📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

[windupbird]

Summary post

Day 10: January 10th

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 20 min
Today’s color: 浅縹 (あさはなだ) - a super pretty pale blue, like the transparent water at the surface of a lake

So pretty~ Apparently in the Heian period, this was a color for low-ranking nobles to wear to court? …Idk what the colors for high-ranking nobles were, but if I were them, I’m pretty sure I’d be jealous of the fact that the low-ranking ones got to wear this pretty color People in the Heian period were really into color-coding - that’s the vibe I’m getting so far lol

Some words I learned

• 延喜式 (えんぎしき) - Engi-Shiki (set of ancient Japanese governmental regulations)​
• 朝服 (ちょうふく) - clothes worn by the nobility when attending Court
• 神秘的 (しんぴてき) - mysterious; mystical
• 初々しい (ういういしい) - innocent; naive; artless; unsophisticated; pure; fresh

まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 13 min

Today is 十日戎 (とおかえびす) - a festival honoring Ebisu (恵比寿), the god of fishing and commerce. In Kansai-ben, he’s apparently called えべっさん, which I think sounds cute xD In this festival, people ask Ebisu for 商売繁盛 (しょうばいはんじょう) - thriving (prosperous) business.

What else did I read?
囀る鳥は羽ばたかない Vol 1
Amount read: 8 pages
Time spent: 32 min

Just a tiny read from this today - TIL that おメガネ does not equal メガネ, respectful ver. xD お眼鏡 = (your) judgment; discernment​. Like…the person is judging you, with their メガネ

@fustian_garb

we’re reading the same book!

:o fighting off the urge to post the spiderman meme a third time
I think…you were the one who posted about it in the fall challenge, right? I definitely bought it after you mentioned it there haha. I’m hoping to continue reading the daily entries from it (and the color book) daily for the whole year as well ^^ I’m trying to read other stuff on top of those for the challenge but that…hasn’t exactly been working out the way I’d hoped That book is pretty quick reading though, it’s more the color book that’s the problem xD I feel like trying to read two entry-a-day books at once was probably bad judgment on my part…but now that I’ve started I don’t want to stop lol

[MaraVos]

かがみの孤城 arrived! I read about 4 pages so far … I’m excited!

I’m starting to get overwhelmed by my “currently reading” pile. I just don’t have enough reading time if I want to also do things like my laundry …

[natarin]

January 10 Home Post

I’ve read almost four pages of 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ so far today! At this rate I’ll finish the first chapter tomorrow

It was a good mix of action and description today. The worldbuilding in 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ continues to be WILD: because of the rust wind destroying machinery, people have started making tanks and planes and such out of living things?? don’t quite know the mechanics of that yet but it explains the hippos, and now there’s a snail plane, it’s just a lot so it’s been really interesting figuring all that out! I’m very intrigued to see where it goes (also very concerned for their safety but you know)

Fun words

研(と)ぎ澄(す)ます - to sharpen, to hone
一際(ひときわ) - conspicuously, noticeably
無尽蔵(むじんぞう) - inexhaustible supply
報(むく)いる - to reward, to retaliate
激痛(げきつう) - sharp pain
間一髪(かんいっぱつ) - hair’s breadth

[CyberSlam]

Main Post

January 10
Read pages 16 - 17 of Naruto.
Learned あっち means “over there”. Also was able to understand that サンキュー is “thank you.”

Side Note:
I looked up the book I’m reading over at Natively and it’s actually level 24 at JLPT N3. No wonder I’m struggling with it lol. I’m very thankful for the furigana at least. I’m going to check out the lower-level material on there. I think I remember seeing some free ones.

[Sorrymasen]

I started playing FFXIV in japanese. I honestly count this as reading a book.

[fallynleaf]

@Daisoujou

Favorite new word is undoubtedly 火花 (ひばな), meaning spark. It’s fire flower! Sometimes kanji is wonderfully evocative.

I just learned 火花(ひばな)を散(ち)らす from reading one of the DDT recaps a few days ago! I almost added it to Anki, but then realized I only knew two of the kanji, haha, so I decided to wait on that one. But I had the same thought you did when I saw 火花!

[CyberSlam]

@FrankieFrank

ok so late up date. I’ve still been reading most of the days but I missed one day when I kinda just felt a lil sad.

Felt the same way when I missed a day. For me, I just try to remember that I’ve still done more than last year.

