📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

[Daisoujou]

@pocketcat

That’s going to vary a ton by content, too. I can read cheap mystery thriller paperbacks with very little dictionary help (or none if I don’t care about how to pronounce certain kanji compounds) but if you saw my rant the other day, my current non-pulpy crime novel is taking a ton of dictionary lookups and time spent puzzling through sentences to just hang on.

Oh yeah that’s totally true, it’s just even something that is for all purposes “be a young boy spending vacation with some girls on an island” which you’d hope would be as simple and everyday in terminology as it could get, it takes no time at all to run into wildly specific words, or something like 猪突猛進 (headlong/foolhardy/reckless 4 kanji compound I saw today). Elsewhere would be even worse, but the well here is far from drying up, haha.

@pocketcat

And I’ve said elsewhere too that years is a bad measure compared to hours/pages. I personally track both and note them into my (private) study log. It kind of helps me to instead of being like “let’s see where I’m at in 3 months” to say “let’s see where I am in 1000 pages”.

Oh yeah, I’m just kinda using that as shorthand for how much time this is gonna take me. Thus far at least I’m still managing to pour a pretty high amount of time into this – but for any sort of meaningful tracking purposes, I’m thinking about time spent or amount read only. But in a general, overall sense the “when” matters, y’know?

I feel you though. And I mean, I mostly knew to expect this? I think the sheer quantity of extremely specific odd words and degree to which it’s using stuff like sound effects everywhere is catching me off, just more than I anticipated, but I didn’t expect anything native to be easy so I don’t mean to make it sound like my expectations were too short, you know?

[pocketcat]

@Daisoujou

I think the sheer quantity of extremely specific odd words and degree to which it’s using stuff like sound effects everywhere is catching me off,

So the nice thing about super specific words with kanji is that they actually become way less problematic over time. Consider 猪突猛進ちょとつもうしん - to me at a glance this reads kind of like “reckless advancement” which lines up with the definitions you provided. Why did I think that? 猪 is a wild boar and I know 突 from 唐突 (abrubt); 猛 I know from 猛烈 (intense) and 進 from 進む/邁進/etc. I would have totally botched the pronunciation, but in the context of a sentence I would have shrugged and moved on because the feeling/meaning of the word comes through.
So I can’t really say when this started happening but after so much repetition and having so many other words in your arsenal one day you start just kinda vaguely ‘getting’ it from context. I hope this sounds as positive as I’m intending it.

Sound effects I have no idea on. Godspeed.

[sycamore]

@pocketcat

Consider 猪突猛進ちょとつもうしん - to me at a glance this reads kind of like “reckless advancement” which lines up with the definitions you provided.

If you ever read 鬼滅の刃 you also get a character who is pretty much the literal embodiment of this word and yells it constantly lol. One way to learn it hahha.

[Daisoujou]

@sycamore

If you ever read 鬼滅の刃 you also get a character who is pretty much the literal embodiment of this word and yells it constantly lol. One way to learn it hahha.

That looks like a lot of fun! Never know where these words are gonna show up I guess. Is this character always a boar or do they just… do a head replacement during the charge?

@sycamore

I’ve played persona 5 before (with English subs) but this is my first time playing 4 and I’m really liking the slightly more spooky vibe it has already.

Meant to say this earlier, but I’m glad you’re enjoying the game! Someday you have to try Persona 3 – I think it’s actually my favorite, and certainly the spookiest.

@pocketcat

to me at a glance this reads kind of like “reckless advancement” which lines up with the definitions you provided

To be fair, I directly typed the jisho definitions, but going by the Japanese definitions it seems it can refer to the actual charge itself too, so you’re probably just outright correct. Much appreciate the explanation! I know about this conceptually but it’s been both a little hard to trust myself since sometimes they get weird, and I’m probably addicted to dictionary use; I’m in a stage where I still need to cement the reading of just about everything, so it’s hard for me to let any of that go, heh. But I suppose trusting context comes more naturally when you aren’t doubting your understand of everything else as much as I currently kind of have to (also in this specific case I didn’t know the boar kanji yet).

