📚📚 Read Japanese Every Day Challenge - Spring 2024 🌸🍡🌱

Japanese Language Reading
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:bookmark: Home post // May 5 :cherry_blossom: :dango: :seedling:

・ 今はもうない - Switch Back (62%)
・ 拝啓見知らぬ旦那様、離婚していただきます〈下〉(23% → 41%)

I wonder what everyone’s reading habits looks like. When, where, how (book/device), what mindset/strategy you’re reading with, how much time, etc.

For example me, Redglare: I read on the train when I have shifts at part time work, or right before going to bed (which is not good for sleep) or after waking up (which is not good for starting my school work productivity for the day). I’m not great at dedicating time of my day only for reading, it’s an effort. I usually read on my phone (bookwalker) and sometimes on pc (also bookwalker). I think I’ve always have had the mindset of looking up every word I’m unsure about even if I’m “supposed” to know it already, whether it be reading/meaning or that the context doesn’t make sense. There are so many words that have different or unexpected meanings just because the context is different. I find that very interesting.

Sometimes I practice reading as fast as I can by scanning the lines and sometimes I go yukkuri by reading out-loud (good for keeping focus and making sure I look up readings of words).

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So let’s see…
On weekdays, it’s usually work, dinner, SRS, chores, read/watch time.

When: Usually on week days it’s work, dinner, SRS, then maybe read/watch around 8pm. Sometimes I’ll read in bed around 1am, particularly if I had something else on in the evening. On weekends, I usually go walking in the early afternoon and come back and so some Japanese practice between then and dinner, or else after midnight otherwise.

How: I’ve got a mix of digital and physical media. Generally I order physical manga every month or two, so what I read physically depends on what I think I’ll read enough of to order in bulk and what my local retailer has in stock. Novels are still read digitally for now, I still rely a lot on yomitan lookups for those. For digital manga, I don’t have a Mokuro workflow or anything, and find trace lookup on Jisho and Jotoba not the most reliable, so I mostly use Jotoba’s kanji → radical → kanji search when I need to lookup.

Where: Depends a little on the format I’m reading and when. Physical books I’ll take to my sofa or to bed depending on the time I get around to it. Novels usually are read at my computer. Digital manga can be either — usually if I intend to finish in one sitting, I’ll do it at my computer desk so that I can have Jotoba on my other monitor for kanji lookup, if I’m just reading in bed I have a Surface Go tablet I use. If I’m reading a physical book or in bed, it’s going to be more likely to be extensive reading, just because lookups are more of a pain by making me grab my phone.

Mindset/strategy: I definitely lean more towards the extensive than intensive reading. When doing extensive reading, If I understand the gist of the sentence, whether from the words or the context I’ll be happy with that and move on, rather than needing to understand why every grammar point is used. Occasionally if something really trips me up I’ll dissect it, or if I notice a pattern or unknown kanji word coming up a lot. I do do more intensive reading at times - the divide used to be book clubs are intensive and casual reading was extensive, but now it’s basically more of a case by case basis. This does means sometimes in book clubs, I see people start asking about a grammar point and find myself going “Huh, why is that that way?”.

Oh one other, maybe slightly weird habit, but generally I listen to music when I read. Instrumental/ost stuff mostly so it’s not too distracting. I find that seems to cut down on my tendency to get distracted and go “Oh, what’s happening on the forums/news/slack/discord/whatever” every few minutes otherwise. Lately that’s been the Danganronpa 2 soundtrack

Time: I have a chart! The blue section is reading, the red section is listening, and the orange bars are things that are both (e.g. games):

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image2460×1075 40.3 KB

So usually between 15m and 50m on any given day, though I do have occasional days of more.

