📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

Really appreciate everyone’s nice comments! Glad you’re enjoying the screenshots, cause I certainly like posting them. :grin:

Love to see it! Having more people playing this stuff is exciting for me. And I can’t wait to hear what you think over time, such a good series. The digital root was kind of a weird concept for me, so I’m glad you were able to follow the description in Japanese, haha.

Summary post

From a reading perspective, middle of the road, kind of? Nothing too despair-inducing, though I’d say I struggled more than average. It was, surprisingly, conversational stuff this time. Some of those blocks of kana still throw me off… it’s hard to describe; I should’ve taken a screenshot of the kind of line I mean, but there are times when it’s just a mass of なんs and particles and the like and it’s hard to directly turn that into words – I think there’s a certain layer of intuition for those kinds of sounds and conversational indirectness that I just don’t have yet. Perhaps even mixed in with sentence parts that serve more to replicate real life fillers or otherwise soften the text moreso than add meaning. Does that make sense?

All that said, today was an exciting mixup, and I ended up with a bunch of screenshots I wanted to share as I went along… I’m just going to collapse this section and indulge myself for those interested, because as you’ll see, it’s a bit of a special occasion.

Today's experience

First, I came across this image and wanted to share it early. It’s the former mountain path in the evening light – I love what this VN does with times of day. It’s, as you may expect, a very summer-oriented experience, but the altered vibes of otherwise familiar places make me think how cool it would be to see this art in other seasons.

But then I realized I couldn’t just share that, because I came across an upside-down man.

And then, of course, we played ping pong.

It actually entirely slipped my mind that this visual novel has minigames, so this was a fun surprise. It’s totally optional, but on a first play at least, I had fun. You can see those circles behind him – basically a ball comes at the screen and you click the circle it’s heading towards, scoring better based on your timing. The circles change in size, shift around, and grow to 5 instead of 3. It’s a simplistic clicking timing game, but it’s fun. I’ve always loved rhythm games, sunk tons of my life into Rock Band and Guitar Hero and the like.

I did well, apparently, I think! I did hit the ball a whole lot of times, and he seems impressed. For now the plot is starting to move on, but I suppose I’ll be coming back to this in the future.

Oh yeah, I should add a word. Definitely 死力を尽くす (しりょくをつくす), to make frantic efforts. Also the name of the ping pong mode I played haha.

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Oh yeah, sorry, you posted this as I was typing my update. Instructions I followed are here if you get interested in doing it, but the overview of how it works is:

I use textractor, a text hooking program to directly extract the game’s script as it plays. Then I use a browser addon clipboard inserter combined with a page someone has set up for this purpose to automatically copy and paste the text from the texthooker into my browser. From there, yeah, it’s Yomichan for quick hover lookups, and I have Yomichan configured so that at the click of a single button, it creates an Anki card for the word along with the sentence it was mined from. All of that takes a little bit of upfront setup, but once you’ve done that, there’s really only a minute of opening everything along with my game, and otherwise I don’t have to think about anything at all (though when you start a new game, getting the texthooking right can be slightly finnicky).

(I should also note texthooking doesn’t always work – you may or may not be able to find people talking about this prior to getting a game? Some of it’s engine related so I want to say the more gameplay heavy ones don’t, but I’m honestly not sure. I get the impression it at least works frequently enough to be the go-to thing people learning from visual novels do most of the time, anyway. Ace Attorney didn’t work with this setup so I instead had to rely on game2text, one of those programs that just analyzes the image and does its best. It performed… well enough to be helpful, but I definitely had to clean up a lot of its results and/or do a little manual searching too)

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Summary Post

Day 33: Today I read 8 pages of よつば&!and finished chapter 24 :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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I technically live in America, but my sleep schedule is very messed up to the point where it would be a healthy sleep schedule if I lived in Australia :sweat_smile:

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Today I finished the first of 28 chapters in ものべの visual novel. I’m really enjoying it. It’s not that hard but there are still lots of words to look up and add into SRS.

Also read 60 pages of Domestic Girlfriend vol. 3 manga I may update this post with a vocabulary list tomorrow.

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Day 33!
I read chapter 3 of よつばと! today.
It was a fairly smooth read. Had to look up a few bits of vocab, but not a huge amount.
What I’m finding most difficult, is that Yotsuba’s speech is often written mostly in kana, so it sometimes takes me a little while to work out what some words are, because I’m more used to seeing their kanji version!