[rodan]

@Daisoujou

I can puzzle through this stuff with resources on hand and a lot of time but it really makes one wonder just how many years it’s going to take to approach anything near real independent reading comfort, you know?

Another way to look at it is how long is it going to take 'til reading is fun enough that you often want to do it?

In my experience that happens much much much earlier (you may already be there!) and starts a bit of a feedback loop where even the answer to your original question might happen sooner than you expect (and even if it doesn’t – who cares, you’re having fun). The more you read means the more you get used to it which means the more circumstances you’re able to read and enjoy it which means the more you read, etc.

Kind of like an asymptote! The line might never reach 0, but it sure makes a lot of progress towards it fast, and it’d be a pity to overlook that just because of how far away the infinite goal is

[windupbird]

Summary post

Day 35: February 4th

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 13 min
Today’s color: 若草色 (わかくさいろ) - bright green; chartreuse green

I love this color, it’s plant color! New growth, full of energy

Good words

• 新緑 (しんりょく) - fresh verdure; new green leaves
• 黄緑 (きみどり) - pea green; yellow-green
• 淀み (よどみ) - faltering; hesitation; pause
• 清々しい (すがすがしい) - refreshing (e.g. feeling, scene, wind, morning air); brisk; bracing; fresh; refreshed
• 例える (たとえる) - to compare (something) to; to liken; to speak figuratively; to use a simile; to use a metaphor
• 新枕 (にいまくら) - bridal bed
• 枕詞 (まくらことば) - pillow word; decorative word used prefixally in classical Japanese literature​ (what a cute word to describe this idea)
• 若菜 (わかな) - young greens; young herbs
• 摘み (つまみ) - picking; harvesting
• 無病息災 (むびょうそくさい) - sound health​

まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 7 min

Today’s reading was about 立春大吉 (りっしゅんだいきち), which is perfectly symmetrical so it looks the same from the front or from the back. You write this on a piece of paper and hang on your gate - when oni come in, they look back over their shoulders, read it, think “oh, I must not have actually gone in yet” and go back out xD Oni aren’t the brightest bulbs in the box, are they

What else did I read?
海のどうぶつが可愛すぎて!
Amount read: 5 pages
Time spent: 29 min

Learned about differences between ハクジラ and ヒゲクジラ today hee hee, moustache whales. One difference is apparently that ハクジラ have a single blowhole while ヒゲクジラ have two?

Please enjoy these dolphins saying ください Idk why I find this so cute haha

Today's whales

• ヒゲクジラ - baleen whale; whalebone whale; mysticete​
• マッコウクジラ - sperm whale
• コシャチイルカ - Heaviside’s dolphin/Haviside’s dolphin it’s a baby orca dolphin lol, how cute
• カマイルカ - Pacific white-sided dolphin adorable
• シロナガスクジラ - blue whale so big
• ザトウクジラ - humpback whale baby humpback whales are the cutest thing ever, just saying
• セミクジラ - North Pacific right whale
• ミンククジラ - minke whale why are its fins so small
• ダンダラカマイルカ - hourglass dolphin I’m obsessed, why are they so cute I love their stripes

And today's words~

• 抜粋 (ばっすい) - extract; excerpt; selection
• ちぎる - to tear to pieces; to tear to shreds; to tear up​
• オキアミ - krill
• がばっと - suddenly; all of a sudden; quickly; emphatically; energetically​
• 伸び縮み (のびちぢみ) - expansion and contraction; elasticity; flexibility
• 肺呼吸 (はいこきゅう) - pulmonary respiration
• 声帯 (せいたい) - vocal cords
• くっきり - distinctly (standing out); clearly; in sharp relief; boldly
• 素早い (すばやい) - quick; swift; nimble; agile
• 活発 (かっぱつ) - lively; active; vigorous; animated; brisk
• だんだら - (with) broad horizontal stripes of different colors; unevenness
• 縞模様 (しまもよう) - striped pattern
• 縞々 (しましま) - striped; stripes

@Daisoujou

I know about this conceptually but it’s been both a little hard to trust myself since sometimes they get weird, and I’m probably addicted to dictionary use; I’m in a stage where I still need to cement the reading of just about everything, so it’s hard for me to let any of that go, heh.

