📚📚 Read every day challenge - Fall 2022 🍁🍂

November 30th

:maple_leaf:Home post:maple_leaf:

Card Captor Sakura volume 1 or Aria: the masterpiece volume 2 – progress report

Yesterday: Read up to page 146 in Card Captor Sakura.
Today: Read up to page 163 in Card Captor Sakura, finished chapter 4.

Not too much progress today but at least I finished chapter 4.

I don’t plan on turning this into a rambling or even rant post but I’ll just say that chapter 4 served as a reminder of the – in my opinion – kind of messed up things (mostly (romantic) character relationships and some other character interactions) that are sprinkled across this series because this chapter already had some of it.
I vaguely remember some things I found weird even back when I read it the first time all these years ago, but I’ll probably get an urge to gag once I get to some especially unsettling parts…looking at you, implied romantic relationship (to come) between primary school student and primary school teacher. :nauseated_face:

Since I didn’t start my challenge in October but in November instead, I will continue my challenge until the end of December to still have 2 months worth of reading practice. That’s why I won’t do a challenge recap yet.

If it’s okay, I’ll keep posting my daily reading progress in this thread (unless there is a Read every day-winter challenge starting in December instead of January?). If not, I’ll just update my weekly progress in my study log.


Word or expression of the day:

困惑 (+する) - (こんわ) - bewilderment, perplexity, embarrassment

Honourable mention:

取り替え - (とりかえ) - swap, exchange

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:maple_leaf: :turkey: November 30th :turkey: :maple_leaf: (Home Post Link)

We made it!! Congratulations to everyone!! :partying_face: It was really encouraging to see so many people posting their progress, and I definitely wouldn’t have read as much as I did without this group here, so thank you to everyone who posted and thank you to @windupbird for hosting! I will be sticking around and posting through december probably; I have no plans to break my reading streak unless something goes horribly horribly wrong. Not feeling like I’m really hitting a wall yet with reading without more focused kanji or harder grammar study (yet), and I would like to push this up until I get closer to that point. Honestly, not doing anki or wk reviews for two months has been refreshing, and I’m enjoying reading way more without them. I might need them again someday, but for now I just am enjoying reading. :grin:

Over the course of the challenge, I read 12 volumes of よつばと!, 4 volumes of からかい上手の高木さん, reread about half of Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide (starting from the grammar parts that mattered to me), the one volume of 耳をすませば, my first short story 赤い手袋, and 2 volumes of ホリミヤ. My original goal was to read at least one chapter of manga per day, and enjoy myself doing it. I ended up reading every day, averaged ~2.2 chapters/day (and change, didn’t go count up any online chapters I read for stuff like イジらないで、長瀞さん, or 古見さんは、コミュ症です), and absolutely enjoyed myself doing it, so I’d call this an unqualified success of a reading challenge. Still a long way to go before I’m reading unassisted and with the speed and comprehension at the level I’m after, but progress is progress. No doubt about that.

Moving forward, I’d like to keep up the minimum 1 manga chapter/day goal, since that seems to be manageable for me even on days where I’m not feeling the greatest (and based on my SLA research review,15-20 minutes a day is already more than enough to see considerable benefits from extensive reading programs). But I’d also like to start incorporating NHK easy articles to get some more practice reading more formal writing without the image context in manga (with the goal being to eventually transition this into jp wikipedia or full jp news articles.) The jump from manga to light novels and novels is going to be pretty big, I think, but I’m moving in that direction.

Finishing ホリミヤ before the end of December seems doable, so I think that will be my series reading goal for now, plus one NHK easy article per day.

Read:

  • ホリミヤ ch 14 - more and more cuteness GUUUH
  • よつばと!ch 23 - this was the first chapter I read during the challenge, and at the time I considered it to be the hardest chapter of the series that I’d read so far. I thought it would be fun to go back and do a direct comparison. Now I’d say it’s probably easier than most of what I’m reading. Grammar is noticeably simpler, and I picked up on some parts of the conversation that totally went over my head 2 months ago. In short: remarkable improvements!

image
Mood.

Good Words

ホリミヤ
無断「むだん」ー without permission
拍子「ひょうし」ー tempo, beat, rhythm (here metaphorically)
塞がる「ふさがる」ー to be closed up, to be healed

よつばと!
養殖「ようしょく」ー aquaculture
飲み込む「のみこむ」ー to swallow, to gulp down

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:fallen_leaf: Day 61, 30th of November :maple_leaf:

:open_book: Back to my Home Post

Last day! I read another DrDru story (soo~ many left to go), and this time it was about the て-form. Admittedly not the most exciting end to this challenge. :sweat_smile: Let’s hope I have enough time and energy with all the advent stuff to get through some more.

