Book collector rehab (actually reading what you own accountability thread)

Japanese
#843

The covers are beautiful but man do chinese names trips me up.
I just can’t remember them.
I already have difficulties with japanese ones (which was annoying reading 19q4 from Muraskami) but my brain just can’t work around chinese or korean names lol.

Read 2 more chapter of kiki mimi radio and it was a struggle.
Understood roughly 10% of the words on the second chapter as it had 防災無線 (ぼうさいむせん, which is a radio connected to speakers to inform people in a city when a disaster happens ) and many others related disaster words, so I was very lost. I usually had 5 to 8 new words per chapter and those 2 have 40 words I had never seen.
Need to keep it up! 3 more chapters to go :smiley:

Edit: the second hand book I ordered, just arrived!
Ohanashi is by the same illustrator as monogatari, even though there is 5 stories in it they look shorter than the previous book.
The crab book is scaring me a bit as it’s for intermediate learner, there is only some furigana and no direct translation, just some words and expression.
I will tackle that one last.
I needed 19€ to have free shipping so I added the love death +robots book haha. Saw the first season years ago so I was delighted to discovered they made book out of it and from the season I have not yet seen.

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#844

I finished the Monogatari book yesterday, houray!

Now I am pondering if I should make a bunpro deck with all the new words I learned and ,if I am very motivated, with example sentence from it.
I already did the translation of most words I didn’t know so it’s a bit easier to find them then add them in bunpro :thinking:
I will reread the book once more with only my notes then start another one (probably ohanashi).

How is everyone reading going so far?

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#845

And finished kiki mimi radio, yesterday night!
Just need to reread the last 5 chapters once I have learned the vocab.
I will probably reread the previous stories I finished before starting a new one.
I choose the jam maker as it has audio compare to hole in the wall (which will probably be me next story).
The story wasfun, lots of vacab related to eathquake, tsunami/sea and disaster at the end that will be quite rare to stumble app but why not learn those too?
I don’t think I will make a deck in bunpro for those story (as satori has a buildin card system)but I will add the words from monogatari while rereading it next week.
I will take it easy and reread old material in japanese next week. I will probably finisih read dead history in english today and might start crime and punishment (french version) or a book I found about soldier in world war 1 trenches made by a small french author.

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#846

@Urazi u are currently the hero of this thread

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#847

Those are just easy book, I still bought a few :sweat_smile:
Trying to slowly go through my huge backlog as I discover ways to acquire tons of free book (an app of people giving them away and free “book box” in my city)

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#848

I wish I could donate books to people! Unfortunately it’s not so cost effective to send physical books, and e-books aren’t really transferable :frowning:

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#849

You can try second hand website and list the book for free or as a donation, people will just have to come collect them at your address.
That’s what people do here with the most popular second hand website called “le bon coin” (the good corner).
I nearly get all my books second hand from there for dirt cheap or people moving out giving their old book away (got some beautiful Jules Vernes for free books from those).I use a website called “geev” but I don’t think it works outside of France.
There is probably an equivalent app in japan specilized for donation of goods or food.

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#850

Well, to be fair I have a hard time with the romanizations of the OG names - sadly I haven’t had the time on hand to sit down and learn Mandarin, so they’re still pretty tricky. But remembering the English titles isn’t usually too bad!

…Some of them do get rather long, though. gestures at “After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine” or “The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish”

I’d say I actually come across vocabulary for those sorts of things semi-often, but they’re also a bit more relevant in Japan than they might be in other parts of the world, lol.

They truly are. @Urazi Even if they’re just “easy” books, you’ve really been knocking stuff out! Great job!

I can’t speak to apps or book-specific options, but I know that depending on your area there are some fairly active “Sayonara Sales” to be found on facebook/facebook marketplace. Just like you said, it’s folks who are moving or getting rid of older stuff, so it’s pretty common to see people post stuff for pick-up.

Not much of a reading update, but I did get about halfway through volume one of “Thousand Autumns” (English version, lol). Probably just gonna keep going through that today, unless/until I can psych myself up for some of my Japanese options.
I also committed further crimes but hey, as long as I’m reading too it’s fine.

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#851

Am currently on my way to Tohoku for the week, so probably won’t have any updates on my end until I’m back. Also threw Bunpro into vacation mode.

However, I did finish the first vol of FMA and the second volume of ヤニ吸う this past week. I brought volume 3 with me and am a few chapters in. Will see if I end up reading it at all while on trains.

Also good job @Urazi on consistently reading! I feel like most people don’t start immersing until the N3 level, so it’s really commendable seeing you tackle reading so early on in your Japanese journey :blush:

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#852

I guess I meant I wish I could give them to people not in Japan! Buying books is so cheap here, but not so easy overseas to get cheap or free Japanese literature sadly

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#853

Thank you :blush:
Just happened to finish 2 story’during rhe same week as they both took me 2 months and a half to finish.

That’s true, well I wil study them anyway. It’s never a loss, I do remember scratching my head learning the word “psychaiatrist” (with phonetics because the teacher was a madman) when I was 15 and it the end I might have heard / use it a handfull of time during the last 20 years (probably a lot coming from the Soprano lol).

