Day 29:
I read another couple pages of よつばと！
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Day 34: Yesterday I read chapter 41 of 45 of ティアムーン帝国物語 vol. 2！I’m 77% in, and it feels really good! I also noticed that my reading speed has increased since I started this challenge. Back in December, it took me around 45 minutes to read 10 pages of ティアムーン and now it’s taking me around 30 minutes (at least on easier chapters). I’m also at a very fun part of the book, so that’s definitely increasing my desire to read more of it, which is nice!
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Today’s reading was 『全く同じ』 - another blog post from the same blog as yesterday. Seemed like a good challenge level for me. Not many / any words to look up, but the style of the sentences I have to think about because it’s so different from novel writing.
This one was about an incident at her child’s karate lessons with the mother of another student. Some friction also between her expectations and British culture.
Congratulations!!! 
Don’t sell yourself short! It might not have super complex writing but it is 100% a novel aimed at adults with normal vocabulary and grammar. That’s a big deal! 
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Homepost - Tigerdate: 20220205 
Tanuki Scroll XXXVI: かげぐち 
& プロ野球の日 
A little read today, I read today’s Edo story and “On This Day”.
The Edo story is about a restaurant that’s cheap but not very good… it’s just rice gruel, all day every day.
Today issss プロ野球の日!
Pro-Baseball day, this day in 1936 is when the 全日本職業野球連盟 was founded
I forgot to put the meaning, that’s the: All Japan Professional Baseball League
☆ Learnings ☆
New Words
かげぐち「陰口」ー Hurtful gossiping (behind someone’s back); back stabbing (by talking bad of someone)
権助「ごんすけ」ー Manservant (Though this meaning is archaic, it seems more common as a name)
Forgotten Words
薪「まき」ー Firewood (I feel I’ve come across this before but I can’t remember)
雑炊「ぞうすい」ー Rice gruel, but with bits of veg and fish in it. (Another word I’m sure I’ve seen before but not entirely sure)
Amazing how well everyone’s doing finishing all these books! 
These threads are such a positive impact, and there seems to be more people participating each time! So great to see! 
All hail TANUKI
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Yesterday
First I read an article, on a japanese site about urban legends and ghost stories. It was about a little girl and her doll. The girl really loved her doll, but one day the girl got sick and died. After the girl’s death the doll’s hair started to grow.
After that I started reading the second volume of Yamada kun and the Seven Witches 50 pages. It’s fun but I slowly get bored of reading manga every day. I need to read harder things than manga.
Today
I felt tired the whole day so I just read 50 more pages of Yamada kun and the Seven Witches.
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That’s so great! Congrats!!! I’m thrilled for you.
I’m literally just a few pages from finishing story 4 in Zoo 1, and I’m at exactly 75%. While this has never really been my main focus compared to the VN, seeing everyone finish their first books is making me want to set a soft goal to get this done before the end of February so I can do the same. Should be doable! 
Today was pretty fun! The girl from the last picture I posted is growing on me quite a bit; today she had a chat with the MC about legends of demons, including one related to the island, then leading into discussing the Momotarou story (not much of a spoiler but since it seems more significant to her character I’m blurring in case anyone wants to not know anything significant at all).
Was gonna put up a picture of a line from her… but then, I encountered cats.
Cats take priority. I came across this character basically right as I was getting ready to quit so I can’t say anything about her, but she is covered in cats, so she’s a frontrunner for first route now.
A few interesting language things I encountered:
- 行き倒れ (いきだおれ) - “collapsing in the street (from exhaustion, illness, etc.)” . The existence of a specific word for this is kind of distressing!
- お手上げ - (おてあげ) - “giving up, being in a hopeless situation, etc” . The idea of throwing up one’s hands, which I love.
- ご飯三杯はいける - (ごはんさんばいはいける) - literally something along the lines of “I could have three bowls of rice.” This took me really off guard until I looked it up, haha. It appears to be a phrase basically indicating that you are very interested in something, as “I’ll take a triple helping.” The link I found that explained it spoke solely in the context of people on the internet being a bit objectifying, but we were only talking about interest in legends, so it seems more widely applicable.
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I just discussed the topic of 過労死 - かろうし - death by overwork - with my language partner the other day, and that’s an even more distressing word in my opinion. BTW he said that it’s slowly getting better in Japan, but it’s still a thing.
