📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

[sycamore]

mini reading day today! (I might read some かがみの孤城 before bed but I am 100% not allowed to start playing ときめき at this time lol, don’t trust myself not to just stay up until 3am or something and I’ve already had a zero motivation work week)

My iTalki teacher suggested that I find an article for us to discuss for my lesson next week and I was actually trying to find the ‘original’ version of an article that I saw on NHK news easy about gendered uniforms in schools but instead found this article (好きなのに結婚できず、子どもを持てない…　トランスジェンダーの監督が描く恋愛映画「フタリノセカイ」：東京新聞 TOKYO Web) about a film I’m now definitely interested in watching when it comes out. The film is called フタリノセカイ and is from a transgender director, based on his own experiences. I thought he had some interesting things to say when quoted in the article and I might actually see if I can find some kind of longer interview!

@basilsauce

I left a long-ish review of 怪盗探偵山猫 on Natively .

ooooh, this sounds really good! Have added to my Natively wish list for the future

@skatefriday

岡崎市 has an absolutely spectacular 花火大会.

Aw, it looks amazing! Were you in 岡崎市 to study at Yamasa Institute?

further questions to @skatefriday that are irrelevant to this thread

Yamasa is on my list of ones I’m looking into for hopefully going to Japan for a few months in 2023 (coronavirus dependent obvs) - but most of the reviews I’ve found for it are really old. Would you be okay if I asked you a few questions about your experience there, and how you found 岡崎市? If so, my discord is sycamore#6187 (or there might be a more relevant language school thread here, not sure)

[NihongoLearner19]

I finished the last chapter of 蓮住荘のさんかく 1 today. My first manga read (in Japanese) this year! Definitely recommended. Very easy, fun, and cute. I believe the first volume is still free on Amazon.jp, too!

[lucylavelle]

Day 13
I finished the second volume of レンタルおにいちゃん, and with it ending the way it did I think I’m going to have to start volume 3 as soon as I can!
I’ll try to be sensible and do all of my bookclub reading first though.

(Home Post)

[skatefriday]

@sycamore

Aw, it looks amazing! Were you in 岡崎市 to study at Yamasa Institute?

Yes. Sent you a discord friend request. Happy to answer any Yamasa questions you have.

[Redglare]

Summary post

January 13
・かがみの孤城.

Progress: (72% → 79%)

Got a bit distracted by stuff, but eventually managed to focus on reading. It’s super late now tho

[chamellow]

Update post for the last uhh… 10 days, oops! | Home post here!

So I’ve kept up with reading every day but work has been manic so I’ve had to let some things slide and daily posts were one of them!

I’ve not been playing so much Animal Crossing this last week because I ended up starting Persona 5 Royal last Friday (in English) and I’ve gotten a bit sucked in, but I have a week off work next week so I can stretch free time enough to incorporate two games.

I have, however, been keeping up with レンタルおにいちゃん at a steady pace, and I’m now almost done with Vol.3 - just one chapter to go! I’ve mostly been stopping when something is a bit too much for me to comprehend because of brain tiredness, and it’s quite interesting to see how quickly I’m able to follow that previously difficult page with ease when it’s the first page I read the next day. Perhaps brain fatigue is half to blame, or is my brain mulling on it during sleep?

Interesting words picked up over the last week:
転校 てんこう - changing schools.
堂々巡り どうどうめぐ - going around in circles

@lucylavelle

Thanks for giving me the little push I needed to start reading this volume, @chamellow! I’m really enjoying it.

I’m so glad! I’m almost done with Vol. 3 now and I’m so enjoying the character development, I’m going to be quite sad when it’s all over. I feel like we’re going to get a happy ending so it’s not going to be too bittersweet but part of me is still fearing a curveball at the end.

[CyberSlam]

Main post

January 13th:
Read 2 pages of それでも歩は寄せてくる
A little tired today so I only read two pages. I really like the look on Ayumu’s face when Urushi said she wanted club members.