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:house: Home Post | :writing_hand: Study Log | 05月05日

Resource Progress Visual
:orange_book: Tadoku L3 Stories 6/24 ■■□□□□□□□□ 25%
:newspaper_roll: NHK Articles 5 ■■■■■□□□□□
:coffee: Shirokuma Cafe 8/25 ■■■□□□□□□□32%
:teddy_bear: 老女的少女ひなたちゃん１巻 4/10 → 5/10 ■■■■■□□□□□ 50%
:open_book: DoBJG 11/33 ■■■□□□□□□□ 33%
:cat: チーズスイートホーム１巻 20/20 ■■■■■■■■■■ 100%
:cat: チーズスイートホーム２巻 7/18 → 10/18 ■■■■■□□□□□ 55%

Happy with today’s quick reading, idk if it counts as passive or active since I looked up words and added them need to anki but didn’t fully analyse the sentences

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Generally i will try and read when I can get a block of uninterrupted time - usually after my daily Anki revision, so mostly in the mornings if i have time, sometimes on the train to work. If I have a morning shift I may read on my break if I need to concentrate to read or I may just do it inbetween job tasks if it’s an easier manga etc. These days I am also reading for fun later in the evening etc

I mostly read on my eReader (Boox Note Air3) on manga PDFs I convert from bookwalker/kindle because then I can scribble notes all over them, or using epubs for novels because then I can load them up in ttsu/kiwi browser. I also have a backlog of physical manga to read too.

Reading styles… there’s a long discussion to be had there, but the gist of it is I flit between intensive (look up every word, jot down a note on the page) and extensive (just roll through it, look up words later) reading (and even occasionally ‘scanning’, where I basically just look at the pretty pictures and intuit what’s going on based on whatever jpn I can recognise without having to look it up – usually for harder works). What I do basically depends on my mood.

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6 May | Study Log

:question: Title Type Natively Progress
:mage: とんがり帽子のアトリエ 1 manga 26 32% → 50%
:moyai: テレワァク与太話 manga ?? 36% → 60%
:cat2: また、同じ夢を見ていた book 25 77% (no change)
  • Week’s chapter for とんがり帽子, need to go over again slowly.
  • Got drawn into the story for テレワーク and started reading without lookups, need to go over again later (there’s LOADS of lookups I need to do…) but I’m getting the gist of things, so whatever
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2024-05-06T01:57:00Z

I do my WaniKani reviews at 8:30 pm every day (except when I don’t feel like it or have less than 10 reviews). Then I do lessons (except on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, or when I completed my reviews with less than 90% accuracy). After that (which is usually around 9 pm), I read a few pages of manga on my tablet using the Bookwalker app (unless my tablet is charging, then I read on my laptop using the web reader on Bookwalker). I don’t look up any words. At this point in my Japanese study, I am mainly practising recognising kanji rather than increasing my fluency and comprehension in Japanese. That’s why I mainly read manga that I’ve either already read in English or watched the anime for it.

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Timing varies, especially since I do shift work. I read almost entirely on my iPad, otherwise physical books. I usually do extensive reading (oops meant to say intensive!), and I’m usually reading for enjoyment/trying to keep up with book clubs (which sometimes doesn’t feel so enjoyable). I tend to read more on holidays but have regular weeks off.

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I keep changing what want my habits to be, but in general:

I like to read at the end of studying (gives me a reason to get through grammar). This is usually in the afternoon.

At home on my computer, though I’ve set up bookwalker on my phone so I can read on commutes. The past few days I’ve been sat in front of my computer but reading on my phone. I do own a small amount of physical stuff. It’s either super easy textbook-like stuff (read in front of my computer), or way above my level.

Mindset depends on the book and how much I care about it. The more I care, the more likely I am to plug stuff into ichi.moe or look up what that grammar is or use jisho’s radical kanji search. I assigned a book to be intensive reading for looking up everything but haven’t touched it in a while.

Time is very variable at the moment. I used to make sure I spend at least half an hour on reading. Now I enjoy reading enough I forget to keep track. A few times I’ve read until the Headache of Knowledge starts. I’d like to read that much everyday. Sometimes I have a bad day and don’t want to read anything more difficult than cats meowing at each other.

