📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 🏖 ☀

Busy busy day. I still have 23 pages left in 硝子の塔の殺人 and it’s keeping the story boiling yet! We’re in the “everything is revealed” stage and I’m here for it. This story had a slow start but honestly unless it totally disappoints somehow in the next 23 pages it will be in my top books of this year.

Also maybe EOY we should have a ‘Top 5 best things read’ thread? :thinking:

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Finished chapter 1 of Tugumi, only one day late! Other than a page of the prefectures book that was it.

But tomorrow should be a better reading day (several hours travel) without the distraction of my adopted stray cat sitting outside in the cold wanting pats but refusing to come inside…

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Today was a much bigger struggle. I kind of forced my way through Chapter 3 of Kono Suba. I still got a lot of it but need to watch the anime to see what I might have missed. I think after this first volume I am gonna opt for the anime and then read after. The scenarios just done light up in my head like I feel they should. 青ブタ and コンビニ人間 felt really natural for me to picture. But there’s something missing in KonoSuba that I can’t put my finger on. The first 2 chapters were really fun and I could do it but 3 I felt like it became a chore. Little disheartening but only one more chapter to go and I can return to 青ブタ which seems to be my comfort zone.

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It’s something I’ve never played and is on my list of things to try and play in Japanese one day so looking forward to your spoiler free review! How are you finding it so far difficulty-wise compared to FF7?

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FFVII isn’t too hard if you know the names of things already like Mako and Shinra.

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I’ve made it to a little over 200k characters read in Monkeys now. JPDB has the total character count at 346,739 so that puts me at about 57%ish done. 硝子’s has been pretty fun so far, although maybe a bit more drama introduced than expected. I’m hoping to have the whole VN finished by the end of the month at this rate.

I also started to read the やがて spin-off light novel that focuses on Sayaka. I read やがて君になる a few months ago and Sayaka was by far my favorite character so I think I will like this. This is the first light novel I’ve attempted to read in jp (I’ve only read manga and visual novels before) but the prose isn’t too hard so far. I am reading this one at a more relaxed pace though, mainly when I’m starting to feel fatigued from Monkeys (I enjoy the Monkeys VN a lot but there is a lot of random difficulty spikes, so sometimes I need to take a small break during those lookup heavy sections).

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:tiger2: :books: The Tanuki Beach Resort: Date 20220806 :beach_umbrella: :raccoon:

From today I’ll be starting a new book: 吾輩は猫である by Natsume Sōseki, it’s a pretty well known satirical story about… being a cat.
this thing is longer than No Longer Human and older but it’s light hearted cat fun so it should be okay but still, why am I doing this, why am I putting myself through this torment? To learn Japanese? Yes, but why? why am I here to learn Japanese? why???

I like that this book is responsible for bringing 吾輩 back into fiction (which was even out-dated back in 1906), mainly for use by pompous anthropomorphic animals, that’s still evident in works today.

吾輩は狸である progress: 0.19% :smiley_cat:
I do have the percentage correct this time, but I’ve only had time to read the starting paragraph

Book, スタート!

Chapter one, to say it’s 116 years old this year, it’s quite amusing already.

Cat uses: ニャーニャー, the use of ニャー confirmed to be over 110 years old :laughing:
Now I wonder what the earliest use of ニャー is :thinking:

:beach_umbrella: Japanese found in the sand :beach_umbrella:

Meowords

獰悪「どうあく」ー Cruel; violent
「てのひら」ー Palm of the hand (more common to see as: 手のひら)
見始「みはじめ」ー Seeing for the first time; first sight (more common as: 見始め)
到底「とうてい」ー Cannot possibly; cannot by any means; not at all

Forms
捕える = 捉える「とらえる」(to catch/capture)
載せる = 乗せる「のせる」(to place on (something) / to give a ride / to load / and countless other things)
咽 = 喉「のど」(throat)
坐る = 座る「すわる」(to sit)
無暗 = 無闇「むやみ」(thoughtless; reckless)
廻る = 回る「まわる」(to revolve)

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I am about 200 pages into that, so about halfway. It’s good, but I find it a definite slow slog of a read, because the cat is so up themselves they never use a simple word when an obscure one is available.

Does your copy have endnotes explaining the literary and historical references?

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… And Snape in Harry Potter iirc :joy:

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No it doesn’t have any endnotes or anything like that, just the story.

Seriously?? :laughing:
Though thinking, yeh, 吾輩 fits

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I guess they’re not critical – there’s a lot of “such and such street is in today’s XYZ ward” which are pretty skippable, and most of the literary references are to Western figures rather than Japanese ones, so not that obscure for a western reader. But there have been a few nice-to-have clarifying endnotes.

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Today: p. 187-195 of よつば&!

Newish things:

隠す (かくす): to hide
鳴く (なく): to make a sound (animal: to chirp, sing etc.)
警戒 (けいかい): vigilance, precaution
じっと: motionlessly (stand, wait etc.)
持ってみ (もってみ): hold it
臆病 (おくびょう): cowardly, timid
ちっこい: very small
必殺技 (ひっさつわざ): special or lethal move
合体 (がったい): union, merger
喜ぶ (よろこぶ): to be delighted

I frequently find myself looking something up only to discover that I’ve looked it up before; I expect it often happens when I don’t realize it, so words end up on these lists of mine multiple times. This is to be expected, as I don’t make any sort of concerted effort to learn this vocabulary (unlike things I study in my Japanese classes); I trust that once I’ve met a word multiple times in multiple contexts it will start to sink in.

