I grabbed the first three volumes of Happiness from Bookwalker as freebies a while ago, and over the last three days read them in spare moments or waiting times. It’s so satisfying to be able to read fast without needing to look up every tenth word! I only looked up about four words in total, and each volume took me about half an hour.
Tomorrow I’ll get back to reading 世界から猫が消えたなら. I also bought かがみの孤城（下）on Bookwalker yesterday so I can read on my phone if out of the house.
January 1st
新書太閣記 progress: 00.03% // Volume I: 00.38%
Happy new year everyone, and happy new reading challenge!
I’ll be reading (well, attempting at least) 新書太閣記 by 吉川英治 (Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa)
I only read the preface today which wasn’t very long, I’ll start the story proper tomorrow when I should hopefully have more time.
Words found under the kotatsu
壮年期「そうねんき」ー Prime of life 絢爛「けんらん」ー Gorgeous; brilliant; dazzling; ornate 凡俗「ぼんぞく」ー Mediocrity; the masses 類本「るいほん」ー Similar books ユーモラス ー Humorous (not what I thought it’d end up meaning ) 功利主義「こうりしゅぎ」ー Utilitarianism 同型「どうけい」ー Isomorphism; same shape/type/pattern
Character Kanji-Name List
for easy referencing later, because these will take some remembering
Thoughts: I like being able to recognise more kanji as I do more lessons and practice reading them, but there’s still some difficulty with hiragana only words that I have to look up to be able to understand sentences.
I felt like my brain had a mini workout today, which is great!
In the first I stumbled over 危ない once more; the ない at the end makes it sound like it is a negation, but that is not the case. Have to keep this in mind, because it signifies danger! If I were to asume that is says “not dangerous” I could be in deep trouble… Instead, to negate this ありません was used.
Second story, we’re in London so there are a lot of Katakana (ugh).
First day of the challenge :3! I’m continuing Honzuki adventures after cracking open the e-book yesterday. I have the suspicion that I’ve read through the best parts of Arc 4 already (book 13-15) but I’d love to be pleasantly surprised. On another note, I was kinda unfocused today, probably tiredness from doing the speed read challenge from the other day Doesn’t feel like I took the off-month off, hehe whoopsie
Anyway, I’m looking forward to reading everyone’s updates! Happy new year, everyone!
Day 1: January 1st
What did I read?: 夜の名前を呼んで Vol 3
How much did I read?: 32 pages
How long did it take me?: 37 min
Welcome to the first day of the challenge, everyone! Glad to see so many old and new faces Even some first-time-ever posters, I’m honored that you’ve chosen this thread as your first-ever posting place in this community
I decided to start the challenge season off with the last (currently published) volume of my obsession from the previous challenge, 夜の名前を呼んで. I opened the first page and I’m already falling in love again because look, Rei braided his hair, how cute is that
Why is he so cute
This was a happy magic times chapter Rei’s roof apparently leaks, so they collected the rainwater and went swimming in the rainwater’s memories, with the help of Stella’s magical bubble soap that gives them swimsuits that allow them to breathe underwater (and also makes them resemble the sea creature of their choice Mira chose jellyfish so Rei went with a squid ksjhgksdjhfj I thought that was so very cute)
NHK (new method for extracting gold) BU$TAFELLOWS
Novel in English
Well, they say to do January 1 as you mean to go on for the rest of the year, eh? Only I couldn’t possibly fit everything in, but somehow I absolutely smashed some reading today.
I forgot to mention on my home post that I hoped to try reading some more regular news. I’ve gotten to a stage where NHK easy is…easy I guess. xD So I want to occasionally dip my toes in and read the regular news. It does mean it takes me longer than just a couple of minutes, if nothing else because the articles are longer, but it wasn’t hard (safarikai for the win (safari/mac version of yomichan)).
I also ended up reading in English, I’m reading an old mystery/heist/caper that is pretty exciting.
And to finish off the day, I read a couple of more scenes of Bustafellows and got my first memorabilia which is why the home screen now shows I’ve read 1%. So percentage is completely tied to memorabilia and not at all to how much have been read. xD
Lastly, the spelling of percentage is one I will never remember and which is why I usually just do % instead, but sometimes I forget just how far off my thoughts on the spelling is and I try typing it. At least all spellcheckers always knows which word I’m trying to write, which means I’m not the only one who finds the spelling weird.
Well then, it’s the first day of the challenge and managed to read the second and third mini chapter in the first volume of 宇崎ちゃんは遊びたい！Was quite surprised at how dense the writing was to be honest so it took me around 30 minutes to fully read only 7 pages but hopefully it’ll get faster. I’ve also spotted some words I’ve only recently learned in Wanikani (like 真似) so that helped ease things along and was quite gratifying.
I’m not sure it also counts as read every day but I also started Pokemon Scarlet in japanese and they are quite talkative early on. Managed to sustain a full hour of play time. There wasn’t a lot of action but lots of reading and it also went surprisingly well. Much better than I was last year when I started Paper Mario and the Origami King around June.
