📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

[downtimes]

So update time for me: Homepost 29d

First things first. I missed a day . The move of my parents took longer than expected and after 14hours of moving furniture around I simply had no energy left to read anything in Japanese…

Other than that I’m still keeping up with all the update posts in here and im especially proud of our members who finished a big milestone by finishing the first book or manga!!

What have I been up to:
Kept going with solanin. Made good progress thus far but currently I’m not too sure I like the direction it is going in. Lets see how it will resolve. If I keep going at my current pace I should be done with the main story right around next weeks update. Will definitly let you know my thoughts afterwards. @vonnutje I reached the panel you were showing last week. Poor katou just can’t win in janken XD…

Also kept reading slam dunk. In regular volumes I probably finished about 2 (have the new version with 20 volumes instead of 32 in total). The complaint I had last time basically vanished. It is still pretty wordy but the new conflicts get mostly resolved on the basketball court and holy moly do I get hyped every time it happens. The panels are superb and the last time I felt this hyped for sports was probably while watching some Haikyuu. Totally do net regret having picked up slam dunk.

Other than these regulars I dabble in some news articles here and there on Todai on my smartphone, or look into your recommendations in this thread to try and see what I want to put on my never ending 積読 list. Every time I do this I also try to read a page or two of the material to see if it fits.

I hope this week will be smoother sailing and I don’t have to fight as much to find time to read japanese.

[Natsuha]

@NicoleRauch

There is a Japan Film Festival coming up (Feb 14 - 27) and they show the movie しあわせのパン.

Awesome it’s an online film festival I will watch some of the movies if I don’t forget about it.

[Natsuha]

Monobeno
I read one third of the second chapter. It’s slowly getting easier and easier to read it. Of course it’s a rather easy visual novel Maitetsu from the same company is way harder.

Yamada kun and the Seven Witches vol.2
Just read the next 50 pages.

[eoame]

I took it easy today and only read one page of 銭天堂. From tomorrow onwards I’ll try to read it in whatever spare time I have — it’s a fairly low effort read, so by doing that I should be able to read at least a few pages each day.

[pocketcat]

I’m continuing with the same blog, today’s reading was 『昔は出来た』
Musing on her daughter joining school clubs and her own reactions behind the scenes.

[Zakarius]

Homepost - Tigerdate: 20220207

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Tanuki Scroll XXXVIII: いろりの精

Read today’s Hyakumonogatari, from Gifu Precture!

About the spirit of a hearth.

☆ Learnings ☆

New Words

いろり「囲炉裏」ー Sunken hearth; a traditional sunken fireplace
きちんと ー Properly; Neatly; Precisely; Orderly
ぺっぺっ ー Spitting (onomatopoeia)
むくむく ー Rising up (of smoke for example)
槍「やり」ー Spear; Lance; Javelin (I’ve heard of Yari before but never had a kanji to link it with)
やっこさん「奴さん」ー A samurai’s attendant. Also a popular type of song and dance from the Edo period.
介抱「かいほう」ー Nursing; Looking after

Forgotten Readings

倒れる「たおれる」ー to fall (over or down); to collapse

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@Daisoujou

My (overly ambitious and probably not going to be achieved, but it’s ok) goal is to try to reach a point by the end of this year where I can play Lost Judgment

頑張って！ Good luck when you get round to it! I’ve been wanting to play some of the Yakuza games in full Japanese but I don’t think any of the ones I have let you change the text to Japanese.

[Thud]

Main Post

Finished reading through volume 6 of Spy x Family today. It’s a pretty strange one, as the mission brings them to a underground tennis tournament . The start of the mission outline was probably the roughest patches of reading in a while, but I just accept that atm, as long as I can grasp what’s going on and understand the normal conversations that’s okay. Rest of the volume is a lot more readable, with maybe an exception near the end of the volume where Lloyd is monologuing through most of it. Though those sections are also getting easier to read. Looking on the list of words I searched, I think I found a few interesting ones like いずこ being used instead of どこ and a very different reading of 懐 (ふところ) with a different meaning than I’m used to. Took some photos, which you can see below.

Volume 6

This volume ends on a cliffhanger, so I’ll just dive right into volume 7 tomorrow.

[rikaiwisdom]

Summary Post

February 7
「餃子といえば宮崎だ！」 新“ギョーザ日本一の街”のヒミツ

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Today I didn’t feel like reading the book at all. I was busy for a while after lunch and was too lazy afterwards to sit and read. So instead I would do what any sane person would do: right, read an article about gyoza.

I have to say, when the article starts with this, you know you’re done for:

※注意：おいしそうな写真があります。ごはん前、ダイエット中の方はご理解のうえお読みください

So, naturally, now I want to try miyazaki gyoza. There weren’t too many pictures of the actual gyoza, but the article was cool nonetheless. I’m someone that gets super bored while reading news, but wanted to give them a try regardless because they’re nice study material. I was already going to give up after browsing so many boring headings about good old coronavirus and other things I don’t have any interest in, but then I found 暮らし in the categories and had a look. Looks like something that could contain more chill, fun and varied articles, like this one, so good to know for future reference.

