📚📚 Read every day challenge - Summer 2021 🏖🏖

Summary

June 28
As predicted, finished 鬼滅の刃2 on my train rides today. I think from looking back at my posts I started the first volume on the 24th so that’s about 2.5 days per volume which is pretty ridiculous tbh, It’s really cool to have found something that I enjoy enough that I want to race through (had the same thing with ボーイズ - although no furigana made that harder for me) but I do need to get better at remembering that reading in Japanese is still pretty exhausting for me and that I should stop before my brain starts hurting. I’ve definitely had a couple of times over the last couple of days where I was like “I’m pretty tired, I’ll finish at the end of this chapter” and then there would be some big dramatic cliffhanger or something and I’d end up keeping on going. I’m very much the same way when I’m reading in English…it’s just that that’s a lot easier and a lot quicker so I can get away with it! It’s been really fun and enjoyable and I’m really keen to find out what happens next but also I do feel quite tired by it, especially as I’ve been reading on an iPad which is a lot of screentime. That said, a perk of reading regularly in Japanese has been that it’s reminded me of how much I love reading! It’s easy to get out of the habit of reading for pleasure when you work a pretty reading intensive job like I do, so it’s been a really cool perk. No more reading for me today though! Going to play some Mass Effect instead :slight_smile:

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:heavy_check_mark: Day 3
June 28

  • 魔界戦記ディスガイア6 (13-4 → 14-2)

Hmm, it seems I may need one day more than I thought to finish this.


Wait, but you have other light novels listed in your main post. Are these even easier than 銭天堂? :open_mouth:
(I hope it doesn’t sound condescending, I’m asking because I’m genuinely interested in easy novel things :stuck_out_tongue:)

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Wiki post

June 28 Update

In heavy contrast with the four days of not reading anything last week, I started and finished a volume in two days. Yesterday, I kept reading トニカクカワイイ later in the day until I’d finished about half the book; today I finished out the rest. Only took about an hour and a half for today’s reading since this manga is very easy to read, even when characters decide to start using complex words and think very hard. I love both the main characters so much, they’re adorable. I’ll definitely be picking up the next volume of this one.

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27.6. take 2
I ended up starting 私の押しは悪役令嬢。in the evening after posting. It’s free on unlimited… Apparently what I need to read more is actually a time limit. One more month of unlimited, gotta read as much as possible. :eyes:

Today I read some more 私の押しは悪役令嬢。, finishing chapter 1. :muscle: I now understand what people mean when they that there is a lot of empty space in (some) light novels, but I do come across a lot of fun idioms and medieval/fantastical/game terms. This is clearly meant for light reading, for adults. Not sure if I’ll continue with the next volumes yet… They’re part of unlimited as well, but I guess I’ll see if I like it enough.

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I started to read アポカリプスの砦 manga volume 1 it’s probably harder than the manga I have read yet. But I managed to read over 20 pages. My reading skills seem to be slowly improving.

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Summary post
June 28

・Read Honzuki 5. (64% → 67%)
・Read SAO 8. (p173 → p182)

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Read one chapter of Sailor moon volume 3 yesterday and another one today, finishing volume three (of the kanzenban version). Yay!

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Bought the second book of 1Q84, gunna start reading it when I don’t feel sick.
Also bought the first volume of Berserk so I’ll also read that soon, too.

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Main post

Day 28 :ballot_box_with_check:
Satori Reader: The River Sanzu, Episode 6.


Ended in a cliffhanger but I’m too tired today to read any more ;-; IBC tomorrow.

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Summary post

Day 28: June 28th
What did I read?: ふたりのライオン
How much did I read?: 23 pages (1 chapter+)
How long did it take me?: 1 hour (half of which was probably me trying to look up what turned out to be names of high schools or other proper nouns…why)

Randomly felt like getting into this manga today for some reason. :woman_shrugging: I bought it years ago. I read an unofficial (:eyes:) English translation of it at some point but I don’t really remember what happens. Originally found it as an Amazon Japan recommendation, I think. :thinking:

Anyway, I don’t know how I got onto this today, but I read for WAY longer than I was originally going to. I would’ve kept going, too, but I could feel my brain giving out on me so it seemed better to stop :laughing:

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:ballot_box_with_check: Day 28
:ballot_box_with_check: Day 29

Yesterday I only squeezed in a couple of pages. Today I made up for it by reading all by finishing chapters 14 and 15! THE PLOT TWIST.

I really, really don’t want to stop. But there’s only one chapter left, and I want to save that for tomorrow.

New words/phrases:
  • 居心地いごこちいい = Comfortable
  • 思想化りそくかする = to idealize
  • どうじる = to be perturbed
  • 根回ねまわし = to make necessary arrangements (taken from the literal action of digging around tree roots before transplanting)
  • 重箱じゅうばこのすみをつつく = to nitpick
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I love your word highlights, thanks for sharing, some of these will make their way into my Anki =D

Home post

  • June 28th からかい上手の高木さん chapter 4 page 11 panel 4

I used to struggle with ~ちゃう, but today it came up and it was so exciting to be able to read it as part of 止まっちゃう.