[windupbird]

Summary post

Day 13: January 13th

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 16 min
Today’s color: 宍色 (ししいろ) - meat color

So…I’m a bit confused, because the internet seems to indicate that 宍色 is a light pink tone, but the book’s coloring is this? I’m…am I crazy or are those completely different colors? I mean, they’re both kind of flesh-colored, I guess, but…in different ways lol. Interestingly, the book says it can also be called 肉色 (にくいろ) - googling that seems to bring me colors that are closer to what the book used.

Anyway, here are some words I learned

• 橙色 (だいだいいろ) - orange (I just now realized that I’ve never actually heard the Japanese word for orange, I’ve only seen オレンジ色)
• カモシカ - serow, wild goat

まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 8 min

Today I learned about furisode (振袖), kimonos with long sleeves. I think the most interesting part was learning that apparently furisode could be used to indicate one’s romantic interest in the old days - swinging the sleeves left to right means you’re interested, and swinging them front to back means no thank you please xD

What else did I read?
囀る鳥は羽ばたかない Vol 1
Amount read: 9 pages
Time spent: 46 min

And I’m officially caught up! I think! There are literally no page numbers so it’s really kind of hard to tell!
But also I learned a great word today!
脱臼 (だっきゅう) - dislocation I like it 'cause the second kanji is literally dislocated

@fustian_garb

There’s an app for these! And you can flick between the Japanese and English versions. If you search for Japanese seasons on your app store you should find it.

Oh cool! I’m gonna take a look

[sansarret]

Finished Chapter 8 of 極主夫道 in 5 days, reading 30+ minutes each day. Keeping up with the challenge, but going too slow.

Home post

[natarin]

January 13 Home Post

So I finished chapter two of 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ today which means I read it in two days It’s a shorter chapter, only twelve pages, but like… that’s wild? That would’ve been exhausting to even think about like two weeks ago; it’s amazing to see how much has changed already! I’m definitely feeling the whole “the beginning of a book is the hardest part” thing; it’s still really hard for sure, but I have a much better feel for the book at this point and I think it’s really making a difference. The hardest part now is really some of the flowery language and weird speaking styles of some of the characters, but what else is new huh?

I’ll be on the road for most of tomorrow soooo not sure how much reading I’ll be able to fit in, but here’s hoping for the best! (if anyone has recommendations for good Japanese audiobooks or anything let me know )

Cool words

裏腹(うらはら) - opposite, contrary
聖人君子(せいじんくんし) - person of perfect virtue, saint
歪(ゆが)める - to curve, to warp, to distort (this was used to describe a smile and god it just captures the energy perfectly)
思(おも)い思(おも)い - as one likes, in one’s own way
陥(おちい)る - to fall into (chaos)
三(み)つ編(あ)み - braid (this was already drilled into me by ラストゲーム so it was good to see it again lmao, it’s like an old friend)

[tiny_river_otter]

Summary Post

Day 13: Today I read the last two bonus chapters at the end of the Way of the Househusband, and so I’ve finished the volume!

[pocketcat]

@natarin

if anyone has recommendations for good Japanese audiobooks

I’m not totally sure your level, so recommend listening to the previews and judging for yourself, but these are my reccs:

Hidden for length

コーヒーが冷めないうちに is the easiest audiobook for adults I’ve come across. Slower spoken, every day vocabulary, nothing unusual for dialects that I can recall (listened to it last year). It’s a nice chill story about a coffee shop where urban legend has it you can travel back in time, but only to meet with people who have been in the coffee shop before, and nothing you do can change the present. Other rules explained along the way.

世界から猫が消えたなら is a story about a man who finds out he’s going to die, and the devil appears to make him a deal. He’ll extend his life, in exchange for vanishing things from the world. This one is also more slowly narrated than usual for a lot of scenes, but not all. It’s more of a vocab stretch than the one above, though.

謎解きはディナーのあとで - I literally bought this today so no review, but I listened to the preview on the site and it sounded pretty straight forward with the caveat that you already are well familiar with both formal-ish language and crime vocab.