Can relate, especially with regard to needing to/wanting to cement the readings - my memory for meanings is >>>>> than my memory for readings and that bothers me, so my solution is to look everything up all the time (even when I’m pretty sure I know roughly what it means) and hope it eventually sticks. It’s…time-consuming lol. I don’t really know what else to do though. …Feels wrong to just gloss over it without knowing how to read it. Especially since reading is my only form of “study,” really

[Daisoujou]

@rodan

Another way to look at it is how long is it going to take 'til reading is fun enough that you often want to do it?

Oh certainly, that is a great point! I agree. I guess how I’d personally describe it is: people definitely can get in the middle of this and get lost in the weeds of forgetting what it was that they started learning the language for. And honestly the fact I can even fake my way through what I can is kind of amazing to me. While I’m commenting on the enormity of that, tone is hard online, and I’m mostly just remarking on it with awe (ok maybe slight frustration mixed in), but it’s not like I’m feeling defeated about it or anything.

I’m already having fun, but I’d qualify that by saying if people truly grow to love the very learning process as much as some of them make it sound… I don’t think that’s totally me. I’m learning Japanese in part because I’m excited about so much Japanese media, and reading that is absolutely fun! (Listening is umm, for the most part well below the fun threshhold but I’m trying haha). But the fun basically scales with how much I’m successfully comprehending. I don’t hate outside lookups, they’re not ruining the fun, but the real pleasure is in the act of understanding the art, so the more I become able to speed up and get stumped less, the greater the enjoyment will become. Plus, more options will open at that point.

So I very much think you’re right, and I’m totally sticking with it because I do want to keep reading! But it’s exactly because my goal is reading that I’m talking about how soon I can do that better.

[valkow]

Home post

Day 34:

日本語: I read some of ミステリークロック, some of 機動強襲型令嬢アリシア物語１, and a bit of からかい上手の高木さん.
Read-aloud: We read a chapter of ふしぎの国のバード (and finished v6).

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.

[newname]

that’s too funny

[newname]

I like them because they’re pretty easy to read, so I feel like I’m making progress. The manga are meant for young teens, so the stories are all about school/crushes, etc. I also enjoy reading more challenging manga at the same time, so there’s more of a balance.

If you’re into Animal Crossing (Harvest Moon, Kirby, etc.), or Sumikko Gurashi, キャラぱふぇ or ぴこぷり are cute magazines.

[edelstein]

– Home Post –

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February 3rd
まだ、同夢を見ていた - Page 1

February 4th
まだ、同夢を見ていた - …page 1

fellas.

it’s not lookin too hot LMAO
I think that I’ve been diving a bit too far into the deep end, past the point of struggling to swim but instead at the “I have looked up every single word in this sentence but I don’t know what it’s saying” point. I had read through the preview before buying it, and I think that my brain mistook recognizing kanji as understanding what they were saying. Which, to an extent is important, but by no means is what I’d call reading.

It stings a bit, but I think that my time will be better off grinding through the rest of Genki and much simpler readings on the side. On the bright side, I have another goal to strive for in the future: reading through this book!

[liveunderwater]

Update February 4

• 三ツ星カラーズ chapter 7. Pretty sure they set the bar for fart and poo jokes in the series in this one. I know I’m pleased.
• それでも歩は寄せてくる chapter 45 and the first couple pages of 46. They’re dealing with the bitter cold and I’m dealing with a broken boiler until morning. Not a great reading combination really. Maybe if I had a fireplace. Next time, I want a fireplace.
• Several more もじぴったん puzzles. Reached the halfway point in the 簡単 puzzles.
• Got back into ミスタードリラーアンコール. Only light reading really, but the VO work is excellent.
• Japanese Rail Sim. Started reading some of the guide books I’ve unlocked. I plan on coming back to this. There is a lot of reading material there.
• Animal Crossing. I did the things. Talked to the animals.
• Took the unlimited rocket launcher out for the first time since my Gamecube days. (biohazard 4)

---

Clearly ended up being more of a video game day. Happy to have gotten some book club work done.

