📚📚 Read every day challenge - Winter 2023 ☃❄

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3rd feb

forgot i had some stuff to do today that i should really have done earlier so even though i started my day earlier i still managed exactly the same amount of reading as normal. ah well. with that volume 4 of 蟲師 has finished! (except the 後書…) the previous two chapters were clearly written in an easier style to deceive me, cos this last one was rough (joke). loved the relationship between the two main characters though, it’s rare to spend this much amount of time with the same couple of characters. relationships were a big theme in this volume in general actually, or at least a consistency. this chapter also had more kid ginko which is always welcome!

words that stuck out: 五月雨 (さみだれ, early summer rain. had heard this word before but only just today realised what it was), 滝 (たき, waterfall), 近いうちに (ちかいうちに, before long)

also found some unexpected (separate) paper advertisements from 2003 which i had no idea were in the book even tho i’ve been reading it for a week, so that’s fun. somehow i don’t think they’ll let me mail order those full colour volumes of akira anymore :joy:

23 Likes

Feb 3, Fri of Week 6 of Winter Q1 2023 :snowman::snowflake:

  • はたらく細胞 Black Vol.8 Ch.45-46

Tomorrow! Today is just busy.

Words of the day
  • (おぎな)う = to compensate for; to supplement. (おぎな)()う = to complement. Single Kanji with longer Kana just takes time to recall…
  • まかり(とお)る = to go unpunished; to force one’s way through. Full Kanji is (まか)(とお)
  • 悪習(あくしゅう) = bad custom
  • 制御(せいぎょ) = governing; regulating
  • 僭越(せんえつ) = audacity; arrogance. In context as 僭越(せんえつ)ながら
  • 屈強(くっきょう) = brawny; sturdy
  • 装填(そうてん) = loading (a cannon; a gun)
  • 分化(ぶんか) = specialization; differentiation
  • 併発(へいはつ) = concurrence; coincidence / complication on top of a disease
  • 欠陥(けっかん) = a defect
21 Likes

:raccoon: :books: The Tanuki Kotatsu Reading Den :snowflake: :raccoon:

February 3rd
新書太閣記 progress: 06.61% // Volume I: 76.65% :horse:

Lots of dense, descriptive sentences today, took quite awhile to get through them.

Words found under the kotatsu

抹香「まっこう」ー Incense powder; incense
沁々「しみじみ」ー Keenly; deeply; earnestly // (also: 沁み沁み)
隊伍「たいご」ー Rank/line of troops; formation; array; procession
螺鈿「らでん」ー Mother of pearl
駿馬「しゅんめ」ー Swift horse
萌黄「もえぎ」ー Colour of a freshly sprouted onion; light green-yellow // (also: 萌葱)
金襴「きんらん」ー Gold brocade

Kanji
耳朶 = 耳たぶ (earlobes)

Forms
寔に = 誠に「まことに」(indeed; really; absolutely)
聟 = 婿「むこ」(Husband; groom; son-in-law)

Character Name List

Probably some spoilers, but this is a historic novel, so can spoilers really exist for things that have (for the most part) actually happened :thinking:

Volume I: 1535 - 15??
(Currently 1554/5)
日吉「ひよし」- Hideyoshi (as child)
Nicknames: 猿「さる」/ 針売り「はりうり」

Family
木下弥右衛門「きのした やえもん」- Father
– – 乙若「おとわか」- Old friend (serves under 織田)
筑阿弥「ちくあみ」ー Step-father
大政所「おおまんどころ」// also お奈加「おなか」ー Mother
おつみ - Older sister
小竹「こちく」- Baby brother
加藤清正「かとう きよまさ」// also 弾正「だんじょう」- Ojisan (only distantly related (before marriage))
– Married to: おえつ (sister of お奈加)

Friends & Acquaintances
仁王「におう」- Big kid friend
於福「おふく」(Nickname - full name: 福太郎「ふくたろ」) // 楊景福「ようけいふく」(Chinese name/birth name) - Timid kid friend (older than Hideyoshi)
– 五郎大夫 「ごろ だゆう」// 祥瑞「しょうずい」(Chinese name) - Father
– 梨琴「りきん」- Mother
捨次郎「すてじろう」- Previous servant to 五郎, later the adoptive father of 於福, and owner of a tea ware shop - and employer of, and master to, Hideyoshi

