📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

Japanese Language Reading
#172

I was mistaken yesterday when I said I was finished with my bookclub reading for the week, because I forgot I’d only read one chapter of 極主夫道.
But I read Chapter 9 today so now I really am finished.

Still not fully decided on what to read for the rest of the week though. I might start the second volume of レンタルおにいちゃん, but maybe I should read some news articles or something similar.
I usually stick to reading mostly manga because I really struggle with larger blocks of text, but this challenge seems like an opportunity to work on that a bit. :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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#173

I had this when I started reading the manga of March Comes in Like a Lion…it’s one of the reasons why I prefer to read things that I don’t already know the story of before I start. Although I will definitely be going to March Comes in Like a Lion later because the manga goes on way beyond the anime and I have to know what happens!!

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#174

Jan 3 update :snowflake: summary post

Read this week’s chapters for the 極主夫道 book club! For some reason I didn’t realize that this is technically the end of the book (the rest is bonus chapters)… so I can say I’ve read my first manga in Japanese!! And first book in Japanese in general (not counting graded readers)

I’m excited to read the bonus chapters next week! Although I’m tempted to read them right now… but I also like reading alongside everyone else

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#175

Update post for the last two days! | Home post here!

Split chapter 2 of レンタルおにいちゃん over yesterday and today as I was reading after work both days. As much as I wanted to continue on Sunday night I was tired and my brain wasn’t having it. So, I read 37 pages on Sunday night and finished off the last 6 pages tonight, along with chapter 3 which was such a wholesome chapter with some wonderful character progression. It’s interesting to see how much I’m able to follow without even really ‘thinking’ about it, as that definitely wasn’t the case when I read Vol.1 earlier last year.

In Animal Crossing I got to have a chat with Celeste, and Isabelle reminded me about the fishing tournament happening this Saturday. Trying to place a particular focus on noticing the different speech patterns across all the islanders, as I can struggle with making sense of things when I’m presented with multiple characters on a page who all speak differently.

Notable words from this update:

日和 (ひより | fine weather) - Used by Jacques in AC to describe the ideal conditions to be sweeping out the island plaza.

寄り道 (よりみち | stopping off at, making a detour) - Used by Kanami’s new group of friends whilst planning their walk home from school. I know we learn 途中 on WK, but this provided a good insight into more nuanced ways of talking about things on the way to somewhere else or ways around other things.

20 Likes
#176

I’m currently halfway through Vol.2 of レンタルおにいちゃん and it’s even better than Vol.1. We’re getting some great character development, and there’s even a dog. :pleading_face:

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#177

Summary post :bookmark:

January 3
・かがみの孤城. I finished the second week. This went smoother than expected. Very nice.

Progress: (8% → 15%)

Things are starting to happen in the book :eyes: Have to remind myself: read the weekly threads. And to update the table in the second post, I totally forgot that yesterday apparently.

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#178

Today I did not have that much time to read in japanese only 20 pages of Candy and Cigarettes volume 1 manga.

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#179

Home post

Day 2:

日本語: I read a fair amount of 伯爵と妖精 29.

中国語

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

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#180

I see you guys posting every day, so I’ll try to share my thoughts about my progress as well.

January:

  • 1st: I spent 37 minutes reading 僕らはみんな河合荘. I started by rereading pages 9 and 10, to verify how much I remembered from last time and then read 3 more pages. I’m currently at chapter 1, page 13/15.

  • 2nd: I decided it was a good moment to catch up with the ABBC. I reread the first half and then read the second half of 三ツ星カラーズ chapter 4. It took me exactly 30 minutes. I learnt about the use of やがる. Now I’m completely caught up. Next week, I’ll start reading chapter 5.
    Later during the day, I discovered that chapter 1 of おじさまと猫 is available for free (for a limited time) on BookWalker. I read 5 chapters / 24 pages (in 42 minutes). It’s quite simple and extremely cute!

  • 3rd: At first, I wasn’t sure if I should start another manga, but there are still 16 days until the first volume of 地縛少年花子くん expires and I noticed it has furigana over every kanji, so I couldn’t resist. I read 16 pages in 57 minutes.
    I also needed some more of おじさまと猫, so I reread chapter 5 and read chapter 6 and 7. It took me 30 minutes.
    Hopefully, I can finish them both in time.