All in all, I’ve completed 52 days of 61. This was a lot of fun and I definitely read more than I would have wothout this challenge. But I think having a month off until the next challenge is necessary to decompress and decelerate.

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November 30 :heavy_check_mark: :dancer:

おばちゃんたちのいるところ , 30-37%

I did manage to stop browsing bookstores long enough to finish this week’s story after all. And this concludes the official challenge, but I’ve already added a December calendar to my home post. I’ll continue to be very busy in terms of reading, and of course I’ll keep posting here until the next challenge starts.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking that I might not do a reading advent calendar on top of everything else after all. I have so much to read already, and so many books I have bought and not even opened yet, that it’s crazy to go looking for another one just because. On the other hand…I guess I have until tomorrow to change my mind. We’ll see. :eyes:

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:fishing_pole_and_fish: Home :bacon:

November 30

人間椅子 -

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険53
113 - 151

I really wanted to finish last night but I didn’t want to chance waking up for work late

I’ll be continuing through December with the challenge as usual

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Home post :bookmark:

Nov 29 :maple_leaf::fallen_leaf: :snowman_with_snow:

・本好きの下剋上 14 (7% → 18%)

Nov 30 :maple_leaf::fallen_leaf: :snowman_with_snow:

・本好きの下剋上 14 (18% → 21%)

Still have two exams left, but I think the most stressful part is done now :3
Will continue posting unless I get struck with more fatigue.

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No seperate thread, lots of people just keep posting on here so go for it!

I thought I’d posted last night but clearly didn’t.

30/11 21 pages Spy Family (finished mission and book 3)

So I’m currently up to date with 3 clubs, behind in 2 and haven’t even started the 2 new ones from this week.

I missed 2 days each month which isn’t too bad.

At a quick glance I seem to have read 5 manga and 2 books during this time (though some I started before, but on the other hand I’ve started new ones since).

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I have so many things I’m trying to read before EOY I’ll also probably keep posting and reading in this thread as well. I read a decent chunk of 異世界の名探偵 last night, don’t think I updated on that. But it’s going smoother for me now as we’re in the familiar territory of “dead body, solve the case”.

I also started 黄金仮面 last night, and it’s actually doable this year! :tada: Reading without lookups and keeping pace with the audiobook last year was just way too hard and I made it about 1/3 of the way in before I was hopelessly tangled and felt I’d lost the plot. This time there’s still definitely a few sentences that I’m ??? on, but it’s maybe one sentence every few pages as opposed to all over.

Also, I don’t think I noticed last time that the pearl that had been stolen was shaped like an eggplant?! :eggplant: :joy: I suspect I didn’t know 茄子 last year. While there are many varieties of eggplant, I’m going to continue to imagine the most ridiculous one I can for this pearl.

Also, just an aside, I think my audiobook might be based on the original text and my paper copy has been modified. Some words and/or sentences are different, and I know my book has been modified as it contains inline notes, ex: 五十円 at this time (1931) is now (now being 1993) 二万円. I looked it up and 20000円 in 1993 is ~21600円 today.

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:maple_leaf: :jack_o_lantern: :snowflake: :christmas_tree: November 30 :christmas_tree: :snowflake: :jack_o_lantern: :maple_leaf:
Home Post

Loopers :infinity:

Read most of chapter 8 today. I did start it a little last night. Since I’m trying to get through this quickly. I have two more weeks and then Bustafellows starts, and the more I can have read by then, the better. And I’ll be super busy soon, so I won’t have 2+ hours to read like I had today.

I think this 7000 character chapter took me about 2.5 hours to read. So I probably need to schedule double that for 9-nine- that starts right before new year.

So yeah, I have no plan to stop. I have too much to read. I’m also behind on Kamisamagamachigaeru, but I’ll catch up when I want a break from Loopers, or when I break for a chapter of Orange. Volume 5 of Orange starting this weekend! Getting towards the end of that story.

For Loopers, I’m almost halfway through the chapters 8/17, but the VN was peppered with the short chapters in the early portion, so reaching 8.5 chapters won’t mean I’ve read half of it.

I missed 9 days in November (8 in October), but I’m making up for it now, by spending 2 hours more or less every day reading. Some days more than that.

