Oh no!!! I’ve made a terrible mistake!!! (Or, well, it feels like it, at least).
I decided to go out of my element for once (both in terms of genre and difficulty) and picked up the currently popular Fate/strange Fake as a bit of a hazardous venture… instantly transported back to my 天使様 vol1 days, where I would look up 1-2 words a sentence and be stuck on a single page for ten minutes or more… though it’s hard to say if I could’ve ever really been prepared considering how often the author likes to use words that I’ll probably never see again in my entire life…
I mean, just look at how extra the author can get (though actually this isn’t a very good example considering you don’t actually need to look up anything here lol)
Well, nevertheless, it isn’t actually that bad to read, but the frequent lookups probably mean that I’m not going to be binging these volumes in succession… good thing I have more than enough cooking manga to serve as a bit of repose.
Word of the Day: 闖入者 - intruder, trespasser. 闖 is an awesome pictogram for quite literally depicting someone on horseback forcibly entering through the gates!
ADoBJG - まだ to ~ましょう
Finally found some time to catch up on grammar. It’s really interesting to compare it to what’s available from other grammar sources. Why did this one decide this topic have to split up, but this one put together when they’re such disparate meanings? Anyway, my brain is soup now, time to stop.
Day 10! Well, read another few hours of 999, still not quite at the end of this section. It’s kinda highlighting how difficult planning VN club lengths can be – there are in game blocks on a timeline that we’ve used to plan, and it made sections even-ish up to this point so I can’t complain, but as I suppose is common, the final stretch has a lot to cover so these sections are going on longer than usual. It’s not a huge deal ultimately, people will finish when they do and I don’t think we were wrong to just do it this way; on the whole it worked out well. I’m so drained though, double puzzle rooms meant a lot of unhookable text and this game with its long scientific discussions can be harder work than 9-Nine- for me. I’m hoping I get the spark to want to finish it tonight so I can get back and finish Ten Nights of Dreams soon, but if not, there’s always tomorrow.
I don’t have an image of this on hand, but I do have Ghost Trick, which I’m still working through on the side!
I love how different resources approach the Japanese language differently. In the last lesson of Assimil, number 98, they tell you “well there is one huge thing about the Japanese language that we haven’t mentioned yet, so let’s talk about it now and you can reread all the previous 97 lessons while paying attention to this extraordinary important and complex thing”, so I think “oh no” and brace myself for the thing to come that I probably don’t know yet that I don’t know about and the thing is… the prefixes こ/そ/あ and how they relate to how close to the speaker the word is, which is taught in lesson 2 of Genki
I’m a glutton for punishment, so continuing right where I left off yesterday, straight into an incredibly dense section.
It’s comforting how for many words like 進撃 and 順調 I can figure out the reading and at least guess at the meaning without a proper lookup, letting me advance further into the sentences… but then I’ll hit something I can’t even say out aloud, and then it’s time to dig up the phone…
Struggling with this for a while, today is the day I found Google Keep and its OCR. I’m not a big fan of Google, but damn… this thing just makes a complete mockery out of transcribing anything by hand, just like mokuro does for a digital manga. I’ll never touch a radical search again. (I was contemplating learning SKIP codes to speed this up just earlier today!)
I knew it was extremely wasteful to begin with but the speedup is incredible. It keeps missing kana here and there, but those are easy to fix. Maybe I can catch up with the book club using this!
Now I’m just afraid my retention will plummet.
Maybe it’s a good time to ask whether I’m missing any other incredible tools all of you are using each day?
Page 112 of １日１０分初級から始める読解１２０
1 chapter of 舞妓さんちのまかないさん (Vol 2 Ch. 17) - ~10 pages Ouran - 13 pages (Ch 3 part 2) あん - 2 pages (end of ch 5) aDoBJG: ないで
A few Tobira entries
I got engrossed in the plot of Ouran so managed to read a bit more today. I think I have around 5 pages left on the chapter, so I might be able to finish this part either tomorrow or Thursday. あん was a bit more troublesome for me; I was hoping to start chapter 6 since it’s longer, but only those 2 (well, 1 and a half) pages in the end of ch 5 were challenging enough for me. Perhaps tomorrow!
