それでも歩は寄せてくる | Week 6 Discussion ♟

Oh, and in my ramblings, I forgot to drop this hopefully helpful bit of knowledge when it comes to the page number situation:

If you are reading on Kindle, just subtract 3 from the “Location xx of 148,” and that will give you an accurate page number. So Pg. 83 would be Location 86, for example.

It’s really sped up the “which page is this?” process for me.

If you are in print, I recommend a pen, some patience, and a willingness to write in the corners of pages. :wink:

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Page 83

The two word balloons for this are separate statements, so it can be looked at as:

「ダメになるから…」 (unfinished sentence)

and

(ぎゃく)に…!」 (unfinished sentence)

On the previous page, Ayumu asks if she’s feeling better (after his barrage of compliments). Urushi says ダメになる, which has a few meanings. I could be wrong, as I’m not familiar with this wording yet, but based on the flow of the chapter, I took this to mean Urushi was starting to return to normal, but now she’s all flustered (rather than being back to normal), and thus (ぎゃく)に, Ayumu had the opposite effect of trying to get her back to normal.

Edit: As an alternate, Urushi can be saying because (から) it’s gotten bad (ダメになる) (her being flustered), he’s had the reverse ((ぎゃく)) effect of trying to get her back to her normal self.

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Got done with both chapters just now - enjoyed both, though chapter 10 was the more fun one for me I feel

The questions I would’ve had for chapter 9 seem to have been covered already, so just chapter 10

Chapter 10

This is less of a question and more a general comment:
Oh look, it’s the same structure we were talking about in week 1 - causative + もらう
image
I definitely think he’s saying that he will win, just that it’s being phrased as something along the lines of “I’ll have you let me win”

Actual question:

Page 93

「横から攻められるととにかく弱い」
My question here is about the usage of とにかく - I know it gets used as an “anyway” sort of conjunction, but I’m not sure what it’s doing here. Is it acting as an amplifier like “very” or “pretty”? Like saying When it gets attacked from the side, it’s very weak"? I feel like it’s probably a kind of casual use in any case

Yeah, when you think about it numbers-wise it can make sense though. If you’re getting through 15-20 words a day on anki, and 15-20 items on WK, that kind of stuff adds up a lot over time. And if you keep plugging away at it, it’ll really build up

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According to this it means “the subject has many characteristics but above all…”.
I also like how on that site the first example sentence translates it as “anyway”, which barely has anything to do with their initial explanation :joy: I wish these translations were more literal.
But this is why context and reading is so important! Since you understood the meaning regardless :+1:

I believe it implies that the formation is weak in general, but even more so from the side.
So in this case I would use “especially” as a translation.
Though I also expected Jisho to have that as a listed meaning… I hope I didn’t misunderstand it all this time :thinking:

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I’m really liking the manga so far! I like how clear it is that they like each other from the beginning. The text feels a bit easier to process than Takagi-san. Less confusing internal monologues (I’m looking at you Nishikata!). Surprisingly the shogi specific terms aren’t too bad. 've used Hans Geuns’ Basic Shogi Vocabulary page for a few terms (I forget who originally linked this).

This being my second manga in Japanese, a lot of the discussion on the learning process rings true to me. My overall plan was (and still is) to keep reading manga until it becomes easy enough that it’s a much smaller time commitment. Then I should have the time to add another method of studying, like Anki, Burpro, or Genki. But it feels like progress is very slow.

I’m not sure what I should do to fix this, if anything. I’m thinking it would be a good idea to start studying grammar again separately. I feel like I’ve forgotten some of what I learned early on, or I’ve not really been applying it. Maybe I should start adding sentences to Anki, or adding items on Bunpro when I come across a grammar point I understand from reading. Thanks @ChristopherFritz for the good SRS advice above. I’d never head of forvo.com before, or the Migaku plugins for Anki. I just have to find the time to get started.

That’s me the last few weeks. (I just noticed that @Naytrib quoted the exact same thing, so definitely a common experience). I usually get a fair amount of reading done over the weekend, but during the week I’ll have a few days in a row I don’t read at all because I’m too busy. It’s really hard for me to start again after that.

That’s what I did for a while when reading Takagi-san. It really helped kickstart my ability to read and look up grammar on my own. I ask much fewer questions now, partially because I’m usually a bit behind, and partially because I’m now okay with not understanding the specifics as long as I get the general idea. I’ve been adding to my own personal grammar reference sheet whenever I feel like I understand something so I can look it up quickly next time. Of course, after enough times looking it up hopefully I’ll remember.