[Naphthalene]

@Daisoujou

Is this character always a boar or do they just… do a head replacement during the charge?

It’s a mask. He is almost always wearing it.

[basilsauce]

Summary post

I stopped reading 旅猫リポート because it was just getting frustrating rather than being enjoyable, and I felt like I wasn’t even learning anything that would be useful now. I think the author is writing in a witty, humorous style, but it’s coming with a whole pile of low-frequency vocab/expressions, and by the time I do the lookups it’s not funny any more.

I started a totally different book, 武田信玄と上杉謙信、 a children’s biography of the famous generals Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin from the Warring States period. I watched the Taiga drama series 風林火山 (with Gackt) a few years back so I’m less lost here than I might be with another historical biography. This Aoi Tori Bunko version uses simple language for children and features illustrations recasting the great generals as イケメン. However, the simple language includes old-timey style dialogue (not actual hardcore historical speech though) and some old-fashioned sounding words and grammar, plus a lot of personal and place names.

I like historical/period movies and series but barely understand anything, and it would be nice to change that at least a little. The first 5 pages were terrible, but by page 20 it’s already noticeably easier. I’m in the dreaded intermediate plateau where it seems like I don’t know enough but nothing I do makes a difference, so it’s really nice to do something where I can see clear and fast results for a change.

Some things I’ve been looking up and adding to my Anki decks, and book cover

元服 （げんぷく）a ceremony to mark the transition from child to adult
孫子（そんし） Sun Tzu (of “The Art of War”)
家督（かとく）family headship, inheritance
太刀（たち） long sword

And some new grammar to learn to recognize, which fortunately other people had already asked about on HiNative

the 〜まする verb ending (an old-fashioned 丁寧語 form)
〜にいたせ something like にして
(They’re guessable by context, but I wanted to check for sure)

[natarin]

February 4 Home Post

Still living the 999 life! I played like four hours today I think? I’m definitely getting to that stage where I obsessively play it and it’s like all I wanna do when I have free time (as always happens to me with games like this rip) so it’s really cool to have that happen with something in Japanese!

I have way too much to say about 999 (mild spoilers ahead)

Things are starting to happen 淳平(じゅんぺい) was finally like “wait I don’t even know who any of you people are” which like very relatable, I was like 12 hours in at this point and still calling them 銀髪(ぎんぱつ) and 踊(おど)り子(こ) So names yay! サンタ of course:

He really doubled down on that, like no I mean Santa Love the energy. The 三太郎(さんたろう) thing sent me on a whole tangent that I think was kind of pointless because I think the point was just “no I don’t mean a normal name, I mean Santa” but I found this like ad campaign for a cell phone company that’s a whole drama series? Idk I’m unclear but it’s wild:

三太郎シリーズの令和元年をふり返る！ ファミリー総出演の新MV登場／KDDI au三太郎シリーズTVCM「みんな自由だ」篇｜フルバージョンMV＋メイキング - YouTube

Also the whole thing with 茜(あかね)'s name was so smart; she’s number six so 淳平(じゅんぺい) came up with the codename 紫(むらさき) since it starts with む as in like 六(むっ)つ, but that kanji can ALSO be read as あかね so like… it double works.

I also really love 四葉(よつば) and ニルス, they’re very wholesome

I somewhat suspect they might have known each other before this, or maybe they’re just both very sweet and caring people, who knows I love both of them regardless.

You know when you repeatedly come across a word with seemingly contradictory meanings and you read way too much about what’s going on with it? Yeah that was me with 適当(てきとう) today Basically the vibe I got for it (and いい加減(かげん), which it compared it to) is that it can be suitable/enough in the sense like “you done enough for this to succeed, nice work” or in the sense like “ugh you’ve done enough” if that makes any sense. So that was an interesting rabbit hole!

I’m looking forward to playing some more tomorrow, I think there’ll be more puzzles soon Onward!

Some words!

