📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

Playing a game entirely in Japanese, reading books, listening to audiobooks…
Learning a language is a long road, but you’re hardly at a the starting line. :slight_smile:

Take a breather, be kind to yourself, and hope to see you in the spring challenge :blossom:

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Aw yeah, I was just going to say pretty much the same as @pocketcat - I think the things you’ve managed to read, play, listen to etc speak for themselves. You’ve been doing great!

But also, bodies and brains sometimes need a break or even just like to be butts sometimes, so taking a rest isn’t a bad thing at all. I’ve had a couple of periods of very low ‘being able to do things’ capability while learning Japanese and one thing that helped massively was to hit vacation mode on all the SRS things I was doing. That took the bit that I found the most mentally straining away and then I found that I was actually able to still do a little light reading/watching in Japanese just for fun (without adding any words to SRS or actively trying to study from it etc). This may or may not work for you and it also might be that you need time away completely but just mentioning in case it’s helpful.

Regardless, hope you feel better soon and thanks for sharing all of the interesting VN tidbits throughout this challenge!

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I’m sorry to hear that things have gotten hard! I hope you feel better soon :heart:

If it helps any, I think you’ve managed to learn a heck of a lot, and the progress you’ve made so far is not nothing! Even if you have to take an extended break, the time you’ve put in so far won’t be lost. I have two friends with severe chronic illness, and they’ve both managed to keep getting better at the language, despite having to take frequent breaks. None of your work is wasted.

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March 4 :snowflake: Home Post

Busy again, so pretty brief today. I read a little more ヴァニタスの手記(カルテ) though, just one more chapter left! Then I suffer until whenever I actually buy more volumes :joy: I should be a lot more free tomorrow so hopefully I can get some good 999 time in, I’ve been missing it!

Take care of yourself! Japanese will be here whenever, your health is far more important. And yeah playing a visual novel is nothing to sneeze at, you have plenty to be proud of! Best wishes :sparkling_heart:

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Main Post

Finished reading Pretty Boy Detective Club volume 1 yesterday. Bit annoyed they didn’t manage to finish this case and it ended on a cliffhanger, but it wasn’t good enough for me to continue reading it lol. I did feel I saw plently of grammar points I learned that I didn’t see pop up in other stuff. Like more formal grammar. There was also some more vocab related to stars and celestial bodies.

As a palette cleanser I was thinking of reading Gal & Dinosaur. It’s a bit easier than what I read lately, but I know I’ll like it and I need to bridge the gap till new goods arrive anyway.

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Day 64!

Volume 5, chapter 4 of からかい上手の高木さん today. As usual, poor Nishikata never learns. :grin:

(Home Post)

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Summary post :bookmark:

March 5

本好きの下剋上 9
Progress: 21% → 23%

I feel like there were a few tricky sentences today. Also tired from having coffee withdrawals. I marked the confusing sentences, so I might ask for help tomorrow.

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Still reading so why not post haha :sweat_smile:

I had a flight today, and so a lot of reading time! I read from 77-93% of 鏡の孤城(上) and maaan it was so hard to stop at 93% but also it’s nearly midnight and I have holiday things to be doing tomorrow. On the plane I read while listening to the audiobook at the same time (pausing when I needed to check things) and it was really nice experience :books::headphones::small_airplane:

I also read a bit of ハイキュー vol 7. My boyfriend was making fun of me for taking a paperback manga volume as well as my kindle that has a million things to read on it but we got told to turn off all electronic devices for the last 20 minutes or so before landing so I felt justified in my book hoarding ways, lol. ハイキュー still sometimes will surprise me with new vocab or grammar but it still feels very cool when I think back to just how difficult/impossible it was when I started trying to read it that it’s now something that I can quite happily read without access to a dictionary/the internet to look things up and not feel like I miss that much. Nice to have those moments where you can see progress!

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March 5 :snowflake: Home Post

Late post again, but I did read more today! Got some good 999 time in :+1: I realized how much I’d missed it once I got back into it, so that was nice. Wonderful サンタ goofs as always:

He’s talking about a pile of sandbags :') love him

But yeah I can kinda feel the overall plot starting to wind down, so I’m very curious to see how it all goes :eyes: many questions to be answered!

Cool words

()るす - to hang (up)
滑車(かっしゃ) - pulley (slippery vehicle?? omg)
度胸(どきょう) - courage, guts
天邪鬼(あまのじゃく) - contrarian (guess who this was describing lmao)

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Summary post :bookmark:

March 6

本好きの下剋上 9
Progress: 23% → 30%

I somehow forgot to check out the tricky sentences from yesterday, I guess I’ll check them out later instead.