But yeah now I want gyoza. I really like gyoza ;-;

Also learned its kanji, 餃子.

[Daisoujou]

@NicoleRauch

EDIT: I added a thread for the film festival , so we can maybe discuss some of the movies we watch, and give recommendations.

Thanks for the heads up! If it doesn’t slip my mind; I’d love to see some of those.

@Zakarius

頑張って！ Good luck when you get round to it! I’ve been wanting to play some of the Yakuza games in full Japanese but I don’t think any of the ones I have let you change the text to Japanese.

Thanks!! Oh yeah, I haven’t looked into if I have to buy separate versions or what. I’ve played pretty much the whole series so I’m aching to try Lost Judgment, but now I can’t bring myself to do it in English, so it makes a great long term goal. I expect it to be pretty hard, though…

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Summary post

About an hour, 1600 characters, 125 lines on Summer Pockets (rounding slightly). Not quick, but it’s all good! Today had a whole bunch of new, pretty useful looking words to teach me, but was easy on the actual comprehension difficulty, so fairly optimal learning material. This is very much a whole lot of nothing but chilling VN so far, but I like the way the protagonist just wanders around, bumping into things to do. For something aiming to capture the feeling of summer vacation, it’s fitting. The only major difficulty today was simply that the MC came across a candy store (teaching me about 駄菓子屋 and 駄菓子 along the way), and while there, starting listing tons of types of candy. I mostly skimmed that portion for what the dictionary easily found and left the rest alone. I get the point.

There’s the shop! This particular sentence was, to my knowledge, my first encounter with も…ば…も. The meaning was pretty intuitive immediately for the sentence as a whole, but it took a little searching to discover exactly what the grammar point was, since it can fool you into looking conditional. I doubted if I’d be able to self study and find answers as well as I have been, so that’s another thing to celebrate.

That’s about it for developments today, though I’ll add that the store is run by an elderly woman and I always love Japanese stereotypical “old woman” voice acting, so that was a fun treat. And I finally got to put Wanikani’s かき氷 lesson to use after all this time!

Interesting new words: ノーヘル is short for (riding a motorcycle etc) with no helmet. But メット is also short for helmet. Someone, please standardize your abbreviations.

Oh, and I love that fake Coke logo back there. My favorite I’ve come across in another VN is an obvious Wendy’s sign that said “Meddy’s Hambubgers.”

[Naphthalene]

@Thud

a very different reading of 懐 (ふところ) with a different meaning than I’m used to

What reading was that? ふところ is the only one I know for that word. My dictionary does have ほほ as well, but I never saw that, so it would be interesting to see in context.

[newname]

Last night I read twenty-two pages from ちゃお. A couple new/interesting words I learnt were:

プリン-------pudding (esp. custard)

隠し録り------かくしどり------making a secret audio recording

[BadWeather]

Summary post

February 7 update:
Read chapter 14 of よつばと！ today, which is the end of the second volume. This whole chapter unexpectedly lacked Yotsuba until the very last page, focusing on the neighbors, the Ayase family instead. This was a refreshing change of pace – it felt much wordier than usual, and the mood was quite different. Of course, since Yotsuba wasn’t there to entertain us, some other characters tried to fill in to various degrees of success. Notably, Asagi made a questionable joke about her dad which I almost took for a backstory reveal before the others’ reaction suggested otherwise.

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@Daisoujou

This particular sentence was, to my knowledge, my first encounter with も…ば…も. The meaning was pretty intuitive immediately for the sentence as a whole, but it took a little searching to discover exactly what the grammar point was, since it can fool you into look conditional.

I always find it fascinating that constructs like this are actual grammar points, and everyone seems to be recognizing them as such. If I were to come across this (perhaps I have? sounds vaguely familiar – maybe I’ve heard it in anime or something…), I likely wouldn’t even know that there is something to look up This sentence sounds so natural that I guessed the meaning (of the structure – I have no clue what the first word is), and then looked up the grammar to confirm, because you just pointed out that this is grammar

I probably do this a lot without realizing. Although it may sound good in theory (after all, that’s exactly what immersion is supposed to work like, right?), I’m not sure this is a good habit to have, because likely not every grammar point has a straightforward meaning. Occasionally I can shoot myself in the leg by guessing incorrectly and then cementing the incorrect meaning when I meet it again. Or maybe it’ll straighten itself out after a while? Or am I just overthinking?

[Thud]

Oh I mean as opposed to 懐 in 懐かしい which is the reading taught in wanikani.

So I learned a new reading.

[Daisoujou]

@BadWeather

Occasionally I can shoot myself in the leg by guessing incorrectly and then cementing the incorrect meaning when I meet it again. Or maybe it’ll straighten itself out after a while? Or am I just overthinking?

I think the idea, at least hopefully, is that a wrong impression, unless it’s really based on fine nuance, can’t hold up against repeat exposure, so even if it works in some contexts, you’ll figure it out in the end. I mean, there’s no way to learn this stuff without making a ton of mistakes along the way, so all you can do is look up what you think to look up, yeah?

