📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

I just realized that there’s not many days left of winter challenge :durtle_megane: Now I want to try and finish the Saikawa&Moe book (vol. 3) before the completion of this challenge. A double challenge :eyes:

Currently at 81% - let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! :fire:

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I had a distinct memory of learning 画鋲 from (noted Wanikani vocabulary word) 塊魂 and it being easy to remember because of that - but on closer inspection, it uses both! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: For slightly different types of pins:

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I suppose if I had to name those for a game I’d call one of them “thumbtack” and the other “pushpin” too despite those words being interchangeable otherwise!
(And Wikipedia calls it a “drawing pin” in British English which I’ve never heard in American English so I guess there’s a regional element with the word in English too!)

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Home post :house:

Day 49:

I read one more page of よつばと!today. I’m really taking it slow, mostly just focusing on establishing the habit I guess. Uni takes precedence :four_leaf_clover::books::school::memo::four_leaf_clover:

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Seems I’m ordering some new manga :eyes:

On March 4 a new volume of :raccoon: and avan releases.

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Summary post :bookmark:

February 25

笑わない数学者
Progress: 77% → 87% Here we go :eyes: :fire:

Word of the day: ()(かか)える
for having the same kanji twice but with different readings.

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Heh - I also thought that it’s a remarkable word for the same reason :blush:

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Yesterday
Read the last thirty pages of The Town Where You Live volume 2
nothing really happened in the volume beside the protagonist just told the girl he likes that he loves her. The girl is confused runs away and when asked some days later for an answer. She just wants to be friends.
Started reading the first twenty pages あさこ volume three which I got during the bookwalker sale.

Today
After taking a break for some days I continued reading Monobeno and finished the fifth chapter. I should probably read something harder but I think I will finish this one first.
あさこ vol.3 I love this manga but unfortunately only four volumes are released for now. Just read 80 pages which is half the volume unlike most manga volumes which have around 200 pages this one has only 160.

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Summary post

February 25 update:
Read the seventh story of きまぐれロボット today, which happens to be the title story. The previous one was totally an outlier, because this one I read in one breath. Unlike the previous stories, this one was quite amusing throughout rather than just in the end. I’m wondering if Mr. N would ever want to repeat his newfound “exercise routine.” :joy:

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Summary post

Now I have a constant desire to watch those numbers get bigger! And today I read ~5200 characters and ~480 lines, still breaking records. The early slow reading days are fun because you can very easily see improvements of outright double speed, and more to come. Maybe I’ll try to listen to a little something tonight, but overall, still backing off slightly cause it’s just hard to have the energy. Still, Summer Pockets is just fun and chill.

I have found by this point I’m definitely locked in, and I don’t think I get to choose at all where I go anymore. Today, we came to the big choice:

To 好き, or not to 好き. Pretty self explanatory 4 kanji compound there too, so I suppose that’s the new word I like today. It’s “Answering one’s own question/wondering to oneself.”

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I didn’t read too much today, but that’s mainly because my iTalki teacher happened to come to the UK for a holiday and was in my city for a day :partying_face:! So I got up early and met her for breakfast and then had an in person lesson (where we read and discussed some of ヴァイオレット・エヴァ−ガ−デン - so I guess that counts a bit even if it was rereading), and then I showed her around a little bit before I had to go to work! It was lovely but also used up most of my Japanese energy for the day :sleeping::sleeping::sleeping: But first time speaking to someone in Japanese actually in person! Exciting!

The other reading I’ve done today was reading along with this animated manga that came up in my YouTube feed: 【漫画】『兄貴の友達』第1~4話【まとめ】 - YouTube (it was pretty cute! I think the YouTube algorithms have me figured out :sweat_smile:)

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Day 56!

I read chapter 21 of よつばと! which means I finished Volume 3 :slight_smile:
Then I read this weeks chapter of からかい上手の高木さん too.
I’m so pleased with the increase in my reading stamina since I started this challenge!

Thats so cool! What a lovely opportunity. I would love to meet my teachers one day. I hope you had fun! :slight_smile:

(Home Post)

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Summary Post

Day 56: Today I read 9 pages of よつば&!:0

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It hadn’t even occurred to me that Japanese would also have two different words for these, but it makes sense, haha! Thanks for sharing this! This is actually something really relevant for watching wrestling, but I’d only ever encountered 画びょう in that context. But this totally tracks with what rodan shared, because this is the exact type of thumbtack used in hardcore wrestling matches:

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Thanks for your replies. I decided to go with Yamada-kun. I realised that it would be easier just to continue than start a new series. It’s also easier on me when I have to record my progress. I can just copy and paste the title rather than write a whole new title.

