📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

[sycamore]

Summary post

SOOOOO tired today But it was the last day before my free 呪術廻戦 volumes go away so I managed to just barely power through the rest of vol. 8. It definitely felt like more of a struggle but it was still fun! I have realised recently just how much being tired makes a difference in how well I can read in Japanese. I’ve had a few times when I’ve got really into reading and read too late and then I will get to a point like “ugh why is this chapter so hard!! I understand nothing!” and then I come back the next day after that thing called sleep and it’s totally fine. For that reason, I’m going to try to hold myself back from reading more 鏡の孤城 until my brain is working again.

Also, I thought I was going to pause 呪術廻戦 after the volumes buuut it left off on a really interesting place so I’m not sure I can. Will probably take it at a lot more chill pace though, maybe a chapter or two a day now I will no longer have that time pressure.

@lucylavelle

Its my birthday, but I still found time to squeeze in a bit of reading after snuggling lots of kitties at the Cat Cafe!

Happy birthday! 🐈‍⬛Sounds like a pretty ideal day!

@Thud

I’ll be giving out my update later this week, the booster shot has sapped all of my will to make one.

Aww, yeah I had the same with mine, really knocked me out for a few days. Hope you can take it easy and recover quickly!

[sosanlx]

Home Post
Day 5 Done
I reread the Hikoichi book yesterday, and read Momotaro today. Really noticing that it’s getting easier by the day. Also downloaded an Anki deck for the first 2 books that was available from their website. So also going through that aswell. Also because the books have a lot of vocabulary that isn’t really much used outside these types of stories. Things like lords, servants, demons etc.

Jan	月	火	水	木	金	土	日
Week 00
Week 01
Week 02
Week 03
Week 04
Week 05

Feb	月	火	水	木	金	土	日
Week 05
Week 06
Week 07
Week 08
Week 09

[valkow]

Home post

Day 4:

日本語: I read some of 伯爵と妖精 29.

中国語

中国語: I read a beginner entry on Mandarin Bean and one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学.

[pocketcat]

You’d be surprised how often vocab like that comes up

[Natsuha]

Just four pages of 本陣殺人事件 and I’m still not done with the book for this week’s book club goal.

vocabulary
玉の輿 たまのこし money and social status gained by marrying a rich and powerful man
何でもかんでもなんでもかんでも anything and everything; all sorts of things; by all means
ほこり dust N3
頬 ほお cheek (face) N3
もじゃもじゃ dishevelled; disheveled; unkempt​

[BadWeather]

Summary post

January 5 update:
Finished reading よつばと! 1. In the last two chapters they finally started revealing some of Yotsuba’s and her father’s background, but when the father finally got to speak about it, I think I lost my ability to comprehend Japanese Apparently his explanation was intentionally hard to make sense of, because Fuuka also didn’t quite get it. Still, I think I’ll take a look at the book club’s thread now – perhaps they discussed this. (I specifically avoided reading the book club’s discussion so far – to give myself a chance to figure out things that were unclear initially from the context that’s introduced later.)
The ending was cute!

@rikaiwisdom

I’m looking more and more forward to sitting and reading each day.

Interesting! Have you established some sort of routine around reading? I mostly find myself postponing my daily reading to almost bedtime, even if I have some free time earlier in the day. Not sure why, too, as I tend to enjoy it, and with よつばと! it wasn’t tedious at all.

[foxabell]

Thanks for the advice @Thud (You’re the one who encourages me to read SPYXFAMILY haha)

Stay safe everyone

[Scylie]

January 3 - January 5

Read a little bit of orange on each of these days.
Orange is one of those novels that uses fewer kanji than an average book for adults, that’s a little annoying I forgot to pay attention to that before buying it. It’s probably good practice though, since I sometimes tend to rely on kanji too much…

@windupbird

Cute animal 墨絵 from the internet

so cute :3

@lucylavelle

Day 5!
Its my birthday

Happy birthday!!

[Redglare]

Summary post

January 5
・かがみの孤城. I finished the fourth week.

