📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

[fustian_garb]

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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)

[meagstudies]

Jan 11 update summary post

uh oh guess who didn’t read at all in the last two days

I didn’t make a post but I did read a little Satori Reader on Friday and Saturday. This morning I read the bonus chapters of 極主夫道. I really hope we end up having an offshoot book club for this series because it was a really fun read

[rikaiwisdom]

Summary Post

January 11
君の名は , 7 pages.

Random words

• すくむ = to freeze, to be unable to move (due to fear or nervousness).
• 台座 = だいざ a pedestal where you put an object.
• 人家 = じんか a house (duh).
• 狼煙 = のろし smoke signals.
• 日没 = にちぼつ sunset (love this word).
• 尾 = お tail (of an animal, but they use it for the tail of the comet; for the animal one probably 尻尾 is preferred, idk).
• 無音 = むおん soundless.
• 心音 = しんおん (audible) heartbeat.
• 交代 = こうたい substitution, alternation, change of places (was happy to get this one today since I learned 入れ替わる the other day, and the definition for 交代 is → その位置や役目などが入れ替わること。

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I read later today for reasons but I’m happy to say that reading for one hour is not a big deal anymore .

[BadWeather]

Summary post

January 11 update:
I had very little time today, so I’d considered skipping the day altogether, but ultimately decided to read just a little bit, which ended up being 3 pages of 時をかける少女 – in about 20 minutes! Never imagined this would be possible for me at this point. The ridiculous (well, for Japanese ) speed was facilitated by the hefty amount of dialog (which tends to be easier to read, as well as takes up more space) and the lack of lookups, but I still consider this a new height for myself. And regarding the lookups, just like yesterday, I went into reading with the intention of only looking up words that seem to be crucial for understanding. And that ended up being none! How is that even possible?! Anyway, that’s that for the excited blabber.

[BlueberryPear]

I didn’t read anything on Sunday…

But yesterday and today I’ve read a bit more of ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石. It’s actually really nice to read the story again and it’s been fun so far. As I said, it’s very slow going for me (I probably should stop looking up everything like others here suggested), so I’ve actually just finished page 6.

In addition to that I’ve started reading the free books available on Tadoku, starting with the easiest. So far I’ve read チワワの花すけ～影とお散歩, which was cute, どっち？which was even cuter and 寒い日は「おなべ」, which made me really hungry.

Tomorrow I’m not gonna have much time, so let’s see if I can fit in some reading anyways.

[Natsuha]

ドメスティックな彼女（１）
Of course I wanted to read much more but ended up reading just 25 pages. There were some words which I had to look up, which means my reading speed went down.

[MaraVos]

Today I read one page of Kagami no kojou and it took me longer than 4 pages took yesterday … Hmm. I guess we’ll see what happens tomorrow!

[Redglare]

Summary post

January 11
・かがみの孤城. I read week 11. (Feels kind of weird to say I’m following the book club schedule, just… ahead of it instead of being behind).

Progress: (62% → 67%)

I’ll try reading a bit earlier tomorrow rather than 9 in the evening. Gotta fix sleep time.

[Daisoujou]

Summary post

Ace Attorney: I played for nearly 2 hours fighting to wrap up the 4th trial, but didn’t quite make it. It might be a bit longer than I expected, but I anticipate moving on to the final case tomorrow.

Today, Von Karma gave us some info that maybe he shouldn’t have! And based on this (and the follow up line), I had to go investigate and learn that 4649 is slang of sorts for “よろしく”. The numbers are pronounced similarly. That’s a neat thing to learn.

Otherwise, more new grammar points came up to learn which is cool, I might be most interested today just in ものの, which I’ve seen a few times before I think, but didn’t mine and try to learn it for real until today. It’s a sort of “despite/however,” but as this Tofugu article I came across explains, has a very particular nuance. Cool stuff.

Zoo 1: Have only been managing to fit in a page or so these days; I want to shift more time here when I get the chance. It’s noticeably so much more draining than Ace Attorney. That said, I’m pretty hooked on the Seven Rooms story, and very close to the reaching the start of section 3. Gonna try to push there tonight.

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@fustian_garb

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.

Kitano has such a great way of creating beauty out of ugly situations, doesn’t he? I know it’s part of his ethos to try to make the violence ugly and nasty, too, rather than going for the common “fun violence” tone. That Hisaishi concert sounds incredibly cool; hope you get to go this time!

