📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

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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I’m curious how far are you into the story (e.g. which chapter?) I’m tempted to binge to catch up, but at the same time that doesn’t seem really sensible either :sweat_drops:

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Hehe, I think I would’ve felt the same if someone was just a bit ahead of me :sweat_smile: But please don’t feel pressured to catch up with me (of course, unless you want to, and have the time/energy) – I’ll still be around if you’d like to discuss it later on :slightly_smiling_face:

Too bad this book, or at least the edition I’m reading, doesn’t have chapter numbers. I quickly flipped through it, and the one I read yesterday seems to be chapter 12, unless I’ve miscounted them.

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I see, thank you for your response! That’s actually very interesting. Now I’m wondering if that adds a psychological aspect to the game. Does the player with 王 feel more pressured to win? Does a loss feel better if you had 玉? I’ll have to do some more research on it when I have time.

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:tiger2: :books: Homepost - Tigerdate: 20220120 :books: :raccoon:


Tanuki Scroll XX: お腹に忘れられたかさ :fish:

Read today’s folktale from Nagano Prefecture!

About a man who is positively parched and drinks some dirty water that turns out to have some mosquito larva in it. It gives him a bad stomach, so his friend tells him to eat a goldfish… because it’ll swim around in his stomach and eat the larva. So he does. (they just so happen to have a goldfish lying around)

It makes his stomach worse, another friend arrives and tells him he should swallow a bird to eat the goldfish. So he does. (this friend also happens to have a bird on hand)

The bird eats the fish but then starts fluttering around in his stomach making his stomach ache even more. Another friend appears and is like, “Hey, my uncle is great at catching birds I’ll go get him” um… The uncle arrives and enters the man’s stomach I um… with his trusty cap and bird catching stick, because he is a bird catching master what even

He catches the bird and … exits the man… but the poor guy’s stomach still hurts because the uncle carelessly forgot his trusty hat.

☆ Learnings ☆

New Words

幼虫「ようちゅう」ー Larva; Grub; Maggot
ボウフラ「孑孑」ー Mosquito Larva
ウヨウヨ ー Crawling with; In Swarms (onomatopoeia)
ガサガサ ー Rough (onomatopoeia) (It seems it can be used for both “rough to touch” and as in a “rough stomach” as it’s used in this story.)
さお「竿」ー Stick; Pole; Rod (I somehow missed this the first time and wrote “sword”)

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Summary Post

January 20
君の名は , 9 pages.


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So today I finished 君たちはどう生きるか and I’m feeling quite pleased that I got to the end with a vague understanding of the plot. This was the first thing I’ve read that felt a bit beyond me and I dipped to only really understanding 40-50% of it at times. But I’m looking forward to returning to it in a year or two (before the film comes out) and hopefully be able to read it more fluently next time.

Starting volume 14 of the それいけズッコケ三人組 series tomorrow which should feel like a welcome relief. Been following @Daisoujou 's debate about whether or not to put Ace Attorney to one side for a time and I’m definitely voting put aside, as much as anything for the sheer joy of coming back to it and thinking ‘this isn’t so hard after all!’

And in that spirit tomorrow I’m going to delete the save file on Pokemon Mystery Dungeon so I can re-start from the beginning but actually understand what is going on this time! It was the first game I tried to play in Japanese, more than 2 years ago and I got killed shamefully early and then couldn’t work out how to resurrect myself because I couldn’t read the menus properly.

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Main thingy

Read another two (I think?) chapters of 時をかける少女 today. I don’t think my brain can handle much more if I’m as sleep deprived as I was today (oopsie). Maybe if I did it in chunks. Or I should just go to bed earlier for more brain power during the day. :sheep:

Spoilers (Ch 8/9)

As for chapter summaries, I’ll name them “My friends believe me now” and “the car accident (2nd revision)”. But especially the latter was something. I loved the teasing of her seat neighbor (forgot the name) because somehow she reminded me of annoying parents inquiring into your love life “oh no, I understa~nd. you don’t have to make excuses, ohohoho” kind of vibes, which I found hilarious (at least when I’m not on the receiving end). But sheesh the car accident was still tough. I probably only got half of it, but it still seemed a little graphic to me?! I kind of expected the car to narrowly miss them but then nothing more happening, but the description of the car crashing went on for quite a while. I don’t think I got everything here and maybe my brain filled in the gaps with a little too much imagination, but it wasn’t exactly what I expected from a children’s book :open_mouth:

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Summary post

January 20 update:
Read 5 pages of 時をかける少女 today – presumably, chapter 13. I think I have an idea where the story is heading. I felt this way for a couple days now, and each new chapter strengthened my suspicions. I’m also kind of excited that I can make some predictions (even if I end up being wrong), because when starting this book, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to follow the story to a reasonable degree. Expectations subverted! :durtle_durtverted_lvl1:

Oh, I felt exactly the same way! I couldn’t parse a lot of the details, but it sure seemed a bit too much.

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Summary post :bookmark:

January 20

かがみの孤城 (下)
Progress: (26% → 33%)

Random stuff: Finally got to meet up on campus today, that was fun. Also unfollowed a bunch of threads, now forum should take up less of my time.

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I know what you mean! It feels more like actually reading to me where I’m enjoying the story and making speculations instead of deciphering the language. (Of course, some people manage both, but I’m pretty glad I didn’t aim for something harder for starters)

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Home post

Day 13:

I read another four pages of よつばと! today :four_leaf_clover:

:four_leaf_clover: :four_leaf_clover:

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Day 20!
So close to three weeks already :slight_smile:
I was out for most of the evening, so I thought I’d only manage to squeeze in a little bit of reading, but I started Volume 4 of レンタルおにいちゃん and ended up reading a whole chapter.
I discovered that the bookclub vocab list is empty for the whole of the 4th volume, so I figured I’d start filling it in as I read too.

(Home Post)

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I really meant to just play a little ときめき today and to read more 鏡の孤城 (which I am also really enjoying) buuuuuut I couldn’t help myself and played a few hours. I love this game, it’s so cute and silly and fun. It’s also reached a really nice level in terms of vocab for me where unknown vocab is rare enough that if I want to I can play for a while without a dictionary on hand and still have pretty decent understanding, but if I want to be a bit more serious about it I will still be able to pick up fun new words pretty frequently (not that I’m doing anything with them other than adding them to a takoboto list at the moment). I promised myself that I would stop playing for a while at the end of this playthrough and focus on non-game reading for a while…but I really want to do a 颯砂(さっさ)くん playthrough because he’s so cute :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

todays ときめき-ing. This is long because too much fun stuff happened, you have been warned lol

I am still hoping to get a Daichi ending this playthough. Because he is the cutest little button.

Buuut in todays playthrough there were DEVELOPMENTS. When your relationship is positive enough with 風真 (かずま)(white shirt in photo below) 颯砂(さっさ) (headband) 氷室(ひむろ)(blue hair) you become a little friendship group and get to go on outings together instead of dates and omg it’s just the cutest thing ever.
First it was shopping -

Then 氷室くん decided to try to teach the other two how to surf-

But didn’t actually let them go into the water because they must show it the due respect it deserves lol.

After the shopping date, 颯砂 took the MC to the castle after at sunset and man, he’s really giving 大地 a run for his money.

There was also a very fun scene with 氷室 that continued his ongoing plot of him only making cup ramen and his extreme hated of aubergine/eggplant. And another scene where he had a very intense shonen style tug of war with the school headmaster during school sports day :rofl: It’s all just too cute and fun I can barely stand it.

new vocab for today

常套手段(じょうとうしゅだん) - someone’s usual manner (used by 風真 describe how 氷室 always acts all grumpy even though he’s a lil cutie really)
カリカリ - grumpily, edgily (also used to describe 氷室、this time by 颯砂 making fun of him for being grumpy when he is hungry)
ナス - eggplant/aubergine
ぐにゃっと - flabbily, mushily (used by 氷室 to describe the texture of cooked aubergine/eggplant, which he very much does not approve of)
神出鬼没(しんしゅつきぼつ - appearing in unexpected places at unexpected moments (風真’s new nickname for the MC is 神出鬼没さん, lol)
グラグラ - wobbling, tottering (used by 氷室 to describe 風真 on a surfboard)

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:post_office:

Another Summary Post geez

Got so wrapped up playing Eastward I neglected regular updates.