I think I’ve had the same experience as you, but I try to keep up at least a little mindfulness about the underlying grammar, and in this particular instance the thing that made me find it was that I don’t think I have, up to this point, ever seen ば used non-conditionally (at least, not in the material I’m closely studying). So I was in that position of “I’m pretty sure I totally understand this sentence” but it’s incongruous with my current (well, now former!) understanding of ば so I had to research it.

[NicoleRauch]

@BadWeather

I have no clue what the first word is

It’s 看板 - かんばん - shop sign.

@BadWeather

Although it may sound good in theory (after all, that’s exactly what immersion is supposed to work like, right?), I’m not sure this is a good habit to have, because likely not every grammar point has a straightforward meaning. Occasionally I can shoot myself in the leg by guessing incorrectly and then cementing the incorrect meaning when I meet it again. Or maybe it’ll straighten itself out after a while? Or am I just overthinking?

I was very surprised when I started studying for N2 how many things were actually grammar points - I had taken most of them at face value, which (like you said) sometimes works and sometimes produces weird results
My way of straightening out these issues was to embark on the next round of grammar studies, but I think I only needed that because I was very bad / lazy at looking up actual grammar I encountered in the wild. I think if you try to figure out what’s up every time you get seriously confused (and those moments will become more remarkable the further you get on your path, as the omnipresent beginner’s confusion will wear off at some point if you have your basic grammar in place), then you can make good progress on this and it will eventually straighten itself out. But of course it’s a process with many many iterations

@Daisoujou

I don’t think I have, up to this point, ever seen ば used non-conditionally

I don’t think I’ve seen that either, outside of this grammar point. But then, maybe I just didn’t properly identify it yet

[Zakarius]

@Daisoujou

Oh yeah, I haven’t looked into if I have to buy separate versions or what.

Pretty sure the western release has the option for Japanese subtitles, it seems the newer releases (like Like a Dragon) have dual ENG/JPN options, but I’ve not got round to playing Lost Judgement yet. But yeh, on some of the Yakuza games I’ve tried just listening and not looking at the subtitles, all the yakuza-isms are pretty hard to follow (though very fun to shout along with), dread to think what navigating all those speech boxes will be like

@rikaiwisdom

But yeah now I want gyoza. I really like gyoza ;-;

Gyoza is probably one of my favourite things in existence so good now I want gyoza too

[rodan]

@Zakarius

@Daisoujou

Oh yeah, I haven’t looked into if I have to buy separate versions or what.

Pretty sure the western release has the option for Japanese subtitles, it seems the newer releases (like Like a Dragon) have dual ENG/JPN options, but I’ve not got round to playing Lost Judgement yet. But yeh, on some of the Yakuza games I’ve tried just listening and not looking at the subtitles, all the yakuza-isms are pretty hard to follow (though very fun to shout along with), dread to think what navigating all those speech boxes will be like

There’s luckily some ways to check:
The Steam store page is the best (for example, for Like a Dragon):

(you can set these languages by right clicking the item in your library and changing the settings)

Digital storefronts for consoles, like the PSN Store (like here’s Lost Judgment) also list languages like that:

I thiiiink that similarly means you can access all of these if you buy that version. Although you miiiiight have to set your console language to that language though - I haven’t actually done it for the Playstation but that’s how it works for the Switch, my console is set to Japanese language so all the games default that way if supported. I think Lost Judgment it’s toggleable in game if I remember right though.

If Japanese isn’t fully supported in the English storefront versions, you may also be able to buy a compatible disk from amazon jp, at least depending on your region. (though this strategy makes DLC significantly harder to buy)

Interestingly, also, a tangent - nowadays language support can sometimes be added in updates… When I played 7, the English version wasn’t released yet, then there was a period where the Steam version didn’t support Japanese, and now it supports both! I wouldn’t be shocked if the same Japanese disk I used to play it originally would default to English if I installed it fresh nowadays!
But Lost Judgment was I believe their first 100% simultaneous English/Japanese release (a major undertaking!) and so I think generally all versions have both languages easily accessible. And that might be the status quo going forward.

Anyway, good luck! It’s fun!

[Daisoujou]

I know the like system kind of exists to alleviate the need for comments like this, but when someone really goes out of their way to be super helpful it feels insufficient to just silently click that button so, hey, thanks a lot .

[Redglare]

@Daisoujou

(after looking up かざす in a dictionary)

What a coincidence, I’ve never seen this word before and then it shows up today in my book

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Summary post

February 7

本好きの下剋上 8
Progress: (62% → 65%)

Past midnight again. Woops, don’t let books ruin your sleep, guise

[Beyond_Sleepy]

Home post

Day 31:

Today I read the last five pages of よつばと！ volume 1 chapter 2. I’ve seen several people finishing their first novels, and someone reading a novel in a week, meanwhile I’ve read two chapters of an easy manga in about 30 days:p It’s the right pace for me tho, and I’m establishing a habit so that hopefully in a year I’ll be working my way through a novel as well