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Summary post

Day 56: February 25th

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 14 min
Today’s color: 練色 (ねりいろ) - white with a hint of yellow, the color of raw silk ^^

Today’s reading had the best kanji. It’s my new favorite. Here it is: 繭. It’s a little difficult to tell in such a small font, but there’s a bug radical and a string radical inside the boxy thing. Guess what this kanji means? Cocoon. The literalness of this kanji is so much love, it’s literally the bug in its little cocoon

Good words
  • しなやか - graceful; elegant; refined​
  • 蚕 (かいこ) - silkworm
  • 繭 (まゆ) - cocoon
  • 生糸 (きいと) - raw silk thread
  • 漂白 (ひょうはく) - blanching; bleaching
  • 印象的 (いんしょうてき) - impressive; striking; memorable; impactful

まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 17 min

Today’s reading was about the 命日 (めいにち - anniversary of a person’s death ) of 菅原道真 (すがわらのみちざね). He wrote a poem about plum blossoms, and that’s…pretty much all I understood from today’s reading :sweat_smile: Poetry is hard.

What else did I read?
猫のようなナニカ
Amount read: 33 pages
Time spent: 31 min

Got to see a bunch more of ナニカ’s quirks today xD

Here are some of my favorite panels

Renya took ナニカ to the vet and ナニカ did not want shots :rofl:

ナニカ falling gently from the ceiling

ナニカ casually existing as a severed head (apparently it can separate its head from its body)

Conclusion: I want ナニカ in my house :pleading_face: I wanna snuggle the void kitty :heart:

Good words
  • どれか - one of; any of (idk how I didn’t know this before, but it felt new)
  • 菓子パン (かしパン) - baked sweet goods (e.g. Danish pastry, melon bread); sweet pastry; sweet bread
  • 回収 (かいしゅう) - collection; recovery; withdrawal; retrieval
  • 懐中電灯 (かいちゅうでんとう) - flashlight
  • 発光 (はっこう) - emission (of light); radiation (of light); luminescence
  • 人懐っこい (ひとなつっこい) - friendly; affable; amiable; sociable; loving company; (animals) taking kindly to men
  • 含まれない (ふくまれない) - not to be included
  • 生首 (なまくび) - freshly severed head
  • どんと - powerfully; vigorously; with all one’s strength
  • 毛玉 (けだま) - hairball
  • くし - comb

Yessssssssss :raccoon: :raccoon: :raccoon:

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February 25 :snowflake: Home Post

Woo more 999! There were multiple heavier sections today with like science things, and talking about the Titanic (again), but I made it through and got to do some fun puzzles :muscle: Very curious what’s going on with all the talk about materials communicating with each other and suddenly crystallizing and such, all that’s come up way too often to not be relevant :joy:

There’s a lot of weird coincidental overlap in the things I’ve been picking to read, like doctors and mushrooms and things keep coming up, and now this:

Like hey Vanitas :joy: I guess it all goes to show that even things you think will hardly ever come up again totally will when you least expect it!

Yay words

未明(みめい) - early dawn, gray of morning
側近(そっきん) - close associate
だべる - to jabber, to chat with
ひとりごちる - to talk to oneself, to mutter
冗談(じょうだん)めかして - jokingly
やっとの(おも)いで - finally, after great pains

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Ooh, I’ve run into this before. This is actually something you can break up - adding めかして is like saying something is done with an air of X or implying X. I can’t find a good source for it in any online grammar guides, but here and here should be helpful.

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Home post

Day 54:

日本語: I read a lot of ミステリークロック.
Read-aloud: We read two chapters of 7SEEDS and finished v28.

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.

Day 55:

日本語: I read some of ミステリークロック and some of 機動強襲型令嬢アリシア物語1.
Read-aloud: We read a chapter of ダンジョン飯.

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.

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Update February 26

  • Read chapters 14-16 of 極主夫道 between last night and this morning.
  • Four pages,chapter 51 それでも歩は寄せてくる
  • Animal Crossing. Played today, but I’m realizing that I’m running out of ways to make reading a challenge there anymore. I’m ~ 155 hours short of 2000 hours played, so I think I’ll keep doing core things in the game until that mark. Still great vocab training though.
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Today’s article was another survey from JTown: 非喫煙者には理解不能? 1本約30円のたばこを、喫煙者が快く他人にあげられる理由|Jタウンネット

It was basically asking smokers if they would give someone a cigarette if asked. 75% yes, 25% no. Reasons for no was basically that they’re expensive and reasons for yes was they expect they might need one on day in return and that they liked the taste of new cigarettes from brands they didn’t usually smoke. The article then went into the sense of community-ish feeling shared by smokers.

Fun fact: A 540円 box of cigarettes is 333円 tax.

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