20 Likes
#181

Today I picked my next novel to read! I have been deliberating since finishing NO.6 during the last challenge, thinking potentially too much about what would be the best pick in terms of vocab level, interest etc etc. And then I kind of ignored most of that today and picked 鏡の孤城 somewhat on a whim. I read the first about 5% today and while the story hasn’t really kicked off yet, the character voice and atmosphere are already very readable and interesting. It also feels like a really nice level for me right now. I’d like to catch up with the bookclub, but will have to see how that goes once I am back at work.

I also read a bit more 呪術廻戦 (5 chapters from volume 7) - including a baseball chapter!!! I love how silly this manga can be at times.

Hahaha, well, I was exaggerating a little but when Toudou turned up with his whole ‘what type of woman do you like?’ bit I was a bit “ugh…” but his bromance with Itadori and just his general silliness mean that he’s now one of the characters I enjoy the most.

A dog, you say? I actually read the first chapter of vol 1 a while back and wasn’t hooked but now that I know that there’s a dog…I feel like another try might be in order!

19 Likes
#182

Summary post

January 3 update:
Read chapter 5 of よつばと! 1. Some slang was a bit hard to figure out, but otherwise it went pretty smoothly, and was super fun. There were hints to this before, but now it’s obvious that よつば clearly took after her father :joy:

Thanks for the pointer! Too bad I saw this after ordering a different one :sweat_smile: I was actually considering it (as I have another book in Tsubasa Bunko edition), but in the end I went with the 新海誠ライブラリー edition, which seemed to be nicer and more durable than the bunko ones. Now I’m wondering if this was the right choice, because I imagine my lookup time will increase dramatically without having furigana…

On the other hand, my experience with having furigana for every kanji is ambivalent: my eyes tend to automatically look at it even before seeing the kanji because it’s much easier, and then I only look at kanji to confirm or disambiguate the meaning. I’m a bit worried that this hinders my progress with internalizing kanji vocab by not getting me to apply the effort to actually recognize the kanji/words first. I do try to consciously stop myself from doing that, but that doesn’t always work, and it takes away some focus from what I’m reading.

18 Likes
#183

Okay, so despite not reading any new よつばと! tonight, I did read it (and other things throughout the day!). Today turned to be all about re-evaluating my study habits (with the help of some pals in my study log below!). I spent a good hour inputting the kanji I encountered in the first 13 pages of Yotsubato! into koohi.cafe, a website I just learned about earlier today! In essence, I re-read most of what I’ve read over the past week, and, in essence, got more out of it than the first time! I still plan on reading more tonight, but if not, hooray for new learning methods! :slight_smile:

Jan
月 火 水 木 金 土 日
01 02
03 04 05 06 07 08 09
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31
Feb
月 火 水 木 金 土 日
01 02 03 04 05 06
07 08 09 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28

:fallen_leaf: Shenmue Tree (a Journal / Study Log!)

Natively.com - Shenmue
I have started よつばと！over the past few days, and it’s my first manga ever!. I’d also be super appreciative of any interested soul that wants to stop by and join the fun in my Journal / Study log. I always need guidance as I post what I’ve been attempting to read each day!

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#184

Hello and happy new year everyone!!! So glad to be able to read with y’all again! Thank you so much for hosting this again @windupbird
The fall challenge was so great, and honestly, whenever I reflect on it, only positive things and memories come to mind! <3 Definitely, the winner of it all though would have to be how I actually formed a habit of reading daily-- and I only kind of broke it during the holidays…
Looking forward to this!

:snowflake:Winter Reading Challenge :snowflake:

Jan 月 火 水 木 金 土 日
Week 52 1 2
Week 01 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Week 02 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Week 03 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Week 04 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Week 05 31
Feb 月 火 水 木 金 土 日
Week 05
Week 06
Week 07
Week 08
Week 09
What I'm reading

歴史366
暁のヨナ （bookclub)
キノの旅 第01巻
idolish7 game story
Hukumusume website stories
and some manga volumes I have lying around left and right and hadn’t got to complete…

Fall reading challenge post
bookmeter

For the first three days of the year so far, I’ve just read my daily 歴史366 page, and that has been it :sweat_smile: showing up still counts, so I’m content with that!

