Welcome to the “Read Japanese Every Day” Challenge, Winter 2024 Edition! 
Hello! Up here in the Northern Hemisphere, we’re experiencing winter. It’s the perfect time of year to curl up under some blankets and read. For folks in the Southern Hemisphere… well you need something to take your mind off the heat, don’t you? So let’s get reading!
This Season's Emoji Explanation
In Japan, one of the most important holidays is New Years. Families gather together to celebrate the coming spring. One of the decorations you can find at many homes is a barrel or wooden bucket of bamboo with some other winter greenery. They represent the longevity that people hope for. The second emoji is a snowman and if you’re from a country with snow, it’s a common winter sight. However, have you noticed this emoji is a Japanese snowman? In comparison with Western snowmen that are made of 3 balls, Japanese snowmen are typically built with only 2 balls. Lastly, the final emoji is a pine tree. Across various cultures in the Northern hemisphere, pines and evergreens have stood out to ancient peoples as one of the few plants that stay green in winter. It’s a symbol of life in many cultures.
Where does this challenge come from?
Back in the summer of 2021, @Redglare had the great idea of a “Read Every Day” challenge, in which participants challenged themselves to read something in Japanese every day for 2 whole months. Since then and until now, @Redglare and @windupbird have hosted this challenge every season. Thanks to them, many of us have improved our Japanese and lifestyles! You might notice that I am neither a bird nor glare. I offered to take over the challenge since they’re quite busy (お疲れ様！), but of course they’re welcome to take it back at any time if they want to. I’ll do my best to keep up the encouragement!
Please help us keep this a positive, encouraging, and fun space! Please feel free to bribe encourage fellow participants with cute pet and animal photos or recipes even.
Archive of Past Challenge Threads
Read every day challenge - Summer 2021 
Read every day challenge - Fall 2021 
Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 
Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 
Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 
Read every day challenge - Fall 2022
Read every day challenge - Winter 2023
Read every day challenge - Spring 2023 
While the name of the challenge is “Read Every Day,” you may have noticed that it also has a season attached. That’s because each challenge only lasts 2 months. Forever would be a long commitment. By having clear start and end dates, it becomes a much more manageable goal. At the end of the challenge, please consider what worked or didn’t work for you. Did you have fun? Then you can take a break or decide to keep going.
Also, please don’t worry about starting late or not completing the challenge! Life happens. This is an open opportunity for everyone who wants to set some reading goals. Everyone is welcome. Some participants have even started tracking their reading in other languages.
As @Redglare has said:
This is a thread for people who:
want to spend time reading a bunch this winter
want to improve their reading speed and comprehension
want to hold themselves accountable and have a place to document their progress
simply want to join in on the challenge of reading every day for two or so months
To add onto that, this is also a thread for people who want to track or talk about their reading too. If you’d like a computer to do most of your tracking, please check out Natively.
Time frame: January 1 - February 29
Again, late starts are totally welcome! Usually people will continue posting through March and some may give some updates even later. It’s all good! You can start and finish your personal challenge at any point during that time, and shorten or lengthen the challenge to the time period that works best for you. Personally, I usually extend my reading into the 3rd month since I find these challenges have been great at helping me reach my annual reading goals.
As @windupbird has said
Your reading materials can be whatever you want, be it manga, light novels, books, visual novels, magazines, graded readers, satori reader, Japanese webpages/blogs, or Japanese games - you name it, anything goes as long as it is something in Japanese
“Reading” can be interpreted creatively, if that helps keep you motivated - for example, some people have counted reading Japanese subtitles as reading some days. In general, we are a pretty flexible and forgiving bunch
Need help finding something to read? Check these threads out!
The News Reading Challenge - folks typically read the easy NHK article of the day or other similar articles from various apps
The "news reading" challenge 🗞
The Immersion portion of this thread has a lot of great resources
The Ultimate Additional Japanese Resources List!
Reading the same book with others can be pretty motivating. It’s also easier to ask about grammar or vocab, so how about joining a book club? If you don’t want to join, you could always take it as a recommended book instead. A list of book clubs can be found here:
- Yes
- Yes, but I might start late
- Not sure
- No
Happy reading!
Completed During Challenge 
新にほんご 500問 N2
新にほんご 500問 N2
美知子の星空 
星のカービィ カービィカフェ
１月 １日
Noice choice of emojis 
I noticed that most of my home posts were posted in the range of 30 to 50 in terms of number of posts. This one will be the earliest that I’ve made a home post.
macalys’ Home Post (and Thread) 
(
(past BBC) 
(past ABBC) 
(past ABBC) 
(past BBC) 
(
(with the IBC) - 
(with the BBC) - 
I might end up replacing some of them with manga instead depending on my reading progress.