[NicoleRauch]

@saidahgilbert

@NicoleRauch

Read and finished 大聖堂 (The Pillars of the Earth).

How do you read the kanji for The Pillars of the Earth ?

Ah, sorry, the reading is だいせいどう.

@Daisoujou

Favorite new word is undoubtedly 火花 (ひばな), meaning spark. It’s fire flower! Sometimes kanji is wonderfully evocative.

Just wait until you learn 花火 (はなび) - fireworks - as well

[Shinpachi]

Tonight I read ten pages from ちゃお, and seven pages from Death Note. Death Note was quite difficult to read, both because of the level, and because the print size was soooooo small. My up-close eyesight is very good, and I even used a magnifying glass. I think the ink was just blurred in the printing. I am enjoying the story, though.

死神------しにがみ------god of death

人間界------にんげんかい------human realm

髑髏------どくろ------skull (esp. weatherbeaten, used as symbol of death)

[Daisoujou]

@NicoleRauch

Just wait until you learn 花火 (はなび) - fireworks - as well

That one I know! Very good call; I love it too. Actually even knew it before I started Japanese because of Takeshi Kitano’s excellent film. Although my brain didn’t piece together that they were the same kanji reversed until you pointed it out now.

[NicoleRauch]

@Daisoujou

Although my brain didn’t piece together that they were the same kanji reversed until you pointed it out now.

Yeah I also learned 花火 first and I was sooo confused when I encountered 火花 for the first time
(BTW 火花 is also the title of a book - it“s sitting on my shelf, and one day I will manage to read it )

[fustian_garb]

@Daisoujou

Takeshi Kitano’s excellent film

I absolutely love that film. We watched loads of Takeshi Kitano films in 2020 as the British Film Institute had a Japan season planned to coincide with the Olympics, and luckily for us they went ahead with the online streaming version regardless. I’d kind of always thought they’d just be mindless violence but I was blown away by how beautiful they were.
The soundtrack is on my list of ‘things I want to rummage for in second hand record shops when we’re next in Tokyo’.We’ve got tickets to see Joe Hisaishi conducting music from Studio Ghibli films in London (been postponed twice already but hopefully we’ll finally get to go this August) and I wish he’d do a dj of his Takeshi Kitano soundtracks as an afterparty

@NicoleRauch

火花 is also the title of a book

This is the book that made me want to learn Japanese! Netflix made a series of it that I loved and, while telling everyone outloud that I just wanted to learn a few phrases of japanese to go on holiday, I secretly wondered if I could learn enough to be able to read the book as it didn’t seem like the kind of thing that would ever be translated into English…An English translation came out last year but I’m stubbornly refusing to buy it, both because it now seems acheivable to one day read it in Japanese and because it’s got a really really ugly cover.

[fustian_garb]

Lol completely forgot that I’d mentioned it there. I’m enjoying it and my flashcards and filling up with lots of festival-related vocabulary.

A tea house that I follow in Kyoto did a thread about the Ebisu festival by the way https://twitter.com/camelliakyoto/status/1478879392277622786?s=20

[NicoleRauch]

@fustian_garb

This is the book that made me want to learn Japanese!

That’s really cool! I got the book as a gift from my host family in Fukuoka after mentioning that we had talked about the author in class (he was a comedian and later became author, I think this book is his first one or something, and it won the Akutagawa Prize straight away).

@fustian_garb

An English translation came out last year but I’m stubbornly refusing to buy it

You can do it!

[TheGreywolfMunch]

Day 11. I read pages 149-159 of Kiki — the most I’ve ever read in a day, I think! Even though basically all those pages were dialogue, and also easier to understand. In the span of those pages I finished Chapter 6 and began Chapter 7.

I’m sort of curious whether I could read one chapter per day for the last two or three chapters

[DrAdam]

@anon33985902

@DrAdam

Starting today, fashionably late.

I also see this is the first time you’ve posted in the community, so WELCOME!

ありがとうございます😃

I moved to Japan about 2 years back knowing nothing about the language at the time, and have been making painfully slow learning progress since then. Decided to make a goal to learn 1000 kanji this year, with a starting point of around 200 (250 on a good day ) and as a result bought a lifetime membership to Wanikani.