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Summary Post

Challenge Wrap-Up

Not me failing my own challenge :upside_down_face:
I really lost a lot of momentum with all my traveling during this challenge. I was gone for like a week out of each month, and then I failed to pick things back up again when I came back. I just felt like there was so much going on, between the traveling itself and all the work I had to cram into the time before and after my traveling ><

I only read for a grand total of 15 days this challenge :upside_down_face: I finished 3 manga volumes in that time. BUT I did very much enjoy the things I read, and I met the love of my life, my sweet baby angel Rei :pleading_face: I still have one more volume of that left to read, I kind of wanted to leave it for a time when I had the mental space to actually get into it and enjoy it

I’m happy to see that even though I fell down on the job, the thread continued to thrive :heart: Congratulations to those who are finishing up their challenge today - おつかれさまでした :bowing_woman: I will be taking full advantage of the month-long hiatus, as I have even more travel coming up :joy: But good luck to everyone planning to continue! As usual, feel free to keep posting here as long as you like, it’s always nice to read everyone’s updates :grin:

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2022-12-01T01:37:00Z

After I did so well with the last challenge, I got slack with this one and missed 10 days. Those were days when I got too engrossed in reading my usual English novels that I just didn’t feel like stopping to practise Japanese. However, it has been proven (to me) over this past year, that I learn better when I stick to a specific routine. (I don’t know how I am going to finish the rest of the year off, though. I will be getting so many books that I will read immediately and so Japanese may get pushed aside again. :disappointed:) Well, I will continue as best as I could. (That’s all anyone can do, after all.)

Anyway, just like last year when I first started this reading challenge, I am reading オトメン(乙男). The dates almost match as well (it’s just a week earlier than last year). Given my pace in reading, (and provided I take no breaks), I may finish this volume before next year unlike with volume 1 which I only finished in January this year. I still struggle with shoujo manga as compared to shounen manga. The vocabulary and grammar tends to be more complex in my opinion but the gap in comprehension has narrowed for me over this past year with all my shoujo manga practice.

ᴺᵒʷ ᵒᶠᶠ ᵗᵒ ᶠᶦⁿᵃˡˡʸ ʳᵉᵃᵈ ᴹʸ ᴵⁿˢᵗᵃⁿᵗ ᴰᵉᵃᵗʰ ᴬᵇᶦˡᶦᵗʸ ᴵˢ ˢᵒ ᴼᵛᵉʳᵖᵒʷᵉʳᵉᵈ, ᴺᵒ ᴼⁿᵉ ᶦⁿ ᵀʰᶦˢ ᴼᵗʰᵉʳ ᵂᵒʳˡᵈ ˢᵗᵃⁿᵈˢ ᵃ ᶜʰᵃⁿᶜᵉ ᴬᵍᵃᶦⁿˢᵗ ᴹᵉᵎ ¹² ʷʰᶦᶜʰ ᴵ’ᵛᵉ ᵇᵉᵉⁿ ʷᵃᶦᵗᶦⁿᵍ ᶠᵒʳ ʷʰᵒˡᵉ ᵈᵃʸ.
ⁿᵒᵖᵉ, ᶜᵃⁿ’ᵗ ʳᵉᵃᵈ ⁱᵗ ⁿᵒʷ. ˢᵒᵐᵉᵗʰⁱⁿᵍ’ˢ ʷʳᵒⁿᵍ ʷⁱᵗʰ ᵃᵐᵃᶻᵒⁿ ᵃⁿᵈ ⁱ’ᵐ ⁿᵒᵗ ᵍᵉᵗᵗⁱⁿᵍ ᵗʰᵉ ʷʰᵒˡᵉ ᵇᵒᵒᵏ. ᵇᵒᵒʰᵒᵒ

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Home Post

I read 4 novels and 4 volumes of manga in Japanese during this challenge. I also finished 2 novels in Mandarin. I did miss 2 days completely, and read in only 1 language 5 days, but all in all, I’d say it was a pretty successful challenge. Most days, I read at least 20 novel pages in Japanese, which was nice since thanks to previous challenges, I was already reading every day, but not as much as I wanted to be. So I’m happy about that. See you all in the winter 2023 challenge!

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30 November 2022

:house: Home Post


  • Chainsaw Man (Chapter 59)

Hey! We did it!

I’ve come to make huge leaps and bounds in my comprehension from this challenge, and I have you all to thank for keeping me consistent and motivated. Even so, I do feel the fatigue taking it’s toll. Best of luck in the winter reading challenge and all other endeavors!