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6th may

home post

back to ガリレオ! didn’t quite finish the case cos it’s a bank holiday so i was spending time with family but did manage ten pages. everything else was pixiv.

today’s nhk article was this one, plus the entry on わけだ in aDoIJG

i only ever read in the morning, doing more intensive stuff (books, manga, games etc.) during the weekdays and lighter stuff over the weekend to avoid burnout. i prefer physical books but that’s not always practical (or cheap) so it tends to be whatever i have to hand. i use my laptop for lookups (jisho, yomichan) unless i have no internet then i use shirabe jisho on my phone.

ig i read intensively? i don’t really look up grammar anymore, but all the words i lookup labelled ‘common’ go into anki for SRS, and then I have a separate spreadsheet of everything else with formatting so i can see any repeats and if anything’s worth dedicating time to learning. takes longer but is helping with some leeches.

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Q2 of 2024 | Week 6

5月6日 (月)

  • :cn: Three Kingdoms : 3 (14-15/32)

  • セーラー服と機関銃 (78-82%)

Words of the day
  • 誘致(ゆうち) = attracting; lure; invitation
  • お産(さん) = childbirth. Like 出産(しゅっさん) or 分娩(ぶんべん).
  • デカ = detective :policeman:. From a slang inverted word of 角袖(かくそで) (～巡査(じゅんさ)).
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I’m still figuring my ideal answers to this out, but:

I typically read when my husband is sleeping (he works nights and I’m not 100% nocturnal) because otherwise I’m going to want to spend time helping him study, or he’ll try to talk to me in English and I’ll find it hard to keep track of context of sentences in Japanese at the same time. Though I have managed to play some games and have my laptop play the music so he can “hear me focusing.” Maybe I should try playing video game osts when I want to squeeze in some reading time? Finding a “when” that’s consistent is my biggest struggle right now.

Where/how: In bed with my laptop and a jisho page, a weblio page, a deepl page, this forum thread, my bookwalker tab, and sometimes a steam game. 原罪物語 -罪- very helpfully has a tumblr blog that translated it so I usually have that open just to cross reference if I get lost (it’s really helpful for names). I’ve been using Yomitai to give images to for looking up kanji because it’s significantly faster than I am at looking up kanji I haven’t seen before, but I’m not sure when it’s going to leave beta testing and become a paid service. I do cross reference all of their definitions with jisho/weblio which adds to the time a bit.

Mindset: I want to look up every word I don’t know, and I want to make sure I “see” the grammar, so I’m mumbling under my breath how to read the sentence slowly. I try to take notes on all new vocab, and I’ve been tempted to SRS a few of them, but I haven’t started that yet. I’m okay with not understanding exactly how every grammar point is used, as long as I’m getting all the vocab and figuring out the point.

How much time: I try to aim for at least 1 hour, but it often stretches to 2-3 because I like having useful breakpoints. I can’t afford 3 hours every day though, so I guess I should try to do harder material when I have a longer chunk of time and easier material when I have a shorter chunk of time.

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Love checking out everyone’s responses!

I have physical and digital reads.
Digital: all manga (bookwalker), japanese HP
Physical: lower level childrens novels- fushigi sweet shop and goosebumps

I do digital reading at work when there’s downtime. (Lucky to work a job that has downtime that I can spend reading manga :grinning: ) Physical books I only read at home. I’m more likely to read these with fewer lookups because of the barrier to lookups. All digital reads I pretty much read intensively, although sometimes I skim a little when I’m reading easier manga and feel like I’m getting the gist.

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Like @Jintor, I begin reading when I know that I won’t be interrupted for a while. It can be when my daughter is at school in the afternoon or in the evening after she’s gotten to bed.