Today was sauna day again! I read the Little Prince (two chapters and a bit because one of the chapters was so short). Then I also read this week’s assignment of 笑わない数学者. It’s such a crazy story! I can hardly fit all the details in my head 
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Oh for sure. That one I even knew prior to starting Japanese because of how the work culture is. It’s tragic. Glad to hear it’s improving at least, I had no idea.
This one is more like, I have to imagine the history of the word comes from some sort of awful time where that was more common.
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Day 36!
I read the last chapter and bonus chapter of Volume 4 of からかい上手の高木さん.
It was another super cute chapter. I love the art in this manga, the characters have such expressive faces. I’m looking forward to starting the next volume with the Off-shoot book club next week - and hoping we keep reading together since I’ve already bought volumes 6 and 7 too 
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I was immediately thinking overwork and also Tuberculosis, which is a huge thing in Asia up to today, and whenever I look into authors from 100 years ago or so, I find that so many of them died of Tuberculosis at a very young age, which is also really tragic, I think.
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February 5 update:
Read chapter 12 of よつばと！ today. This chapter was a bit harder than usual to follow at times for some reason (granted that I mostly avoided looking up vocab) – not sure if it’s any different or I was just tired. The thing that caught my attention today though was how deceptive the chapter covers sometimes are, and this time is was used as a storytelling device of an unusual sort.
The chapter is about going to the pool, and the cover features Asagi in a swimsuit. Some of the chapter follows Jumbo having Yotsuba arrange that Asagi goes to the pool with them, seemingly successfully. This matches the expectations set by the cover – only to break them the next page as it’s revealed that she went to Okinawa. This turn of events was certainly unexpected for Jumbo, but even more so for me, the reader with false assumptions 
And the cover didn’t even lie per se – Okinawa is surely a great place to wear a swimsuit 
Nice touch from the author! It never fails to amaze me how much thinking goes into minor details in great works, and how much impact on the overall experience this ends up having.
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February 5
本好きの下剋上 8
Progress: (49% → 58%)
Had a calm and chill morning. Did a super read, very satisfying 
Also, this book threw all the words for “taste” at me… 
あじ、味わい、風味、yeah.
(Posting after midnight is kinda scary, I thought I had missed a day when I saw my last post was the 4th but today’s date is the 6th… 
)
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Is this Tearmoon Empire? I just read this in English! What level is it in Japanese, beginner, intermediate or advanced?
Also, do you have a link where I can find the book digitally?
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February 5 
Home Post
Oh man 999 is breaking me down, it’s all that exists The mental battle between wanting to obsessively play something to find out what happens but also being mentally exhausted because reading Japanese is hard… what a ride.
I still have too much to say about 999
I know some of you guys have talked about how reading like gory descriptions hits harder in Japanese because you have to actually pay attention to the words, but man is that accurate. When it was talking about number nine getting blown up from the inside and his body being just everywhere… oh boy. Descriptions like that don’t usually get me that bad but it’s another world in a language you’re not fluent in A couple examples if you’re curious:
壁にぶちまかれた臓物が大輪の花を咲かせていた。
仰向けだったにもかかわらず、真っ白い背骨がはっきりと見えた。
Like you’re making me actually think about those words and what they mean?? Yikes Very powerful.
But it’s all been really interesting! I’m attached to all the characters which feels like a bad idea but what can you do 
It started making me actually make decisions and oh the panic that gripped me lmao, everything feels so weighty. サンタ continues to be my favorite, shocking absolutely no one:
Bold, very bold I still like 四葉 and ニルス a lot too, very precious and I was right!! ニルス is weirdly like, mysterious wholesome? Idk but I’m intrigued.
I also ended up on a whole tangent about Japanese Braille for, uh, reasons, and it’s super cool actually! It’s really systematic, and there’s also somewhat ways to represent kanji though that quickly got complicated and lost my brain cells though they tried their best. It’s really interesting though!
紫 is an enigma, I really don’t know what to make of her at this point I can never tell if she’s joking or serious, she’s an adventure. Like I ended off my session with her talking about the Titanic being cursed because it was stolen from an Egyptian pyramid?? I really didn’t expect to be talking about the Titanic or mummies in this game but here we are:
I’m learning to expect anything and everything.