So what did I read today? A bit of book 3 and the preview of book 7 on bookwalker. I just couldn’t wait. And now that I’ve read the preview, I can’t wait even more! Just a few more days, come on now, Friday! I think I’ll skip book 3, 4 and 5, and go straight to book 6. Actually there are some hilarious scenes from book 5 I want to check out
Redglare’s vacation time is almost over, so things are going to get more busy from now on, hence the not too big read today. My study list has boxes waiting for me
Thanks! I don’t really have time either, so the table is going to be preoccupied for a good while now, haha. I’ll try to be mindful, time flies while doing puzzle! Sometimes I even forget what hunger is
Two puzzle rooms and yet another ending, getting there! The puzzle rooms were shorter this time. I enjoy them, but I also like when I can read for a long time before another one, so sometimes the sentiment has a shade of “ahhh another room, come on just let me read!!” .
I feel a similar way, though perhaps for a different reason as well. Again, while I enjoy the puzzle rooms (though they hold your hand waaaay too much, I wish they never gave you hints and you had a button you could use to ask for one), I prefer when I can just read and read and read. I guess I don’t fully associate VNs with video games so the ones that have video game like gameplay feel to me somewhat… hmmm disruptive to the flow, sometimes? Like, I love video games, play them constantly, but VNs put me in a reading mode more than a gaming mode. I feel like I’m starting to realise I prefer VNs without gameplay, maybe? I always love when I open 9-nine- because I go in with the mentality of “all text”, but in Zero Escape I go in with the default of “I might encounter puzzle rooms” and sometimes I don’t feel like doing one, but I really want to keep reading and discovering the story so I end up doing one . Which then I enjoy because honestly they’re interesting, but yeah. I could summarise it as: I’m loving the game, but it requires a more specific mindset than things like 9-nine- so far, which I can just open and very easily get into the mood. I felt the same way with Utawarerumono (which I want to go back to at some point, was nice), it has tactical RPG combat in between and I was not always in the mood which definitely caused unwanted shorter sessions sometimes. Maybe I’m just not that used to it yet, not sure.
And as you mention, not being able to easily hook that text is really unfortunate. I skip some words just so I don’t have to go through the hassle of looking them up .
A lot tend to have pretty hard demarcations between reading time and gameplay time, so there’s that, too. Some reading happens in Zero Escape puzzle rooms, but certainly not to the same degree. Maybe VNs where the puzzle is about the text itself like Ace Attorney or Danganronpa would interest you more? Like, the primary mode of gameplay there is combing what people say for inconsistencies and whatnot. I find that it doesn’t truly impact me that strongly, but I do know what you mean. I don’t think I felt it too much in the past playing in English, but with Japanese, sometimes it’s either “give me some gameplay so I get a little mental break from foreign language reading” or “I was supposed to be using this to learn, where is the text already” with games, haha.
Gameplay in VNs is definitely not the norm so you’ll be well served there, though it is in the most mainstream popular like the aforementioned examples. Makes sense because they can get wrapped into general videogame categories a little easier.
Generally 999 isn’t so bad for me, it’s just really lengthy in these last few sections.
Both are on my wishlist so eventually c: . If you recommend them as such I’m sure I’ll enjoy them.
Don’t get me wrong I’m still really enjoying Zero Escape despite my post sounding perhaps a bit negative. It’s an occasional minor annoyance more than anything, which I guess the fact that the puzzles are not really that challenging adds a little bit to it. In the end it’s a matter of clicking everything visible and do what you’re told pretty much with generally little thinking, they give most things away easily, so it ends up being more like a process. With that said, they’re cool, and like you mention they have reading interspersed which is what I like the most. And they also have some character interactions that you don’t get outside of them with different funny lines and whatnot.
It’s just that they sometimes come when I want to keep reading for a while . Still, pretty cool game and no real hard complaints so far.
Absolutely. Both series are great fun, if just slightly uneven. They’ve crossed my mind as fun club things eventually, was unsure if they’d be something too many people have already read or if them being recognizable and/or something people might want to reread in JP would draw in more people.
