:books::books: Welcome to the “Read Japanese Every Day” Challenge, Winter 2024 Edition! :bamboo::snowman_with_snow::evergreen_tree: 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 :beach_umbrella::beach_umbrella: Read every day challenge - Fall 2021 :maple_leaf::fallen_leaf::raccoon: Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 :snowman_with_snow::snowflake: Read every day challenge - Spring 2022 :cherry_blossom: :seedling: Read every day challenge - Summer 2022 :beach_umbrella: :sunny: Read every day challenge - Fall 2022 :maple_leaf::fallen_leaf: Read every day challenge - Winter 2023 :snowman_with_snow::snowflake: Read every day challenge - Spring 2023 :cherry_blossom::tulip::blossom: Read every day challenge - Summer 2023 :sunglasses::sunny: Read every day challenge - Fall 2023 :scarf: :fallen_leaf: :maple_leaf: 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: :bookmark: want to spend time reading a bunch this winter :bookmark: want to improve their reading speed and comprehension :bookmark: want to hold themselves accountable and have a place to document their progress :bookmark: simply want to join in on the challenge of reading every day for two or so months :books: :books: 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 :jp: :durtle_the_explorer: “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 :wink: 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: Master List of Book Clubs poll Happy reading!

The spring thread is live! [image] booksbooks Read Japanese Every Day Challenge - Spring 2024 cherry_blossomdangoseedling Reading booksbooks Welcome to the “Read Japanese Every Day” Challenge, Spring 2024 Edition! cherry_blossom dango seedling It’s a time of beginnings and flower blossoms in much of the world! For those of us with hay fever, it’s the perfect time to curl up with a book indoors. Or for the lucky, you can relax at a park and read in the sunlight. play_button This Season's Emoji Explanation Where does this challenge come from? Back in the summer of 2021, @Redglare had the great idea of a “Read Every Day” c…

Yes but the content warning is too much for me :sweat_smile: I’ll look for an other short manga ^^

Then maybe ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん・ The Wolf of the Small Forest book club! 🌳 (Absolute Beginner Book Club), it’s only two volumes and nothing but cute :slight_smile:

Jan 6, Sat of Week 1 of Q1 2024 STEINS;GATE (VN) Ch.6 DEATH NOTE Vol.11 Ch.94 JoJo Part 1 start Ch.1-2 あなたも殺人犯になれる! (85-100%) Words of the day 進捗状況しんちょくじょうきょう = state of progress 終息しゅうそく = having resolved ニキシー管かん = Nixie tube - Wikipedia :one: :a: 天井裏てんじょううら = in the ceiling cavity, between ceiling and roof もぐら. = mole :rat:. Kanji form is 土竜もぐら, but the 龍りゅう version isn’t in the IME. 萎なえる = to lose strength; to droop. I only knew of 萎しおれる before. (Other ones include 萎しなびる and 萎しぼむ, but those are within guess.) What to do with 苗なえ, I wonder. かちんと来くる = to get annoyed at 煙けむたがる = to consider someone a nuisance 蚊帳かやの外そと = being kept out of the loop :tent: :outbox_tray: i.e. 仲間外なかまはずれにされ. 気持きもちを汲くむ = to consider (considering) other’s feeling

:house: home post :house: :calendar: 2024年1月6日 :calendar: :question: Title Read today Currently at Notes :art: この美術部には問題がある! Chapter 4 — — :exclamation: あなたも殺人犯になれる! Chapter 21 — 24 new words :orange_book: 奥日光 2 episodes 27/62 — @polv how did you like あなたも殺人犯なれる! ?

Rental Oniichan discussion [image] macalys: I stopped thinking I could read this manga at “become abusive overnight” :sweat_smile: It’s not completely overnight, and you’d need to read multiple aspects across three or four volumes to understand why he ended up the way he was. But I imagine it’s not the overnight part that’s the issue, but rather the whole “becomes (physically and emotionally) abusive” part. I felt it works really well in the overall story, giving Kanami a goal of trying to fix things with her brother, while also using her rental brother as a stand-in for who her real brother used to be. It also puts the rental brother in a situation of knowing he can’t always be there to help Kanami. It’s not for everyone, though!