24 Likes
#185

Main Post

January 3rd
I’m going to start putting page numbers for any pages I read. The Naruto book’s main story started on page 7. I “read” pages 8 and 9, but there was only one speech bubble on page 9 lol. Didn’t recognize any of the kanji but was able to read “Academy” (アカデミー) from the katakana. 卒業試験 means “Graduation test”, apparently.

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#186

I have started 山田くんと７人の魔女 now. This is the second shounen manga I am reading and I am finding it very easy to get through in terms of understanding the dialogue despite not knowing some of the words. Is it that in Japan, they think that boys have a lower level of literacy and need easier dialogue? Or is it the fact that I’ve watched the anime for this manga and can still remember the show? オトメン(乙男) was easy for me to get through but only because there were lots of blank space so the pages were easy for me read through. In terms of story, I still have only a vague idea of what happened and only because I remember the plot. I didn’t get it from comprehension of the words.

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#187

Well if there is a dog to look forward to, then I think that that has helped me make up my mind. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Thank you!

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#188

January 3 :snowflake: Home Post

Today got slightly out of hand :joy: I started off with another chapter of ラストゲーム which was a great time as always! I absolutely LOVE 藤本(ふじもと); she’s always up to some mischief or other and it’s really the best. It’s just always full of hijinks and fun characters and cute moments and I’m down for all of it :blush:

But then I went wild and picked up 錆喰いビスコ again and got sucked in and before I knew it I’d read two pages, as painful and slow-going as it definitely was :sweat_smile: but man I am really intrigued and I don’t think I’m even out of the like prologue yet; the realization that the 旅僧(たびそう) we’d been following this whole time is actually the main mushroom man himself was perhaps obvious in hindsight but was a really fun turn! “Reading” it (as much what I’m doing can actually be called reading lmao) is rough for sure but it’s good when I have the mindset to do it! Whether I stick with it very long or not, it’s all still good practice for getting more used to reading in general.

All in all today was definitely a good day for this challenge! I feel pretty accomplished :+1:

Cool words!

拒否権(きょひけん) - right of veto; I’m always getting weird words like this from 藤本(ふじもと) :joy: I love her but god can she be hard to understand
手(て)に乗(の)る - to be fooled, taken in (like by a scheme)
精神力(せいしんりょく) - emotional strength, force of will; poor 柳(やなぎ) talking about his ongoing struggles to get 九条(くじょう) to register his existence lmao
殺風景(さっぷうけい) - tasteless, dreary
事(こと)も無(な)げ - careless
青(あお)ざめる - to turn pale (I was a little unclear what was happening in this part tbh but I think dude was afraid of a ムカデ which like very relatable, horrifying)

I also ran into ～げ and read up on that which was cool! The author of 錆喰いビスコ seems to like to use it a lot so hey if nothing else I’ve learned something

17 Likes
#189

Today I read one (4 page) story from 10分で読めるお話１年生. It wasn’t exactly easy, but it wasn’t exactly hard, either. I used to read 10分で読める books every morning over coffee, and it was such a struggle. Somehow I feel like maybe the struggle made the experience better. Or maybe it was the coffee. :thinking: I want to go back to that, but at the moment that’s the time I use to do WK. So then when do I do WK?

Basically I’m having big internal struggles over how to use my Japanese study time, which unfortunately is not infinite. And I’m glad I finally put it to words, because now I have an idea, and I’m going to give it a try.

Anyway, besides that I also finished よつば volume 5, which has been a really fun one!

This order actually was from Amazon Japan, so that’s partly why I was so surprised. I guess I’ll call DHL in the morning if the status still hasn’t changed and see if they can give me any additional information.

I also feel like doing this! I realized that the reading level isn’t quite as unapproachable as I originally thought it would be, and then after my manga got stopped in customs I went and impulse bought it…

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#190

I loved that book. Highly recommend - you can also check the ongoing book club threads and post questions in them if you don’t understand something. AND the audiobook is so incredibly well done. Listening while reading along definitely helps!

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#191

oh man oh man oh man …

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