Anyways, time to stop procrastinating and start this week’s chapter…

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I just finished the 2 chapters. I don’t have anything meaningful to add except I share @MrGeneric 's question about the ダメになるから…逆に part.
My first impression is

“It’s going to get bad (as in: I’m feeling embarrassed)…So it’s the opposite (continues to next panel) you said too much”

I think that makes sense?? But it almost feels like an unnatural sentence to me.
I thought she was only thinking to herself at first which makes things more confusing but she’s actually talking out loud to Ayumu in this scene (I think lol).

CONGRATS!! Have a nice time!

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One thing you can try, time allowing, is to get through at least one panel, one word balloon, one sentence per day. Force yourself to do at least that much.

Doing this, you may find that once you’ve gotten yourself all situated for reading and you’ve completed the minimal amount, you decide that you may as well do a little more.

I remember how time consuming my earliest manga reading days were, so I can understand if you’re simply too busy for even that much. Most people probably have a bunch of mini time wasters in their day that they can reduce or cut out to free up time, but that won’t be the case for everyone. (Not to mention, everyone will have their own prioritization of their usage of time.)

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That’s good advice. Getting started is often the hardest part. I’m often effort limited (being mentally exhausted after work) as opposed to time limited but I think it would still help me to commit to a small consistent amount each day.

New goal: do at least one bubble a day, even on busy days.

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Stopping in briefly whilst I have a moment to breathe today.

That explanation does make sense. I have absolutely no idea why my brain was so dead-set on making those two sentences into one, when they are clearly separated by a word balloon :man_facepalming: Thank you very much!

Unrelated to the chapter/Ayumu

Thank you very much! :heart:

That is very true, but it’s one of those things that happens in the background for me. I don’t really realise how much progress I’ve made exactly until I have the opportunity to do something like fill out a vocab sheet, and see that, holy jeez, I am actually making progress.

There are a lot of days where I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels, and like I really haven’t made as much progress as I would like to be making, especially in regards to listening (the fact that I can only pick up maybe 30-40% on a first listen bugs me a lot, and that number is wayyyyy lower when I’m watching VTubers and such, since a lot of them speak so fast that I feel like I’m drowning.) That said, what I do understand, I enjoy, so I’m still keeping at it, even if I often feel quite a bit discouraged and like I should be understanding more, faster. I’ll get there, but I do have my moments where I realise just how big of an undertaking it is to learn this, and exactly what I’ve committed myself to, so to have days like this where I only had to look up a couple of things, and only really struggled with one phrase (in an admittedly very short chapter with no monster walls of text) feels nice. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

One way I could honestly probably start making a little more progress would be to actually do more reading throughout the week. Pretty much all of my reading is just done during the weekend, with my only Japanese during the weekdays being WaniKani and listening input. (I haven’t even begun to practice any output, which, yikes, I know, but I’m not totally sure where to begin on that yet). The reading during the week is probably what I’ll use to read whatever light novel I decide to embark on…when I quit procrastinating on doing so. :sweat_smile:

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Continuing on the unrelated stuff

Oh yeah same here - no output as of yet really. It’s something I know I want to get to at some point eventually, but for now it’s not something I’ve really looked much at. Was thinking maybe at some point I’d want to try getting a tutor on italki or something. For now though, getting a lot of input is my priority so that I can focus on outputting when I’m not also having to worry about comprehending the input being difficult too

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Reading more closely again this week as compared to last week - will probably have a few more questions/be a bit more active. Question about Ch 9 - I think I’ve finally worked out the panel, but would appreciate confirmation/feedback:

p 80

When Ayumu is talking about her issues with gym class in the 4th panel.
オレは大体最初からなんでもできるので
アドバイスはできそうにないですね

My interpretation:
“Since I (Ayumu) generally get everything right the first time, It doesn’t seem like I can give you any advice.”

I initially had a tough time with the から because I’ve gotten pretty used to seeing it for ‘because’, and most commonly to date have seen it with the ‘from’ meaning with time expressions, which 最初 did not initially seem like.

I wasn’t really confident with the そうに - my understanding is that it interprets as ‘seems like’ or ‘looks like’ with the verb (できる). More naturally in English, it might say 'I can’t really give you any advice"? Haven’t actually reached it in my more in depth grammar studies, so relying on a quick google/skim strategy here.

