📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

Yep, that’s the same reasoning that I followed with my book as well. Maybe in a year or five we will laugh about all the headaches they gave us :blush:

Ah, understood! I heard that some VN’s can be really hard, if only for the sheer mass of text (and subsequently vocabulary) they contain. But this is just a little heads up and not meant to discourage you! By all means go for it if you like to read them :+1:

I see - I should better shut up about books and difficulties and let you do your thing already :rofl:

Genki 2 should give you a solid grammar foundation, and manga definitely should give you a good foundation in reading practice, at least when it comes to spoken Japanese. Satori Reader is more like texts, is it? (Because reading long sentences is a very different story from reading conversations in manga.)
Taking these three together I think you should be good to read any of the previous or current Intermediate Book Club picks tbh :+1:

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Can’t wait :slightly_smiling_face:

Yeah to my understanding there is a pretty massive variety in how difficult they can be, with the usual rule of thumb about going closer to slice of life for an easier time still being in play. This is automated so it’s definitely flawed, but I also have jpdb as a vague estimator of difficulty. I’ll certainly be choosing one from a subset that seem easier.

That said, one of the many things that tipped me over the edge to wanting to learn Japanese was that Summer Pockets might never get its expanded version released in English, and that is, relative to VNs, on the easier side, so I’m strongly considering picking it up soon!

Aww nah, haha, I do need to be cognizant of what I’m getting myself into, and books are great too. I’m just kind of reading them on the side at the moment because there are far, far too much things in Japanese that I want to read. On one hand all that matters to me is how cool it is at all that I can sort of read this stuff – but the desire to read everything puts reading speed on my mind too often, haha.

Very glad to hear it! And yeah, Satori Reader is, most of the time, longer form writing the way a book would be. Just with a lot of handholding explanations and, of course, a bit of a step down in difficulty from most any native material.

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Summary Post

January 19
君の名は , 9 pages.


Crazy how I’m still adding from 10 to 20 new words everyday. I like it a lot though, there’s so much to learn, and of course not everything that I add is suuuper important but I still like to learn some cool words nonetheless! I’ve also learned quite a few new kanji already, which is also great.

@Zakarius all read! Nothing more to add from my part :slight_smile:

Well actually, have another tanuki :raccoon:

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Riiiight? :joy_cat:

That sounds like a very good preparatory step. Of course native material will have its rough edges no matter what, but I guess you are already somewhat used to that from reading manga. Also, with Genki 2 under your belt I think you are aware that reading your first real book will not be smooth sailing all the time, but at least you have already seen most of the conjugations and similar things, and the remaining grammar points are mainly just combinations of words, which I think is much easier to google (or even to understand at face-value, which might be enough to start with).

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…and once again I very quickly got out of the habit of updating daily lol. My boyfriend was visiting for a few days so that cut down a bit on my japanese time, but I did still manage snatches of ときめき GS4 and/or 鏡の孤城 every day :slight_smile:

This evening, because I have my iTalki lesson tomorrow where we are going to be talking about this article that I posted previously about the film フタリノセカイ - I decided to try to browse twitter and find and read some more articles and reviews about it. I started with this review: フタリノセカイ (2021):映画短評|シネマトゥデイ
…which even though it is only like a paragraph long, I had to look up pretty much every second word, so was pretty tough. It really made me want to watch the film though! I particularly love the title of the article :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

Then, because that article felt like a bit of a failure I also read the ‘introduction’ section on the films website, and that was way more manageable. Thanks to that, I learned that the director of this made another film previously that is also autobiographical and won a film award at the time of release- and a little bit of googling led me to the entire film available to watch on youtube! (僕らの未来) Which makes the fact that I now really really want to watch a film that has only just been released in japanese cinemas a little more tolerable as I can watch this one in the meantime (there are no subs of any kind so it will be a test of my listening abilities lol)

I feel like Ace Attorney is a particularly great game for dipping in and out of given that it’s broken into the different cases. So hopefully even if you need to replay a bit of that case when you come back to it - it should be easier than picking up a book midway or something :slight_smile:

Also…I am playing on Switch (no Yomichan :sob:) so this makes me scared of this case lol. But yeah, worst thing that happens is that is gets paused for a bit and that’s not too terrible. I feel like some of my favourite experiences with japanese so far have been when I’ve tried something and then dropped it because it’s been too hard and then come back a while later and found that it’s way more readable/comprehensible, it feels like magic :star2:

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Day 19 :slight_smile:
I finished Volume 3 of レンタルおにいちゃん - as expected, the final chapter was a lot heavier than those last few cheerful chapters :sob:
I’m kind of sad that the next book is the last one, but also looking forward to seeing how everything wraps up.

