📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2023 ☃❄

:heart::books:SB's HOME POST:books::heart:

皆さん、こんにちは! 明けましておめでとうございます!(⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠♡

Hello everyone! Wishing all of you a very Happy New Year! It’s my first time posting in a WaniKani thread as well as my first time participating in a challenge here. One of my major goals in Japanese this year is to immerse myself in the language as much as possible, and so I wish to slowly build a regular reading habit by participating in this challenge.

What I'm Reading for This Challenge:
  1. Short Stories in Japanese: New Penguin Parallel Text
  2. コンビニ人間 〜 村田沙耶香
  3. ドラえもん第1巻

Both of these books are a little challenging for me, so on days where I wish to take a break from them I’ll probably read a graded reader on Tadoku or a story on Tongari books. I might also read an NHK Easy News Article. My main goal for now is building a daily reading habit, so whatever helps me stay consistent will do, I guess😅

I track my books on my Natively profile.

Jan
01
02 03 04 05 06 07 08
09 10 11 12 13 14❎ 15
16 17 18❎ 19❎ 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31
Feb
01 02 03 04 05
06 07 08 09 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28

Thank you for the calendar template! Looking forward to reading along with everyone here! :smiley:

28 Likes

I think you just need to get into the groove of it. I feel like new writing styles can be a bit rough at first until your brain figures out how they ‘flow’. The book really pulled me along, I hope you enjoy it!

I heard people say it wasn’t very good as a book. I listened to the audiobook and didn’t read the text and loved it. It may not be a stamina thing and more a ‘the medium suits the story poorly’.

15 Likes

Today has really just been a day for me learning obvious things :joy:

First I “discovered” a huge button that takes up like 75% the column width, and then I also just solved my issues with using yomichan with the in browser reader for bookwalker; all I needed to do was hold down the mouse a little bit longer when I want to hover a word :melting_face:

But, at least now reading things should be… significantly easier lmao. like you said, yomichan/safarikai OP

15 Likes

:raccoon: :books: The Tanuki Kotatsu Reading Den :snowflake: :raccoon:

January 2nd
新書太閣記 progress: 00.06% // Volume I: 00.65% :hatching_chick:

Start chapter: 日輪にちりん月輪げつりん

I didn’t get as much time to read today as I had hoped I would either, I’m all excited to read again but things keep getting in the way. But, even though it was short reading I learnt so many new words about childbirth today :laughing:

Words found under the kotatsu

日輪「にちりん」ー The sun
月輪「げつりん」ー The moon (when full)
神領「しんりょう」ー Shrine/temple property/territory
戸数「こすう」ー Number of households/houses
藁屋根「わらやね」ー Thatch roof (straw)
嬰児「えいじ」ー Infant; baby
「しわ」ー Wrinkle; crease
氷柱「つらら」ー Icicle
産褥「さんじょく」ー Bed used by a mother during childbirth; postnatal
へその緒「へそのお」ー Umbilical cord (also: 臍の緒)
産湯「うぶゆ」ー Baby’s first bath
お襁褓「おむつ」ー Nappy/diaper
呱々「ここ」ー Cry of a baby at birth
「たすき」ー Kimono sash used to hold up the sleeves

Character Kanji-Name List
for easy referencing later, because these will take some remembering

People
Hideyoshi: 豊臣秀吉「とよとみ ひでよし」// 豊太閤「ほうたいこう」

Old Places
尾張「おわり」ー Owari province (now part of Aichi prefecture)

23 Likes

Summary post

Day 2: January 2nd
What did I read?: 夜の名前を呼んで Vol 3
How much did I read?: 20 pages
How long did it take me?: 41 min

This chapter was a ride :joy: Mira finds this old locket that Rei hid away - it has a mirror inside, and if you look into the eyes of your reflection in the mirror, a locket demon takes over your body and does whatever it wants looking like you. Obviously this is not ideal :joy:

Minor spoilers and major gushing

Rei is like…so sincerely concerned by this locket demon, I love him I feel like I say this about everything he does LMAO but I do, I love him :pleading_face: To him, I feel like it’s justified, because it sounds like he had a bad experience with the locket demon in his youth, poor babe :broken_heart: Side note but baby Rei is absolutely adorable, look at him

But like…in reality, the locket demon doesn’t really do much of anything except mess with him specifically, like from Rei’s reaction I expected some sort of diabolical mastermind or evil incarnate but instead we get this on the next page:

:joy: I mean I guess how much can a locket demon really do in the body of a little girl but still, it never even got outside xD I still feel bad for Rei though, he did not have a good time this chapter, his emotional distress was very real :heart:

Replies!

