, feels like a much more realistic and comfortable number for me at the moment. I had it on 20 before but I was never consistent, adding that many words everyday is quite a commitment and I already decided months ago that I was not going to invest that much time into SRS anymore. If I could achieve 10 words a day that would be amazing, and while I also said I was not going to aim for any number of words per day, it’s really easy to get unknown vocabulary from ルーパーズ (or any VN) and also quite fun for me, surprisingly. I’m new to VNs but so far this has been IMO the best and easiest medium to mine vocabulary from (assuming PC versions and tools). I might start Zero Escape soon for when I don’t read ルーパーズ, and focus my study through VNs for a little while, it’s a huge learning opportunity.

I’m really happy with where I am currently, after improving my study method and getting rid of unnecessary, self-imposed pressure. I think right now I have a much healthier approach than what I had before and I can already tell I’m much more relaxed while learning pretty much at the same pace. If I could naturally achieve the 10 new words a day that could also positively reinforce taking breaks when I don’t feel like doing much or I’m just too tired; just yesterday I took the day off completely guilt-free and that’s a huge improvement for me. If I could still open Anki and just do 10 new words on those days that would be perfect. But again, not imposed, just something to passively aim for (I always make a lot of cards when reading the VN anyways and I usually have enough new cards for the next few days). I’ll still have days of doing nothing at all, though my Anki deck takes very little time and it doen’t feel like a chore, it’s like 10 minutes at most, and I want to keep it that way.

The countless experiments trying to polish my study method throughout this year have finally paid off apparently :joy: .

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I feel you. Making 10+ cards plus having to study them is pushing it. Unless you’re one of those weirdos that makes a hobby out of making Anki Cards 10 hours a day, I don’t dig it. Thats a big reason I am taking a break from Anki and using jpdb instead. Just kind of straight to the point and I don’t have to worry about the words coming up later because the decks are of the things I am trying to learn to read.

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Day 3

What a stressful day…
Moving soon so packing has been aggravating but found some time to read before I go to sleep.

Current Book:

They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera

Current Progress:

26.5% :partying_face:

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:butterfly: Home :butterfly:

岸辺露伴(きしべろはん)(うご)かない 2

22 - 36

With the way this family acts, I’m thinking that they’re not cursed to die on the same day, but rather that they’re blessed not to die every other day of the year…

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September 15 :blossom: Home Post

I accidentally went chaos mode again today, but I think in a way that’s more on brand for me than most of my reading habits lately? :joy: Anyway I was looking through some steam sales and stumbled upon this game called モノマギア・カンタービレ that sounded interesting and had a demo so I tried it out and… I don’t know what to make of it really; it’s an otome that has some real mysterious vibes and also started out with a whole thing about how messed up war is and this old guy’s experiences with performing sketchy experiments during the war and also you fight people by playing speed?? I’m sold :joy: I got the most solid reading day I’ve had in ages out of it so :man_shrugging: It’s on sale so I’ll probably end up getting it, I’m very curious to see what in the world is happening lmao.

So I think what I’ve learned is that when I have more regular obligations, book clubs are the opposite of motivating for me :joy: I also can’t generally muster the motivation for stuff that feels more challenging, so while Steins;Gate isn’t like ridiculous I’ll probably hold off on it for now. We’ll see how this VN goes, it definitely feels like an easier read even though there’s way less voice acting. Whatever works!

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Just checking, everyone is aware of the whole one click to make a vocabulary card that has the word on front, and reading+pitch+definitions from multiple dictionaries+audio+the sentence you saw it in on the back thing right?

Im pretty sure you read physical books so it doesn’t apply as much to you, but I figure it’s good to make sure you everyone else is aware of this option with ebooks. I use Anki and I limit myself to 20 cards a day, and I spend 0 seconds making any of those cards.

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On the subject of card-making for physical book readers, I recently stumbled into a workflow that seems to be working out OK. When I’m reading, if I see a word I don’t know and care about enough to look up, I look it up in my electronic dictionary. Later on, maybe once every few days, I use the dictionary’s lookup history function to get a list of those words. I’m using jpdb at the moment, which has an “add words from textbox” feature, so I can just type the words in there; but any setup which can create cards from a list of bare words should work fine too. You don’t get the “original sentence where found” part, which is a shame but unavoidable.

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I haven’t been able to post for days but I’ve been reading every day on the dive boat. I finally found an offline dictionary I like (imiwa) and that’s been a lifesaver.

I’ve been keeping up with both 夜カフェ and Spy Family, and slowly catching up with Orange - I’ve read nearly half of volume 2. My best progress has been with Tugumi - I was quite behind at the start of the trip, but I’ve just started chapter 7 (which is admittedly meant to be read by today!). This means I’m over halfway through the book!

I should be able to do a further catch up as I have lots of travel time home including over 24 hours in Jakarta.

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Definitely, this is exactly how I’m making them so effortlessly. I think I wouldn’t be using Anki at all if I had to make my own cards, but it’s so stupidly easy to make them with yomichan so I’ve been using that method and honestly I love it. Even when I mine from regular video games with Game2Text I add them with yomichan and copy&paste the context sentence, the whole thing takes a second. I tried several other SRS platforms but I settled for Anki in the end because it takes similar amount of effort and adds a lot more useful info.

I’m so grateful for these tools :sob: .

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:spiral_calendar: Day 77: September 15th :ocean: :passenger_ship:

spacer:girl: からかい上手の(元)高木さん Volume 7 (10% ➨ 17%)

spacer:eyeglasses: ななか 6⁄17 (1) Volume 1 (43% ➨ 56%)

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I always think this and it then turns out I’m super over optimistic about how much reading I will do on trains and planes or in hotel rooms :slight_smile: I think I took like three or four times as many Japanese books on my recent trip as I actually managed to read, and every day I put a book in my bag thinking “yeah, I’ll read at lunchtime or find a nice bench in a park” and then ended up not touching it all day…

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:tiger2: :books: The Tanuki Falling Leaf Party: Date 20220916 :fallen_leaf: :raccoon:

吾輩は狸である progress: 27.37% :athletic_shoe:

Chapter 4 begins and, thankfully, the nose conversation hasn’t carried on into this chapter.

Wagahai-cat is out sneaking around in other people’s houses again, and he gets all philosophical to try and justify his sneaking, it is very important that he spies on the neighbours.

:chestnut: Japanese found within the acorns :chestnut:

Meowords

足繁く「あししげく」ー Frequently
咎める「とがめる」ー To blame; to reproach; to find fault
語弊がある「ごへいがある」ー To be misleading
密着「みっちゃく」ー Close adhesion; firmly stuck to; being glued to; having close relevance to
胡乱「うろん」ー Fishy; suspicious looking
茫々「ぼうぼう」ー Vast; boundless
餓鬼大将「がきだいしょう」ー Leader of the pack; neighbourhood bully (also: ガキ大将)

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