I read mainly on my tablet on the browser, with the mokuro reader for manga and the ttsu reader for light novels and short stories. I have a pdf file of each book in parallel where I take notes.
I have one reading on paper at the moment. When I read it, I only use my tablet to access the dictionary.
I also read a series on Satori Reader for which I just need the app.
In each case, it’s intensive reading. Sometimes on manga, I go with the general sense, but I don’t like when I don’t understand something :sweat_smile:

As for the duration, it depends, but it’s rare when I read less than 30 minutes.

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May 6 | Home post

Another trip to the Island :desert_island:, another 2500 characters.

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My reading is all over the place, and that’s what I like about it!

Most of my reading right now is from a visual novel (Island, with the VN bookclub). I read that on my computer, with the help of a Textractor, a text hooking webpage and a Chrome plugin.

I also read a few different mangas. I read those on my tablet, in the Kindle app.

Lastly, I read a few novels. I read those in bed on my Kindle Oasis device.

I mostly read in the evening, after dinner and when my kids are getting ready for bed. If I’m not too tired, I like to read a little in bed before sleeping too.

If I read the VN, I read for an hour or two. I don’t have that kind of stamina with books or manga for some strange reason. I can manage a chapter at a time of manga, and just a few pages from a novel. But with a VN, reading just one sentence at a time, with the help of a dictionary, I can read for hours.

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:house: home post :house:
:calendar: 2024年5月5日 :calendar:

:question: Title Read today Currently at Notes
:desert_island: ISLAND 5k 500.000 char 53 new words

When and where: when I’m in my room / office, door is closed, it’s my me-time and I’m not interrupted. That usually happens once a day for one or two hours. And usually I use 100% of this time on doing Japanese, I won’t have another chance during the day to decide what I can do with my time so I’m not messing around :grimacing:

How: PC for VN, novel, and manga. Using Yomitan for all those things and sometimes machine translation. So the downside is that if I’m not at home, I don’t do any reading (except what I always do on my phone: Satori Reader / WK / JPDB)

Mindset: Very intensive reading, I lookup everything, translate if I’m lost, research things like cultural references. I never do extensive reading, if I’m too tired to read, I stop. Like now! おやすみなさいー

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5月6日 | Home post

Started the final volume of アオハライド.

  • アオハライド (13) (pp. 1-21)
  • DoBJG: に (5); に (6) (47%)
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May 4th-6th | SeanBones’ Home Post

Book Progress
:fountain_pen: Nozaki-kun 2 chapters FINISHED VOLUME 10
:full_moon: Tsukihime Made it to school!

Thoughts:

Once again, some great Nozaki-kun chapters over at the Nozaki-kun book club!

Tsukihime is soooo good, the music especially is making the experience just a really nice vibe. Shocked by how well I’m understanding what’s going on!

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So interesting to read that so many people approach reading differently.

For myself, I mostly read in the evenings. During the day if I don’t have to work.

I always read on my coach, usually with either the TV our radio on low volume.

At this moment, I only read physical books and manga. I find that digital sticks with me even less than a physical copy (also, I’ll probably scroll through Facebook for an hour after reading one sentence of a digital copy).

When I’m reading manga, I don’t really look up anything. Generally, the images give away a lot of what’s going on. When I’m reading a book without furigana, I at least look up words I can’t read using my denshi jisho (it lets me draw the kanji, love it). I also look up words if I’m not sure of the reading. I also keep a list of new words I had to look up in the dictionary.

I usually read between 1-30 pages of a novel. When reading a manga I tend to finish an entire volume in one reading session.

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:bookmark: Home post // May 6 :cherry_blossom: :dango: :seedling:

・ 今はもうない - Switch Back (62 → 64%)
・ 拝啓見知らぬ旦那様、離婚していただきます〈下〉(41%)

Today was busy.

Thanks to everyone who replied! :durtle_the_explorer: I don’t have time to reply to everyone individually, but reading all your responses was very interesting.

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