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November 30 :maple_leaf: Home Post

Finishing off the main challenge pretty neutral with just the last chapter of ブルーロック volume 18, which is certainly setting up some interesting things for future reading :eyes:

And with that the challenge is technically over, isn’t that wild :joy: this one was definitely a bumpier ride for me; it started during a really busy time for me and I never actually did anything with my home post whoops which made for an interesting start, but even so I ended up making some solid progress! Looking back I read 17 volumes of ブルーロック over these past two months which is… quite a bit :laughing: so that’s pretty cool, it’s definitely been a lot of fun! I also read 人間椅子 back on Halloween, throwback to that, still pretty wild that I managed to get through that one. I also had various chaos (of course) with some different games, and the バディミッションBOND drama cds that I still need to get back to!! Once I have more brain energy lmao.

But yeah overall pretty successful I think! Definitely some different reading habits than I’ve had in previous challenges, I never tended toward manga as much, but ブルーロック found its way into primary position haha. I imagine I’ll be hanging out here until the next challenge like usual; that one starts while I’m on break so hopefully I’ll be less scattered :joy: great job everyone, onward and upward! :tada:

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Home Post

Day 21 Progress:
お隣の天使様 三冊 - 55.18% → 62.01%

Congrats to everyone finishing up the challenge today!

I’m still fighting an uphill battle against work, my sleep schedule, and my own memory but I’ll try to hang in there through December.

Word of the Day: 朋友ほうゆう - friend. I didn’t have any particular words from my reading itself but I saw it in a Kojima tweet and I was pretty surprised because 朋友 is the most common word for ‘friend’ in Mandarin but I thought Japanese didn’t use it (or 朋, for that matter) at all! Always interesting to see which words we share and which words we heavily diverge from.

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November Report

Again, managed to read every day :tada:
Yesterday, I spent half the day riding the train, so I had plenty of reading time - and also the story was quite full of action and simply dragged me along :smile:

Challenge Summary

I finished 6 books during the challenge (2 of which I had started earlier already).

  • :sunrise:   TUGUMI (with the Intermediate Book Club; read July 29th - Oct 8th)
  • :pirate_flag:   Flesh&Blood Vol. 5 (with the F&B club; read Oct 9th - Oct 22nd)
  • :pirate_flag:   Flesh&Blood Vol. 6 (with the F&B club; read Oct 23rd - Oct 29th)
  • :chair:   人間椅子 (with the Halloween Book Club; read Oct 30th - Nov 4th)
  • :beach_umbrella:   海辺のカフカ(下) (with the spin-off book club; read Aug 25th - Nov 10th)
  • :maple_leaf:   秋の牢獄 (with the repeat club; read Nov 6th - Nov 26th)

I started the following books (but did not finish them yet):

  • :rose:   ユージニア (with the ABC; read 25%)
  • :pirate_flag:   Flesh&Blood Vol. 7 (with the F&B club; read almost 75%)

Plans for December

  • :rose:   ユージニア (with the ABC; continue to read)
  • :pirate_flag:   Flesh&Blood Vol. 7 (with the F&B club; plan to finish today / tomorrow)
  • :seal:   封印再度 - Who Inside (with the S&M book club; starts Dec 3rd)
  • :stew:   おいしいごはんが食べられますように (with the Compulsive Readers club; starts Dec 5th; plan to finish in December)
  • :prince:   星の王子さま (The Little Prince) (should be able to finish this during my next two sauna visits)
  • :ghost:   おばちゃんがいるところ (with the IBC; pretty much neglected this - maybe it’s time to catch up?)
  • :hole:   穴 (still missing the two non-titular stories; stretch goal: finish this in Dec)
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:tiger2: :books: The Tanuki Autumn Onsen :hotsprings: :raccoon:

20221201 - 吾輩は狸である progress: 86.96% :violin:

The go game sparks a conversation.
Lots and lots of conversation.

:fallen_leaf: Japanese found under the leaves :fallen_leaf:

Meowords

輸贏「ゆえい」ー Victory or defeat; gain or loss
灰汁「あく」ー Lye; harsh/bitter taste; alkaline taste; scum (on broth eg); Self-assertiveness; strong individuality

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Oh no, so there won’t be winter challenge threads? :sob: Hoped to participate from day 1 this time :sweat_smile:
I guess I’ll try anyway.

I thought of some short term goals, too:
Finish また、同じ夢を見ていた until mid-december
Finish the remaining 6 volumes of Ponkotsu Ponko, 1 each day.
Find other things to read after these.

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The winter challenge usually starts on January. Meanwhile we can all post our updates here.

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Ooh, I didn’t know. Thanks for the clarification. I’ll keep posting here :slight_smile:

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