挙動不審(きょどうふしん) - suspicious behavior
途切(とぎ)れ途切(とぎ)れ - broken, intermittent, disconnected
掻(か)っ捌(さば)く - to cut, to slit
顎(あご)をしゃくる - to jerk one’s chin
命拾(いのちびろ)い - narrow escape from death
用済(ようず)み - having served one’s purpose
声色(こわいろ) - tone of voice

@BadWeather

I might check it out soon just out of curiosity and totally not get sucked in for weeks/months making next to no progress

Oh very relatable Yeah if you have it and the mood strikes give it a shot! I can only speak from my own experience but honestly, I think my biggest periods of growth have come from tackling a piece of media above my level and pushing through it, even just as much as I could (generally not very far haha). Your mileage may vary for sure, but if that’s in any way encouraging then hey!

[tiny_river_otter]

Summary Post

Day 35: Today I read 8 pages of よつば＆！

[vonnutje]

Day 30: February 5

• 君の名は。page 232-252 (100% )

I finished my first novel ever! My goal was to read at least one novel in 2022, looks like I overestimated my Japanese ability a bit, so that’s good xD Since I have read the same book and it was also my first book see my exact thoughts in the quote below:

@rikaiwisdom

Aaaand finished . That officially marks the end of my first novel read in Japanese ever . It’s a kind of weird feeling, to think that I’m reading in Japanese, just like that, and it feels like the most normal thing to be doing. But what the heck, it’s not normal at all!! You don’t wake up one day and casually go: oh yeah let me just grab a Japanese book and read it today . If younger me saw me right now reading things that I couldn’t back then, I’m sure I’d be super amazed, and yet it somehow feels normal right now. And if anything, that’s the payoff of the work done until now, for this very thing to feel normal after so much struggle. And don’t get me wrong, IT IS a struggle, a constant and frustrating struggle for which I feel forever underprepared. But slowly, unconsciously, you get there a bit more, and a bit more, and a bit more. And it doesn’t stop being painful yet somehow fun and rewarding at the same time. You don’t notice you are improving, but you are. If I have to pick a favourite phrase from this thread, it is undoubtedly: brains are weird . They do be weird indeed. It’s so painful they sometimes let us know we are improving in certain moments of clarity, just to go missing for weeks or months until you have another one.

Happy to be improving and looking forward to all the things I will read now I think I will focus on manga for the rest of the month, and start a new book in March (if I can wait that long xD). I want to get some more vocab knowledge by just reading a bunch of things and manga might be the best material for that for me right now!

[rikaiwisdom]

Yayyy congratulations!!! Well done.

How did you find the language in the final pages, did you find them as challenging as I did? I remember two very specific moments when the book got difficult for me: one is the very obvious transition I think we both mentioned a while back, and the other was while reading the final chapter with its very long sentences and suddenly a lot of unknown vocabulary.

Good luck with your next goals, keep us updated!

[sycamore]

I finished reading 世界から猫が消えたならlast night, woo ! It’s a fairly short (200 pages) and not super difficult novel but it still feels really cool to have fairly comfortably read a novel in a week given that the first ones I read took a month! I think just how much I enjoyed the story made a real difference, as well as having read quite a lot (games and manga) in the time since finishing Harry potter and NO.6. Now I must decide what to start next too many options!

@Daisoujou

Meant to say this earlier, but I’m glad you’re enjoying the game! Someday you have to try Persona 3 – I think it’s actually my favorite, and certainly the spookiest.

Aw yeah that’s really good to know! I’d really like to play that one too. Hoping that they might announce a PC port at some point because PS4 being available on Steam with Japanese audio and subs makes it a lot more accessible. Will see I guess! I have a huge list of things I want to read and play so can wait hahaha.

@natarin

Still living the 999 life

Just stopping in to say that I’m really enjoying your updates on this game and it’s definitely moving up towards the top of my list to play in the near future!

[Hantsuki]

Recently, I recalled Line Manga was a thing and that you can read some manga on there for free (including the first 100 or something chapters of Pokemon Special). It’s similar to Bookwalker in that it has free trial periods for the first couple volumes. There are some cases where you can read a chapter a day for free or exchange coins or passes, etc. to read certain chapters or volumes.