Hachisuka Clan
蜂須賀小六「はちすか ころく」(also 正勝 「まさかつ」) - Head of the Hachisuka clan
– 七内「なない」- Younger brother
– Married to 松波「まつなみ」
– – 亀一「かめいち」- Son

Retainers:
稲田大炊助「いなだ おおいのすけ]
青山新七「あおやま しんしち」
長井半之丞「ながい はんのじょう」
松原内匠「まつばら たくみ」

Others:
国吉「くによし」- Gunsmith/blacksmith
渡辺天蔵「わたなべ てんぞう」- Deserter - Nobushi (Nephew to Koroku)
難波内記「なんば ないき」- Spy disguised as a Komuso
仁田彦十「にった ひこじゅう」- Subordinate

(蜂須賀正利「はちすか まさとし」- previous head of the Hachisuka clan)

Saito Clan
((questionable) Alliance with the Hachisuka clan)
斎藤 道三「さいとう どうさん」- Head of the Saito clan
– 斎藤義龍「さいとう よしたつ」(also: 高政「たかまさ」) - Son

明智 光秀「あけち みつひで」(common name: 十兵衛「じゅうべい」) - serves under Dosan
– 又市「またいち」- Underling / foot soldier

弥平治光春「やへいじ みつはら」- Retainer (cousin to Jyubei)
– 明智光安「あけち みつやす」- Father

Oda Clan
織田信秀「おだ のぶひで」- Daimyo
– 織田与三郎「おだ よさぶろう」- Younger brother
– 織田 信長「おだ のぶなが」- Son (Successor to the Oda clan)
(Married to the daughter of Saito Dosan)

Retainers (Under Nobuhide rule):
平手 政秀「ひらて まさひで」
林 秀貞「はやし ひでさだ」(common name: 新五郎「しんごろ」)
青山 信昌「あおやま のぶまさ」(common name: 与三右衛門「よそうえもん」)
内藤 勝介「ないとう しょうすけ / かつすけ」

Others:
市川大介「いちかわ だいすけ」- Archery master/instructor
平田三位「ひらた さんみ」- Master of military strategy

Shiba Clan
斯波義統「しば よしむね」- Head of the Shiba clan, at Kiyosu castle

Imagawa Clan
今川義元「いまがわ よしもと」- Daimyo

Retainers:
松下之綱「まつした ゆきつな」(common name: 加兵衛「かへい」)
飯尾豊前「いのお ぶぜん」
多賀能八郎「たがのう はしろう」(nickname: 能八「のうはち」)

Takeda Clan
太郎義信「たけだ よしのぶ」- Commander
(Married to the daughter of Imagawa Yoshimoto to tie the clans)

Non-affiliated
上泉 信綱「かみいずみ のぶつな」(also: 上泉 伊勢守「かみいずみ いせのかみ」) - Founder of the 新陰流「しんかげりゅう」school of Kenjutsu
– 疋田小伯「ひきた しょうはく」- Disciple
– 神後五六郎「かんご ごろくろう」- Disciple

塚原 卜伝「つかはら ぼくでん」- Kensei; legendary swordsman

Historical People
  • 阿倍仲麻呂「あべ の なかまろ」ー Japanese scholar & poet (700s)

  • 白楽天「はく きょい」ー Chinese poet (Bai Juyi / Bo Juyi) also known as: 白楽天「はく らくてん」in Japan. (Late 700s)

  • 道元「どうげん」(or 道元禅師「どうげん ぜんじ」ー Japanese Buddhist Priest, writer & poet (also known as 栄西禅師「えいさい ぜんじ」) (Early / mid 1200s)

  • 空海「くうかい」ー The one and only Kukai or Kobo Daishi - a Buddhist monk. Posthumously given the title of: 弘法大師「こうぼう だいし」born as: 佐伯 眞魚「さえき の まお」(late 700s / early 800s)

  • 源頼政「みなもと の よりまさ」ー Prominent poet and warrior (1100s)

  • 平 重盛「たいら の しげもり」ー Military commander and court noble, claimed to be an ancestor of Oda Nobunaga (Mid-1100s)

  • 桓武(天皇)「かんむ(てんのう)」ー 50th Emperor of Japan, claimed to be an ancestor of Taira no Shigemori, thus ancestor to Oda Nobunaga (Mid-Late 700s)

20 Likes

February 3rd

:snowman: Home post :snowflake:

Aria: the masterpiece volume 3 – progress report
Yesterday: Read up to page 186.
Today: Read up to page 214, finished chapter 26.