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So glad to hear that you’re enjoying and able to use some of these words! :laughing::sparkles:

When you finish the first book, I def wanna hear which chapter was your favorite! I just bought the second one cause the first was sooo good. Hope you enjoy it as much if not more :notes:

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Hello! I’m super late, but I’d like to join. Having something external always helps me. I’ll go until the end of July, to start.

Not sure how to make those calendars like y’all, but they look rad. For now I’ll just use paper and post here from time to time to keep updated.

Reading List/Goals:

  • One point from 気のきいた短いメールが書ける本 per day
  • Finish ベルセルク(9巻)
  • Finish 精霊の守り人
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Hello! :durtle_hello: Welcome aboard! :grin: :sparkles:

You can check how someone formatted their post by clicking the reply button on that post and then clicking this button in the top left:

image

(Just make sure not to actually reply to that post if you decide to borrow something :wink: )

You could also copy the format of a calendar I posted here if you want :slight_smile:

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Day 1 (June 29)

Read:気のきいた短いメール(2 points/4 pages)

Super useful information for work and for job searching, so I’m highly motivated to read! I knew the topic was good, but it immediately answered some questions I’ve had forever, which made my really glad I set the 1 point a day rule.

Specifically, my question was when to use さん vs 様 in a business email (spoiler: always use 様 or さま at the start, same as a paper letter, unless they have a specific title like 先生 or 課長). I’d been wavering between 〇〇さんへ and 〇〇様, so now I can be confident in putting 様 and ditching the awkward さんへ.

Second point was on email signatures. I learned that mine is way too long and unwieldy lol.

Edit: Read 2 more points on the train back for a total of 8 pages!

Edit 2: Read 24 pages of ベルセルク before bed

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Thank you for the warm welcome!!

And for the formatting tip!!! That’s super helpful, I’ll have to go back and add it to my first post when I get a minute.

Thanks for creating this thread, I think it’s a real nice idea~

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Oh nice, I’ll use this format too, thanks for posting it bud!

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I don’t think I’ve read enough light novels to be able to compare the difficulty of these books :sweat_smile: So here’s a wall of text regarding each book instead:

夏目友人帳

The 夏目友人帳 light novel I have in my main post has very limited furigana and as such I’ve paused reading it until I’ve learned more kanji on WaniKani.

名探偵コナン

When it comes to the 名探偵コナン light novel I had already seen the movie (without subtitles) which made it a lot easier to vizualise the places that were being described as well as some of the actions of the characters (e.g. fight scenes). I think it’s a pretty good first light novel for fans of the franchise - furigana everywhere, it’s written in modern Japanese, has a lot of katakana words and the author reuses the same phrases/vocabulary throughout the story. The book was 200+ pages and I did end up saving 1394 new words/phrases to my vocab list but I’d say that’s a given with how new I am to light novels. The number of words I added went down drastically with each chapter since the author kept reusing phrases and words.

ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂

ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 is something that I’ve had on my wish list for the past 9 months or so, long before I purchased the other two short novels, which is also the reason why I remember it as being way above my level. I’ve currently read 17 pages and have already saved 123 new words. It does have furigana but it also has a lot of words written in hiragana, e.g. 雰囲気 which I’ve only ever seen written in kanji in other works. It is a children’s book so I guess it makes sense that they would opt for hiragana instead of kanji but that also means I’ve been having a harder time deciphering where an unknown word starts and where it ends. :upside_down_face:

I guess I’ll quickly need to finish ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 now so that I can confirm which one is easier. :stuck_out_tongue:

Will do! With the way things are going I think I’m going to enjoy this series a lot. :sparkling_heart: Magic wish-fulfilling shops where everything goes horribly wrong are straight up my alley. Reminds me of Pet Shop of Horrors and xxxHolic.

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lengthy reply

I haven’t read that much either, but 銭天堂 always seemed like a perfect starting point for me, and until now I don’t think I saw anybody mentioning anything even more approachable, so I got curious.
I read 4 volumes of 銭天堂 (it was my stepping stone from Satori Reader) and I agree that, paradoxically, hiragana is the main obstacle here, I also had problems with deciphering where an unknown word starts and where it ends :stuck_out_tongue:. And the abundance of onomatopoeia. Yikes, :frowning: the onomatopoeia.
The main reason I didn’t read further is because stories got repetitive at some point and also I didn’t agree with some of the moral lessons :wink: but I still have very very warm memories of 銭天堂, it got a special place in my heart :heart:

I was afraid it might be more suitable for the fans and it might change the perceived level of difficulty :sweat_smile:
I don’t know anything about Conan, the number of manga volumes scares me to the bone and I’m not sure if it’s even my genre and the manga seems quite tightly packed with text, but I was willing to give light novel a chance if it would be really relaxing, only now I’m not sure if I’m the right audience. :sweat:
Btw, is it a stand-alone story?

For the record, the thing that’s perfectly my level is the novel version 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 :wave:t2:. And I’m reading harder things too, but that’s often mentally exhausting, so I was hoping for something which requires less brain power. :smiley:
Also, I’m using Kindle so unknown kanji aren’t that big of obstacle for me, but I’m also not looking down at furigana. And it would be lovely to find something I can read with fewer checks, too.
Ironically, I feel more comfortable with novels than manga because full sentences and such. And customizable font without the risk of blurriness.

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