As preparations for the school year gear up I will have less and less time for reading, so I’m concerned about slipping backwards…but today I’m making myself a playlist of back-to-school music which is mostly Japanese stuff, and I’m pleased to see that in new songs I’m able to recognize and understand many more words and grammatical constructions than I could last year at this time. Slow and sometimes painful, but progress.

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Home post :bookmark: Aug 6th :sunny:

・ Loopers :infinity: part 04 of playlist

I almost didn’t read anything today. Will have to decide what to read tomorrow. …Or?

What do you guys think? :ballot_box:

  • Watanare 1
  • Kusuriya no hitorigoto 3
  • Honzuki 10

0 voters

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Summary Post

August 6th
What did I read?: Orange Vol 1
How much did I read?: 70 pages
How long did it take me?: 58 min

I’m on a roll, 3 day streak :laughing: Finished off the last chapter of Orange Volume 1 and read the random unrelated story after it. Thankfully this chapter did not hurt my emotions as much as the previous ones have xD The opening did make me a wee bit emotional though This reminds me that I still need to order the next volumes :sweat_smile:

I love this idea and I think it should happen! :+1:

I did not know this but I am so happy that I have learned it :joy:

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:sunny: :beach_umbrella: Memoria’s Summer Readin’ :beach: :sunny:

August 6th:

Just read the subtitles for a video today. Tired! And stressed!

Thank you! Yes… I feel like the process has been going on forever. My new stove was supposed to come in today, but my sister’s partner slipped while carrying it and sent the thing flying down a hill :scream::scream: I witnessed all of it and was horrified, because he almost fell head-first into a stone wall and I was too far away to prevent it. Thankfully he was okay, but the stove is broken. It’s a good thing I have insurance. Now I have to wait another week before I can cook in my new home, though :melting_face::melting_face:

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August 6th!

Today I read Chapter 16 of Happiness. Interesting developments this in this chapter, so I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next!

(Home Post)

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Home post

REDC
Week 6

8月6日
ルーパーズ chapter 4.


Hmm that’s a good question! I feel like for me the difficulty in FF7 came especially from some characters’ speech and not so much from vocabulary or grammar used throughout the game. In Chrono Trigger instead it comes from my seemingly unending battle with sentences with no kanji. I don’t know, it’s not even that hard because I don’t have much trouble separating particles from words and whatnot but I just almost hate a ton of hiragana at this point :joy: (reason why I quit reading 星の王子さま in a previous challenge until my vocabulary knowledge increases). I prefer a lot of kanji over a lot of hiragana, especially when learning new words. There’s still some degree of kanji but yeah. I suppose it’s the limitations of back then, too, not sure.

Vocabulary or grammar wise I would say they’re similar? FF7 has a lot more going on that you have to keep track of, perhaps Chrono Trigger is easier in that sense because the story is not that deep, while still being really cool. It’s simpler in a cool way. Having said that I still have learned new words from it.

I might have been too ambiguous, forgive me :joy: . I have a lot of trouble grading things because my standard keeps changing, going up bit by bit, slowly over time. I don’t know if something is easy or hard, I can only tell what is easy or hard for me in particular, and that keeps changing overtime. I can say that for someone that has played FF7, Chrono Trigger is a game of slightly lower difficulty. The hiragana lookups are what might be frustrating when you get one of those homophones that could be multiple possible words, but I don’t think it has been that common.

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August 6 :blossom: Home Post

I read another chapter of クールドジ男子(だんし) and lived my nightmare of accidentally playing music out loud instead of in my headphones in public :joy: Then I played some more バディミッションBOND; it’s gearing up to a big investigation section which always takes me a bit longer, but some wild things are promised beyond that :eyes: We’re aiming for the ファントム’s office :eyes: direct contact with the ファントム knowing who they are?? Oh man. Drama awaits!

Oooh that’s pretty cool! I am always a fan of 吾輩(わがはい) :joy: In case it’s helpful, I’ve seen people talk about https://www.sosekiproject.org/ before; I haven’t used it really but it looks like it has some useful resources for reading Sōseki stuff if you’re interested!

Omg I love that, it’s so perfect somehow :joy:

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:star2: Home :star2:

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険24

start - 89

The previous chapters end and now we’re onto Iggy and Pet Shop! This is one of my favorite confrontations. Dio’s murder bird is one of my favorites. How often do you come across non-animal focused media that has a murder falcon??

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Home

My recent little buy from Manga Republic got here today! When I have finally finished 1.5 of the last 3 that I bought lmao (well, more like 1.75)

List, since my room gets poor lighting for photos:

イケメン君とさえない君 - 秀良子
秘密が花園 - 秋葉東子
よつばと!① - あずまきよひこ

I finished 不器用な僕ら (including its related extras) and read the first (also of three) chapter of スイートクレイジーデイズ. While the first story was about a couple of high schoolers, this one’s about a couple of 25-y.o.s, one an author and the other a pâtissier, who’ve been dating since high school and are cohabitating.

I learned what the “go-home-early club” is called in Japanese! 帰宅部. So I guess it’s technically the “go-home club,” but the first time I came across it, it was translated as the “go-home-early club,” so that’s what it is in my head.

Some vocab of note:

もとはと言えば [expression] when you get right down to it; as for what started it; as for the reason; originally. (That は is the particle は, which I didn’t parse at first. It’s also written as 元はと言えば.)
最寄り (もより) [noun, の-adj.] nearest; closest. Often seen as 最寄り駅.
渡仏 (とふつ) [noun, する verb] going to France

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