The rest of this chapter didn’t have lots of dialogue, so next to the characters getting to enjoy a relaxing time at the beach, I also had a mostly relaxing reading session. There were even a couple of words in this chapter I just recently learned in Wanikani which is always satisfying when I encounter them ‘in the wild’ so soon.
While this chapter was less on the amusing and more on a comfy side, I still got a laugh from the panel where Akari and the president climbed down the cliff instead of jumping down from it and into the water like Aika and Akira a few seconds ago. :laughing:


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Word or expression of the day:
言うまでもなく - (いうまでもなく) - obviously, as we all know, needless to say, of course, it goes without saying​

Honourable mention(s):
一行 - (いっこう) - party, group, troop, company
無人島 - (むじんとう) - unpopulated island​

22 Likes

:snowflake: Day 34, 3rd of February :snowflake:

:open_book: Back to my Home Post

Another page of the Tile World Chronicles today. Apparently the person they met on the road is an old man. I think they also mention the name of the princess: Arin? At least they answer affirmatively when they are asked if they were searching for this person/place(?).

19 Likes

:bookmark: Home post // Feb 3 :snowman_with_snow: :snowflake:

・薬屋のひとりごと3 (3% → 6%)

This series has an interesting use of words ft. furigana. For example 卓子(テーブル).
Also a bunch of characters I can’t remember. Would have been better with a neat list of characters at the beginning of the book. I’m spoiled from reading Honzuki and Saikawa&Moe series.

23 Likes

Tracking how much you read may be pointless. I’m doing it only for the purpose to trick myself into reading more. There are too many things in my backlog. Sometimes instead of actually reading I waste too much time deciding what to read next. :sweat_smile:

8 Likes

Sounds like it has a point to me! My meaning was that the details of how you track don’t matter a ton so long as you’re looking at what matters to you. For you, it’s whittling down the 積読 pile. For me, it’s ensuring I meet some handwavey minimum to maintain literacy in Japanese (especially important for me as I’m hoping to start learning a new language later this year). For omk3, it could be something else entirely. Maybe even just to make the pretty graphs/charts :stuck_out_tongue:

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:chocolate_bar: :love_letter: 2月3日 :love_letter: :chocolate_bar: (Home Post Link)

I’m surprised at how fast the kanken game is helping me remember how to write kanji/kana, i’ve just been doing a little bit when I wake up and a little bit before bed but I think I know pretty much all the kana automatically and most of the 10級 kanji already. It helps that the way it does detection relies on stroke order, not really ocr, so if you do something like a 十 backwards it just wont recognize it at all :sweat_smile: there’s some term for that specific style of behavior reinforcement… but I can’t remember what it is

Read:

  • ホリミヤ ch 119, 120, 121 - the next chapter is the “last page” and then there’s 3 extra chapters, I know I have been saying that I was ready for it to be over, but that was a lie :sob:
  • ホリミヤ ch 122, extra 1, 2, 3; it’s done done - I sat back down to finish it because i knew i had to just bite the bullet and knock it out while I had the momentum

Word of the Day
四面楚歌「しめんそか」ー being surrounded by enemies on all sides, being betrayed/forsaken by everyone

21 Likes

Day 3 :evergreen_tree:

Finished the first of twelve chapters of クマのプーさん。I forgot how silly the writing is haha. I’m going to end up learning a good amount of onomatopoeia.

vocab
  • ぶらぶら
  • カシの木
23 Likes

February 3rd!

Today I read Chapter 42 of Happiness and Chapter 57 of Mitsuboshi Colors.
It was slightly weird reading one and then the other because they are vastly different types of story :grin:

(Home Post)

22 Likes

:performing_arts: Home :it:

February 3rd

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険8
84 - 162

Lisa Lisa is such a cool badass :weary: I love that she even tells Joseph that she’s not training him to help him live, she’s training him to kill the Pillarmen. Take his egocentric butt down a few notches :ok_hand:

I was getting tired of reading Joseph’s, Caesar’s, and the Narrator’s unvoiced monologues, so I tapped out for the night.

