softlyraining’s snowy book stack 
January 3rd
ラストで君は「まさか！」と言う 冬の物語 (27% → 28%)
Today was a cruddy day for me, so my motivation to do much of anything was near zero. I managed to read a few more pages of the short story I’m currently on, which is a win in my book. This one involves a group of elementary school kids of varying ages, which already makes it stand out from the others.
Day 3: January 3rd
What did I read?: ハピネス Vol 1
How much did I read?: Chapters 1~3
How long did it take me?: 1hr
I saw this recommended as an alternative to よつば! for beginners in another thread so I decided to give a try. So far the difficulty level seems challenging enough with out being overwhelming for me. Also the story is quite intriguing and is a more edgier type of genre — which is more of my style.
Jan 4
かがみの孤城 9% → 13%
I posted when I was at 4% yesterday, but continued throughout the day until I was at 9%. There’s either no reception or poor reception around these parts, so it’s good to have a book I can read without a dictionary on hand!
I wonder whether I can finish the book before my trip is over…
1月3日 & 1月4日
Finally read chapters 3 and 4 of 夜カフェ3 thanks to my husband giving me a break for my bday. It felt really great to crank out chapter 3 in particular as it was almost a whopping 30 pages, and I kept getting stuck reading the same page countless times.
Unfortunately the content of the chapters itself was less thrilling. It’s not as much of a page turner as it was in the first volume. I’m finding my motivation for reading it is to try to find any good wholesome content if there’s any left 
Day 3 Progress:
お隣の天使様 五冊 - 62.18% → 64.24%
I used my day off in like the worst possible way today so I’m just gonna write a short post while I’m still lucid.
Word of the Day:
Holy cow, that’s insane. I thought the phrase itself was fairly innocuous but I didn’t realize they were based on variable hours themselves… sounds like a nightmare to work with but I suppose they were able to make clocks work with it for a few hundred years…
1 月 4 日
コナの大冒険 第18話 from Satorireader
Okay so it wasn’t anything scary after all. Just a deer (鹿) named Lily (リリ). Happy to recognize a kanji I learned from the Japanese advent calendar I joined last month.
Other words or phrases of interest:
I’m a bit afraid of the extent I’m relying on the furigana and English translations provided on Satorireader. Of course, I always read and try to understand the sentences on my own and furigana is only set to kanji I haven’t already learned on WK, but when I’m rushed or tired I feel like I don’t try hard enough to decipher the full meaning of the sentences before sneaking a peek at the translation. Also afraid how this dependency would affect me when I start joining a Book Club or reading other materials later. I’d probably feel lost or overwhelmed because there’s no easily accessible translation and I’d have to search for the meaning of the kanji and grammar points myself.
This word scored 8th place in the Trivia no Izumi “top ten words TV news announcers find it hard to pronounce” survey 
January 3
Read a little ユージニア (<1%). I hope I can soon make time to read this for long enough to make a dent because it seems really interesting but I can’t fully get into it reading in short bursts.
For people who want to read about the clocks in japanese one of the Shin Kanzen Master books has a text about japanese clocks.
January 3rd and 4th January 3rd: 3 pages
I started the morning reading 3 Satori Reader stories aloud, which I thought I’d start doing. Listening to my voice is already brutal enough, but hearing me speak in Japanese disheartened me. While I thought I would get some reading done during the rest of the day, I went out and didn’t get home past midnight. Aaaa so much to work on. 
Must persevere.
January 4th: 102 pages
コーヒーが冷めないうちに (205/286)
I realized that I actually liked the first two stories because the third one was just too dragging. Since I hit the 200-page mark, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish this tomorrow and continue ぼくらの七日間戦争 because parallel reading two books that don’t really hold my attention is just torture (and we want learning to be fun). I think I’m done reading for today though so I’m posting early.
If you enjoyed the audiobook, it probably is true. I think I should explore audiobook options before I give up on books! Do you just either listen or read or do you read while you listen as well?
