📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

[tinywagashi]

I feel like I’ve been in a weird rut with Japanese for a while, so I reset my WK and restarted Duolingo. This challenge is just what I need to find some motivation—I feel like this challenge is the new approach and accountability I’ve been looking for! Thank you!

• Joined challenge: Jan 8, 2022
• Last updated: Jan 26, 2022

			Jan
月	火	水	木	金	土	日
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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☐

What I'm reading

I’ll be reading articles and other things online:

• Graded readers and other books on Natively
• Articles from Easy NHK/TOKAI
• Posts on my Japanese Twitter feed, blogs I follow
• Signs in Google Maps Street View and GeoGuessr
• Articles I’m using for research our future move to Japan
• Translations of the documentation I produce at work
• Slowly working through よつばと! Dropped because I can’t read the font that Yotsuba speaks in and I was getting frustrated…

One day I want to be able to read:

• Naruto (manga)
• No. 6 (novels and manga)
• Novels by Shion Miura (I highly suggest the Great Passage if you haven’t read it yet!)
• しまなみ誰そ彼 (manga)
• High Speed! (novel)

But I’m definitely not there yet

My progress so far

January 8, 2022

• 10 news posts in my Japanese Twitter feed
• Several apartment rental listings, including research on new apartment rental sites with pet-friendly and LGBT-friendly search options
• Choya Yuzu soda can (lol)
• Information on the packaging of various items in my Bokksu
• I’ve just started reading よつばと！ After browsing through this thread, I decided to try it out. It’s so cute!! – Vol 1, Chapter 1, pages 1-7
  • もうすぐだぞー ----- We’re almost there…

January 9, 2022

• よつばと！ – Vol 1, Chapter 1, pages 8-9 (I wish there were more kanji; meaning would be clearer)
• Twitter – posts about the Sapporo bear attack last year, other posts about life in Hokkaido (current hyperfocus)
• Duolingo Stories – Completed the story “The Passport”
• Graded reader on Natively – カラスと水さし, Level 0.
• Not purely reading, but I’m having a duel for first place in my league on Duolingo, so I’m reading lots of new vocabulary today

January 10, 2022

• Graded reader on Natively – シュモーハウス, Level 1 — pages 1-7 {Recommended here by sosanlx}. Vocab and notes:
  • 原子爆弾 - げんしばくだん - Atomic Bomb
  • 広島 - Hiroshima
  • 長崎 - Nagasaki
  • どうしてでしょうか。- Could I ask the reason? / What is the reason? / Why do you think that is?
  • 落としました - おとしました - dropped
  • 死にました - しにました - died
  • 何もありません。- There is nothing. / Nothing was there.
  • 顔 - かお - face
  • になりました - had/became (had dark faces or faces became dark) [from ash and also grief]
  • ごめんなさいと言(い)いたい。- I want to say I’m sorry.
  • いります - need
  • 出しました - to give/put out (in context of sending money to someone’s effort)
  • や particle - and/or connecting particle ---- It is very similar to the grammar と (to), which also means “and”. The main difference being と only lists the actual items listed, and や implies the listed items are not complete.
  • など - etc./and such, can add at the end of a list
  • 重い - おもい - heavy
  • 置きました - おきました - put something somewhere (past tense)
  • から - after a phrase can mean “because of X, Y happened”
  • 大きく開けて - おおきくあけて - to open it wide (example: mouth - 口を大きく開けて)

January 11, 2022

• Graded reader on Natively – シュモーハウス, Level 1 — page 8 {Recommended here by sosanlx}. Vocab and notes:
  • 新しい家を見て言いました - Looked at the new house and said… - Question: Why is there no connection between the two verbs? [見て(ました) and 言いました] They’re side-by-side without a connection particle and it’s unclear it’s supposed to be “X and X”. To research later.
  • 住みたい - want to live

January 12, 2022

• Graded reader on Natively – シュモーハウス, Level 1 — page 9-13 {Recommended here by sosanlx}. Vocab and notes:
  • The sentence introducing dialog ends with a period, not a comma or other punctuation. Example: 私たちは言いました。「やった！」
  • [家 versus 住宅 (HiNative thread)] (What is the difference between "住宅" and "家" ? "住宅" vs "家" ? | HiNative). My understanding:
    • 家 = いえ - A house, such as the house you live in, a single home
    • 住宅 = じゅうたく - A residential area, a set of hinges, a housing complex, a place where multiple people’s homes are together
  • いつも - Always, everytime (in all my years of learning Japanese, I have NEVER been able to remember this word! It must be fossilized weirdly.
  • 戦争で - せんそうで - In the war/During the war
  • すると - Then…
  • それからもう - Then there was/There was already
  • また戦争 - another war
  • 井戸 - いど - a well
  • その時 - そのとき - at that time
  • 願っていました - ねがっていました - hoped for, such as “平和をねがていました” - hoped for peace
  • 亡くなりました - なくなりました - died