Phrase of the day: ()から(うろこ)()ちる
Meaning: to see the light; to be awakened to the truth; to have the scales fall from one’s eyes

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We say the same thing in German :joy:

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I looked this up as I had heard it in English too, but was never very sure of why someone would have scales on their eyes. Seems it from the Bible. Googling around there is some back and forth about what the ‘scales’ were but it’s suspected to have been some kind of scaley-looking disease that caused blindness?

Learn something new every day!

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Just after I had posted I low-key started to wonder why one would say that :rofl:
So thanks for investigating! I also checked whether the origin of the German saying was identical, and it turns out that yes, it was the name of a disease that led to blindness. Interestingly, the post also mentions that snakes get almost blind during their shedding and that maybe that also led to the saying, just like the commentor in your post remarked.

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Day 65!

I read the bonus chapters of Volume 2 of 極主夫道.
It’s definitely still a bit tough for me to read usually, but these chapters were quite text light so they were extra fun to read :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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March 6 :snowflake: Home Post

I thought I was too sleepy to read very much today, but then I started 999 and it wasted absolutely no time :joy: Still not a huge reading day but it’s cool, I’m getting closer and closer to finishing a playthrough :eyes: wild

999 things

On a lighter note, there was a cute (むらさき) goof:

She mixed up 淳平(じゅんぺい) and 心配(しんぱい) :') fun little language joke for sure!

But then サンタ happened and I was not prepared:

Vague spoilers ig: It really wasn’t even explicitly angsty, just like… seeing a character who’s normally goofs and aggro just be so suddenly serious and silent hits pretty hard. And his sister :pleading_face: it’s very classic “yeah the aggro boy has feelings” but it gets me man

Words!!

(やす)らぐ - to feel at ease
()()れても(いた)くない - being the apple of one’s eye, loving someone dearly

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A new :raccoon: has arrived:

Takes place in winter :eyes:

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This… it me :caught_durtling: So I’ve decided to take a break from participating in the reading challenge. It’s already March 7th, so in a way I guess this is one week overdue, haha. Looking forward to the next one! :seedling:


:books: :books: End of Winter Reading Challenge :snowman_with_snow: :snowflake:

I’ve usually been reading in the evening after finishing up studying for the day (sometimes way too late at the expense of sleep time), but recently I’ve been reading in the morning before getting up. (Good for Japanese studies - not so good for my uni studies :caught_durtling: )

The books I’ve completed:
・かがみの孤城 (上)・5% →
・笑わない数学者・13% →
・本好きの下剋上 8・ 0% →

Books I’m still reading:
・かがみの孤城 (下)・33%
・薬屋のひとりごと 1 ・7%
・本好きの下剋上 9・30% (started March 2nd)

It’s hard to measure, but I feel like both my reading speed and stamina have increased. I’ve probably written that at the end of every challenge so far :joy: But it shows that reading a lot/frequently helps. During the :books::books: Autumn Challenge :maple_leaf::fallen_leaf:, I set out to read TINY amounts each day, because I knew I couldn’t devote much time for reading, which is why I called it a TINY CHALLENGE. During that one I read one book, 1/4 of another book and two volumes of manga. This time I completed 3 books in two months. It might be a new record for me, considering I was busy with uni stuff this time too.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with my progress so far :eyes::sparkles: I even had a random moment where I could skim the text for a few pages, i.e. didn’t have to subvocalize and could still comprehend what was going on. One really gets used to seeing the same phrases that are being used over and over again throughout a series (Honzuki). I hope it wasn’t just a “fluke” or me misremembering how it actually went.

Tip for increased focus: Read out loud. It might be slower, but I feel like it is more engaging (less chance of random wandering of attention). And it’s fun! Whenever I come across an unknown word, I have no choice but to look it up or else I literally can’t read it. Takoboto dictionary app automatically saves all my lookups in its history folder (as long as I actually click on the word after looking it up), so that’s convenient for whenever I want to add them as lessons later for SRS-ing.

That’s all for now. Hope to see y’all again in the next one :durtle_the_explorer:

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I miss your TINY CHALLENGE! I’m still busy but want to rejoin in the spring, so I’m thinking of doing my own TINY CHALLENGE. With your blessing of course!

I’ve been doing this in my private lessons, but never thought to do it for reading on my own. Think I’ll give it a try from now on.

Congratulations on your new record! Hope to be reading with you again next time :cherry_blossom: :seedling:

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Even if for some reason I don’t join in the next challenge, I’ll be sure to lurk for the たぬき! :raccoon:

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Day 66!

Chapter 26 of Yotsuba today. This might be my new favourite chapter so far, it was adorable My favourite panel is either Yotsuba reading the newspaper on page 137, or her cute happy face when she gets her stamp on page 145. Poor Fuuka though! :sob:

(Home Post)

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