20 Likes

Summary post

Day 34: February 3rd
What did I read?: ペンギン・ハイウェイ
How much did I read?: 7.5 pages
How long did it take me?: 54 minutes

I love how the penguins just kind of casually come and go :joy: Like, they’re just chillin’. Just vibin’, wandering around. Popping up occasionally. I want to live in a place where that happens? :penguin: :penguin: :penguin:
So far my speed is remarkably consistent :joy: I feel like this is very slow though :upside_down_face: Like spending an hour on a book only to read 8 pages seems…not that much. Like 2% of the book per day. Then again, I’m almost on page 40 and it’s only been a few days of reading, which feels like a pretty decent amount of progress? Idk, I don’t know how to feel lmao :joy: At least it doesn’t feel like a big struggle to get through a page, like it’s maybe a little more effort than manga but not as much as I would have expected. I actually feel like I can enjoy the story, which is nice :slight_smile:

24 Likes

February 3 :snowflake: Home Post

Read a little more 山猫, but mostly I played more Steins;Gate. Today was a day of puzzling out pop culture references from like 15 years ago and also physics :joy: so all is as expected really. It continues to generally be a bit slower going than anything else I’m reading, but I’m enjoying it so it’s all good!

23 Likes

February 3rd :heavy_check_mark: :fox_face:

狐火の辻, 30-38%

I had a hard time concentrating yesterday, nothing to do with the book itself. It’s one of the reasons I don’t want to track time: I don’t even know how long I just stared at the page taking nothing in because I was thinking of something else entirely. Even though I wanted to read. Some days are like that. Oh well, I did manage to read a decent amount in the end, but not as much as I could have.

This a 100% :joy:

(Okay, also I’ve never had so many books going on at the same time, and it’s also nice to be able to see at a glance how much I’ve progressed from say, half a year ago. But basically, pretty graphs!)

24 Likes

:open_book: :desktop_computer: :snowman_with_snow: :snowflake: February 3

Busy day so I just snuck in like 30 min of BU$TAFELLOWS even though I probably should have been sleeping. Oh, well.

23 Likes

Read a chapter 極主夫道 vol 2 but between binging My Hero Academia (anime) and 鬼滅の刃:World Tour(move?) I didn’t make time for reading today.

18 Likes

:snowflake: Day 35, 4th of February :snowflake:

:open_book: Back to my Home Post

It’s another Kiki day! I stopped at a point where two really difficult sentences were making my life hell, but this time I decided to not bother trying to understand what is said exactly and I understood so much more! I’ll do some more summaries below to keep track of my understanding of the text.

And no spoilers please! If I didn’t get something I’ll try again on another read-through.

So the sentence last time with the many plants was just talking about how many different plants are planted in this garden, and how there is a nice smell wafting all throughout.

Next there is a bronze (did i remember that vocab correctly?) pot in the kitchen, from which the strongest smell emits.

Something about there being pictures and photographs on the living room wall, but I was missing a lot of vocab here so didn’t get the rest.

The voices of the family can be heard coming from the living room, and it seems it’s tea time.

The mother says something, but I have no idea what.
Kiki: “That story again… I’m alright. I’m my mothers daughter. I’m a kleine Hexe (cute how hashikure is also used for Schnipsel). I’ve thought about it really seriously.”

The father says something along the line of it being no use when Kiki has made up her mind.

Next the mother says something about worrying, but I see that there are a lot of vocab I’m not familiar with, so I think I’ll stop here and reread it later.

And that’s one whole page (plus the two others I reread today) of Kiki! Three more and I’ll be done with the first chapter. I really underestimated how many words I need to learn upfront. I suppose I’m glad I’m learning them in order of appearance and not frequency, that would take even longer.

23 Likes

February 4th

:snowman: Home post :snowflake:

Aria: the masterpiece volume 3 – progress report
Yesterday: Read up to page 214, finished chapter 26.
Today: Continued up to page 236.

Not sure if Akari’s summer heat induced daydream of sorts will turn out to be reality after all – I suppose, I’ll find out tomorrow.


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Word or expression of the day:
真っ盛り - (まっさかり) - height of, middle of, full bloom​

Honourable mention(s):
白昼夢 - (はくちゅうむ) - daydream, waking dream​

22 Likes

home post

4th feb

did the 後書 and おまけ from vol 4 of 蟲師 and though 狐 being handwritten somehow managed to fool me again (for those keeping track at home that’s three times now :joy: you’d think i’d learn) i managed mostly okay. was only three pages, but i’ll take it

how is it? i liked the anime but don’t know if i want to commit to the series (or at least multiple volumes)

20 Likes