January 13, 2022

• Tweets from LGBT Japanese people and organizations about same-sex marriage and the new same-sex partnership system coming to Tokyo.
• Japanese subtitles for Asagi’s video “My Experience of the Japan Earthquake 2011” (Japanese voiceover and subtitles)
• Duolingo Stories – Completed the story “Doctor Eddy”
  • べつの - different - example: “べつの{noun}”
  • とても具合が悪そう - とてもぐあいがわるそう - looks very sick
  • むこうに - over there, send best to use when something is on the opposite side of something, for example, the opposite side of the school; HiNative thread
  • 病気の人 - びょうきのひと - sick person
  • うりば - section, like a section or aisle in a grocery store
  • 近く- ちかく - near

January 14, 2022

• “Obey Me!” anime end-credit group chat messages
• Tweets from LGBT Japanese people and organizations about same-sex marriage and marriage equality in Japan

January 15, 2022

• Tweets - NHK headlines about national college entrance exams
• Graded reader on Natively – チワワの花すけ~影とお散歩, Level 0. Vocab and notes:
  • 紹介 - しょうかい - Introduction
  • ご - your - before a noun like “parents” or “master” is possessive; ご主人
  • これから - from now, starting now
  • 2匹 - にひき (GoogTrans says “にびき”?) - 2 animals; 匹 is the counter for animals
  • 笑いました - わらいました - laughed
  • 門 - もん - gate
  • シマウマ - しまうま - zebra
  • 葉っぱ - はつぱ - leaves
  • 服 - ふく - clothes
  • マリアの服は、葉っぱの服ね - マリアのふくは、はっぱのふくね - This sentence structure is interesting. There’s no indicator at the end like “-imasu”; I assume this is a casual structure where you leave off bits because the meaning is clear - “Maria’s clothes are leaf clothes” literally or “Maria is wearing clothes with leaves on them.”
  • 建物 - たてもの - building; often see this replaced by ビル instead
  • 寺 - てら - temple (IIRC, this will show up in WK soon)
  • いた - “is there” or similar - At the end of a sentence, seems to take the place of more formal wording, followed format of “{noun}いた” meaning “{noun} is here/there”.
  • 夕方 - ゆうがた - evening
• “No. 6” manga (Vol 1, Chap 1, Page 1) on Bookwalker (made an account!) — the next pages get considerably harder and Natively rates it at Level 29, so not quite there yet. Vocab and notes from first page:
  • 寒い - さむい - cold; I know the word, but didn’t recognize the kanji in the wild
  • 眠い - ねむい - sleepy; I know the word, but didn’t recognize the kanji in the wild
  • 痛い - いたい - pain/it hurts; I know the word, but didn’t recognize the kanji in the wild
  • 動けない - うごけない - can’t move
  • それでも - nevertheless, even so
  • 進む - すすむ - move, move onward
  • しかない - there is only, the only option is to, there is no choice other than to - example: “{verb}しかない” meaning “no choice but to {verb}”

January 16, 2022

• Graded reader on Natively – どっち？, Level 0. Vocab and notes:
  • どっちが いい？- Which one do you like/Which one is good?
  • こっちのほうがいい。- This is better. / This one is better.
  • こっちのほうが{adjective}。- This is {adjective}. / This one is {adjective}.
  • 骨 - ほね - bone
  • どっちも {adjective}. - They are both {adjective}.

January 17, 2022

• Graded reader on Natively – あんこちゃん, pages 1-7. Vocab and notes:
  • お菓子 - おかし - snack

January 19, 2022

Graded reader on Natively – あんこちゃん, pages 8-14. Vocab and notes:

• 冷たい。- つめたい - cold (applies to objects/food?)
• 栗蒸し - くりむし - steamed chestnuts
• 羊羹 - ようかん - youkan
• 栗がいっぱい。- くりがいっぱい - A lot of chestnuts.

January 21, 2022

• Duolingo Stories – Completed the story “A New Coat”
  • 手伝ってくれませんか? - てつだってくれませんか？- Can you help me?
  • {noun}どうですか？- How about a {noun}?
  • それか - or; example: それか、{noun}はどうですか？
  • ぴったりですよ！- It’s perfect!

January 26, 2022

Lost some days because of RL stress/sick. So I picked a really cute Level 0 (L4) book to ease back in.

• Graded reader on Natively – いっぱい, pages 1-18.