📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

Thank you to everyone for your nice messages! I’ve bought Zoo 2 but haven’t started it yet :slight_smile:


Summary post

Yesterday was a big day all around, as right at the end of my session I reached a point in Summer Pockets where it played a rather nice opening video, and I suppose now the game is on for real.

Turns out, there’s a whole map system where I can choose who to go hang out with! I had no idea. There are more characters than this that’ll be selectable I’m sure (also a mystery event at the shrine :eyes:), but these were my choices today. I was tempted to visit the red haired girl because her scenes have been pretty amusing, and I was intrigued by our last talk and the little blurred spoiler I left, but she seems to use the hardest Japanese of anyone in this game, so I think I’ll delay her by a few playthroughs.

That said, when I went to the green haired one, half because I expected useful words… well, today’s reading was dense. ~1600 characters, ~120 lines, bailed out with too many words already mined and generally wanting a break from a stream of sentences with many unknown words. “Neighborhood association”, “public facilities”, “maintenance of public order”… she’s got words! I quit at the following sentence, one of the most kanji dense things my reading materials have had yet, a sentence that almost looks like I’m reading Chinese:

“少年団治安維持執行部には、私自ら望んで入った”

I’m riding the high of accomplishments so no big deal, but I failed at my attempts to scale the difficulty over runs hahaha.

The best new word is undoubtedly 鉄槌 (てっつい), iron hammer or crushing blow.

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Summary post

February 11 update:
Read chapter 18 of よつばと! today. This may have been the cutest chapter so far, really heartwarming – in a fun Yotsuba-specific way. That’s all I have to say today :yawning_face:

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Summary post :bookmark:

February 11

本好きの下剋上 8
Progress: (82% → 84%)

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On the one hand I know what you mean. On the other hand, as a german, I feel like I’m a little more used to it.

German is also well known for just stringing words together to form a word with a new meaning. Hand = hand, Schuh = shoe, Handschu = glove. Pretty short example but you get the Idea. If you don’t know the individual words you will have trouble pronouncing it correctly and have trouble understanding it. If you do know the two words it feels like a breeze.

I often feel like long Kanji strings are basically the same.
Understanding your example Kanji string is pretty managable if you know the “3” building blocks (debatable where some of the cutoffs are with kanji) it is made out of: 少年団・治安維持・執行部
And I think parsing it fast and understanding it fast is just a function of how much vocabulary you know, like in german.

So basically I want to say: Don’t worry about it, it will get easier naturally over time. :smiley:

PS.: Will update tomorrow after I finishe the last 2 chapters of Solanin.

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That’s the problem; my vocabulary known isn’t very good :stuck_out_tongue:

Nah I appreciate it, and I think you’re right. Just if anything is going to be a “harder” part of reading, this is one of them, since the boundaries aren’t as nicely delineated for me and sheer mass of kanji leads to more chances for me to have no idea what some of them are (case in point, I haven’t yet learned 維 or 執). And there are plenty of kanji that I don’t yet know well enough that I read them without some degree of second guessing or having to take a moment to pull them apart and run through my memory… which is definitely all going to get better eventually, as you said! But for now, it becomes a bit of mental overload, the kinda thing that multiplies the brain work and leads to sessions ending sooner.

少年団 was doable for me, but yeah, needed to just have Yomichan tell me what was up with the rest since I don’t even know two of those kanji. Though 執 has come up so much recently it’s bordering on being one I decide to go ahead and learn prior to its WK level…

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Summary Post

February 11
雪の朝 受験生は早めに試験会場へ 東京


Very low spirits day. One article is all that I could do today, hopefully tomorrow is a bit better :slight_smile: .

おめでとう!! :tada: :tada:

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Thanks! Its been a bit better the last couple of days, think I’m starting to get more of a hang of the style and also the plot is starting to hook me in a bit more which is the thing that helps most for me I think! Having a variety of things is a good idea though…I should maybe get back to some of the manga I’m reading so I have something easier for those days where かがみ and persona 4 are too tough :thinking:

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Day 42

Started Volume 5 of からかい上手の高木さん today, and read the first chapter. It was really sweet. I wasn’t originally planning to read the (元) series, but after how cute this chapter was, I think I probably will!

(Home Post)

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Summary post

This is technically from yesterday, but I was reading at such a terrible hour of the night, I decided to go to bed instead of making a post :sweat_smile:.