(Home Post)

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I picked Asia, but I’m in Australia :earth_asia:

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Home post

Day 32:

日本語: I read some of 機動強襲型令嬢アリシア物語1, a bit of ミステリークロック, and some of からかい上手の高木さん. eta: oh, and some ヨコハマ買い出し紀行!

中国語

中国語: I read an intermediate entry on Mandarin Bean, one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学, and a bit of 孩子最爱读的中国民间故事.

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Finished Chapter 1 of Death Note, found potential logical error in the Death Note rules :slight_smile:

Home post

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Summary post

Day 33: February 2nd

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 17 min
Today’s color: 砥粉色 (とのこいろ) - a beige-yellow sort of color, I’d say

Named for 砥粉 (とのこ), which Jisho defines as powder made from dried clay used as a polishing powder, filler material, etc. - the book mentions it being like powder that comes off a grindstone when you use it to sharpen stuff (I think is what it was saying :sweat_smile:)

Good words
  • 砥石 (といし) - whetstone; grindstone
  • 粉末 (ふんまつ) - fine powder
  • 下地 (したじ) - undercoat; first coat
  • 研磨 (けんま) - grinding; polishing
  • あらゆる - all; every
  • さかのぼる - to go back (in time, to origin); to date back to; to trace back to; to make retroactive​ (can also mean to go upstream - I like the kanji for this, it’s 遡る)
  • 石器時代 (せっきじだい) - Stone Age

まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: I forgot to time~ probably like 5-10 min

Today’s reading was about 恵方巻 (えほうまき) - a big uncut 巻き寿司 roll that you eat on 節分 to bring you luck.

Some fun words today
  • 丸齧り (まるかじり) - biting into a whole fruit (or in this case, a whole maki xD) - it wasn’t written in kanji but I like them, look at that cronchy kanji in the middle lol
  • 恵方 (えほう) - favorable direction; lucky direction
  • 太巻き (ふとまき) - big fat 巻き寿司 roll (that’s the technical definition xD) As I was writing this, I realized that the phrase “maki roll” is completely redundant lol wow, like this is one of those naan bread/chai tea situations isn’t it :sweat_smile:

What else did I read?
海のどうぶつが可愛すぎて!
Amount read: 6 pages
Time spent: 31 min

I love this so much already excuse me, but is there really not an orca emoji? Imagine an orca emoji here
You open the manga and you are immediately greeted by the author, whose name is my favorite thing

It’s a mash-up of “Orca” and “Matsuo” (the author’s real name), but it comes out like Matsuoka with an “orca” and you guys probably don’t know this but Matsuoka is already one of my favorite names and orcas are some of my favorite sea creatures so - basically, he’s perfect, I love him already :heart:

Then he hands things over to his orca friends, who are similarly adorable, to introduce us to all the sea creatures. I only got through some of the introductory pages today, but this page made me chuckle

おるかちゃん is over people's nonsense xD

Some good words
  • 利き (きき) - dominance (e.g. of left or right hand)​
  • ヒレ - fin
  • シャチ - orca!
  • 学名 (がくめい) - scientific name (of a species); binomial name; Latin name
  • 知名度 (ちめいど) - degree of familiarity; popularity
  • 王者 (おうじゃ) - king; monarch; ruler; champion
  • 生き残る (いきのこる) - to survive (delightfully logical lol)
  • まずない - seldom; rarely; scarcely​
  • 未知 (みち) - not yet known; unknown; strange​
  • ほうっておく - to leave alone; to leave as is; to ignore; to neglect
  • ぶっちぎり - (establishing a) big lead; (winning by a) huge margin; breaking away (from the field)​
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Tan-chan couldn’t settle very well, so I switched back to Pokemon Special yesterday since I had to keep putting the book down. It’s easier to find your place in a manga than it in a book with a sea of text. :sweat_smile:

2月2日 ~ Day 33 / Back to Home

Pokemon Special Vol 1 page 173 of 200 (chapter 12 - 14 pages)

While reading this chapter, I encountered two interesting things. The first is 秘伝マシン is read as ひでんマシン and that’s not even the author’s choice, but it was the original furigana. I’m assuming it refers to the HM or Hidden Machine moves in the games. If the author purposely chose that word because it sounds like the English “hidden,” I’m very impressed by his creativity. Considering many of the Pokemon names in Japanese are also English words, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was not a coincidence. The second interesting thing was when looking up 密林, I noticed it was listed as slang for the Amazon website on Jisho. I wonder how that came about?

