📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2022 ☃❄

Dang that sounds rough. I hadn’t even thought of how hard it would be to understand things like references, figures of speeches, and euphemisms.

“…イチョウ切りのナイフさばき” Is she talking about the “cut of the knife” here? Like how the blade was shaped or what type of cut it leaves?

Edit: Nvm, I took so long to write this @NicoleIsEnough already answered this lol.

Full Page for Context

She’s advocating for more club members, so I think this definition from that page might work: “(2) A phrase used to describe a situation that is difficult to understand or affirm.” Maybe the situation is difficult to affirm since the guy is so against it?

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Obviously this line is kind of beyond me, but with Nicole’s help, I think the line is talking about anger relates to [method of cutting vegetables where they are cut into thin rectangles] and sadness as relates to [method of cutting vegetables into little quarters]. I also didn’t know さばき could be a suffix for handling, figured they were going with the homonym for “judgment.” As in, like, metaphorical “knife judgment” considering it was a stabbed person, you know? I got primed to think non-literally and this time all it did was make me miss what it actually said haha.

(ahh you just edited that right before I posted – all the same, I want to at least preserve what I wrote about how I messed up, haha)

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Home post

Day 8: I’ve only read the example sentences in my Anki deck, but at least it’s something :upside_down_face:

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Uuuuhhhh, I did not make the connection that this might talk about a real stabbing omg :cold_sweat:

Glad I could help though :+1:

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Day 15 :slight_smile:
I did quite a lot of reading today.
I had a class with one of my tutors this morning, and we carried on with the activity we were doing last week, which was reading a long list of “would you rather” questions, and answering them. It was much more conversation practise than reading, but there was reading involved so I think it counts :slight_smile:

Then a friend sent me a link to a cute webcomic.
Its 4-koma format, and has each comic in both English and Japanese, which was nice because it made it easy to check whether I was understanding things correctly.
Heres a link in case anybody else is interested!

This evening I started the 3rd volume of レンタルおにいちゃん. I read the whole first chapter, which was 40 pages.
40 pages is pretty long for me to manage to read in one sitting, so I think I’m already starting to see the impact of doing more reading every day! :blush:

(Home Post)

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Summary post :bookmark:

January 15
・かがみの孤城.

Progress: (86% → 96%)

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Today I read the last 65 pages ofドメスティックな彼女 volume 1.
It was interesting and pretty lewd, there were lots of interesting vocabulary. If you collected all the vocabulary I wrote down you would have pretty much a vocabulary list for the first manga volume. Imagine that was just one volume (28 volumes are released) how many more interesting words could be learnt reading the whole series.

退かす どかす to remove; to move out of the way​
パズル puzzle
修羅場 しゅらば fighting scene; scene of carnage (bloodshed)
常套句 じょうとうく stock phrase; cliche
既婚者 きこんしゃ married person
嫉妬 しっと jealousy; envy
略奪愛 りゃくだつあい stealing another’s romantic partner
がっかり to be disappointed; to be downhearted; to lose heart; to feel let down​ N3
区役所 くやくしょ ward office; council (regional)
出直す でなおす to make a fresh start; to turn over a new leaf
目線 めせん (one’s) gaze; direction in which one is looking, point of view
黒服 くろふく black-suited staff member (e.g. in restaurant, sex establishment, etc.)
ぼっ手繰り ぼったくり rip-off; unfair overcharging
お代 おだい charge (e.g. admission, menu item); cost; price​
フルボッコ completely beating someone up; thoroughly bashing someone
キャバクラ嬢 キャバクラじょう hostess (in a hostess bar)

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You must be right at bedtime or something cause no way I could stop that book so near to the end :scream:

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Yep :joy: I’m kinda bad at finishing stuff though.

And I realize I should’ve included the (上) in the title since I’m reading the tankobon(?) version, and not the full book version. Will read the sequel afterwards! :slight_smile:

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Based on that I think it’s more like “what do you think (of getting more members)?” Like どうですか sort of “how is (whatever you’re talking about)?” but just casual version if that makes sense.

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Thanks. This was extremely helpful. I’ve always been interested in the movie but I haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet. I usually like to read books that movies are based on first but if this movie is based so loosely on the original story, I’d rather watch the movie first. I got the book in the second picture, though. When I want to take a break from manga, I may try to read it.

Here’s the flower for my birthday.
image

ヒルザキツキミソウ

Unfortunately, I don’t understand the Japanese words nor do I recognise the flower so I don’t know what it is in English.

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Pop that Japanese flower name into Google with “wiki” added to find the Wikipedia page. Scroll down and click the link for the English article and you will find…evening primrose.

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Summary post

Day 15: January 15th

365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑
Time spent: 13 min
Today’s color: 小豆色 (あずきいろ) - reddish brown

It’s azuki bean color! Apparently in ancient times, red was considered a color to ward off evil spirits, so on celebratory occasions, it was good to eat 赤飯 (rice steamed with azuki beans so it gets red) and ぜんざい (red bean soup with azuki beans).

A good word harvest today
  • 食用 (しょくよう) - for use as food; edible
  • 主流 (しゅりゅう) - (the) mainstream
  • 魔除け (まよけ) - charm against evil spirits; talisman; amulet
  • 厄除け (やくよけ) - warding off evil; protecting against misfortune (basically what I took from looking these up on Jisho is that anything X除け is like…repelling/warding off X, it’s pretty cool how many words there are that appear to work like that lol)
  • 定着 (ていちゃく) - becoming established (of a custom, system, etc.); taking hold; taking root
  • 欠かせない (かかせない) - indispensable; vital; fundamental; imperative; crucial; critical

まいにち暦生活 日本の暮らしを楽しむ365のコツ
Time spent: 4 min

Actually both of my daily reads today had something to do with azuki beans lol. Today is 小正月 (こしょうがつ) - Little New Year. Apparently the Thing to Do on this day is eat 小豆粥 (あずきがゆ) and get some info on the weather/crop yields for the coming year via 粥占 (かゆうら) - rice porridge divination.

