📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

January 6 Update

Today I read 蓮住荘のさんかく #1 pg. 24-57.

Challenge Thoughts So Far

For most of the challenge, I’ve been reading ティアムーン帝国物語 volume 2 (I’ve read around 8 percent over the past few days) but for the last couple of days I’ve just been chipping away at some of my manga for a change of pace, like まいりました入間くん volume 24 and 蓮住荘のさんかく volume 1, which I also own in English and is about the cutest thing ever. It’s also very easy, which is a plus! Iruma is pretty easy, too, but it occasionally has parts that leave me frustrated because I can’t quite tell what the (clearly important) nuance is, even if I sort of understand the sentences. Anyway, it’s been nice to read something every day - it’s fun and is helping me keep up with watching an episode of anime daily, too!

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January 6 :snowflake: Home Post

Decided to read more 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ today! I spent a while trying to figure out what カバ meant in the current context, like what, their cover’s blown? People called for backup? But no there were actually just literal sand hippos with guns chasing them through the desert because this book is a WILD ride :joy: so figuring that out made things a lot clearer. I’m realizing that the author messes with words a lot which is really cool from like a literary perspective, but it can definitely make my job harder. I think I’ve generally been able to figure things out though which is good!

I’m certainly enjoying the craziness :joy: The section I just finished ended with ビスコ picking up a dead hippo (described as one that five people would barely be able to lift) that had mushrooms in it from previous fighting and throwing it at their feet so it exploded into a giant mushroom that launched him, ジャビ, and the GIANT CRAB they’re riding over a huge border wall so yeah nothing really happening lmao; somehow fighting through all the unknown words isn’t so bad when I untangle stuff like that as a result.

Anyway I’m having fun with it so far! I still intend to continue ラストゲーム as well, so we’ll see when that actually happens :grin: very different reading experience from 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ, that’s for sure.

Cool words

矢継(やつ)(ばや) - rapid succession
ジリ(ひん) - situation getting worse and worse
()()がる - to soar, be whirled up

Three different words talking about “clouds of sand”:
砂埃(すなぼこり)
砂煙(すなけむり)
砂塵(さじん)

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Day 6!
I read the second half of Volume 2, Chapter 2 of レンタルおにいちゃん.
It took me a little longer than intended because today was my first day back at work after Christmas so I was a bit frazzled by the end of the work day.

But I was really pleased because I didn’t need to look up any words at all today, which I don’t think has ever happened before!

(Home Post)

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鏡の孤城:5%-8%

Just barely made it under the line today, left reading until I should have already been asleep (so this will be a short update), which is really annoying because once I started reading i didn’t want to stop so soon :sob: Things are already happening! I’m already loving this book so much, I need to make sure I give myself more time to read tomorrow!

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Very belated home post

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Socials: Bookmeter, Learnnatively, Goodreads

What I’ll be reading:

  • 鬼滅の刃 - currently reading volume 3, but I’ve also started going back through older volumes to breakdown sentences I don’t feel I got sufficiently.
  • ファイナルファンタジーIX (Final Fantasy IX) - playing through in Japanese, taking screenshots of sentences I don’t fully understand, and then afterwards writing them out in a notebook to do breakdowns.
  • デスノート (Death Note) - with the Beginner Book club.

Rough update so far:
Somehow I managed to defy all odds and I’ve just kept going since the last challenge, yesterday was day 128 I think.

My wrists are very painful so I won’t be able to reliably make updates, but I’ll be reading along with all your comments every now and then.

My default update will be 鬼滅の刃 everyday, although most days it will only be a few pages, some days just one.

Ohhh I’m delighted to hear that, just from the cover and little I know of 鏡の孤城 I’m really intrigued to try read it some day. Learn natively claims it’s a 27, compared with 鬼滅の刃’s 25. Maybe one day.

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Feb
Week 05
Week 06
Week 07
Week 08
Week 09

Alright, I’ll join in late too. I have been reading every day up to this point, and plan to for the foreseeable future – might as well hop in with the community and check out what you all are up to here and there.

My current reading tends to be somewhere between an hour and a half or two hours per day on the first Ace Attorney game, basically however long I spend before mining ~20 sentences. No hard schedule for this, but in the remaining time, I throw in a few pages of Zoo 1 by Otsuichi here and there. It’s my first real native Japanese book. I can handle it (with a lot of lookups), but I’m at that level where after 3 or 4 pages, I get pretty exhausted. Happy to be reading though, and this is perfect milestone timing, as just yesterday, I finished the first of the book’s short stories (roughly 40 pages in this edition). The first story was decently interesting, though certainly upsetting at times, with a lot more real serious depressing topics and not exactly the sort of “horror” I was expecting. I also wonder how much the excitement of reading a Japanese book is going to cloud my judgment for a bit, haha.

Today I started a little on the second story, Seven Rooms, which appears to be starting from two people mysteriously awakening in an (I assume locked, but we’re taking it slow) unfamiliar room…

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Well, I could only make it through 1 page of よつばと! tonight - but it was a long page! Happy with my progress. Although I have the vol. 1 grammar guide, I only use it after trying to parse the sentences myself, and I usually have it already!

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Summary post

Day 6: January 6th

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 22 min
Today’s color: 鉄紺 (てつこん) - kind of a navy blue with a hint of green?

