After having participated in the Kanji in order of Ascending Stroke Count advent calendar for a week or so I decided I’d start a diary in Japanese and finally start practicing output. I bought a Midori 10-year diary which I’m starting today, so my challenge is “write every day for 10 years”
polv’s Speaking/Writing Every Day Challenge of Winter Q1 2023 Home Post
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Maybe really just calendar, or even perhaps day count (or days missed) only.
I would probably focus on answering prompts and filling in the blanks, as in textbooks. Perhaps also shadowing (trying to do more properly), but I might not count that part as a checked-in day. (I share my audio too, but probably in my Home thread.)
Yayyy! Glad I caught this before it started this time. I always find I do better with challenges that I’ve started from the start rather than midway through (outside of WK at least).
1月
日
月
火
水
木
金
土
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Final count: 29 out of 31
2月
日
月
火
水
木
金
土
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
Final count: 15 out of 28
Total: 44 out of 59 which is 74.5%, not even a passing grade…
I will be doing a mix of both speaking and writing, speaking on the days I’m not writing and writing on the days I’m not speaking. Not exactly sure how i’ll update my progress yet. Maybe a weekly progress report and also pasting some of my diary entries?
Edited my calendar to show on which days I did what and clicking on emojis now lead to the specific post if any.
December turned out to be busier than I thought it’d be, and I defaulted to doing diary-esque writing practice, which was perfectly fine. For this challenge, though, I’d like to be more purposeful with my output practice: if I’m going to practice speaking or writing, I want it to be focused (even if it’s only for five minutes), rather than rushed at the end of my day. Once again, I’d like to do more speaking practice, but we’ll see how the next two months go!
So today’s diary entry is “ 私は昨日一杯のワインを飲んだのだけで二日酔いです。頭が痛いです 。30歳になるということこうですね？好きじゃないです” I’m betting I’ve made some mistakes but that’s alright, I’ll hopefully spot them when I return to the January 1st page next year:
Btw, is this how one would express “is this what it means to turn 30?”
I also practiced writing the kanji and the sentences a few times before writing them in the diary. I wonder how quickly I’ll build the confidence to just write without any preparations🤔
明けましておめでとう！Despite my goal of not rushing through practice, I’m already starting off doing just that. Things should settle down later in the week, though.
単語練習
取り掛かる：to set about, start, begin
仕事に取り掛かるたびに、同僚に邪魔をされます。
片付けに取り掛かってから、テレビで映画を観た。
宿題に取り掛かる代わりに、友達と遊びに行っちゃった。
上司に依頼人の連絡に取り掛かるのを聞かれました。
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I feel like I’ve seen something like what you’re trying to say written in Japanese before on Satori Reader, but I haven’t found it yet. I’ll keep skimming through what I’ve read on there, but I guess if I was going to take a crack at writing that in Japanese, I’d go with: これは30歳になるということだろうか？I’m not the most confident, however. Also, I, too, love that you’re doing handwriting practice!
一般的にきちんと整理したいと思っています。先週新しい手帳を買って、一月に身につけたい習慣を書きました。運動したり、読んだり、書きたりします。明日か明後日、もっと目的を考えたいです。
Translation: In general, I want to get organized. Last week I bought a planner, and I wrote down the habits I want to acquire in January. Things like exercise, read, and write. I want to think about my goals some more either tomorrow or the day after.
I have been trying to read everyone’s posts here but they’re way beyond my level so I have to use google translate most of the time! Just to say that I hope I can write as good as all of you one day and I wonder if this can actually count as my reading practice for the read everyday challenge… Or is that cheating?
I also like the 単語練習 idea! My last two days are diary entries but this got me thinking I could do the same and some 文法練習 too!
For lunch my husband and I went to a tea room.
I had a ham sandwich, a scone and Rocky Road.
My husband had an egg mayo sandwich, a fruit scone and a walnut cake.
It was really good.
We used to go to that tea room a lot, but we haven’t been recently, so I was happy to go there.
The waitress was pleased to see us.
In the afternoon, I tried to do origami.
I made a butterfly and a triangle box.
I think the results were ok.