スマホを落としただけなのに - You will need a lot of both crime and tech vocab, but the writing style is quite straight forward and no one speaks using a dialect. I enjoyed this a lot, but it is violent. See my Natively review for details if wanted.

[valkow]

Home post

Day 12:

日本語: I read a fair amount of 伯爵と妖精 30.
Read-aloud: We read two chapters of 7SEEDS.

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.

[vonnutje]

Day 14: January 14

• 君の名は。page 90-109

[foxabell]

Home Post!

Sorry for the late post! Was really busy settling into school but I think I’m more or less settled in

Anyways, I’m glad to say that I finished 3 chapters of また、同じ夢を見てた and managed to hit at least 1000 words per Day

Anyways, time for the motivational picture

[TheGreywolfMunch]

Day 14: Read from page 169-171 of Kiki, which took 5–10 minutes. Those are the easiest pages I’ve read so far in the book, lol. Kiki and Jiji were attempting to rewrite the poem that blew into the river so there weren’t many words on each page, they were mostly repeated from the previous pages, the sentences were extremely easy to understand and I already knew most new words that came up.
Good because it’s late again and I need to sleep . Cough, my time management needs a lot of work

I’m becoming more motivated by the fact I can now spend only days on each chapter, compared to a month/months on one.

[Shinpachi]

Last night I read two pages out the magazine ちゃお, and one page out of the magazine キャラぱふぇ. The second was a mini manga about Kirby, so there were some terms used in video games.

攻撃力------こうげきりょく-------offensive ability

敵------てき------opponent; rival

[pocketcat]

Today’s article was 玉木宏、俳優業の心構えとは?「ときには音楽家に」「難しいことばかり」 which is another interview with an actor. This guy I recognize from 桜の塔 where he had an excellent performance.

Some words I looked up

たたずむ - to stand around
着こなす - to dress fashionably
称賛 - praise
合成 - composition
費やす - to use time/money/effort
体得 - understanding/learning via experience

Maybe I’m just extra tired this morning but I feel like I just read a whole lot of nothing.

[natarin]

Oooooh those all sound really interesting I’ll definitely have to check them all out more! Right now I’m trying to use up some audible credits I have lying around and it looks like the only one they have is 謎解きはディナーのあとで, so we’ll see how that goes, but I may have to reevaluate my audiobook shopping avenues so I can check out some of the others in the future

Thank you so much for the suggestions, I really appreciate it!

[Thud]

Main Post

Have just finished reading through the little sidechapter and therefore finishing Spy x Family vol 5. The last two chapters in the main story were a bit more difficult to read than the others. I think that’s only fair as they were mission based, new characters and took place in a hospital. Was very tired on wednesday and it got late as well, so that didn’t go as smooth as I wanted. It also took a while for me to extract Fiona’s codename. とばり is how it’s pronounced and it is written as 夜帷. Neither of these immediately made sense to me, until I looked up how they translated it as Nightfall. That was kinda the missing step I needed to piece it together. Then using later I found the sentence 夜のとばりが下りつつある and the circle was complete… until I pieced together this post and had to retrace my steps to find it and also found an idiomatic expression related to it. Either way what should have been obvious, because I have read this manga in English before and all the codenames have a similar theme, wasn’t really that obvious in the moment and that led to this rabbit hole.

Anyway, my general impression of volume 5 is that is pretty good. It has a bit of everything you’d expect after a big event in volume 4 and also hinting at a new one. I feel I gotten closer to understanding the series and that the cold war setting is part of its difficulty. The sidechapter (see pics below) was very cute and that’s kinda where I leave it at.

Volume 5 - short mission-

I’ll be taking a pause from Spy x Family for a bit to read something different, starting with Tatsuki Fujimoto’s one-shot Look Back. I have read it before through mangaplus and it’s really good so I was looking forward to the volume release, which I almost immediately bought. Was not a big fan of Chainsawman, but Look Back was the work that made me appreciate Fujimoto as the real deal. It looked a bit daunting to me when I flipped through it last year. Now that I feel like I made a lot of progress, it seems like the perfect time to go back to it and actually read it for the challenge. I’m not entirely sure how long it will take me.