Finished it yesterday. Had to switch to parallel text mode to stop wasting time looking up known kanji. The Japanese fonts are so messy. Still, tons of Japanese reading got done everyday. The dialogue and the subs are far enough away from one another that my eyes weren’t able to instantly read the English while trying to focus on the Japanese. Really only had to look when those ugly kanji came up.
The real kicker was when I discovered that this game parallels an in-built arcade jrpg homage to my favorite jrpg Dragon Quest. Really got sucked in that point.
Now, maybe the physical copy I got is slightly defective, but my game crashed a dozen times in 35 hours of gameplay. Including just after beating the final boss. Which meant playing that battle over. uhhh.
It was nice to play something with an ending again. Its been nothing but Animal crossing for nearly two years.

  • Cherry picked a couple articles posted here.
  • Previewed first chapter of Death Note to see if was really going to be that difficult.
  • Read and Reread the first story in New Penguin Parallel Text Short Stories in Japanese. Concerning the Sound of a Train Whistle in the Night or On the Efficacy of Fiction; Murakami Haruki.
  • Linux man page for the apt program. Nice to see another man page made its way into the Japanese language and it didn’t trip me up too much either.
  • Animal Crossing was mostly a miss. I did play it today but I think I might actually be tired of that one for now.

Got back into ことばのパズル もじぴったん アンコール today. Finished two puzzles and spent a decent amount of time in the games dictionary with new words I found. Had one of those, “oh, this title is much more approachable now,” moments.
Should be easier to make short updates once my regular book clubs pick back up. I say that now

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OG (I replied wrongly :face_with_peeking_eye:)

19th/20th January

ハチの話:Someone tell me why this story made me cry… I already knew what was going to happen!!! And yet!!! Here I am :smiling_face_with_tear:

このドア開けてくれよ: Another paragraph read - I struggled to place where his room was exactly to be honest… Very glad I learnt 側 last level because it keeps popping up here.

ときメモGS4:Only did Ryouta’s’ flashback for now ‘cause I have to sleep early! I know it’s a series staple but his wish is so cute! Still thinking about what personality to give him this route :thinking:

New Vocab
  • 倒れる - to fall over/collapse - thanks ハチ, not gonna forget this one :smiling_face_with_tear:
  • 吹く - to blow (wind)
  • 突然 - sudden, unexpected
  • 端 - end (of a street)
  • 正反対 - exactly opposite
  • 位置する - to be positioned in
  • 体当たり - hurling oneself at
  • 連続 - continuation/succession
  • 響き渡り - reverberation (i think??)
  • 乱暴 - violence, rough-handling
  • 眺める - to gaze at
  • 開く - to open (ひらく)
  • 揃った - to gather, to be complete
  • かざぐるま - pinwheel~ this game’s motif!
  • 模様 - pattern
  • 子供のころ - one’s childhood (nice to see another variation bc i can’t keep saying 子供の時 irl)
  • 鐘の音 - chimes of a bell, かねのね
  • 教会 - church
  • 宝物 - treasured possession

This was so cute to peek through - I’ve done a few routes already but I STILL haven’t done a group route :joy: :turtle: There’s so much to do in this game…

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ooooh! Is that determined by the first conversation choice you have when walking to school? I always just thought it would impact his initial impression of you and never realised it changed his personality! I’ve always just picked the same option lol.

That is so true! It feels like there is so much I haven’t yet seen. I’ve not even met one character yet in this playthrough (the pink haired fashion model guy) and also only met Daichi’s brother once. I forsee many more playthroughs in my future lol :sweat_smile:

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Yes! You have the option between normal/upbeat or anxious, so it’s fun to play around with a little. I’ll put the options in spoilers just in case you want to figure it out yourself aha. I definitely did a few playthroughs before realising I could change it lol.

Option 1 (”不思議な教会と…”): Normal
Option 2 (“かざくるまにした…”): Upbeat,
Option 3 (“いろんな時があったけど…”): Anxious

Same here :joy: Fashion-boy is supposed to be a heartthrob though, so we’ve got that to look forward to!

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If tech stuff interests you you might enjoy Qitta
And if you subscribe to their newsletter it always opens with Dear Great Hackers which brings me joy

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