Day 7: I read three more pages of 
よつばと！ I documented my attempts at understanding them in my study log.
22 Likes
I think this is (together with the beginning since it’s a new book, new author etc) the most difficult part to understand based on the fact that I am only a few pages behind now. Since the setting has changed a bit, I expect more new vocab and scenes that I can’t understand right away. I’m really glad I watched the movie a few years back so I sort-of know where the story is heading xD
8 Likes
Wednesday was a late day at the office and I visited my mother, so I only read another short story on duolingo.
Yesterday wasn’t all that productive either, but I managed to get some reading in (some more Level 0 books on Tadoku)!
広島・宮島に行きましょう
カラスと水さし ～イソップ物語より～
お茶をいれましょう！
Vocab
原爆 - げんばく - atomic bomb
カラス (烏) - crow
水さし - pitcher / water jug
急須 - きゅうす - small teapot
湯のみ - ゆのみ - teacup
茶托 - ちゃたく - teacup saucer
順 - じゅん - turn, order
I’m only now on my way home after work (I actually wrote this post yesterday evening at home, but it seems I’ve forgotten to actually post it ^^. But thankfully the post got saved and I just had to change the days at the beginning). Let’s see if I can fit in some more reading today or if I’ll be too tired when I get home.
21 Likes
I missed a day on the 11th 
I fell asleep on the sofa earlier than usual that day and I didn’t get t do my nighttime reading I was so mad at myself for it lol but it’s okay, it probably means I needed the sleep
12/1 : 日本の歴史366, 20 min
since @fustian_garb mentioned this,
13/1: I got curious and looked for the app, and this is so interesting?? Thank you so much! I read through the intro for current season today🤩 but it took me so loooong there were many things to look up… I think I need the English version to double-check stuff
edit: also read some 30min of 歴史366
Good words
晩冬 ばんとう late winter
名残, 名残り なごり remains; traces | the sorrow of parting
途次 とじ on one’s way
白芥子 しらげし white mustard ?? some other sites give me it’s a poppy type of plant, i am confused…
形見 かたみ memento, keepsake
詠む よむ to compose (a Japanese poem)
寵愛 ちょうあい favor, favour, affection
空米 くうまい imaginary/ gamble rice ？？？
Explanation for this
Bruuuh, this got my brain all messed up because I just couldn’t grasp what this was about. Weblio and other sites had it as ‘rice that doesn’t exist’ and I was just lost. The opposite is ‘real rice’ 正米. Basically it’s all about rice that has been harvested (exists) and hasn’t been harvested yet (doesn’t exist). The whole concept involves forward selling/buying, with merchants promising in advance to clients a certain amount of rice for a cheaper price than the estimated in the market, when the rice would be available. Best example I found was here the whole thing called 空米取引, or generally 先物取引.
悲嘆 ひたん grief, sorrow
Forgotten words
尾張(國) Owari Province why did I forget this reading, I see it often in the history book…
Also, when looking for the plant, I came across a
誕生花 site with listed flowers for every bday here for anyone curious 
Mine is
ベニバナトキワマンサク
「紅花常盤満作」
Chinese fringe-flower
24 Likes
Keep them coming, I especially love the prefecture-related posts! 
Your posts on the series has gotten me really curious about it, and I’m not gonna lie, I 
have been considering
12 Likes
January 14 update:
Read 4 pages of 時をかける少女, which is probably the most I’ve read in a day so far. I wouldn’t say it’s getting easier to understand what’s going on, but I’m probably getting used to reading this book, or just reading prose in Japanese, because it’s getting less tiring, and although I haven’t been tracking time in any reliable manner, I also feel like I’m speeding up. Although now that I it put that way, I see another possible explanation: perhaps it’s less tiring precisely because I’m moving faster, and the speed might be coming from having no mental energy to pause and try to process what I read better 
Not sure if this approach is good in the long run, but since my work has been getting busier by the day after the lazy beginning of the year, I guess I won’t be able to change it much any time soon.
22 Likes
I can’t even remember if I posted about yesterday! But today was great because my よつばと! reading pal caught up and we read pages 17-19! I don’t think I did very well in a grammatical sense, but it was great to start up again, and we have another reading pal catching up too! Feel free to check my work in my “study lounge” 
(link is in my user card) 
21 Likes
Ace Attorney: I tapped out after 65 minutes. This may be the most difficult Ace Attorney has been. The lines are so short in this game it’s still not TERRIBLE; sentences can’t get that lengthy or complex. But man are the unknowns piling up, felt like nearly every sentence had 1 unknown, but many had 2 or more. Here’s why:
Akane loves to go on wild flights of fantasy every time we look at a piece of evidence, so her comments are pretty random. I mean, today 相対性理論 (そうたいせいりろん) came up. That’s the theory of relativity. I’ve mined some pretty questionable things in the past, but I decided to let that one slide. I can’t imagine I’ll be hearing about it again for quite a while. It was mentioned because we were discussing if a door was an entrance or exit 
One new character is a cowboy and I wondered how that would work in Japanese. Turns out the English translation didn’t punch up his dialog at all, he just calls everyone wild horses and refers to stuff as saloons and whatnot. Too much new vocab coming out of him.
The other new character again speaks in very polite forms (she’s a food delivery person), and uses greetings and other words for things I thought I knew that I have never yet seen before! I got a bit outright lost talking to her, especially when her nickname came up. See… (from the Ace Attorney wiki):
- In Japanese, her nickname (the Japanese version’s equivalent of “Cough-Up Queen”) is " Gero-mamire-no-Okyou " (ゲロまみれのおキョウ), with “ゲロまみれ” meaning “covering in spew”. " Gero " can mean both “spew” and “confession”, likely meant as an indication towards her talent while she was a detective for extricating confessions from suspects.