It wasn’t perfect, but I enjoyed making it.
I’ll try to remember to include english translations to save you from having to google translate!
Your writing looks really good so far! This will be my third year of keeping a daily diary, and I still find it tough sometimes and I know I make a lot of mistakes.
Every week I read one of my diary entries with my tutor and she corrects my mistakes, and that has been a really good way for me to improve
Another day where I don’t have a ton of time, but that’s okay. Tomorrow should be a bit better. I liked the simplicity of yesterday’s practice, so I figured I’d do the same thing for today.
I was looking for this challenge but I didn’t find it until just now! Well, great, I’m simply yearning to have a slight boost in motivation in order start a daily diary or write out small scripts to practice speaking. I was once in a Japanese speech competition in my neck of the woods and it was incredibly embarrassing. So, in order to improve my presentation skills, I want to improve both my writing and speaking! Not to mention actually being able to write kanji not just visually recognize them. So, count me in! If I don’t get anything done for a few days, it’s because I’m in the reading challenge and the listening challenge and I’ve overloaded myself
I’m going to be honest: today sucked. Part of me wanted to do something simple for my output practice, but then I thought writing about my feelings could be good practice as well as cathartic.
Today was a speaking practice day with my italki teacher. It’s so hard to communicate with such limited grammar but i just have to make do… We practiced speaking in the casual form today.
I also shared my diary entry from January 1 which my teacher corrected.
She also said I should write my entries in casual form from here on cause it doesn’t make sense to talk formally to yourself.
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I’m really sorry about the broken tea cup!
Are the broken pieces fairly large? I wonder if it can still be pieced back together similar to the japanese art of 金継ぎ. Although I don’t know where you could get this done…
How horrible for you, especially while you were also dealing with guests too.
It’s awful when something with such sentimental value gets broken. I can really empathise with how you feel.
Story time!
When I got married we received a beautiful wicker chest full of handmade china that was made by the family of one of our guests. I loved it so much that we never used it, we just stored it on top of our kitchen cabinets where it couldn’t get damaged by our toddler or pets. I wanted it to become some sort of family heirloom that I could pass on to my daughter one day.
Fast forward a few years, one of our cats somehow got up on to the top of the cabinets and pushed the entire chest off and it fell about 2.5 meters onto the floor. I was on the other side of the room at the time and time genuinely felt like time slowed down as I ran towards it while watching it fall, hoping that I’d somehow manage to catch it.
I didn’t catch it.
Almost every piece was broken and I was devastated. I walked my daughter to school shortly afterwards, and as she met her teacher, she loudly “whispered” in the way 4 year olds do “Boggins broke ALL the wedding china! But we mustn’t talk about it or mummy will start crying again.” at which I obviously burst into tears again and a teaching assistant kindly pulled me away and made me a cup of tea while I composed myself.
ANYWAY - this was years ago, and while I’m still sad that the china got broken, the slapstick nature of the whole event has become a funny story we tell people quite often!
Practical advice
Check the bottom of the remaining plate because it may have details about the company that made the set, and possibly the name of the set or a product code that may make it easier to find a replacement.
Also, it may be repairable if its quite a clean break and no pieces are missing. My mum used to collect vintage china, and I’ve seen some really great repairs!
Maybe its worth seeing whether you can find somebody near you who does kintsugi repairs? It would be fitting since it has a cherry blossom theme Possibly expensive though!
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I’m betting I’ve made some mistakes but that’s alright, I’ll hopefully spot them when I return to the January 1st page next year:
（私の）母が結婚のためのプレゼントに対してくれた茶碗だから、すっごく悲しくなっちゃった。ふたつがあったから他の茶碗はまだ持っているけど、セットみたいなものだし、特別にもらったから本当に泣きたかった。でも、義理の母はまだここにいるから、「泣かないでね」と思った。出た時に、すっごく泣きちゃった。 
母に茶碗についてのメッセージを送れて、返事は母が同じの茶碗を探してみるということだった。できるかどうか分からなくて、まだちょっと悲しい。壊れた茶碗を直したいけど、果たしてできるだろうか？こういうことを考える。
We practiced speaking in the casual form today.