I have never heard of whisper phones! I will investigate…
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Today: 23 more pages of よつばと！ (up to p. 53, although of course some of these pages have little text). I’m loving this book, and today I ordered Vol. 2. I’m surprised at how easy it is to read; I am doing my first pass through, so I’m not looking anything up and am just trying to get the gist of the story, and I’m amazed at how much I can understand given my limited skills. I love every one of the characters and can’t wait to spend more time with them; in particular, I can’t wait to read it a second time with the help of a dictionary.
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The Tanuki Beach Resort: Date 20220703 
No Longer Tanuki Progress: 68.47%
Thought I was close to the end of chapter I of note 3, seems there’s still about 5 pages until then.
Japanese found in the sand
Learnthings
更生「こうせい」ー Rehabilitation; starting your life again; rebirth
月下氷人「げっかひょうじん」ー Match-maker; go-between
[Cupid’s much cooler brother → Moon Descending Ice Man]
女道楽「おんなどうらく」ー Womanising; debauchery
汝「なんじ」ー You - archaic so it’s like thou; “汝は” is like “thou shalt”, can also be seen as: 爾.
悪辣「あくらつ」ー Unscrupulous; crafty; vicious
我儘 「わがまま」ー Selfish; egoist; Self-indulgent
荒っぽい「あらっぱい」ー Wild; violent; rough; crude
蟾蜍「ひきがえる」ー Toad (also: 蟇)
Forms
仕末 ＝ 始末「しまつ」(Management; dealing with)
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Quick update: I finished Flying Witch volume 1. Very cute and wholesome. I’m quite pooped from doing jlpt plus traveling, so that’s all I do today. I’ll do a proper update when I get back from camping next week.
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Like others have mentioned already, it does get better with time! I’m definitely still struggling with the same thing. Before I started learning kanji I remember thinking that this language would be so much easier if I only had to memorize the kana. Now I’m so glad there’s kanji to help me along, because otherwise I’d be lost lol. If something reads as gibberish to me I pop it into ichi.moe and pray. I only resort to machine translation if I’m super stuck.
Other than that, I think exposure to the language is the real ticket. It feels a lot like banging your head against the wall, but when I finally understand something it feels too good for me to quit trying.
Oh, and thanks! Good luck with your reading too 
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Day 3 
穴 ~ 10-13%
We’re starting to get a taste of something maybe being off, but it’s still very subtle. It’s now pretty much established that the narrator doesn’t fully engage with practical things: be it the possibility of having children, her job, or even organizing the move to their new home, she’s happy to go with the flow, and just let things happen. (I sort of identify with that a little, I must say…And I loved, for example, how she never cared about where the microwave should go, but instead focused intently on the embroidered dog’s ears flapping as she moved her slippers…) On the other hand, we have a very hands-on mother-in-law, who naturally takes charge. Not a recipe for a happy marriage, especially when said mother-in-law now lives next door, and lets the couple live in a house she owns rent-free. Hmm…
Today I learned that there’s a sports drink called Pocari Sweat. Not the most appetizing name? [1]
Also that there’s a product called 耐震ふんばる君、which seems to be a flexible, cuttable wedge that you put under furniture so that they don’t fall over during an earthquake? I love the simple solution, and wonder why it’s not more widely available… [2]
And apparently movers in Japan will arrange everything so that you have a functional home when they leave? I haven’t had to move for ages, but I thought the movers just put your stuff in a big truck and carried it up to where you wanted it, then left. These people are deciding where to plug in the microwave, and putting 耐震ふんばる君 under furniture. Is that common?
Practical new vocab:
コンセント - electrical outlet
軽 - light motor vehicle
間取り - layout of a house
, 
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Ooh definitely!! It all seems up my alley for sure, I’ll have to keep an eye out 
who knows when I’ll actually buy more books, but one day!
Woah I’d never heard of those either, that’s so smart! Would’ve been great for like phonetics classes with everyone sounding out words under their breath 
Lmao clearly sports anime has desensitized me to that, now that you mention it it sure does sound gross 
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When we lived in Japan we found the name Pocari Sweat hilarious. If you like sports drinks, though, it’s pretty good.
There’s another popular drink called “カルピス” and when I told my Japanese friends that the name sounds like cow urine in English they were amused but not surprised. It’s milk-based, so I’m pretty sure whoever named it knew what they were doing.
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Jul 3
I fell ill, so concentrating was more difficult than I would like >_<
Still, I read pages 38-54 of FukaBoku vol.2, so I am content with the amount of reading done today, all things considered.
I really like the story and can’t wait to see where it goes, it’s nice to be so motivated (´｡• ᵕ •｡`)
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Well, i found this a couple days late as I am just getting into the wani kani community pages (been using the program for a couple months though). So I’m joining in! I actually did do a bit of reading yesterday, So I’ll count it.