I think I’m sufficiently braindead for now so that’s a wrap for the day, but I’m very ready to see what happens next
Some words
どこ吹く風 - showing no concern at all, devil-may-care attitude (you know this wasn’t used for who I would’ve thought, funnily enough)
ドクロマーク - skull and crossbones
格闘 - hand-to-hand fighting, scuffling
最果て - the farthest ends
好き好む - to do something by choice
いわく付き - with an interesting history
Congrats, that’s awesome!!
Aw yay I’m glad my nonsense is enjoyable!! Definitely recommend if you like mystery-puzzle-type visual novel things, it’s been a lot of fun. Seeing your posts I’ve been side-eyeing Persona 4 sitting in my steam list too, one day… and congrats on 世界から猫が消えたなら! Accomplishments all around
For real, I guess it’s something about the encouragement and the consistency but this has been such a transformative reading experience! Anything I’m doing now would’ve seemed crazy a month ago which is just wild I love seeing everyone crushing their journeys!!
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Day 36: February 5th
365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 16 min
Today’s color: 臙脂色 (えんじいろ) - dark/deep red
A color of passion 
Good words
- ほの暗い (ほのぐらい) - obscure; gloomy
- 情念 (じょうねん) - sentiments; passions
- 艶やか (あでやか) - glamorous; charming; beguiling; bewitching; beautiful; fascinatingly elegant
- 臙脂 (えんじ) - dark-red pigment; rouge
- 諸説 (しょせつ) - various opinions; various theories; various rumors
- みだれ髪 (みだれがみ) - disheveled hair; unravelled hair
- ふつふつ - simmer; bubble out; flow out
- 煮えたぎる (にえたぎる) - to boil; to be boiling hot; to be on a rolling boil
まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 7 min
Today’s reading was about 雪像 (せつぞう) - snow sculptures! Specifically the yearly festival in Sapporo, which actually starts today! This festival is definitely on my list of things I want to experience some day.
What else did I read?
Nothing…have some other stuff I gotta prioritize for a day or two >< It do be like that sometimes
Yay!! Congrats!
That’s pretty darn awesome! I hope one day I’ll be able to say the same, it takes me months to read any novel right now but hearing that you made so much progress gives me hope that I might get there someday
Yesss I love how active and lively this thread has been! It’s nice to see everyone having fun and reading all the things 
I will take full responsibility for the Tanuki Cult Cuteness Brigade that I inadvertently started 
But the rest was all you!
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I’ve only ever seen people say they feel words less in a non-native language so I’m glad I’m not the only one for whom it still hits hard! I remember quite some time ago I was reading a news article about a man who jumped in front of a train and there were some graphic details about the scene and I felt sick just reading it.
I’ve also heard that it’s been improving. I mentioned to a tutor kind of offhand that when I visited Tokyo in ~2009 my impression was that so many people looked quite grim, but when I visited Osaka in 2019 I didn’t get that impression at all. I thought maybe it was a Tokyo vs Osaka thing. He commented that when I was visiting Tokyo it was kind of the peak era for ブラック企業 but that it’s changed a lot since then and that might have been why I had the impression I did.
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Yes, I’ve read it in English as well (amazing translation!) and it’s one of my favorite book series!
Level Answer
I’d say it’s doable at intermediate. I read the first volume when I was at around level 20-30ish in WaniKani with around N4 grammar, and it wasn’t really enjoyable until halfway through, to be honest. (I’d also only read two volumes of manga beforehand, so I was clearly quite impatient. ) It took me around 6 months to get through it, reading a few times a week. I’d recommend getting several volumes of manga under your belt before reading it. The second volume is much better since I’m working towards N3 grammar and am in the 40s in WaniKani. I’d recommend waiting until level 30 or so so you have more kanji under your belt. Having read it in English has been super helpful, though! The Japanese version is loads of fun to read, so definitely get a sample from Amazon and see how hard you find it! I’m really enjoying reading it, so do let me know if you start it! 
I’ve been reading it through Amazon.jp on the kindle app. Here is the link.
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Booklive is an option.
The first few volumes are heavily discounted until tomorrow by the way.
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Update February 6
- それでも歩寄せてくる vol 4 chapter 46. 3 pages… not enough time today.
- Time spent on Mr Driller that could probably have been spent on real reading practice
- Animal Crossing. Got my KK Slider live.
Just a busy day. Pretending to be a good homeowner. Fulfilling family obligations to holiday celebrations that could not take place on the intended date due to … complications.
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