(Home Post)

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Yeah those experiences of looking back and seeing you’ve really gotten better are fabulous.

You’re braver (better :stuck_out_tongue:) than me for going at it without Yomichan on hand, haha. While I’ve been able to get through and understand it, it should be said that the lookups have been super frequent all game. This part’s just a little harder to brute force my way through.

If you do find case 5 to be taxing like I did, obviously I can’t speak to how the next game is, but if you at least want to try, what you said about dipping out of cases goes doubly for this particular case. It was written IIRC after the rest of the whole trilogy had already been made, so you’re definitely not missing any continuity. As much as I like what the case does, in the larger scale of the series as a whole it mainly sets up a few characters who show up in the 4th game and beyond.

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Home post

Day 12:

:four_leaf_clover::four_leaf_clover: I read 4 pages of よつばと! today:) :four_leaf_clover::four_leaf_clover:

It’s late tho (00:10) so imma hit the hay

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Yesterday read the last 80 pages of tゴールデンゴールド volume 1 the manga was strange don’t even know if I like or hate it.

Today
First I read 40 pages はじめての虐殺 volume 1 the next strange manga but it was free on bookwalker.
Next 30 pages of Yamada kun and the Seven Witches this manga is super easy don’t even need to put any effort into reading it.

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Haha, not at all. I’ve definitely been looking up a lot of stuff when playing so far…just using my phone which is more of a hassle!

oooh, that’s good to know! I’ll maybe give it a bit of a shot when I get there and if it’s too much of a struggle maybe I can save it as a little treat to come back for once I’m through the rest of the trilogy :slight_smile:

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Home post

Day 18:

日本語: I read a fair amount of 伯爵と妖精 31.

中国語

中国語: I read an intermediate entry on Mandarin Bean, one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学, and a lot of 孩子最爱读的中国民间故事.

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Summary post

Day 19: January 19th

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 14 min
Today’s color: 雪色 (せっしょく) - snow white (which is not pure white, but white with a hint of bluish grey)

:cloud_with_snow: :cloud_with_snow:
:snowflake: :snowflake: :snowflake:

I don’t really have much to say today
Snow is very pretty before it gets trampled into slush

Some good words
  • 雪白 (せっぱく) - snow-white; pure; immaculate
  • 純白 (じゅんぱく) - pure white; snow white
  • ほのか - faint; indistinct; dim

まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 5 min

Tomorrow is 二十日正月 (はつかしょうがつ) - which means the New Year’s festivities are really over, guys. Like, for real, time to pack up all those decorations and finish eating all your New Year’s fish. xD

What else did I read?
囀る鳥は羽ばたかない
Amount read: 4 pages
Time spent: 19 min

Didn’t have much time today so I didn’t want to start anything new - seemed like an excellent time to squeeze in this week’s book club reading though.

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Main Post
January 18-19th
I don’t mind reading every day, but I may post lest frequently on some days.
I read some random things I came across on the 18th but the majority of my reading was trying to read messages on a game called Sky: Children of the Light. The people who made the game is ThatGameCompany (that’s their actual name) and you might know them from their other games Journey, Flower, and Flow. It’s basically a spiritual successor to Journey with an emphasis on interacting with other people. The game has a lot of players from other countries so it’s not that hard to find a Japanese Message. One message I read appeared to be a player celebrating because they got 1000 candles (the currency in the game). Sorry if I sound like a shill, I just really like the game.

Today I read Chapter 5 of それでも歩は寄せてくる. I could almost read Ayumu’s proclamation that he’s not going back to the kendo club without the translator. I felt really good about that.
I did get confused with the use of 「王」 and 「玉」. I assume they’re references to shogi. I feel it represents who goes first, but I’m probably wrong. What does it mean?

Picture for Reference

Thank you! I forgot to mention that it did feel pretty good to figure that out :durtle_noice:. Looking forward to more of those.

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Not a shogi expert by any means, but 玉将 is an important piece in shogi - it’s like the king in chess. And this section of the wikipedia article about it I think holds the relevant information here. Apparently a 王将 is sometimes used, that works the same way, and the idea is that because 「天に二日なく、地に二王なし」 (there are no two suns in the sky, nor two kings on earth), the higher-ranked player uses 王将, the lower-ranked uses 玉将. Which I think fits with the context of the panel you mentioned!
So it’s a bit like playing black or white in chess or go, but with a bit of a status aspect attached.