As for this chapter’s summary, Red decides to pay 3000 yen to enter a bicycle obstacle race because he was enticed by the “hidden machine” prize. He uses a very cheap bike he got from the fan club president for free, but he falls behind early on in the race until he passes through a thick forest (which most of the participants decide to avoid due to the wild bug Pokemon that occupy it). At first Red is at a good pace passing through the thick of the forest and using Pikachu and Fushigidane to keep the wild Pokemon away, but when he stumbles into a Spear’s (Beedrill’s) nest, he gets attacked and narrowly escapes.

He manages to catch up and falls in third place only to find a Kabigon (Snorlax) blocking the way. The other two participants ahead of him are at a loss on how to proceed, but Red’s quick thinking has him using the honey that Fushigidane ran into during their encounter with the Spear to lure Kabigon awake. Kabigon chases them to the finish line and Red finishes in first place and wins the one million yen in products. Unfortunately, during the chase, Kabigon wrecked the tent so the winnings came out of the cost of repairs plus an all-you-can eat buffet that Kabigon dines on. In the end, the whole thing doesn’t feel worth it, lol.

Vocab for Reference - New words are bolded

出場・しゅっじょう・participation (e.g. in a tournament)
方々・かたがた・people; (all) persons; everyone; ladies and gentlemen
主催・しゅさい・sponsorship (i.e. conducting under one’s auspices); promotion; organizing; organizing; hosting; staging
走破・そうは・running the whole distance
優勝・ゆうしょう・overall victory; championship; winning the title
途中・とちゅう・on the way
位置・いち・place; position; location
優勝賞品・ゆうしょうしょうひん・winning prize
秘伝・ひでん・secret (recipe, medicine, etc.); mysteries (e.g. of an art)
釣られる・つられる・to be lured; to be enticed; to be drawn in; to be caught up in
さっぱり・not in the least (with neg. verb); not at all
引換券・ひきかえげん exchange ticket; claim tag; coupon
すっかり・all; completely; totally; entirely; thoroughly
置いてけぼり・おいてけぼり・leaving someone behind; abandoning someone; marooning someone​
食らう・くらう・to be on the receiving end (of something undesirable); to undergo (trouble)
固まる・かたまる・to gather (together); to assemble; to huddle together
順番待ち・じゅんばんち・waiting one’s turn
渡る・わたる・to cross over; to go across​
別名・べつめい・another name; different name; synonym
障害物・しょうがいぶつ・obstacle
競争・きょうそう・competition; contest; rivalry; race
障害物競争・しょうがいぶつきょうそう・obstacle race
切り抜ける・きりぬける・to cut one’s way through; to tide over; to struggle through; to get over
違反・いはん・violation; offense; offence; breach; transgression; infringement; contravention
逆転・ぎゃくでん・reversal (of a situation); turnaround; turnabout; turning the tables; sudden change
順位・じゅんい・order; rank; position (e.g. in a race); precedence
一気に・いっきに・without stopping; without pausing; without resting; in one sitting; at a stretch; all at once
密林・みつりん・close thicket; dense forest; jungle
地帯・ちたい・area; zone; belt (of land)
うようよ・in swarms; crawling with
絶好調・ぜっこうちょう・in perfect form; going swimmingly
失敗・しっぱい・failure; mistake; blunder
終盤・しゅうばん・endgame; final stage
先頭・せんとう・head (of a line, group, etc.); front; lead; forefront; vanguard
海パン・かいぱん・trunks; shorts (e.g. seaside use)
熾烈な・しれつな・fierce (fight, competition, etc.); severe; hot; hard; bitter; keen; cutthroat
争い・あらそい・dispute; strife; quarrel; dissension; conflict; rivalry; contest
猛烈・もうれつ・fierce; intense; severe; violent; strong; vehement; terrific; terrible
絞る・しぼる・to narrow down (one’s focus); to whittle down
果たして・はたして・as was expected; just as one thought; sure enough
散々・さんざん・thoroughly; completely; utterly
釣る・つる・to lure in; to tempt; to attract; to entice; to allure
食いしん坊・くいしんぼう・glutton; gourmand
一か八か・いちかばちか・sink or swim; all or nothing; hit or miss; make or break
地点・ちてん・site; point on a map; spot
拍手・はくしゅ・applause
修理代・しゅうりだい・cost of repairs

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No affiliation whatsoever with either of these shops, just went searching for “pointer bookmark” cause I’d seen them in the wild: actual pointing finger and flower based. I know you’re in Japan so Etsy shops in US/UK probably aren’t the best option, but maybe your local bookstore has something like those? :smiley:

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Update February 2

  • One Punch Man volume 1. Chapters 7, 8, and the 番外編 bonus chapter. 60 pages.
  • Read through subtitle screen captures I took while playing the beginning of biohazard 0.
  • Skimmed an article on new Tamiya RC models and another about how inflation in America could cause global economic disaster.
  • Animal Crossing. ~40 minutes
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February 2 :snowflake: Home Post

Well. I played 999 for like… five hours I think? :joy: In two sittings but still, that’s pretty wild. I met more characters today!! So that’s always fun; I still haven’t learned any of their names, but they all have great descriptions like 獅子翁(ししおう) so that’s a good time. I’m intrigued by all of them, but sometimes you see a character and you’re just like “…yeah. I’m probably gonna like you” lmao

Absolutely perplexed by everything happening in his outfit :joy: he’s obviously the Aggro one so I’m sold, obviously. But really all of the characters are super interesting, I’m very curious :eyes:

This was pretty funny too:

つもりだった… rip

It’s still going really smoothly! I’m honestly so shocked by how manageable it’s been, I never would’ve imagined… I’m sure I’m way slower than if I were playing in English, but I feel like I’m making really decent progress. I was a little worried that it would get harder once more characters showed up, but not so far! I’m through the main intro part I think and I’m still having tons of fun with it, so that feels great :blush:

Anyway, I’m off to frantically search for the voice cast because every single one of them sounds so familiar, I swear

Words!

()居振(いふ)()い - movements, demeanor
有無(うむ)()わさず - forcibly, without letting someone offer their side of the story
観音開(かんのんびら)き - double doors opening from the center
コの() - U-shaped
()らわす - to make someone eat, to deal (a blow)
石化(せきか) - petrification, fossilization
不気味(ぶきみ) - weird, ominous, eerie
健闘(けんとう)(いの)る - to wish someone good luck
愉快犯(ゆかいはん) - crime committed for fun

Man there were so many good words, I couldn’t stop myself :joy:

Yes yes omg, I know exactly what you mean!! It’s so vague and just like… vibe-based? :joy: It’s like it doesn’t mean anything concrete, it’s just how it feels in the situation, idk. That’s by far the hardest thing in conversational Japanese imo.

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That’s awesome! Santa really is great (uhh, is he called Santa in Japanese? the one you posted the image of). No spoilers, but if it hasn’t happened already, the game does like to indulge itself in a bit of science talk, so that could be a new set of vocab to deal with in the future. It’s the kind of game where someone might just go “hey while we’re solving this puzzle, how much do you know about the theory of relativity?” I made that exact example up, but it’s that sort of vibe. Just so you know what to expect on the language difficulty side.

Love that list of words by the way.

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Home Post


February 2nd
Crystal Hunters

Kept myself occupied today with this beginner’s manga. I remember looking at it when I first learned hiragana and katakana and being completely lost – but now, it almost seems too easy. Although my copy of また、同じ夢を見ていた arrives tomorrow, I am a bit worried that full text without context from images one gets in manga will make things pretty tough. Guess I’ll find out soon!

Ah man, I can’t wait to join the VN crew with all of you. There’s a few games I’ve had the urge to play through again, but saving it until I can go through them in their native translation makes me even more excited to revisit them.

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Spent most of my reading time last night trying to set up Game2Text to work with persona 4 and failing :sob::sob::sob: I did play maybe half an hour of it after giving up and actually was finding it really quite okay even without the ability to do quick lookups (although I expect more unusual vocab will crop up later) which is very cool but also the reason I was trying to play on PC was mainly to have a good mining set up so failed on that one lol.

Also read a little more 世界から猫 before bed, currently at 70% and still loving it :smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts::smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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Work has been crazy busy and I’ve completely lost track of everyone’s updates on here :pleading_face: Managing a page or two of Doraemon per day at the moment so just about keeping myself in the challenge. Also a shop in the UK has just started stocking &Premium and Casa Brutus so I bought myself a couple of copies and will try to start sneaking in the odd article of that here and there in my workday when I have 5 minutes.

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Maybe you can find a script of the text in Persona 4? I’m not sure if it is available for that game tho

To find Japanese game scripts look up the Japanese name of the game. Than add the word セリフ or 台詞 or セリフ集 or some mix of these words.

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Yeah, that’s what I ended up doing, finding the script and having it in open in a tab while playing the game. Unfortunately it seems to be missing a fair amount /only partial but definitely still helpful. With Games2Text you can make pretty Anki cards with screenshots though so I’ll probably give it another shot as well! Will get there in the end :muscle:

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