Well done! This was my favorite read last year and I am really glad I stuck with it even if the amount of pages was really daunting! I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did!
Thanks for the idea. I should do this as well to pinpoint my weaknesses. How’d you do? I’m really nervous about the test, but it’s a ways away, and there’s always another chance in December.
I did redownload the app and saw a few changes from when I first started using it! There wasn’t a half-speed option before. I also realize I may have set too high of a bar for myself cause I started with 85%, and it kept going down to 79% which was absolutely discouraging!
Thank you so much for your detailed response. I will definitely check out the Japanese Phonetics and the Methodology section more carefully tomorrow. I’d really love to be more consistent with it. Thanks for inspiring me!
I just listened, but I do listen to books with the text. Used to be for learning the cadence of sentences and internalizing kanji readings, but these days it’s more because I can speed up the audiobook a lot if I have text to rely on 
I used this page btw (it also has tests for the other levels), but I’m sure there are a bunch of other options a google away. I did pass so that was nice, but I was surprised that there weren’t big differences between my grades in the different areas. Vocabulary was my strongest area (thanks WaniKani?) but then my listening was better than my reading which is weird because I read a lot and barely listen to anything ever, so I guess the level of the listening is lower than the reading?
１月４日 (Home Post Link)
Read:
Will definitely need some more focused jlpt studying if I want to be serious about passing N2 in december.Might do another round of reading later, woke up too early again
Also got to see this friendly 
again for the first time since coming back (~2 weeks ago). Still gonna wait until my apprentice items get a bit lower before adding new cards again, but almost back on track!
ホリミヤ
さらば ー adieu, farewell
勝手に「かってに」ー without asking
潰す「つぶす」ー to smash, to crush; to slaughter (of an animal)
マジーク・ツリーハウス
突然変異「とうぜんへんい」ー mutation
子孫「しそん」ー offspring, descendant
じーと ー motionless, still (凝乎と)
A recurring thing in the series is that Jack is always taking notes about the things they encounter on their adventures, and so the books include a little “do it yourself” trace the notes he takes. Hard to do on an e-book, but that’s such a cute idea I love it
Right? It’s so cool! And it really does make sense if you think about it like just tracking the sun throughout the day: in the summer, the sun getting to it’s zenith takes more time from when it comes up, and then divide that into 1/3rds on each side to get a nice approximate time… you could probably do the same if you were particularly good at tracking moonrise/moonset times relative to sunset/dawn, but tracking time overnight probably not as pressing a issue for people in the pre-industrial age. I guess just hope it isn’t too cloudy out if you have a urgent appointment
This panel is a shot of pure serotonin
Happy Birthday! 
Happy Birthday! such diligent students of japanese, even reading for fun on your birthdays 
3rd or 4th? Mine is 3rd.
Belated or not, Happy Birthday to both of you! 
Joining a book club (where others can help with vocabulary lists and grammar information) along with getting used to looking up the grammar yourself might be one of the best ways to start making tangible progress.
Feeling lost? Ask questions in the book club threads.
Feeling overwhelmed? Go at a slower pace than the club and take your time.
Don’t hesitate to rely on the community as much as you need.
original post LINK
「また、同じ夢を見ていた」 Reading log 
3rd and 4th getting lumped in together! i did do yesterday’s but didn’t get chance to post cos i went out immediately after.
read about 10 pages of 蟲師 yesterday and then 20 today, finishing off chapter one! the descriptions outside of dialogue are definitely the trickiest part for me, but it’s getting easier now i’m getting a handle on the style.
no particular words jumped out at me, but i did like the closing line, has a very folktale feel
それ以後 神の筆を持つ少年についての新しい噂はふっつりと途切れた
(hello to my other early january birthday people, i wasn’t expecting so many of us)
Another one! Happy Birthday 
夢みる太陽 Volume 2 (7% ➨ 41%)
名探偵コナン Volume 13 (22% ➨ 30%)