A friend of mine linked this short manga (it has 8 pages) on twitter, and I decided to give it a shot for my daily reading because I’m ahead with 大海原と大海原 and don’t currently have a DDT translation I’m working on.

I was surprised to find that it is more or less at my level! The grammar isn’t too hard, and there are only a few kanji I didn’t know. It’s a little bit sad, though, just a warning, because it’s about the lack of marriage equality in Japan.

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Summary Post

Day 42: Today I read 6 pages of よつば&!

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Home post :house:

Day 35:

I read just one page of よつばと! today. Simply doing my duty to my future self. :four_leaf_clover::medal_military::four_leaf_clover:

I’ll just award myself a medal for my loyalty and dedication to the cause

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Except for the words circled in pencil, I could read the whole passage. Understanding it on the other hand is almost 0%. However, I like making this sort of progress. Once I can pronounce the words, it’s only a matter of time until I learn the meanings.

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That’s wonderful, enjoy it! This passage was shared for a reason, too. I think I mostly follow it, but what I get out of it is super vague and rambling. If you’re curious, the words are (a conjugated) 怒る (おこる, to get angry) and 重要 (じゅうよう, important; major; etc)

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Summary post

Day 42: February 11th

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 25 min
Today’s color: 萌黄色 (もえぎいろ) - light green; yellowish-green and 小町鼠 (こまちねず) - a very light white-gray

A double feature today, to make up for yesterday. I really like both these colors, actually, they’re very pretty. Apparently 小町鼠 was named that to be Cool for the Kidz :tm: honestly, it kind of worked lol, I like the name xD

Good words
  • 冴える (さえる) - to be clear (of a sight, sound, colour, etc.); to be bright; to be vivid; to be crisp
  • 萌え木 (もえぎ) - young tree sprouts; young tree buds
  • 萌葱 (もえぎ) - light yellowish green; color of a freshly sprouted onion
  • 鎧 (よろい) - armor
  • 直垂 (ひたたれ) - ancient ceremonial court robe​, looking like this
  • みなぎる - to rise high (of water); to overflow; to swell​; to be filled with (emotion, energy, etc.); to be bursting with; to be brimming with; to pervade (of an atmosphere, feeling, etc.); to prevail
  • 血気盛ん (けっきさかん) - passionate; hot-blooded; full of vitality
  • 生み出す (うみだす) - to create; to bring forth; to produce​; to invent; to think up and bring into being​; to give birth to; to bear
  • 若向き (わかむき) - intended for the young

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 うぐいす餅, which immediately made me think of the little bird friend I posted about a couple days ago. I google imaged them, hoping that they did indeed look like this bird, and while my search returned a disappointingly low number of bird-shaped mochi, I did find these ones, which are pretty darn adorable:

うぐいす餅 is actually mochi filled with red bean paste and topped with green soy flour​. They look yummy, would eat :+1:

Also, today’s reading contained a really neat color word: 翡翠色 (ひすいいろ) - jade green it was written in kana, but the kanji are just cool as heck

What else did I read?
海のどうぶつが可愛すぎて!
Amount read: 6 pages
Time spent: 27 min

More penguins! Today I learned that penguin anatomy is weird, they’ve got like whole long leg bones inside those fat little bodies xD

Please bask in the cuteness of this penguin chillin’

And enjoy(?) these mildly cursed leg penguins xD

Some good words
  • ヒョウアザラシ - leopard seal derp
  • 丸呑み (まるのみ) - swallowing whole; swallowing without chewing
  • オットセイ - fur seal here is a smol one :pleading_face:
  • 尻込み (しりごみ) - recoil; hesitation; flinching; shrinking back what is the origin of this word xD
  • ためらう - to hesitate; to waver
  • ケープペンギン - African penguin (Spheniscus demersus); blackfooted penguin; jackass penguin; Cape penguin
  • マゼランペンギン - Magellanic penguin looks suspiciously like the African penguin
  • 飼育 (しいく) - breeding; raising; rearing
  • 特化 (とっか) - specialization; specialisation
  • よちよち歩き (よちよちあるき) - toddling; taking tottering steps (as in, the way penguins walk xD)
  • 腹ばう (はらばう) - to lie on one’s stomach; to sleep while lying on one’s stomach; to crawl on the ground; to sprawl
  • 行進 (こうしん) - march; parade
  • 転ける (こける) - to fall over; to fall down; to fall; to collapse​
  • かかと - heel
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Knowing what I do about owls, this doesn’t surprise me.