I wish I had an answer because this is such a mood :confounded: The struggle to prevent work from overtaking everything (either time-wise or energy-wise) is real. Congrats on your new job though! Hope everything goes well :slight_smile:

It has, it is back :eyes: I mean, he’s just…there, looking like that and being like that, like what am I supposed to do xD

28 Likes

:airplane: :snowflake: :books: Kimera’s home post :books: :snowflake: :airplane:

January is going to be chaotic with a lot of traveling, so I’m giving myself credit for pretty much anything beyond WK and Duolingo.

Reading List:
:luggage: Isabella Bird in Wonderland (physical manga)
:orange_book: SatoriReader (phone app) - :mouse: :strawberry: etc
:newspaper_roll: NHK News Easy (phone app)
means I kept reading whatever I’d read the previous day

(links to other short or one-off reads)
Jan
01 :clinking_glasses:
02 :mouse: 03 :luggage: 04 05 06 07 :strawberry: 08 :airplane:
09 10 11 12 13 14 15 :house:
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 :house:
23 24 25 26 27 28 29 :broom:
30 31 :airplane:
(Feb/March calendars)
Feb
01 02 03 04 05 :mouse:
06 07 08 09 10 11 12 :strawberry:
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28
Past challenges

:books: Read Every Day: Summer 2022

29 Likes

:snowflake: Day 2, 2nd of January :snowflake:

:open_book: Back to my Home Post

In today’s first DrDru story, we learn about various Kanji compounds.

In the second we learn about colors. (あお)い is ridiculous to say and my mouth doesn’t like it.

It was interesting to see the differences for the colors that were i-adjectives and those that weren’t:

  • (あか)(ほん) versus (みどり)(ほん)
24 Likes

day 2 :dragon:
home post

Read: Yotsubato!

Progress: 16/224 → 25/224 pages read

Thoughts: The first couple pages was a bit of a struggle as it was very dialogue heavy, but then after a few pages the sentences eased up and I was able to read more without having to look up every second word. I might have a refresh of my grammar, just because it’s been a while since I last did grammar and I’m probably a little rusty.

28 Likes

:open_book: :desktop_computer: :snowman_with_snow: :snowflake: January 1

Didn’t have much time to read to start the year but I did manage to read a little ユージニア. I fell behind the bookclub pretty hard so I’ll be trying to make my way through it this month.

27 Likes

1月1日
We had a lot of guests so it was hard to find the time to read. I read a page of 夜カフェ3 but by the time I realized I had already read it before, Tan-chan was off with my book.

1月2日
Luckily I had caught up on my sleep so I spent the evening reading a chapter of 絶叫学級 4 which I bought with accumulated points on Line Manga and also a chapter Orange 5.

I read a bunch of volumes in the former series and it’s sequel with no break before so the horror sort of lost its impact after a while. It felt a lot more interesting this time around so I’m going to try not to binge read it.

The latter was also a nice chapter. We do finally get more perspective from Suwa, and the comparison between the future and the present was nicely done. I think the other club readers will enjoy this chapter.

25 Likes

January 2nd

I read Chapter 44 of Shadows House today. It’s definitely getting more and more intriguing in this volume :slight_smile:

I also spent a bit of time reading summaries of books on CD Japan and some preview pages of books on Amazon because its nearly my birthday so I’m choosing some books I’d like as gifts!

(Home Post)

25 Likes

By the way if anybody is looking for their next book to read: The Intermediate Book Club has just started voting! The book will be read from Feb 18th., so it will still cover a bit of this challenge :blush:

22 Likes

:imp: Home :frog:

January 1

人間椅子 -

Prefecture Stories
4 pages

I’ll look up the proper name for this one later. I wanted to read more but there’s bs drama in other places. I feel quite done with some people and it’s only 1/1. :upside_down_face:

24 Likes

January 1st & 2nd (Days 1 & 2) :snowflake: :cat2:

Home post :books:

I felt pretty ill yesterday, so I started chapter 7 of 海辺のカフカ and read a few paragraphs. No Russian, as I found out that staring at a screen for any length of time resulted in a headache :melting_face:

Today, I’ve managed to read the rest of chapter 7, and 1/5th of chapter 8 of 海辺のカフカ - which was probably the most Japanese I’ve ever read in one sitting to date. I’ve neglected my studies for a while, and I haven’t read anything since July, so the start was a little clunky and slow - but it got better by the end. I’ve even managed to immerse myself in the story - too bad I didn’t have more time to read.