からかい上手の高木さん volume 6 - I think I read the first 2 chapters a week ago, but it was extremely slow at work and I finished all my tasks in like an hour, so I just sat in the back and read on my kindle until things started happening again. Ended up finishing the rest of the volume I could probably stand to put something a bit harder on here, but loading stuff on this kindle is a real chore so I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it lol
ラブひな ch 3 and ch 4
I didn’t even realize you could request alternate versions of books, I might have to go request a few just to make my numbers less weird
A friend of mine did an impromptu birthday party and I was already pretty busy otherwise. While I got my grammar and vocab reviews in, I ran out of time with reading and even forgot Seasons! It’s been a while since I forgot Seasons.
Zucca was good. I really am enjoying it. I’ve only got about 20 pages left in it. Hopefully I’ll be able to get in my reading for Nausicaa and also fit the last bit of Ouran along with the first week of Behind the Super this week. I think I’ll be reading during my lunch break.
It’s never too early to start! If you’d like recommendations for things that you can read even as a beginner, I would be happy to share recommendations and I’m sure other people have some too
45 pages of 風の谷のナウシカ. Kurotowa has such a sleazy, punchable face. Ooh, I don’t like that guy.
あん ch 5, which was about 4 pages
10 pages of さいとう市立さいとう高校野球部, finishing the volume! I think I misremembered a bit about Murata, since Yuusaku says here that only in 中三 did he not play in any games or anything, so he must have just been their coach for the last year. Well, either way, he was still awful. Anyway, in all 200 pages of this, we only advanced forward 2 days because most of the first 6 chapters was Yuusaku getting sidetracked and rambling about stuff that happened in the past lmao. I have a feeling the second half is when the story starts properly moving forward in the present.
8 pages of さいとう市立さいとう高校野球部 (下), starting ch 8 and leaving off on pg 14. In this volume, we get more variation in the line introducing the chapter titles: (8) さいとう市立さいとう高校野球部について、おれの話はつきることなく続いていく。(9) […] ますますどんどん、おれは語る。(10) ごめん、しつこいけど、おれは […] まだ語っている。(11) 重ねてごめん。おれは飽きることなく、[…] 語る。(12) 正式な部員として、新たな気持ちで、[…] おれは語るつもりだ。(13) […] どこまで語れば気が済むんだ、おれ？(14) […] さすがにもうそろそろ語り終えなくちゃと考えている。(15) […] 一応、これで語り終えたかな。一応だけど。 I feel like the first volume’s were funnier, actually…
Some vocab of note:
的を射る (まとをいる) [expression, 一] to be to the point; to be pertinent
Chapter 12 from 花野井くんと恋の病 3 along with some extra 4komas, which finishes up the volume!
Impressive that you still got so much reading done even though you felt like you were too tired to read much! I think what you listed would be what I would consider a very good day for me
I dunno, reading in a foreign language itself is so tiring and I usually have to watch for when I’m starting to slip into not getting everything out of it and use that to take a break. If you can manage the time, take the nap!
Beyond letting yourself take it really slow and take little refreshers regularly while reading, I’m not sure. If you save words you come across or otherwise record things it’ll be useful to be able to review stuff when you’re feeling better. Maybe if you can get by without that particularly hard sentence, keep it to think about when you’re sharper or just come ask someone. This is honestly a rather high demand mental task and the sad part is being tired is just going to make that harder no matter what. But maybe other people have better ideas.
The biggest mood on just wanting to nap the summer away
For me, the only way I can consistently read is to get out of the house for it. Sitting in a library or a coffee shop and reading is an entirely different experience than reading at home, so it helps me get in the right frame of mind to focus on it, and it keeps me away from my usual distractions.
Back to my 
ADoBJG - まだ to ~ましょう
風の谷のナウシカ (p.71-75)
Ouran - 13 pages (Ch 3 part 2)
あん - 2 pages (end of ch 5)
I don’t really have time either, so the table is going to be preoccupied for a good while now, haha. I’ll try to be mindful, time flies while doing puzzle! Sometimes I even forget what hunger is 
.
. Still, pretty cool game and no real hard complaints so far.
７月１０日 
I could probably stand to put something a bit harder on here, but loading stuff on this kindle is a real chore so I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it lol
Zucca x Zuca ヅッカヅッカ