[sycamore]

I have been lazy with updating but I have actually read a whole lot! Mainly today cos repairs needed to happen in my flat which meant I couldn’t work but had to be around so I mainly just read a bunch of 鏡の孤城. I’m nearing the end of the first chapter and it’s starting to get really interesting!

I’ve also been playing a lot of ときめき as I’m still addicted but…disaster has struck and I’ve just realised that I missed something earlier in the game that will mean that I won’t get the ending I want to Just when I thought I was doing so well! I don’t have any saves old enough to rectify the mistake so I will need to decide whether to play on knowing I won’t get a ‘good’ ending or whether to restart again I do feel like each time I play I learn a lot more about how the game works (it is so surprisingly complex and difficult and as all the guides are also in Japanese only that’s extra challenge) and I guess at least all the repetition is good for new vocab sinking in lol. Its also kind of mind boggling to think that I’ve played this many hours (I haven’t checked but it will be a lot) and only seen such a tiny fraction of the game, like there are some characters that I’ve just been completely ignoring or haven’t even met yet!

@Daisoujou

I had to go investigate and learn that 4649 is slang of sorts for “よろしく”. The numbers are pronounced similarly. That’s a neat thing to learn.

hahahha that’s such a fun little bit of info! I would have probably thought it was some secret clue or something lol.

[pocketcat]

@Daisoujou

Otherwise, more new grammar points came up to learn which is cool, I might be most interested today just in ものの, which I’ve seen a few times before I think, but didn’t mine and try to learn it for real until today. It’s a sort of “despite/however,” but as this Tofugu article I came across explains, has a very particular nuance. Cool stuff.

Oh this is cool. I’ve seen this grammar point a ton and always just kinda “got” the sentence but never really officially studied it/looked into the details. My lazy grammar study strikes again haha.

[NihongoLearner19]

Today I read 蓮住荘のさんかく vol. 1 chapter 3, which was cute and easy. I didn’t quite have the energy to do ティアムーン帝国物語 today, so I went for manga instead!

[skatefriday]

@NicoleRauch

Just wait until you learn 花火

岡崎市 has an absolutely spectacular 花火大会.

I’ve had the good fortune to have seen it twice. The first time, I was there, I couldn’t read any of the kanji characters in this post. And I thought kanji an impossible mountain to climb and so didn’t even try. The second time I had recently discovered WK. Now I know all but one and who knows when the border will open again? Sob…

But 岡 just came up in my lessons a few days ago. A nice surprise given I knew it from my time in Okazaki. It’s fun when that happens. That one’s going straight to burned. (pun intended).

[lucylavelle]

Day 11
I have a semi-regular Tuesday night call with a friend where we read a page of 鋼の錬金術師 together, and break down all of the grammar though we usually spend more time just chattering…

As well as that, I read the first half of chapter 9 of レンタルおにいちゃん, I struggled with it a bit more than usual since it was about 11:30pm before I started so I was tired, and there was quite a bit of Kansai-ben! But I managed to work it all out in the end

(Home Post)

[anon33985902]

Welllll, today’s been a rough day. Does looking up vocab, using Yomichan, and listening for anything I can understand count? I went to a neurologist for the first time today and I’m dealing with something else that causes me to use Benadryl (sleepy) throughout the day. I just don’t want to lose track of my goal, but today is not my best performance

[pocketcat]

Showing up is half the battle! I personally don’t like streaks and find them demotivating and yet here I am, participating in this. I fully expect to miss a day at some point. And then I will get back to it again. And so will you, I hope.
Someone else (I think @Naphthalene if it’s ok to tag you for the sake of quoting?) called out that streaks make it easy to see, say, 300 days of progress and not value it at all simply because of 1 missed day. So value the days you show up, and roll with the ones you can’t.

[anon33985902]

@pocketcat

Showing up is half the battle! I personally don’t like streaks and find them demotivating and yet here I am, participating in this. I fully expect to miss a day at some point. And then I will get back to it again. And so will you, I hope.
Someone else (I think @Naphthalene if it’s ok to tag you for the sake of quoting?) called out that streaks make it easy to see, say, 300 days of progress and not value it at all simply because of 1 missed day. So value the days you show up, and roll with the ones you can’t

Thank you pocketcat! I agree, streaks can be rough. I do like this challenge though! I feel the motivation to check in every night. I hope I’ll get back into my groove.
Of course quote it all! “value the days you show up.” I like that! I will roll with the ones I can’t. I leeched about 50 of 200 today not upset, since I plan on staying on level 7 for a bit, but it doesn’t always feel so great!