Progress: (21% → 27%)

It’s getting really late. And I have early class tomorrow

[pocketcat]

@Natsuha

ほとり dust N3

I think this might just be a typo, but in case you’re making flashcards from these - dust is ほこり (埃)

[rikaiwisdom]

@BadWeather

Interesting! Have you established some sort of routine around reading? I mostly find myself postponing my daily reading to almost bedtime, even if I have some free time earlier in the day. Not sure why, too, as I tend to enjoy it, and with よつばと! it wasn’t tedious at all.

Sort of! I’m reading after lunch, so when I’m done eating shortly after I start my reading time. The time varies depending on the day but the consistency has been the same: I know this happens after lunch. Then I set a timer of one hour on my phone, and read until it rings. I don’t have any goals other than just work through it; whatever happens in that hour so be it, whether it’s 3 pages or 10, whether I need to look up more things or less things, check grammar, etc. I really like it because every day is dynamic, some days I don’t look up grammar at all because it’s not necessary but instead I encounter more unknown words than usual, and viceversa. I think I would feel a bit anxious if I aimed for a goal like “read 10 pages everyday”, personally. It also helps tremendously that I’m enjoying the story and I’ve already seen and liked the movie.

It’s actually the first time I’m doing this. In the two previous challenges I had a very chaotic schedule: I would read when I felt like it. Naturally, this clashed with other activities that I wanted to do in the evening too, and I ended up reading at night many days before bed, when I was sleepy enough already, just to keep the streak going. Looking back, I’m glad I still did anyways, because it kept fueling the habit, but now it feels so inefficient. Not only was I reading very late, but also anxious with the thought at the back of my mind that “I still have to read”. I’m trying to morph that feeling into one of “this is when I read” and honestly?, so far I love it. It’s still very soon to jump into conclusions, but I feel like not only is this working much better for me already, but I can clearly see myself reading a lot more than I used to. If you asked me to read one hour before bed I would cry, but one hour in the afternoon, now that’s a much different story . I think overall I don’t enjoy studying or doing mental work other than in the morning or afternoon; I think I realise more and more that I prefer to reserve the evenings for leisure and chill.

In conclusion, I think that defining the moment of the day when I do this has removed all of the pressure, because I know it’s happening, so I don’t feel anxious at all neither before that time nor after that time. I think this is exactly why I find it quite enjoyable.

I think it’s also worth noting that currently I have more time than usual so all of this is possible without any schedule problems. Also I say after lunch, but that is usually 4 or 5pm, which would be early evening I guess? I don’t know, English is hard .

[saidahgilbert]

@rikaiwisdom

Also I say after lunch, but that is usually 4 or 5pm, which would be early evening I guess? I don’t know, English is hard

In my country, 4 or 5 pm would be late afternoon. It only becomes early evening when it starts getting dark. However, I live in the tropics so it never starts getting dark before 5:30 pm for the earliest and 6:30 pm for the latest. In other temperate countries where the daylight hours after noon fluctuate much more, their evening times would be different, I guess?

[anon33985902]

Alright, well

I managed to get through 1 more page of よつばと! in 1 hour tonight, but I had a rough day personally so I’m just happy for that. There were 16 bubble-sentences on the page, and 15 on the next page, so I knew I could not keep going tonight. I’m just happy I kept reading.

[rikaiwisdom]

Seems about right! At that time it’s still daytime where I live, and it starts getting dark at around 5:30 pm currently, but in Summer it can be as late as 9:30 or 10:00 pm. I would have used late afternoon too myself, but I’m hoping I could get my point accross! We also typically have lunch very late here. It’s not unusual that we have lunch between 1 and 4 pm. I usually have lunch at around 2:30 or 3 pm.

I think after 6 pm I’m generally already tired to do anything that requires a lot of focus .

[CyberSlam]

Main Post

January 5th
Read pages 10 - 11 of the Naruto Manga. The main characters are still talking about the graduation exam (卒業試験) whose kanji is very intimidating to look at considering my level lol. I was able to recognize 分 and 何 at least. I also recognized some other phrases like めんどくせー and どうしたの. I might stop translating every sentence and just translate a couple words per page or panel. Idk, I’m still figuring this out.