Overall, 9 was cute and entertaining.

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And I’m finally home for the night!

More unrelated

Exactly how I feel. I’ve also considered tutors, but beyond the fact that I’m, at times, cripplingly socially anxious (typing to somebody is super easy… face-to-face chatting is something I will forever struggle with. My debate years in high school/college made it so that I can do public presentations fairly well, but to actually have a casual face-to-face conversation with a total stranger remains difficult), I also worry about the input being too difficult. I feel like 90% of what I’d be saying right now would be, ゆっくり話してください, or ごめんなさい。わかりません。It just doesn’t feel like the right time to start, yet. Haha.

@Nishi790

Pg. 80

You definitely have the right meaning, and I’m pretty sure you are right on the nose with the そうに interpretation.

On my initial read, I translated 大体 as “generally” (that’s even what I put in the vocab sheet, but after looking again, I think I’m happier with the “about” meaning that it can take, so I think maybe the more natural English translation (totally subjective, of course) after my second read, I would say is,

“I can do just about anything from the outset, (so) it seems like I can’t give you any advice.”

Either way, the same meaning is there.

I would add that そうにない is technically its own Jisho entry, meaning, “showing no signs of,” or “extremely unlikely to,” but that interpretation will still get you to the same meaning within in the sentence, and would sound even less natural when directly translated into English. Sometimes, we just have to accept that the direct translation isn’t pretty, and that a slightly looser interpretation is better.

I have to say that learning Japanese has definitely made me respect translators for Japanese media even more. It’s a tough gig, and they get slammed for misinterpreting things all the time because a fan felt they didn’t translate some nuance just perfectly. I feel bad for how thankless that job can be, given how difficult it really is to map Japanese to English at times.

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Off-topic on Japanese media translations

When I read through volume one of “Is the order a rabbit?” in English earlier this year (having read it in Japanese previously, and often revisiting it to review my progress), there were plenty of times I said to myself, “I don’t think this is how it should have been translated, but I understand why they did it this way.” You can’t please everyone, and sometimes you need to make the less precise or less accurate translation for a better result for the target language.

(But in other cases, you just have people doing bad translations.)

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More translation off-topic

Exactly, yes!

And that is true, sometimes you do just have some questionable translations. I’m currently playing through Atelier Ryza (very slowly since I always feel a little bit guilty when I play videogames that are primarily in English instead doing something a bit more productive, but, sometimes I need to not work my brain so much, and at least the audio is in Japanese?), and there have been a couple of times where I hear a character say something, know exactly what they said without having to check subtitles (which in itself is exciting, but for the most part, the characters speak quite slowly and clearly, so it’s not too difficult to parse what’s being said), and then read the English subtitles after out of curiosity, and just go ???, that’s not even close.

That’s only been a couple of lines, though. For the most part, I understand any changes that are made. Some of them, I’m just floored by the differences. I wish I could think of some examples, but it’s actually been a couple of weeks since I last played the game due to lack of time. I’ll keep it in the back of my head the next time I play to write an example down, should I run into one.

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Nothing to really add to this other than the found I had less looking up to do in the second chapter versus the first. I felt like I actually did more reading this week.

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Just finished up chapter 10. I shared @leneux’s experience that the second chapter was simpler than the first. I double-checked myself on a couple meanings on the vocab sheet, but other than that, it was pretty straight forward.

Thoughts on Chapter 10

First, wow, we were spoiled with page numbers this chapter, guys. Pg. 88 and Pg. 94 both were labeled! Unless I’m mistaken, I think that means we went 30-ish pages without a page number (the last one I remember seeing was in the 50s), and then got two page numbers within 6 pages of each other. I really wonder what the decision-making process was behind which pages get numbered, and which don’t. It seems completely arbitrary, eh?

Second, the chapter was pretty cute, though I think I slightly favored Chapter 9 out of the two. As always, the art style is so expressive and I really do love it. I particularly enjoyed these three panels:

Pg. 89

image

Urushi’s explosive laughter really is quite adorable (even though it is at poor Ayumu’s expense. Getting compared to a grade schooler? Ouch. :stuck_out_tongue:)

Pg. 91

Gotta love the fierce determination. It’s legitimately a cool image, though the coolness factor drops a little bit once you finish the chapter and see how easily she crumbled. :stuck_out_tongue:

Pg. 94

The crumbling in question. Once again, just so cute, and so expressive. I’m really excited to see what they do with the art style for the anime when it releases; if it’s even half as good as the manga, it’ll be great.