What else did I read?
じじ猫くらし
Amount read: 25 pages
Time spent: 30 min

Finished off this manga today the ending made me kind of sad because kitty is showing signs of aging :cry: Apparently the irl cat it’s based on turned 13 while the author was writing this book (there was a little afterword note in the back wishing him a happy birthday, it was cute :3)

My favorite word today is 神々しい (こうごうしい) - divine, sublime, solemn

Here is the kitty looking 神々しい

And here are some more good words
  • 心なしか (こころなしか) - somehow; somewhat; seemingly
  • ふかふか - soft (and fluffy) (e.g. bed, bread, baked potato or kitty)
  • 出しっ放し (だしっぱなし) - leaving something as it is (after taking it out or turning it on) (LOL this is definitely a word I need in my life)
  • 歳をとる (としをとる) - to grow old; to age

What manga will I start next??? I have too many choices because I bought too many and yet the one I want the most is still not here :upside_down_face: It’s literally not even published yet lol, I’m just impatient. I preordered it but it probably won’t be here until next week at least

I do not need a third “daily” book right now but this sounds amazing and I would probably buy it if it existed xD I like plants~

It is this one, 365日にっぽんのいろ図鑑! It’s a very pretty book, I like it a lot :blush:

Yeah I agree with @natarin! Seems like she’s basically like “how about that? how would that be? what do you think about that idea?” - that sort of feel.

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This is a veeeeey beautiful flower, I can guarantee, and it also smells super nice! It blooms in spring, and where I live we get it a lot, and it has this beautiful pastel pink colour, it’s really pretty. Like pocketcat said, it’s the one called evening primerose in English.
I looked up the 花言葉 for you, and according to this,

It has several interpretations

無言の愛 ; silent love; love of no words
自由な心; a free heart
固く結ばれた愛; a love of firm ties
奥深い愛情; a deeply profound love

I also loved the kanji for it: 昼咲き月見草

Aaaah, thank you for sharing all of that, it was as so nice to get to know about the flower! :star_struck: and 無常観 is such a fancy word, im loving it!

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Would just like to confirm that yes, especially in regards to swordsmanship and other weapons, any weapon name x-捌き(さばき)ー剣さばき、太刀さばき refers to handling, way of using and also testing. If you are talking kitchen knives and just Google or YouTube search 包丁さばき or 捌き方you will get what it’s about! Reading the rest of your messages, wow, what a way to refer to her perceiving the feelings! And I didn’t know about the cutting styles, so thanks you guys!

Thaaank you! I’m about to order some 366’s for this year, so, you know… I’m looking around :eyes: idk if the flower one exists, but for the time being, there is :sparkles:the internet​:sparkles:,for sure.

Ah, yes. A picture worth of the utmost reverence.

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Main Post

January 15th
Tried reading some more conversations on the VR Nihongo discord, this time no translator at all. I’m happy I was able to follow some of the conversations. One conversation was about Final Fantasy XIV. I think they were talked about what classes they played and what server they were on.

Random words from convo

エクスパンション Expansion
クラス Class
タンク Tank
ロールプレイヤー Roleplayer
日本のサバー Japanese Server
アメリカのサーバー American Server
クリスタル Crystal (I assume the name of one of the servers)

Also I found this image

下

Thank you @natarin and @windupbird, that makes sense.

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Summary Post

Day 15: Today I read 5 pages of よつば&!

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January 15 :snowflake: Home Post

Alright, back to reading chaos mode :grin: I started off with ラストゲーム and read weirdly from like halfway through one chapter through halfway through another? I’m out of sync :joy: It was super fun and cute as always, very soft this chapter-ish actually. Aside from 相馬(そうま) telling 九条(くじょう) her heart feels weird around (やなぎ) because she’s in heat :joy: 発情期(はつじょうき), didn’t really expect to learn that word from a romcom but that’s 相馬(そうま) for you lmao

Also went back to 錆喰(さびく)いビスコ of course because I have no self-control. I’m very intrigued by some of the dynamics and interactions that are likely coming, ie. how in the world is ミロ going to react when he meets ビスコ given his perceptions of mushrooms, like is he gonna know? is he gonna be mad? :eyes:

Still getting used to being back in college environs; we’ll see how much I can keep up my reading once classes start up again!

Today's words

伽話(とぎばなし) - fairy tale
後退(こうたい) - retreat, retrogression (poor (やなぎ) lmao)
バレる - to leak, to be exposed
断続的(だんぞくてき) - intermittent (I love this word actually)
()(そな)える - to have both (insert gif here)
凄艶(せいえん) - weirdly beautiful

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Day 16: January 16

  • 君の名は。page 115-124

Tomorrow I will have read halfway through the novel… I started this year saying: “I want to read at least one novel!”, because I saw a lot of people on insta/WK forums saying that was the time they needed to finish their first novel. Then I started this channel with the idea to read at least one page every day of the novel. One page became two pages and two pages became the minimum with some days even reading up to 20 pages!

I think I will keep this pace until I’m done, and afterwards I will continue this challenge with reading some free manga and spending the rest of my Japanese time to learn some grammar (I’ve only really learnt N5 grammar and I know parts of N4).

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Home post

Day 14:

日本語: I read some of 伯爵と妖精 30.

中国語

中国語: I read an intermediate entry on Mandarin Bean and one page of 擅长捉弄的高木同学.

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