[2024] 多読/extensive reading challenge

Going to start my first reading challenge. At first I will probably mostly use japanese.io. Good luck everyone!

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I have Convenience Store Woman in my bookshelf and it really intrigues me what’s it about since it’s such a bestseller that everyone talks about! I’ve even seen translations in several languages in bookstores. Waiting to finally get to it. :slightly_smiling_face:

Good luck! :smile: Are you going to use japanese.io to import some texts or read the classics in its library?

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Good luck! :smile: Are you going to use japanese.io to import some texts or read the classics in its library?

Thank you! :pray: I am starting off by reading the classics in its library. I’m not so sure at the moment where to find text to import, but I’ll probably figure it out as I go :sweat_smile:

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As of tomorrow, I’ll finally be allowed to work from home during my districts upcoming school closure. This gives me roughly 3 weeks (by current estimates, but it will likely be extended) at home and I don’t want to have requested a work at home order only to end up studying less than if I had stayed at school, even if it still saves me the stress of extensive deskwarming.

So, I made a daily schedule. My reading goal is to finish 2 books during this time, so I’ve carved out a specific block of time each day to read for 30+ minutes in the afternoon to try to build a habit of it that carries past the quarantine. I’ve also got daily goals set for Kitsun and Bunpro, weekly goals for running, and daily 漢検 sessions built in. Stay safe out there everyone, and happy studying!

**Unfortunate edit I should’ve seen coming: The library is closed until Golden Week, so once I finish 君の名は I’ll be going back to 銭天堂4, and then I guess I may be ordering my Kindle/other e-reader much sooner than I anticipated…

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I’m seeing a lot of benefit already from my increased reading amount in 2020. Adding in manga, as well as book club novels, means I’ve added options for reading instead of having just my one novel whenever I want to read fiction in Japanese. This means I can read more often, in different moods and contexts, and longer, because when I’m feeling fatigued with one, switching to another often relieves that fatigue without meaning I have to stop reading. I think my speed and stamina have both increased.

The other striking result is an uptick in words added to my anki deck. For the Dec. 1st JLPT, a few months prior to the test I suspended all my (thousands of) new cards, then selectively unsuspended those words that I thought (based on various things) would be most helpful to have in my brain for N1. I kept it exactly to the number of days left times the number of new cards I add a day, so on the test day I was down to zero new (unsuspended) cards. (An illusion of being completely prepared.) I had a backup tag ready for after the test to unsuspend perhaps a hundred quality cards so that I didn’t have a gap. Anyway, right now I have ~1,100 new, unsuspended cards. I didn’t go back in and do another wave of selective unsuspending–these are from the words I have seen in the past four months (compared against my suspended cards and having ones seen in the wild more than once unsuspended). This is definitely a faster pace of new (quality, unsuspended, seen multiple times, etc etc) cards than I had previously to 2020. On one hand it’s a bit daunting–right now I’m only learning four new cards a day, so this is years’ worth of cards. On the other hand, so many new words to learn!!! I love it.

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I just finished reading 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった…1
As the title implies, the main character dies and is reincarnated into the main antagonist of the otome game she was playing just before her death… Interestingly, it is established that she didn’t remember about her former life until she has a sever head injury at age 8 (in her new life), leading her to recover the 17 years of her past life. (That’s a little bit spoilery, but that’s basically the first couple of pages, so I’d say it’s okay). The thing is, the game she was playing takes place when she is 15, so 7 years in the future. She also knows that a lot of possible endings of the game will lead to her being exiled or straight up dying. She thus decides to spend the next 7 years getting crazy prepared™ for every possibilities. Her action completely break the setup, since she hardened all the seduction targets of the MC, removing the trauma/vulnerabilities that MC was supposed to exploit to seduce them. In doing so, she basically ended up having the harem for herself :stuck_out_tongue:

Fun fact: I did not expect this story to involve a (reversed) harem. Thinking back, I cannot understand what I was expecting. Well, harem stories seem to be very similar, whether they are written for young men or women. The only difference I can see beyond the gender of the protagonist (not to be confused with the game’s MC :p) is the type of fan service. In books like DanMachi, you get scantily clad women with large breasts, which sounds like back pain. In this book, you get alluring men whose charm could not only entice women but other men as well, which sounds like fun for the whole (legal age part of the) family if you catch my drift sorry.

Anyway, this book was a test to see how reading ebooks would (y’know, it was for science, not because I like it or anything). I read it in technically two settings (for Science, I said), the “technicality” of it being that I ran out of battery a few pages from the end. Well, I have to say, physical books do not run out of battery.

