January 19 update:
Read 5 pages of 時をかける少女 today. Apparently I misinterpreted how things are supposed to work in this story, or perhaps they were a bit misleading in the beginning, whether intentionally or not.
Spoilers
So this chapter I read today started with a time leap, as was expected from how the previous chapter ended, but the mechanics of it were different. Kazuko ended up in the same place she was before the leap, and it surely wasn’t the same place she was supposed to be at in her past where she “landed.” She even thought that there is indeed a second Kazuko sleeping in her bed, and went on to check – only to find that there’s none (well, actually, this was in the second line of the next chapter, which I didn’t intend to read, but I couldn’t resist peeking, even though this was kind of expected from other circumstances, such as her having her schoolbag with her).
So this looks like a weird hybrid between the two options I described above: the consciousness stays in the same body, just at an earlier time; …and the body teleports? Sounds weird to me, but let’s see how they explain this – if there’s any explanation at all. Or maybe my interpretation is wrong again
Thanks for the help, and I’m glad to hear that worked for you! Ace Attorney isn’t going anywhere anyway so it’s probably the right call. Once some of this reading is a little more comfortable at its base, it’d be a better time to tackle some of this stuff that’s tripping me up.
I very much appreciate the suggestion, and I’ve had a great time with some of the low level book clubs for manga, but I think my plan for now is to head out into another visual novel. I’ve always kind of planned to make that where I get the majority of my sentence mining from since you can easily get some very nice setups for it, and reading VNs was a part of what made me want to learn Japanese from the beginning. And I’m looking forward to probably having part of it voiced, since I keep neglecting listening (relatively, anyway).
All the same, I might consider doing some of those late, after I get through Zoo 1 (and maybe 2 after, because I’m enjoying 1). Some of the excitement people here seem to have around かがみの孤城 has gotten me really interested, and I do really want to check out Sayaka Murata, whether through that or good old コンビニ人間 .
You know, it’s really hard for me myself to pin down because after I wrapped up Genki 2 I basically just read, like ~30 volumes of relatively easy manga while reading the majority of things on Satori Reader, and going to books at all always felt like a distant dream, but both Ace Attorney and Zoo 1 have been doable enough to stick them out this long. I’m still in that period where it’s hard to know how real it is yet, like, “did I just stumble onto the two unusually easiest things to read?” It’ll take a little more time to really feel like I know where I am, haha.
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
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
I see - I should better shut up about books and difficulties and let you do your thing already
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
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.
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
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).
…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
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
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
Also…I am playing on Switch (no Yomichan ) 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
Day 19
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
I’m kind of sad that the next book is the last one, but also looking forward to seeing how everything wraps up.
Yeah those experiences of looking back and seeing you’ve really gotten better are fabulous.
You’re braver (better ) 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.
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.
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
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)
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.
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?
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.
Well chapter 5 was pretty short, I was just casually working through it and suddenly it was over 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 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 錆喰いビスコ 25% of the way through, it’s official!
Fun words
人質 - hostage
遺言 - will, last request
掟 - code, agreement
固唾を呑む - to hold one’s breath (in fear)
か細く - thin, feeble
葛藤 - conflict, discord
道連れ - traveling companion, taking someone along (in death)
口を噤む - to hold one’s tongue, to shut up
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.
Materials: TODAI Twitter (for those really desperate times) 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. 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.
I’m going to read some of 地球星人 before bed. Hopefully this gets me back on track.
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. These posts will also more than likely get lost in the shuffle.
even though this was kind of expected from other circumstances, such as her having her schoolbag with her).
) 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 
) 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.
. Looking forward to more of those.
so another one down in a day then! This chapter was a great (if emotional) time; 
25% of the way through, it’s official!
TODAI
きのう何食べた？1
I did get me thinking that a good idea for reading practice would be to follow recipes in Japanese, though.