Today I read the 2nd chapter of volume 10 of Teasing Master Takagi-san.
I had planned to do a lot more reading today, but I got invited over to a friends house to meet their new baby so I did that instead of extra reading! He was super cute and teeny!
I’m hoping to read more tomorrow though
1/1/23 9 pages Haruiro Astronaut, 3 pages おばちゃんたちのいるところ, 8 pages Cells at Work (finished this week’s reading)
I started to read over the chapters at the end of each of volumes 2-5 of Orange, having read the first one ages back. I’m not enjoying them so will probably drop them.
Finished Cells at Work for this week so just the IBC to catch up with.
I’ve been struggling to keep a consistent habit when it comes to reading every day so this challenge is just what I need. (Its been very all in or nothing at all which is… )
the plan
No real rules as long as I finish at least a page.
Read / catch up to the current schedule for はたらく細胞 before the eighth (abbc)
Join the beginner book club reading 月刊少女野崎くん and see if its my level.
go though some of the books I have on my shelf and / or play some easy games.
Happy New Year everyone!!!
Wishing everyone all the best for the new year!!!
Vasi’s home post
January
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
Week 52
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
February
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
March
月
火
水
木
金
土
日
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
= read today = missed day
My approach and goal for this challenge
:dart: For quite a while now I have been wanting to join back in the tanuki squad fun, but everyday life was just being too much..(some of you might remember me saying that at the beginning of December in the Autumn thread lol, well Finals happened,oops ). This past year had been a wonderful one, but not as much when it came to keeping consistent with habits and studying, and I really wish to change that this year :muscle:
Having participated in these challenges in the past, I can't even begin to tell you how much of an immense boost and help they were for forming and making new habits, so that's one of my major goals joining again this year:
*to become again as consistent as possible with daily reading!* :dart:
Quantity or level of what I read won't matter to me as much as actually getting reading done.
I also wish to start reading Chinese :cn: a little bit more. since I'm at a beginner level, I'll probably only dare to take up graded readers as a challenge, but hopefully that will be a good first step! If anyone has anything to recommend, let me know! I'm preparing for HSK3
Reading material
I still haven’t sorted out what reading material I will be going through, but probably it’s going to be just a backlog of books/readers/manga, since I’m also trying to have a NoBuyingMoreBooksTemporarily policy in effect lol;
Alright, so this is what I’ve got for now:
暁のヨナ、第18巻、第19巻 with our ongoing bookclub!
教養366、Still have not gone full circle with this (started spring 2022), but I do have a lot of backlog…
I am re-starting 会長はメイド様！１. It’s been about a year since I gave it up for being too densely worded. Now I just breezed past the first 11 pages and actually understood most of the dialogue without relying on my memory of the plot. I even recognised words from my WaniKani lessons like the one I highlighted below:
Doing this and the Listening challenge. Today for reading it was trying to muddle through some Tadoku and starting Genki I. Here is to getting through Genki 1 by the end of this challenge!
UPDATE 1/16
After a bout of sickness i def fell off the wagon. But i’m back on it and studying Genki again! I don’t think I’ll get through the book by the end of February but thats okay.
First day of the challenge in the books! My spouse and mother-in-law are playing cribbage behind me, so my concentration wasn’t the best.
I read one story from the collection, titled 「冬の気配」. I started reading this book for the advent calendar event in December, but I ended up falling behind on the whole thing… Going forward, I’ll aim to read two stories per reading session.
This one was predictable but sweet. The premise is that, after an accident leaves a young woman with brain damage that costs her the ability to see, her boyfriend tries to prove to her that he still wants to be with her despite her newfound disabilities. She decides to give him one chance by requesting he bring her something wintery that is readily apparent to her. He ends up doing something that reminds her of the day they first started dating, and she realizes that she doesn’t want their relationship to end, either.
I think one of the challenges for a story collection like this is writing something that’s fully satisfying to read despite the short length. I don’t think this story hit that sweet spot for me.
The Tanuki Kotatsu Reading Den 
)
but I’d love to be pleasantly surprised. On another note, I was kinda unfocused today, probably tiredness from doing the speed read challenge from the other day 
Doesn’t feel like I took the off-month off, hehe whoopsie 
Even some first-time-ever posters, I’m honored that you’ve chosen this thread as your first-ever posting place in this community 
Rei’s roof apparently leaks, so they collected the rainwater and went swimming in the rainwater’s memories, with the help of Stella’s magical bubble soap that gives them swimsuits that allow them to breathe underwater (and also makes them resemble the sea creature of their choice 
Mira chose jellyfish so Rei went with a squid ksjhgksdjhfj I thought that was so very cute)
)
暁のヨナ、第18巻、第19巻 with our ongoing bookclub!
10分で読める伝記6年生, a graded reader. [ 
わたしの幸せ結婚、
Du Chinese app & Mandarin bean
なぜどうして,もっと科学のお話ー4年生 
Catbus’s Home Thread 
ラストで君は「まさか！」と言う 冬の物語 (23% → 27%)
Going forward, I’ll aim to read two stories per reading session.