In terms of quality, the writing isn’t really great, but the story telling is nice. Each chapter first tells the story from the point of view of the protagonist, then has a second part recounting the same things from the point of one of the characters she charmed. That was a nice addition, since the protagonist’s actions are so dumb (the way she presents them or justify them) that her getting all the boys (and all the girls because why discriminate) really stretch the suspension of disbelief. However, from the point of the person, it often takes a completely different meaning. Also, she seems to be much better looking/presenting from the point of view of others than from her own point of view, which makes sense I guess. So, yeah, suspension of disbelief somewhat restored. The main issue, though, is that you basically have to read the same thing twice in a row. That feels a bit like sloppy writing when conversation are just basically copy/pasted as is.

Anyway, to conclude, fun setting, average-ish writing. It was heavily discounted the day I bought it (sadly the last day of the promotion), so for that price, it was worth it, I guess.

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Haha, bonus points for your scientific approach! :joy_cat:

So what is your verdict with respect to reading ebooks, apart from the battery life issue?

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Reading on a screen, even for long stretches of time wasn’t as annoying as I expected, plus I can read in the dark (although that feels like a bad idea in the long run). It wasn’t as comfortable as a paper book though.
Another point is that I always have my phone with me, while I do not always have all the books I want to read.
So yes, convenience +, comfort -. Since booklive (which is the first ebook thing I found, I don’t know if I made a good choice or not) has a bunch of free stuff that changes over time, I feel like I will definitely keep reading ebooks. As soon as the state of emergency stops, though, I’ll probably just revert to mostly paper, though.

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I started reading my first manga series in nihongo October last year, so as a newbie to reading some real nihongo I had no idea how many volumes I wanted to put as my goal at the start of this year. Ended up setting the goal to 20 volumes because 2020, hehe :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: …And now I’ve reached that goal! :durtle_noice: So no more manga for me this year :laughing:

Just kidding, I’ll definitely read more x3 Not sure about the goal number situation though, I think I’ll just let it be for now and just keep adding to the number of read volumes as I finish them :3

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Congratulations on exceeding your expectations already! :smile:

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So I just finished ‘reading’ the audio book version of the first 本好きの下剋上, which is nice. I think I’ve finally had another breakthrough in terms of listening comprehension, which I think came about mostly through listening to a ton of horror stories on youtube while going to sleep : o
Anyway as for the book, it was really long for a “light novel” at 10 hours, and 本好きの下剋上 continues to be the most theoretically boring but thoroughly readable/watchable/listen…able thing ever.
I also continue to be impressed with the effort Japan puts into voice acting, which apparently extends to audio books.

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Just came across 魑魅魍魎くん while reading ひぐらしのなく頃に, and it feels like my duty as a forum member to report that :laughing:

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I just got the first book for free on booklive. But I’m feeling less excited about that all of a sudden :sweat_smile:

You’ve done well, soldier. :nonexistentsoldieremoji: 魑魅魍魎 spottings are always appreciated.

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Heh well. I don’t find it actually boring, but I’ve found it impossible to explain the book to someone in a way that doesn’t sound super boring!
It’s like trying to explain Animal Crossing to someone
“You uh, well you catch bugs and stuff, and pay off debts, and you can… play dress up?”

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I never played animal crossing, sooo yes I guess it does sound boring :sweat_smile: I guess that, like in stardew valley the fun comes from taking care of your place and exploring?

Well, anyway, I’m going to read that book at some point although I have to catch up to like 90% of the current book of the Re:Zero book club and somehow bought volumes 2 and 3 of 乙女ゲームの破滅フラグしかない悪役令嬢に転生してしまった… How did that happen, I have no idea.

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I just wanted to let you know that I am greatly enjoying watching your descent into trash :grin:

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Just like watching the decline of the decadent Melniboné.

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What radish said. :eyes:

I do hope you’ll continue to update us on that 乙女ゲーム series too. The premise sounded interesting, but your review made it seem less so. Now I’m wondering if you getting 2 (!) more books of the series is indicative of it still being a good-ish read, or more your degrading standards. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Not that I have high standards. I happen to like good trash.

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My standards have hit rockbottom, but never fear, they kept digging anyway :ok_hand:
Also, I’m still on week 2 of Re:Zero, what am I doing…

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When the manga you bought randomly includes this for some reason…

Context I guess?

It’s a multi page thing, the above picture was just what I saw first. Here’s the cover.

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