[tiny_river_otter]

Summary post

Day 5: Had a bit more energy today, so I finished chapter 8 of 極主夫道！

[windupbird]

Summary post

Day 5: January 5th

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 29 min
Today’s color: 朱色 (しゅいろ) - pretty similar to 銀朱 but maybe a bit less vibrant, presumably because it’s a more natural pigment?

A color of power and authority And also apparently an expensive/valuable color in olden times - the reading mentioned the 朱座 (しゅざ), which the shogunate-controlled market for cinnabar (which is used to make 朱色).

Some good stuff I learned

• 寄り (より) - as a suffix, means having a tendency towards; being close to
• において - in; on; at (place); as for; regarding​ (yay grammar)
• 朱塗り (しゅぬり) - painting something vermillion; lacquering something vermillion; vermillion-lacquered object
• 顔料 (がんりょう) - pigment, paint, color

まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 22 min

Today’s reading was actually about…colors also xD Basically talked about various pine tree-inspired colors - 常磐色 made another appearance, but it also mentioned 松葉色 (まつばいろ), 老緑 (おいみどり), and 千載緑 (せんざいみどり - I think it’s more commonly written as 千歳緑 since I keep getting that when I try to search it lol). I like how 老緑 does kind of look like “old green” to my eye xD

I also learned that 狩衣 (かりぎぬ) refers informal clothes worn by the nobility from the Heian period - apparently looks like this:

Seems like pretty fancy informal wear if you ask me

I also learned a great grammar point (is this a grammar point? idk lol): にちなんで, meaning named after; associated with; connected with

What else did I read?
Nothing…again. I’m so tired today I’ve been tired from the moment I woke up.

@Zakarius

I love these art styles, and the daily colours! I’ve got an art project going at the moment and one of your links had a section about the traditional colours of Japan and it’s actually exactly what I’ve been looking for, thank you, this’ll be real helpful!

Oh that’s awesome!! Glad my links could be of help

@lucylavelle

Its my birthday

Happy birthday!!
I’m very jealous of your cat cafe snuggles

[meagstudies]

Jan 5 update summary post

Read a bit more of Akiko’s American Foreign Exchange on Satori Reader today. For some reason today’s episodes seemed more difficult than usual… I had a hard time comprehending what I was reading without constantly looking at the definitions and translations. Hopefully it goes better tomorrow!

My goal is to catch up by the time the finale is uploaded and I’m so close… tomorrow I’d like to be 10 episodes from the end. It’ll take a bit more reading than usual, but I think it’s doable

[natarin]

January 5 Home Post

I finished up volume 2 of ラストゲーム today! 九条(くじょう) is as oblivious as always, but she’s like aware of it? Idk I’m wishing her the best, and of course 柳(やなぎ)'s life is suffering someone help them

I might read some 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ later (very invested in mushroom boy and his GIANT RIDEABLE CRAB?? fascinating), but mostly I started messing with jpdb today so that took over my reading brain a bit. I’ve got fun stuff to look forward to in ラストゲーム though; 合宿(がっしゅく) next volume !!

On to more books!

Cool words

だらけ - full of, riddled with
チョロい - easy, simple
枯(か)れる - to wither

[Neba]

5th January:

I got side-tracked from 嫌われる勇気 because I found this manga 「かげきしょうじょ!!」and got super into it. The English version at Seven Seas only has it up until vol 3, so I spent the day reading vol 4 - 7 of the Japanese version.

The manga is really interesting and I really recommend it to everybody. The story follows Takarazuka system very closely, from the 2-year Takarazuka Music School, the troupe, the star system, etc. It gives you a closer look on Takarazuka. The characters are really interesting and each one of them is developed really well. The mangaka did a great job with the scenes. The whole vibe and the feels this manga is giving me reminds me of Act-Age. I love this manga so much, every time I finished a chapter, I wanted to clap my hands and sang praises.

Note:
For anyone who is interested, make sure to read the prequel first before the series (Kageki Shojo: The Curtain Rises / かげきしょうじょ！！シーズンゼロ)