As for my side quest readings, I’ve read Мильтон и Булька, which is (I believe) a short passage in a collection of short stories for children about two dogs, Milton and Bulka. It was really refreshing to read for a change - although I started studying Russian very recently, it just feels so much easier. I think I feel ready to switch to reading something a little more challenging once I am finished reading this collection of stories.

26 Likes

January 1st and 2nd :coffee:

1st - はたらく細胞 pages 37 to 61
2nd - はたらく細胞 pages 62 to 67

Im super tired today but I tried my best to read some more pages to catch up with the absolute beginners book club.

Reading about things I sometimes only have a vague understanding of even in english is tough. I definitely find my self clinging on to the words that are more ‘everyday’ in this book with a sense of fondness. Overall though, I am enjoying it well enough. Hopefully, I’ll be able to join back in with the conversation for the final couple of weeks or so!

homepost

23 Likes

Off to a good start since the second day is now complete. Did basically the same as I did yesterday which is around an hour of Pokemon Scarlet in japanese and another 7 pages or so of 宇崎ちゃん. The hard part for now is not relying too much on the furigana.

I had an unfortunate windows shopping experience on bookwalker because they had ぼっち・ざ・ろっく!volume 1 for 55 yen and a whole of bunch 日常 volumes for dirt cheap too (first two are 11 yen and 2 through 10 are 100 yen a piece). Which means my backlog isn’t getting any better but hey at least it wasn’t that bad on the wallet.

Speaking of which, the Aomi Japanese app mentioned by Greya seems like a fun thing to try. Was wondering what I should do for eventually starting shadowing and that seems tailor made for that.

Hopefully everyone is having a fun time reading !

23 Likes

January 2nd :heavy_check_mark: :flashlight:

半落ち , start - 6%

Today I started 半落ち with the reading club here. I finished this week’s reading, but I really want to continue, it’s already very interesting indeed. My first proper police procedural in Japanese, it’s full of long kanji strings for police ranks and departments, but this is vocabulary I expect to be coming across fairly often given my preference for crime novels, so the sooner I learn it the better.

26 Likes

:snowflake: Winter 2023 Reading Challenge :snowflake:


Previous Challenges

2021:

2022:


:books: 01月01日
うたわれるもの

:books: 01月02日
9-nine-


Here we go againnnnn! 7th round of the challenge :3 as always @windupbird thanks a lot for hosting again <3

Like the last thread and pretty much onwards, I’m not going to maintain a home post, but I do like to see the threads I’ve participated in so I will still link my first post in those as a reminder of the work I’ve put into this, should I ever need it in times of doubt.

Started the year with うたわれるもの as was expected, it continues to be pretty cool so far. I also started 9-nine- (current VN club pick) today and I’m already liking it a lot, so I’m pretty satisfied with what I’m reading right now overall.

I want to keep pushing vocabulary hard and I’m still going strong with the 20 new words a day in Anki, it’s been like a month and I’m not burnt out in the least so that’s a good sign, if anything it’s giving me a lot of drive. When I stop and think about it it’s insane the amount of vocabulary and effort learning a new language takes, especially one that shares no roots whatsoever with your native one, even after a lot of years and many thousands of words seen or studied it still feels like there’s like a million left to learn. But it’s also fun, and the more I know the more addictive everything becomes because I get to enjoy the things I consume a lot more as I understand more over time. Occasionally I still get the thought “why the heck am I learning Japanese?” and then I always go back to “damn, learning Japanese is so cool” :joy: . But anyways, I’m just rambling.

26 Likes

:house:
Jan 3

かがみの孤城(下)0% → 4%

Every time I take a break from かがみの孤城 and come back it feels so much easier to read :thinking:. I read it on my flight, so no looking up words, and to my surprise I was able to understand almost everything with no major confusions, and reading fairly quickly too! A few parts took some re-reading to understand, but I got it eventually.

I might end up reading more throughout the day, I’ll see.

29 Likes

:bookmark: Home post // Jan 2 :snowman_with_snow: :snowflake:

・ 本好きの下克上 16 (16% → 22%)

Read a bit in the morning but then I got a headache that lasted for the rest of the day. Only in the late evening did I start to feel better so I read a bit more, and now it’s definitely time to go to sleep, yeah :zzz:

27 Likes