I stumbled across 絶叫学級 転生 under the free trial books. It looked familiar and I realized it was related to one of the nominations in the Beginner Book Club (Scary Stories). I don’t know for certain, but the one I’m reading is a sequel of 絶叫学級, which is the manga version of the book nominated in the book club. I don’t know if the book and manga have the same content or not, but reading 転生 didn’t give me the feeling like it was a sequel or that I missed anything, so I don’t think it’s a big deal to read them out of order.

I think the free trial period ends on the 11th or 12th, so for a change of pace I decided to read this manga, Compared to Pokemon Special, the language feels easier to understand so I ended up flying through 3 chapters. I almost read the whole volume but got stuck at chapter 4 because of the sudden difficult vocab I didn’t know appearing too often. It kinda killed the momentum.

2月5日 ~ Day 36 / Back to Home

絶叫学級 転生 1 (page 92 of 192 - chapters 1-3)

Unlike my previous summaries, I’m not going to go into details about the chapters here because I don’t want anyone to feel tempted to read the spoilers and give away the ending for them. Instead, I’ll list the titles of each chapter and give my overall impression of the manga so far.

第１章 手作り彼氏・The Handmade Boyfriend
第２章 悪魔の教室・The Evil Classroom
第３章 かくれんぼ鬼・The Demon Hide-and-Seeker

The series is episodic as far as I can tell so far, so each chapter is an entirely new story with no relation to previous chapters besides the demon(?) storyteller Yomi who introduces each story. The nice thing is you can skip a story if you don’t feel into it without missing out on anything. The stories sometimes gives off a Jigoku Shoujo feel except the main protagonist (if you can call Yomi that) doesn’t involve herself in the stories at all unlike Enma Ai.

Unlike Jigoku Shoujo which had some really depressing episodes you sometimes couldn’t bear to watch, I haven’t encountered anything too triggering personally. I do wonder if the whole series is purely episodic or if they’re going to introduce a plot sometime down the road too. The stories can certainly creep you out regardless of age. I would recommend it if you’re looking for that thrill while reading.

Vocab for Reference - New words are bolded

第１章
逆に ぎゃくに conversely; on the contrary
真剣 しんけん serious; earnest
アホ臭い あほくさい ridiculous; stupid; foolish; absurd; laughable​
おまじない good luck charm
戸惑い とまどい being at sea; losing one’s bearings; confusion; wonderment
体中 からだじゅう all over the body; from head to foot; all over
外見 がいけん outward appearance
増し まし better; preferable; less objectionable; least-worst​
自慢 じまん pride; boast
再開 さいかい reopening; resumption; restarting

第２章
潜む・ひそむ・to lurk; to be hidden; to be concealed; to lie dormant; to be latent
列車・れつしゃ・train; railway train
罪悪感・ざいあくかん・feelings of guilt
標的・ひょうてき・target
余程・よっぽど・very; greatly; much; to a large extent; quite​
掲示板・けいじばん・bulletin board; display board; notice board
踏切・ふみきり・railway crossing; railroad crossing; train crossing; level crossing
判断・はんだん・judgment; judgement; decision; conclusion; adjudication
善・ぜん・good; goodness; right; virtue
巣窟・そうくつ・den; haunt; hangout; nest; lair
常識・じょうしき・common sense; good sense; common knowledge; general knowledge; common practice; accepted practice; social etiquette
通用・つうよう・to pass as; to pass for
身近・みちか・near oneself; close to one; familiar

第３章
団地・だんち・multi-unit apartments; apartment complex
おんぼろ・worn-out; run-down; shabby; tattered; dilapidated
誘拐・ゆうかい・abduction; kidnapping
そもそも・in the first place; to begin with; from the start; originally
管理人・かんりにん・administrator; janitor; manager; concierge; caretaker; superintendent; supervisor
土地・とち・locality; region; place
所々・ところどころ・here and there; in places
祠・ほこら・hokora; small wayside shrine
加える・くわえる・to include
要注意・ようちゅうい・need for caution; need for care; requiring special attention