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More unrelated stuff related to the other unrelated stuff

Are you only using WK for actively training vocab, and apart from that just look up lots of words from your media exposure without putting them into any system like Anki after?

And more importantly, who are your favourite vtubers?

Also yeah, congrats on both the full vaccination + the long-distance reunion!

If you’re talking about… well, talking: I can recommend using https://www.italki.com or a similar service. Getting a tutor has helped me SO MUCH getting better at Japanese conversation, and if you find the one you click with, it’s really fun too.

I also regularely practice with a friend who is going at the same pace as me through the Genki books, but I realize that might be harder to find.

Considering that your Japanese is much better than mine, you might also get something out of the English-Japanese Language Exchange Discord server. There are several voice and text channels for casual conversations, free and with no strings attached. I barely use it because I barely understand anything even in the Beginner Japanese voice channel, and I don’t wanna be the すみません、わかりません in a group situationn, but it looks like a fantastic resource for the future.

(Also sorry if I’m completely misjudging your experience and all of this is useless to you.)

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The unrelated saga continues

That’s pretty much the case, yes. I wouldn’t say it’s at all the “correct” or “efficient” way of doing it, but I don’t have the time to dedicate to building an Anki deck, so WK is really the only thing that’s constantly teaching me new vocab that is in an SRS system. Otherwise, I just look up words (usually several times), until eventually I just recognize the word without looking it up. There’s definitely better methods out there, but it’s working for me so far, and fits within my time constraints. Once I finish WK, I’ll start looking into better ways of expanding my vocabulary in a better manner with the time that’ll give me.

I’ll also need to start properly studying grammar in some kind of SRS system so that I’m not just relying on my shoddy memory and reviewing things when I run into them while reading. :stuck_out_tongue:

Thank you!

Hmm, that’s a tough question. The ones I watch the most tend to be Pekora or Korone, but I also love watching Botan and Nene. Nene’s slightly snarky attitude is cute, and Botan has super chill vibes (bonus points for also speaking at a rate that is easy to understand!). Okayu isn’t bad, either, but I pretty much only watch her stuff when she collabs with Korone… I’ve been seeing a bit more of Mel’s stuff lately too, and enjoy what I’ve seen. I kinda bounce between all of them here and there, though. It’s hard to pick favorites. :stuck_out_tongue: They all are entertaining in different ways. Who are yours?

I was, in fact, referring to speaking (though more generally, conversation skills in general, even typed conversations). I really do need to just bite the bullet and dive into output proper, but (as mentioned above), I have pretty bad social anxiety, and feeling like I’m not good enough at the language yet makes that even harder to overcome. heh.

And I would make a minor correction there. I don’t think my Japanese is necessarily better than yours (certainly if you are speaking with a tutor, your output is going to be head-and-shoulders above mine). My knowledge is pretty much a wide cast, but not a lot of it is what I would call “deep” knowledge or a full understanding. I know bits and bobs of a lot of different grammar points, but only deeply understand a few of them. When I’m answering your questions, for example, I’m often double-checking my own notes and sources that I’ve bookmarked to make sure that I’m properly presenting it to you — I’m not rattling that off the top of my head. It’s more a, “Oh, hey, it’s this point, which I took to mean this, but I know there’s more to it than just the surface-level understanding I have, so let’s pull up the page or the notes I took when I first ran into the point, and give a fuller explanation than what I could give without checking against myself/outside resources.”

Either way, I do appreciate the resources! I’ll have to get over my social anxiety and then check more closely into those! (And of course, get the time to properly dive in). Thank you so much!

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Probably more of a shougi related question? :smiley:

pg。88

Can someone explain what the 無敵囲い is about? Is it a commonly used pattern?

Also my opinion on the plot so far:
Seriously it’s moving so slow and not much is happening in each chapter, so at first I did not like it very much, but now I think they are so cute and I love watching them play shougi. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

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I took it to be the name of that formation. As to why Ayumu thinks it sounds cool:
無敵(むてき) - invincible
(かこ)い - enclosure (apparently “castle; strong defensive position” specifically in Shougi)

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