I’m going to be realistic, so my first readings will be stories from “Japanese Short Stories for Beginners.” Yesterday I read chapter 6, so tonight I will aim to read chapter 7.
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i’ve seen a few youtube videos where people in japan hired movers, and those moves did indeed go as you described. but i’ve also seen people who did most of the move themselves, so perhaps it depends what kind of service you pay for?
we get wooden wedges to stick under the furniture. they help stabilise the furniture a lot, in particular tall thin pieces like bookcases. but earthquakes are quite rare here, so perhaps there’s some extra function in those?
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A few days in and I’ve gotten half of this week’s reading for the ABBC book club done. We’re currently past the halfway point in the book too, so that’s exciting! I plan on bumping up to the BBC book club’s next book once I’m done with this one.
Yomi no Tsugai is a fun read so far - only a bit tricky due to Hokkaido dialect from some of the characters. I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen in the story yet. I started on it entirely because it’s from the creator of Fullmetal Alchemist. (that and it’s currently free on Bookwalker 
)
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Hmm, I’ve seen wooden wedges now that you mention it. But I thought they were just for use on rickety/unstable furniture. This seems to be for any furniture that may topple over during an earthquake, and apparently you can cut the strip to exactly the length of the furniture. Judging from the looks of the material, it may also absorb some of the shock? I don’t know.
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welcome to the forums! this is a lovely community, full of helpful people, so don’t be afraid to ask questions if you have any troubles ^^
i spent a beautiful evening sitting outside, remnants of a thunderstorm passing by, lit up in the waning evening light. the deep rumble of thunder echoed from the mountains, and a short shower produced a beautiful rainbow ^^
so i was a little distracted, and only read about 10 pages, but that’s fine 
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July 3rd!
Today was the JLPT, so I’m going to count that as most of my reading today!
I did try to read Mitsuboshi Colors now that I’m home, but after 2 pages I realised just how tired I actually am and decided to leave the rest of the chapter until tomorrow!
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July 3
(home post)
Orange page 23 → 31 (9 pages)
Finished week one of Orange, and now I have to wait almost a whole week to read the rest of chapter 1. It is a good thing to ease into reading something new, but the wait might just kill me. Haha. I’m already super into it.
I’m really enjoying the calendar thing I borrowed from @NicoleIsEnough, because I get to add the emoji of what I’m reading in each daily slot. I look forward to it being all colorful, right now it is only , however tomorrow I need to read something else!
Also, I hope it went well for everyone taking the JLPT. And happy to see both newcomers and recurrent challenge members. Gonna be a fun summer of reading for sure.
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DAY 3
I read half of chapter 10 海辺のカフカ - Kafka on the Shore (Advanced Book Club) .
Tomorrow I’m flying back to America to see family for the first time in 3 years! There’s a lot of chances for things to go awry, so wish me luck please 
While I am so exited, I mostly mention this to say that I am hopeful the 9+ hour flight will be my chance to catch up with the book club 
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3rd July (Day 3) 
Read 7 more pages of 海辺のカフカ today - took me an hour, and I am still not finished with chapter 5. I was really hoping to finish it today, but I am too tired to focus. I am beginning to think I was little too optimistic about catching up with the book club soon
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July 2
Played バリアブルバリケード for about an hour. Managed to get through one section.
July 3
More バリアブルバリケード. I played several hours which is rare but with low concentration since there was a lot of noise around me. I might read some more before bed.
I think I’m almost cured so hopefully tomorrow I’ll have the energy to go back to reading books.
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Home post 
July 3rd
・詩的私的ジャック - JACK THE POETICAL PRIVATE (40% → 44%)
Today felt like a good day, so I tried reading ebook with smaller font than usual - kinda felt like I reached the end of the chapter faster Probably because there were fewer pages to flip through and no particularly tough passages. So I finished chapter 5.
・SAO Progressive 1 (56% → 64%)
I was going to read just a bit, but there was still some time left when I reached a good breakpoint, so in turn I decided to read some more, and after a while I saw that the end of the next chapter was not too far away, so I ended up reading more than according to keikaku. Not bad :3
Asuna said something I found hilarious to Kirito
「あなた、色々知ってて便利ね。一家に一台欲しい感じ」
“You know, you’re kinda handy - one of those things one would want to have around the house kinda feeling” lmao
Seems like the expression 一家に一台 can be used about people too? I’m a bit confused. Maybe it’ll make more sense tomorrow.
As a side note, my teacher told me years ago when I started learning Japanese that 便利 shouldn’t be used about people, so that was kinda funny too.
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