What I know about owls

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February 11 :snowflake: Home Post

As promised, I finished アゲイン!! today! It’s pretty interesting, it’s like a weird combo of a sports/club manga but also sci-fi? Wild :joy: I imagine I’ll continue it in the future (since I have all of them), but for now I’m messing with other things…

…so I started reading ヴァニタスの手記(カルテ)! And it’s been pretty slow going, but not so much because it’s hard as because it’s so pretty, I’m obsessed with the aesthetics immediately. Like even the cover has a fancy matte kind of texture to it, and the inner cover has shiny silver illustrations, and it’s just so pretty :sob: I know nothing about the series but I’m definitely intrigued so far, even outside of the art. The language honestly isn’t super difficult outside of some… creative uses of kanji? The mangaka is clearly very into French and so the furigana on some words is just katakana-ized French, which is just more interesting than anything.

(I also started playing the cat soup game (in Japanese obv) and it’s just so :pleading_face: hey it’s all reading practice lmao)

Words!!

筋書(すじがき) - synopsis, plot
(すなわ)ち - that is, namely
復讐(ふくしゅう) - revenge
(ひい)~ - great-(grandfather, etc.)
貧血(ひんけつ) - anemia
(まさ)る - to excel, to surpass
機械仕掛(きかいじか)け - mechanism (but like the cool kind, google this if you wanna see cool steampunk things)

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If you’re talking about Cats and Soup, which came up when I searched for this, you don’t know how excited and immediately disappointed you made me when I thought someone had, somehow, made a game based on the short anime film Cat Soup

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Home post

Day 41:

日本語: I read some of ミステリークロック.
Read-aloud: We read two chapters of ふしぎの国のバード.

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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I’m really late to the party, but there’s still time and I want to start reading more, so!

Feb
01 02 03 04 05 06
07 08 09 10 11 12:milky_way: 13:milky_way:
14:milky_way: 15:milky_way: 16 17 18:milky_way: 19 20:milky_way:
21:milky_way: 22:milky_way: 23 24 25 26 27
28

I’m planning to start Yotsubato vol.2 since I found the first one pretty manageable.

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Yeah update time: Homepost 35 (whoo cracked a whole month of reading)

Solanin: finished with the main story just a few minutes ago. Not sure I understand the hype about it all that much. I’ve heard many people praise it highly. And sure it IS good but somehow I expected something more…
I personally liked the middle part the most. Around chapter 11-19 was the high point for me. My other thoughts I put in a spoiler.

The good points for me were the characters, they are all pretty likeable. Another high point is definitely the art. Some of the panels where they perform or when characters show emotions are just unbelievable.
I liked how the characters grieved for their dead friend. Would have even liked to have more detail in that part!
The bad points didn’t like much are: Some parts feel pretty fatalistic to me. The characters wallow in their sucky daily live with seemingly low drive to actually change something. Meikos sentence in chapter 27 captures that: あたしって何をやっても中途半端なんだよなぁ。I mean sure it might be realistic but I don’t feel like it makes for a story I personally find super interesting.
The thing I disliked the most though is that she got over her grieve by learning to play the guitar in like 1 month -.- (I know symbolism uwu). Sure everyone handles grieve differently but that was just something that sucked me out of the story somehow :frowning:

I will read the 2 chapters はるよこい attachment thing that plays after the story next. But I don’t expect it or the afterword to change my opinion much.

Other then that I kept on reading Slam Dunk and some daily news on Todai. Slam Dunk is just the right kind of silly and hype for me at the moment. Really enjoy it and since I’m just in the middle of 3/20 books I still have some story to get through.

After Solanin I need a replacement for my more intensive reading. Since a few Bookclubs are kicking of rather soon I will probably latch onto them.
So for the time beeing I’m thinking of using Tobira as “reading” material. Thinking of working through each chapter in 2 days kinda setup. I probably know most of the Grammar from Tobira already but the more article style reading might be a fresh breath of air and I’m sure to encounter some basic vocabulary that slipped through my reading cracks.
Tobira is sitting on my shelf forever and it would be a shame if I would get no use out of it after buying it so long ago. (swabian mindset intensifies)

Next update next weekend. Cu then :smiley:

Woooho. And another one.

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