So hopefully here for a while yet! Thanks for the welcome, and I’m excited to engage more in the community as well

日本語を読みましょう❗今月はたくさん漫画を読みたい。

[fustian_garb]

Homepost

Finally posting an update because I finally have something to update: I have finished the 20 pages of prose about Napoleon

My spouse keeps saying ‘are you finding it boring?’ because I moan about it every day but it’s not that’s it’s boring, it’s just this particular chapter was a bit too far beyond my current level for comfort. There was a LOT of new military-related vocabulary and they were the kind of words that I don’t really understand in English (my native tongue, lol) anyway so I struggled to differentiate between them. Having to look up so many words meant I decide to read just two pages a day, but then just reading two pages per day meant I found myself looking up the same words repeatedly (usually knowing full well I had looked them up the day before) so that quickly got frustrating.

I would say overall I got the gist of it (Napoleon was brave! But also foolish! And he abolished the feudal system! But a lot of soldiers got killed unnecessarily in Russia! so let’s not hero-worship him uncritically) but there were times when I was floundering.

I only have 6 more chapters left in the book, 5 of which are manga and the other remaining prose one is only 8 pages so it should be easier going from now. The Studio Ghibli film of the book isn’t due out until 2024 at the earliest so I’ll be able to come back to it and have another read through before then, hopefully with better comprehension next time (albeit maybe not on the military terms!).

[pocketcat]

@windupbird

Just a tiny read from this today - TIL that おメガネ does not equal メガネ, respectful ver. xD お眼鏡 = (your) judgment; discernment​. Like…the person is judging you, with their メガネ

This killed me. I love it.

Today’s article was 若者言葉「やばみ」の「み」はどこから来たのか？ which I read because I was feeling this vibe recently (title: where did the み in the word やばみ that the young people use come from?)

Some words I looked up

指示代名詞 - demonstrative noun, ie, これ、あれ
読み解く - to read something carefully for understanding. The meaning here makes sense at a glance but I just really feel this word as it relates to language study
手話 - sign language
接尾辞 - suffix
重視 - to view something as important (also clear from kanji but good word to know)
逸脱 - deviation (from something)
臨場感 - sense of something being somewhere

I made a note of a puzzling sentence in one of the articles I read recently and brought it to my tutor during our session last night. I usually am able to Google answers to most of my grammar puzzles or words I don’t quite understand the nuance of, but sometimes just asking a live person is the best.
I gave her this sentence, from which I could not make heads of tails of the construct 声煮出して訴えていかない:

つらいときは「つらい」という気持ちを声煮出して訴えていかないと、いつまで経っても環境はよくならない気がしました。

Her answer was…it was a typo. It should be 声に出して not 声煮出して.
I’ve been pretty shielded from typos reading reading published books so I suppose this journey into reading lots of online content will also challenge me in this direction as well.

[vonnutje]

Day 11: January 11

• 君の名は。page 54-59
• 彼女、お借りします vol 1 page -

[Zakarius]

Homepost - Tigerdate: 20220111

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Tanuki Scroll XI: 招き猫になったネコ

Read today’s Japanese folktale from Tokyo about a maneki neko that brings fortune to a tea house.

Today is 鏡開き!

Were you break down and eat the ornamental Kagami Mochi [鏡餅] that was prepared for New Years. I really want mochi now I should get dinner, but I have no mochi, I want mochi… but perhaps if I were to…

I found a recipe for mochi
Why am I looking at this and making the hunger more, I don’t even have any of this stuff in to make it, and about 13 hours prep… but mochi

☆ Learnings ☆

New Words

たったー Only; Merely; No more than
気味が悪い「きみがわるい」ー Creepy/Uneasy feeling
懐「ふところ」ー inside the chest section of clothing (especially for kimono); breast pocket

Bonus mochi recipe words
望ましい「のぞましい」ー Desirable; hoped for
片栗粉「かたくりこ」ー Potato starch
もろぶたー A wooden box used in cooking.
ボロボロー Worn out; crumbly

Mysterious kanji-thingy: ㌢

I’m guessing it’s some sort of measurement thing since it was used with numbers （フチから5,6㌢）.
Further research indicates it stands for centimetres.
Okay, now on further inspection I notice that it isn’t kanji but stacked katakana

Places
上野「こうずけ」ー Kouzuke - a former province located in Gunma Prefecture.
寺町「てらまち」ー Teramachi - a very old street in Kyoto.

Forgotten Readings

飼う「かう」(to keep a pet or animal)