This is my favorite color, it’s so pretty :star_struck: The resoluteness of iron and the calm quiet of indigo come together to make this beautiful dignified color I think is sort of what the book said :sweat_smile: Words do be hard to translate

Some good stuff I learned
  • くろがね - an old word for iron (the kanji are 黒金, so it’s literally black gold)
  • 帯びる (おびる) - to have a trace of; to be tinged with​
  • 藍染 (あいぞめ) - indigo dye
  • がかる - to have a trace of; to be tinged with​ (this book is into synonyms)
  • たくましい - indomitable; indefatigable; strong-willed; resolute; bold​
  • 物静か (ものしずか) - quiet; still; calm
  • 重厚 (じゅうこう) - profound; deep; grave; solid; dignified; stately; solemn; massive; composed
  • 色合い (いろあい) - coloring; shade (of color); hue; tone; tinge; tint​; flavor; nuance; feel; sense; look

まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 10 min

Today’s reading felt extremely appropriate: it was about today being 小寒 (しょうかん), which is basically the beginning of midwinter (寒の入り かんのいり). Supposedly, it’s when the winter cold starts to get intense…that was definitely the case where I am, I believe this was the first day this winter that the temperature has been in the single digits (Fahrenheit). It definitely dropped like 15 degrees since yesterday. :cold_face:

What else did I read?
囀る鳥は羽ばたかない Vol 1
Amount read: 22 pages
Time spent: 1 hour 8 min

I really didn’t intend to read that long but it kind of got away from me xD I feel like something just clicked today because I was very intrigued. Seriously, it was like some switch flipped in my brain and I didn’t want to stop. Yashiro freaking kills me lol

Oh he’s so soft :pleading_face: Thank you for blessing us with this cat

:astonished::exclamation: My color book failed to mention this!

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Let me try to summarize the reading I did for the first six days of the challenge. I started off with the usual Animal Crossing and book club books. On the 3rd I visited the Chicago-land Kinokuniya. I decided to purchase City because I like 日常(Same Mangaka). I also decided to get a copy of よつばと! based on how often I see it mentioned here. And I took note of how popular Chain-saw Man appeared to be at the store. I had picked up a copy of the first Chain-saw Man when I visited Kinokuniya in July but never opened it.

泣き虫

The night before going to Kinokuniya I was navigating the house in the dark and walked into the edge of a half opened door, falling back onto a radiator. It felt pretty bad the next day, but manageable. Then, while driving back from Kinokuniya, I sneezed and a rib snapped. Haven’t been very mobile since, and sitting at my “translation station” is very uncomfortable. I’m going to blame this for lack of updates for now.

I started flying through よつばと! and Chain-saw Man with just the Kodansha Kanji Learners Dictionary at my side for emergencies. Maybe at some point I’ll find my way of detailing progress but for now I’ll just say I’m already 4 chapters (142 pgs) into よつばと!and 4 chapters (131 pgs) into Chain-saw Man. I opened City but quickly realized its more complicated than just having a Kanji Dictionary with you. I’d need to be at my Translation Station. I’ll save that one for later, maybe it will get voted into a book club one day.
Also today, re-read for clarity, chunks of 極主夫道 and picked up the first four volumes of Teasing Master Tagaki-San because they’re free on Bookwalker right now

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Oh no that sounds awful, I hope you’re not feeling too terrible, and you recover quickly.

Hope you enjoy よつばと! I know tons of people have read it here since it’s the standard beginner thing, but I found it quite lovely all the same. I appreciate you mentioning Takagi, too, going to go pick that up myself!

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仕方がない(probably incorrectly) keeps coming to mind.

993 messages in the volume 1 thread. I figure, finish the volume once on easy, tread through the thread, re-read on hard mode.

Took a quick ~3 page look at Tagaki. Is that also Urushi? Author has their type I suppose.

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Home post

Day 5:

日本語: I read a lot of 伯爵と妖精 29.
Read-aloud: We read three (!) chapters of 7SEEDS.

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.

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Main Post

January 6th:
Read pages 12 to 13 of Naruto.
Learned ポテチ (potato chip)
It’s interesting that the character’s first names are in katakana, but their last names are in kanji or hiragana. Almost didn’t recognize Uchiha うちは because I was expecting it to be in kanji. Also, I had a laugh over realizing a character is named Salad (サラダ).

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great idea about reading out loud, I’m going to try tonight. Thank you for the idea.

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Summary Post

Day 6: Today I read 4 pages of 極主夫道. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Jan 6 update :snowflake: summary post

This morning I read Akiko’s American Foreign Exchange, and I met my goal I mentioned yesterday!

I’m thinking I’m going to read the rest this weekend so I can be completely caught up

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I just claimed the 4 volumes and took the briefest glance to get a peek at the writing and yeah, you’re right. I’ve heard the whole style of the story is not too different either – the author definitely knows what they want to do, heh. I’ve been eying the anime so that might come first for me though. I assume it’ll be relatively easy listening practice, and that’s what I really need.

Ooh, I did Satori Reader as well, and I think it helped a lot for me to transition into a visual novel and book like I’m doing now. That’s one of the few series I skipped over though, since it was so long. Anyway, good work!

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No pooh-poohing 5000 pages! That’s fantastic! :metal:

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I had no idea that store was in Chicago! Last time I was there my wife and I ate at a fantastic Ramen restaurant right across the street from the Market. Looks like I now have an excuse to go back… :smiley:

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I agree! Satori’s been super helpful for transitioning from graded readers to actual books!

I almost skipped it too for the same reason, but I’m so glad I decided to read it because it’s got some really good moments (I actually teared up when reading it today). It definitely has taken me a long time to get through though, I started it back in August (read it off and on)

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