Haha I love the name, that’s a nice gesture.

That’s still very good, half a book in a week is a great pace :smiley:

Well done! I
do remember the first volume of FMA being very dense in the text and explanation.

Thank you :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Reading japanese books and visual novel is my main objective so I dived right away, the reading section on most website (bunpro included) are very dry at low level, that’s why I searched for option like Satori and the bilingual book.
I am struggling quite a lot and it’s frustrating at time but the vocab is slowly getting learned and I am starting to recognize the grammar from bunpro (I was overjoyed to find and recognize a verb+ na for the “don’t do verb” lol).
I understand some people are not willing to struggle as much and thus wait until they have a lot of vocab under their belt but N3 sounds really far…
I would have give up if I didn’t read anything, my first objective when I restarted learned nearly 600 ago (thanknyou duolingo streak) was to reach the story in Duolingo that were super far down in section 4 for some reason (they changed the course and now younhavenreading way earlier).
And when I reached them I was really dissapointed and that’s how I found tadoku then the bunpro reading section online.
Finaly Satori reader and then I installed Bunpro.
Sorry for the lenghty text, I got carried away :sweat_smile:

#854

Started rereading monogatari and adding the words on bunpro, not certain it is worth it as a lot of words are from A decks?
What are they ?
Could understand the story a bit better but not much, found some error from my first pass and know some vocab I had underlined already so it’s encouraging.
I will need to reread that book in a few months or maybe early next year when I am done with the N5 vocab.
I absolute love the word のんびり屋 btw way haha

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On a more positive news, I reread the first 3 chapters of Spring on Satori reader and it feels so easy. I only to look up 2 words and one translation.
I’am amaze at what 4 months of study have done. I was barely able to understand it in April and since I have turned on all the kanji (for a month I had unknow kanji written in kana) and I was able to read out most of them without looking the furigana.
It’s super encouraging even if it’s an easy text that I already read thrice 4 months ago :smiley:

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#855

Have you seen the length of my average response? No worries about a long post, lol.

Nice job with your reading!

The Japanese motivation has been a struggle, but I’ve finished Thousand Autumns vol 1, gotten about 1/3 of the way through volume 2, and I chewed my way through all of “After the Disabled God of War Became My Concubine” vol 3 last night because it arrived in the mail and I was excited XD

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#856

I love that name, check it online and was surprised to find a free fan translation of it as it’s a webnovel.
I had no idea webnovel were a thing.

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#857

I feel like N4 is the optimal starting point for people looking to immerse with reading, but I’m sure starting earlier is possible like in your case.

I don’t know about you but I remember as a kid picking up my parents’ books that were way too difficult, but learning some random word/thing.

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#858

I tried once or twice when I was 9 or 10 but gave up quickly as they where way to difficult haha.
I think starting with Satori early is great as you can click on all the wordsand there are explanation with specific grammar points.
But I totaly understand people not liking to struggle that much. The first week mining words o it was painful but it only took a week to see massive improvement so it payd off.
For billingual book it’s more difficult as I have to manually entrr the words in bunpro to then study them.
Whenever people feel it they should jump into reading so I just started early haha
Tadoke were nice but not very interresting and I like to check vocab.
JGRPG Sakura epubs are a better alternative as I can use a popup dictionarry linked to anki to add words.

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#859

It’s too silent in here… what sins are you all committing?!

I’ve actually managed to be good, with regards to buying new stuff - haven’t bought anything in the past two weeks at least. Also not reading too much, but hey, you can’t win them all :'D

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#860

I was planning to write here soon.
The week has been very busy and I didn’t have a lot of time to read.
I finish 3 pages of spring ealier, 5 of kiki mimi radio thursday and 2 of the jam maker that I started yesterday.
Also one page of monogatari I don’t remember which day.
I am also slowly translating a gundam toy manual for a friend so she wil be able to use it.
Didn’t buy anything either, I was just very busy building up ikea furniture for a family member.

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#861

My criminal activity was minimal, I promise! …At least relative to my usual hauls, as one of the more prolific criminals in this thread :laughing:
A few more 神様はじめました, the next two volumes of Thousand Autumns, two volumes of Dinghai Fusheng Records, the first volume of There’s Something Wrong with the Chief, volume 3 of 鬼の花嫁, and the first volumes of 地獄楽 and 地縛少年花子くん。

I took off last week so I was at home with a friend staying at my place, so no reading happened, but it was a lovely break! Kinda hoping not worrying about studying for a bit (since my weekend Japanese classes were on summer break, too) will have helped my motivation to recuperate a bit, too.

@Urazi Still out here leaving all of us in their dust, nicely done!

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#862

I was just thinking this!!

I got back from my Tohoku trip last week. Managed to finish ヤニ吸う vol 3 while on the Shinkansen, and powered through vol 4 on Monday. However, since Tuesday I’ve been having my ass handed to me by the nastiest cold and have basically been in bed all week. I think this may be the worst cold I’ve had in the past decade :mask: Finally starting to feel better, so hopefully will get back on the wagon sometime this week.

Stay safe out there everyone!

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