January 5th! 2 chapters of Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie today. Thanks for all the birthday wishes :slight_smile: January 6th! Chapter 149 of Shadow’s House today. (Home Post)

Jan 6 Another weird start to the day. And because I saw @taiyousea picking up my favorite manga series to try, I decided to reread it. Something comforting and this second time in Japanese, I’ll actually look things up, first time I read it I just wanted to see how well it went without look ups. So started reading Alice 19th. I was going to finish the first chapter, but I’m not sure if that even ends in this first volume? I went flipping through and found no chapter title pages except the one at the start of the volume for chapter 1. :joy: Ukiyo-e book [image] Zakarius: But an enormous ukiyo-e book you say? :eyes: I am super interested though I probably shouldn’t derail more asking about every cool book it seems you own :rofl: Hehe, I don’t mind. :joy: I had to go looking for it though, because I couldn’t find it at Adlibris nor Bokus (the two main online places to buy books in Sweden). But after looking up the author by finding which box the book was hiding in, I found it on Italian Amazon and on Goodreads. Linking to Goodreads: Ukiyo-E by Gian Carlo Calza | Goodreads I have a feeling it might be out of print unfortunately. Considering I didn’t even get a UK or US Amazon link in my top search results, but maybe it is there. I didn’t need to go check because I already own it. :joy: Very glad I kept it though.

6th jan home post pixiv reading kind of day (don’t know how many characters it was but it was maybe an hour’s worth?). was gonna go on layton again cos london life is still there but maybe tomorrow. a day late but happy birthday @lucylavelle ! :tada: @Clovie しまなみ誰そ彼 reply glad to hear you enjoyed it! i know what you mean, it can be a painful read in places, especially when some of the characters have so few people in their lives (that they’re out to or otherwise) to talk to about their worries. yeah, it could’ve got very crowded if it tried to resolve everything. i thought that aspect was interesting though, it felt to me like we’re getting small slices of their lives and stages of their growth as people and it takes longer than what we can see for them to figure it out, it felt very human. having said that the internalised homophobia plotline with tsubaki felt like it went by a little too quickly :sweat_smile: genuinely one of the prettiest manga i’ve read, some of those double-page spreads look amazing while also expressing the emotion of a given scene really well! i have! i read it early last year and really enjoyed it (it’s one of my favourite series) so i’m always interested to see what other people think!

:cherry_blossom: :teapot: macalys’ Home Post (and Thread) :teapot: :cherry_blossom: 1月6日土曜日 :sunglasses: 可愛いだけじゃない式守さん vol. 1, 2 chapters along with the ABBC I struggled a lot on one page, but it went ok with the rest so I’m glad. I like the manga so far, even if for now the story lacks a little of depth. But it’s only beginning so I’m not worried :slightly_smiling_face: Thank you for your thoughts on Rental Oniichan @soggyboy, @Akashelia and @ChristopherFritz ! I’m an oversensitive reader on some topics, so tough content like that isn’t for me I’m afraid :confused:

:open_book: :dragon: Days 4-6 | 1月4日ー 1月6日 4th and 5th January Read one page of ハリーポッターと賢者の石 in two days. I’m making very slow progress through the book, but am also enjoying the story, so hopefully it will stop feeling too difficult if I persist :face_holding_back_tears: 6th January Borrowed and read the story ねずみの嫁入り after finding it was available on Libby. Read another paragraph of ハリーポッターと賢者の石。Also read the story of Jack and the Beanstalk in Japanese. I’m also reading the English translation of Sanshiro by Natsume Soseki, and today I read pages 10-15 of that book. Home Post :house_with_garden:

📚📚 Read Every Day Challenge - Winter 2024 🎍☃🌲

Japanese Language Reading

lucylavelle January 6, 2024, 5:13pm 251

January 5th!

2 chapters of Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie today.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes

January 6th!

Chapter 149 of Shadow’s House today.

(Home Post)

Topic		Replies	Views
:books::books: Read Japanese Every Day Challenge - Spring 2024 :cherry_blossom::dango::seedling: Reading	1246	24229	July 2, 2024
:books::books: Read Japanese Every Day Challenge - Summer 2024 :beach_umbrella::watermelon::cricket_bat_and_ball: Reading	1065	16936	October 3, 2024
:books::books: Read Japanese Every Day Challenge - Fall 2024 :maple_leaf::chestnut::apple: Reading	1072	15984	January 1, 2025
:books::books: Read Japanese Every Day Challenge - Spring 2025 :snake::frog: Reading	1426	19479	September 30, 2025
:books::books: Read Japanese Every Day Challenge - Winter 2025 :snowflake::rabbit: Reading	1680	22034	June 30, 2025

📚📚 Read Every Day Challenge - Winter 2024 🎍☃🌲

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