I googled 将棋盤 and found these examples with the two pieces, so it's probably a common thing


Guessing it was about who goes first is definitely a good guess since it does mark one side or the other, but looking around it looks like going first is determined a different way.

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January 19 :snowflake: Home Post

Well chapter 5 was pretty short, I was just casually working through it and suddenly it was over :joy: so another one down in a day then! This chapter was a great (if emotional) time; ジャビ just scaring the hell out of ビスコ for their reunion? ビスコ and ミロ becoming like mushroom partners and going off on a journey together? (what you mean the shounen protagonists are gonna be friends?? crazy)

I love ジャビ, I have a lot of feelings about him and his relationship with ビスコ, but god are his speech patterns weird :joy: I’m not experienced enough with dialects to be able to pin anything down concretely, but whenever I’ve looked things up it all seems to be different?? Like different dialects, some archaic stuff, really who knows with him. The ongoing adventures of 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ :sparkles: 25% of the way through, it’s official!

Fun words

人質(ひとじち) - hostage
遺言(ゆいごん) - will, last request
(おきて) - code, agreement
固唾(かたず)()む - to hold one’s breath (in fear)
(ぼそ)く - thin, feeble
葛藤(かっとう) - conflict, discord
道連(みちづ)れ - traveling companion, taking someone along (in death)
(くち)(つぐ)む - to hold one’s tongue, to shut up

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Summary Post

Day 19: Today I finished volume 3 of よつば&!

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:snowflake: Main Tracking Hub :snowflake:

1月8日〜18日

It never fails that, when I have to go on a short trip away from home for a few days, I not only scramble to read whatever I can to keep the streak alive, but I also fall behind on reading all the posts here. :sob:

Materials:
:white_large_square: TODAI
:white_large_square: Twitter (for those really desperate times)
:red_square: きのう何食べた?1

I downloaded the first volume of きのう何食べた? to read while I traveled. It’s about this guy who’s got a passion for cooking (and scoring deals at the grocery store) and his boyfriend (who seems like the opposite type of person). I haven’t looked any words up while reading so far. I understand the gist of what’s happening, but I couldn’t tell you everything the fellow ended up making in his first cooking scene. :sweat: I did get me thinking that a good idea for reading practice would be to follow recipes in Japanese, though.

For TODAI, I read an article about the potato shortage and how McDonald’s was offering smaller portions of fries because of it. That’s…all I can remember. It’s been a while since I’ve made an update, all right…

Though I felt like it was a little bare bones, I do think reading tweets in Japanese is decent practice. You end up coming across different speech styles, depending on the person writing the tweets. That said, if I spent less time on Twitter, I’d have more time to get through my backlog of Japanese books. :unamused:

I’m going to read some of 地球星人 before bed. Hopefully this gets me back on track. :crossed_fingers:

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My condolences - this will be me shortly. I have little faith I’ll manage to keep up my article reading, book reading, and listening practice daily while visiting family. :sob: These posts will also more than likely get lost in the shuffle.

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This morning I read sixteen pages of ちゃお. I’ve now completed 190 out of the 600 pages. It’s the first Japanese book (manga-style magazine) I’ve read, so I’m pretty happy with the progress. Some new words I learnt today:

目茶苦茶------めちゃくちゃ------absurd; unreasonable; nonsensical

姫------ひめ------young lady of noble birth; princess

バチバチ------crackling (of fire, fireworks, etc.)

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Today’s article was 日本発「今年の漢字」が各国に広まった理由とその背景は? 中国辞書学会会長が状況を解説 - it’s about the kanji of the year committee basically

Some words I looked up

追加 - supplement (to something)
再構成 - reorganize
阪神 - Hanshin - a name for the area including Osaka to Kobe
反映 - reflecting light; influencing
成語 - set phrase
象徴 - symbolic representation
脱却 - to rid yourself of s.t.
華人 - ethnic Chinese people w/o citizenship living outside of China
華語 - same meaning of 中国語 but I have to wonder if there’s nuance here
華僑 - Chinese people living outside of China
有機的に - working in a coordinated fashion
春節 - lunar new year
対聯 - pair of hanging scrolls
漢代 - Han dynasty

I found out the kanji of the year for 2021 was 金 and it has been the pick 4 times now (this tradition started in 1995). I’m actually going to break this up and finish the rest of the article either tonight or tomorrow morning. I was not expecting it to be quite so difficult but when I started the section 漢字や漢字文化は極めて強い浸透力を発揮しつづけた my brain started to melt on all the new history and location words.

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