January 27 update:
Read 4 pages of 時をかける少女 (finished chapter 19). This chapter finally fills in a few blank spaces that had been bothering me, and although the explanation is a bit cliché (maybe not by the standards of 1960s when the book was written?), everything makes sense now.
Also, just a couple chapters left, so it’s time to start thinking what to read next. This book was a bit of a stretch for me, so I’ll probably pick something easier this time to give myself some rest
Although I got my 君の名は and 天気の子, which I want to read so much! But the time hasn’t come, not yet.
Another hour or more done? I’ll never think to actually time this properly haha. Had a nice time reading, too, it’s better landing in that zone where, yeah this is goofy and frivolous right now, but it’s not goofy and frivolous in a way I’m going to pretend to be too cool for. There’s a fine line for me sometimes with this stuff, but today, it was as charming as I was hoping for.
No history lessons or anything big today, but what I did learn is that おむすび is a more polite word for おにぎり🍙. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that such a word exists.
This game has a super wide vocabulary right now and isn’t nicely repeating words too often for me, but I suppose I’m still in a prolonged introduction to the cast phase (and I guess I’m about halfway on total number of main characters, who I assume have routes, encountered?). Can’t complain about learning words, though I did seem to pick up more odd readings or kanji not featured on WK than usual today, so Anki might be a pain in my near future.
My favorite new word is 隠し味 (かくしあじ), secret ingredient/“subtle seasoning that brings out the flavor” according to jisho. It’s hidden taste!
I feel like I’ve really been falling behind on being able to read and add Japanese definitions recently, which isn’t a huge deal, but I’m only getting a couple most days which can be a little bit of a drag. Too many words in those definitions that I don’t know.
On the subject of Japanese dictionaries, I just want to leave you all with a definition I came across for 二言 : "その場の都合で前に言ったことと別のことを言うこと。” – こと sure is a useful word. こと々々
Day 27!
I finished Chapter 18 of レンタルおにいちゃん, another very emotional chapter!
Only two chapters left now… I’m going to be sad to finish it I think.
Also need to decide what to read next - I have the light novel of 君の名は which I’m excited about starting, but am also aware that I’m going to struggle with. So I’m thinking that I should pick something simpler to read too, so that I can switch to that if there are days that 君の名は feels like too much.
I’m thinking either よつばと! or しろくまカフェ at the moment.
I read another three pages of よつばと! today. I struggled a bit, in part because I’m pretty tired (between Japanese and university I’ve spent the whole day studying pretty much).
Today's reading had a ton of different words describing snow, which I thought was quite fun
銀世界 (ぎんせかい) - snowscape
銀盤 (ぎんばん) - skating rink; ice surface
細雪 (ささめゆき) - light snow fall; small snow flakes
綿雪 (わたゆき) - large snowflakes
牡丹雪 (ぼたんゆき) - large snowflakes (like the really big fluffy ones that are like big clumps)
粉雪 (こなゆき) - powder snow; powdery snow
雪化粧 (ゆきげしょう) - coating of snow; blanket of snow
綿帽子 (わたぼうし) - clumps of snow (on tree branches, stones, etc.) “cotton hat” you guys, that’s so cute
What else did I read?
お前、タヌキにならねーか? Vol 1
Amount read: 10 pages
Time spent: 36 min
Continuing to meet more of the tanuki! This one’s name is タヌキチ and he’s so in love, it’s super cute :3 He’s married to a human, and the way they met is like the sweetest thing <3 She’s living a fairytale and she doesn’t even know it lol
Good words
良くある - to often be the case; to occur frequently; to be common; to be popular
why is this tiny shark so darn cute??? I keep squeaking when I look through it, it’s so cute >< I cannotttt D: It’s a little baby shark that goes on adventures, how can you not love it
The purchase even came with a free phone background. Just look at him, he drew you a picture ;_;
Anyway…yeah, I’m continuing on my tradition of cute shark manga
Here are the other ones I bought along with it!
Hopefully they are good, I kind of semi-blind bought a lot of them based on the cover art and the google translated amazon blurbs (which always come out like 50% nonsense but I’m just lazy enough that I can’t be bothered with the Japanese blurbs xD It’s a bad habit)
Animal Crossing. Chatted with my villagers for a while today. ~2hr
Watching Terrace House Aloha State with Japanese subtitles. I can almost read as fast as they are speaking some of the time. A noticeable improvement over the last attempt I made. Probably from all the reading I’ve been doing. Hooray!
Not interested in doing any heavy lifting, reading wise, today.
I didn’t have much time to read today, so just two pages of 風つよ They were some non-negligible pages though; very little dialogue and therefore dense, and also we’ve started talking about ハイジ’s knee which I am NOT ready for, not the angst pls so still a good read! I hope to do more over the weekend for sure
(One of the nice things about 風つよ is that it has a little ribbon bookmark built in, feels very fancy, very refined)
Some words
ぼんやり - absentmindedly, idly
片隅 - corner, nook
残滓 - remnant, residue, dregs
くすぐったい - embarassing, ticklish
飽きが来る - to get tired of, to lose interest in
Ooh very interesting Not like I’m that great at wordle even in my native language lmao, but that’ll be a fun challenge each day, thanks for sharing!
Ohhhh those are all so pretty very good aesthetics, and the little shark bud?? Hello?? Definitely interested to see how those turn out!
Today I translated the first half of a recipe from my 食戟のソーマ (Food Wars) Cook Book. The recipe is for a 三食丼 (tri-coloured donburi). (A どんぶり is a bowl of meat/fish/vegetable served over rice). I’m going to try and make it in a couple days. I learnt a lot of new vocabulary, including counters for measurements.
三食丼------さんしょくどん------tri-coloured donburi
杯------はい------counter for cupfuls (rice in this recipe)
本------ぼん or ぽん------counter for long cylindrical things (green onions in this recipe)
For the last two days (January 27-28), I started the 2nd chapter of スローループ vol 1. It’s interesting that they use the kanji for bud 蕾 (つぼみ), which combines the radicals of flower and thunder. You know what April rain brings? May flowers and flowers come from buds. Also added a few vocabulary to the list.
Yesterday, I started Pokemon Legends Arceus, and it’s probably the first core games that have Furigana and no seperate Kanji/Kana option. I always play with Pokemon in Japanese with the Kanji option since I find it a bit easier as it’s a bit harder to get the context of everything in Kana. Only played a few minutes, but I will probably play more soon.