I got to this and was like… “vomit covered… what?” And got both very grossed out and entirely unsure what I was reading anymore. Turns out on Jisho they tell you ゲロ can mean “confession,” but the version I have on Yomichan differs and doesn’t list that. It’s been an experience.
Zoo 1: Weird how this continues to shift to being my easier reading material as I settle into this short story’s vocab and Ace Attorney does the things it’s doing to me. I’m 32% in, almost 1/3 of the way through my first real Japanese book!
Big related achievement: today I mined my 2000th word in Anki 
24 Likes
That’s a really cool looking flower!
I got: ナツツバキ [夏椿] - Japanese Stewartia, which is quite nice looking:
I really like the frilly petals, and that it’s a flowering tree.
But my flower meaning is a bit… off - 花言葉：愛らしい人
I um, really 365日の誕生花さん, really?? 
16 Likes
Yesterday I didn’t have time to post in this thread but I still read 30
pages ドメスティックな彼女 and some Demonbane but didn’t see anything N1 worthy yet.
Today I read 25 more pages of ドメスティックな彼女.
特訓 とっくん special training; intensive training; crash course
何卒 なにとぞ by all means; without fail N1
遣らかす やらかす to make (a blunder); to commit (an error)
極秘 ごくひ absolute secrecy
寝癖 ねぐせ bed hair; hair disarranged during sleep
20 Likes
Day 14 complete.
2 weeks already! Feels good
I read this weeks chapter of からかい上手の高木さん, which was super cute as always.
I learned a few interesting words, including 負け惜しみ, which means Poor Loser.
22 Likes
January 14th:
Today finished chapter 3 of それでも歩は寄せてくる. Felt pretty good about recognizing 生. This chapter was funny as usual.
Question
What do the どーだ 's mean in the picture below? I assume it’s onomatopoeia.
21 Likes
Is this the same book that you’re reading?
Because I also saw this and now I am wondering if there are two books with the same title? Or is it like the YA books in English which would come out with their own covers and then have a movie tie-in when the movie’s released?
10 Likes
The first one is the original 1960s novel by 筒井康隆.
The second is an illustrated adaptation (apparently from a line of アニメ絵本) of the 2006 anime of the same name that’s loosely based on the novel, so in that listing it credits the director (監督) of the anime along with the author of the work it was based on (原作) rather than crediting him more straightforwardly as the author (著者). It’s probably a simple walkthrough of the plot of the movie intended for kids who enjoyed it in movie form. The listening advertises it as having furigana and being perfect for reading out loud to children.
I believe also that the anime doesn’t follow the original’s plot, but goes in its own direction with the premise, so being based on the anime rather than the novel likely means a significant difference storywise as well.
Hope that helps!
15 Likes
Day 14: January 14th
365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 19 min
Today’s color: 璃寛茶 (りかんちゃ) - I would characterize this as sort of an olive khaki color
I can’t say that this is my most favorite color, but apparently it was popular in the 文化文政 period among kabuki actors? It is, in fact, named for a kabuki actor who liked it and used it all the time xD
Some words
- 高じる (こうじる) - to grow in intensity; to be aggravated; to get worse; to develop
- 持てはやす (もてはやす) - to praise extravagantly; to lionize; to make much of
- 再認識 (さいにんしき) - recognizing anew; seeing something in a new light
まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 11 min
Today’s reading was about water that you drink on 寒九 (かんく) - the ninth day of the cold season. Apparently it’s like…the best water 
Also learned about 寒仕込み (かんじこみ) - cold preparation of sake (or soy sauce, or miso). I guess the cold slows the fermentation and makes it mellower/smoother (for sake) or gives it more umami (for soy sauce/miso).
What else did I read?
じじ猫くらし
Amount read: 23 pages
Time spent: 17 min
Those cute animals are coming back
I started reading this manga in the last challenge and have not yet finished it - basically the premise is Man Living with Cat while Cat does Cat Things 
This is The Cat
Today, the man took the cat out for a walk, which I always think is an adorable thing to do :3
And here are some good words!
- 風の子 (かぜのこ) - outdoor creatures (I love this word so much)
- 目一杯 (めいっぱい) - to the limit; to the full; as much as possible; with all one’s might
- くねくね - winding; meandering; wriggling; wiggling; waving; swaying; twisting and turning
- ほかほか - comfortably warm; steaming hot (food); piping hot; glowing (with warmth)
Oooo I’m curious
22 Likes
January 14 
Home Post
Today is a very sleepy day (after driving for like 8 hours lmao) so not a whole lot of reading; I absolutely did not have the mental energy for 錆喰いビスコ so I read like half a chapter of ラストゲーム and tapped out 
It’d been a while, I missed their shenanigans! Man it’s a WORLD of difference going back to ラストゲーム after wading through like heavy prose, it feels so much easier in comparison, even with tired brain so that feels good! Just a bit of a fun read today; I’ll get back in more depth tomorrow 
Audiobook digression
I did listen to Japanese audiobooks for a bit on the way! I tried 魔法少女育成計画 (thank you @pocketcat for the rec!) and from what I could grasp of it it seems really interesting, but I definitely need to try it when I’m like not driving and can look things up and such one day though!
I also attempted 時をかける少女 and it was certainly easier to understand, but man I got mentally exhausted fast. All of this is just calling out my lack of listening skills lmao… more things to work on 
Fun words!
しけこむ - to shack up with (this is a peak romcom making fun of your friends word lmao)
万が一 - just in case, worst case scenario
ためらい - faltering, hesitation
21 Likes
Day 13:
日本語: I read some of 伯爵と妖精 30.
Read-aloud: We read a chapter of ふしぎの国のバード.
中国語
中国語: I read an intermediate entry on Mandarin Bean and one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学.
22 Likes
