I think you can “technically” begin posting p.20 when Wednesday starts in Japan, which would be at Tuesday, February 4, 2020 3:00 PM.
Anyway just use page number clearly in your posts. I’m still on p.18 
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That’s ok…I wasn’t sure if we were having a rest day or not from the comments above. At least I’ve caught up now!
I’m only just managing to work out page numbers as I’m using an ebook, so hoping I’m getting it right, using the list someone posted earlier.
Edit: p20 seems to be much easier than the others, or maybe I’m just getting used to some of the phrases.
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I agree that 20 is a little easier. Though… I am only on the first sentence lol. It looks like the days we have breaks are when the whole page is just a picture like page 19. So looks like the next break is the digestive diagram on 24 :o unless I’m mistaken
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Seems like we have 7 days to do 8 pages (weekly schedule here), so I would say today is page 20
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Still on page 18, question about vocabulary in this sentence:
まゆ毛は、目の上にある小さな日がさのように、日の光をさえぎって、強い日ざしから目をまもってくれています。
Translation for 日がさ is “solar halo”. I would not call it a common word, and a bit surprised to see in 2nd grade book. Any comments? (maybe I made typo again, and ichi moe could not parse because of that)
EDIT: Finished page 18 and got very strong feeling that the text is super repetitive. Not sure if this is the age (for young kids) or the language thing, but everything was repeated maybe 5 times?
Ah, no - it’s 日傘. Sun-umbrella. In other words, a parasol. “Your eyebrows act like a tiny parasol over your eyes”.
I do see where the confusion comes from, though - 暈, meaning “halo”, is also read as かさ, and since that’s not joyo, 日暈 (solar halo) is usually rendered as 日がさ. 日傘 is the only word that works in the context, though.
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Thanks! And I actually know word かさ for umbrella, but did not rendaku-ed it.
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With the half-and-half kanji/kana words in these sorts of books, it can be worth converting the whole thing into hiragana before plugging it into Jisho. You’ll get better results. 
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Page 20 sentence questions:
つめは、ひふが **かたく なった **ものです。
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In the page, the verb かたく なった is split in half by space: ”かたく" "なった”. I know that only kids books have spaces to help with parsing. But in this case, the space is misleading. Translations for かたく itself were out of this book context. Why it is so?
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What’s the meaning of "ものです” at the end? (I know what です means, also も or の or even もの (thing) by itself, but all together ?
TIA!
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That’s not one big verb, but an adjective (硬い) in adverbial form, plus なる
This is just plain old 物, which is being modified by 皮膚が固くなった, with plain old です. This is exactly the これはペンです structure only with different nouns, and the addition of a noun-modifying phrase.
Basically “Nails are (a thing which is) hardened skin.” Though, I don’t really think that’s actually true…
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Oh boy am I excited to read about science in Japanese!
Science in Japanese: Tissue boxes.
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Thank you very much, Belthazar 先生！So, that easy thing you’ve mentioned “adjective in adverbial form, plus なる”, I hope that I found it correctly:
“Using 「なる」 with i-adjectives”
or bunpro ～になる・～くなる - Japanese Grammar Explained | Bunpro
Structure: な-Adjective + になる
い-Adjective + いく なる
Announcing it as my new grammar point, found on page 20.
Side note, did you notice that you’ve used two different kanji for word “hard”? I don’t blame you. WK has three vocab words with exact same reading かたい: 固い, 硬い, 堅い, and very similar meanings (hard, stiff, solid). I’m already looking forward to learning them all.
And seriously, thank you for taking your time to explain all this.
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Ah, whoops. I originally had 固 for both, but then I went back and changed the first to 硬 only to forget about the second.
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p. 20
I do not understand the いう (言う?) in the second sentence. Is it kind of ‘it is said that …’?
What is ひいたり in the third sentence? Simply ‘hit’? (BTW do you really use your finger nails while playing the piano?)
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The grammar dictionary explains という as "a phrase marking information that which identifies or explains the noun following the phrase.
So simply put, the main clause is 爪には大切な役割があります “the nails play an important role”. What’s the role? 私達の柔らかい指先を守る.
弾く = to play (piano or guitar) in ～たり form.
I should hope not. If your fingernails are tapping the piano keys, they need cutting. 
I confess I’m not too certain on whether it’s talking about your nails or your fingertips here, though.
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I do kind of wonder if I should read this stuff? I do enjoy this club a lot but I am plugging every sentence into a translator at the moment so I feel a little over my head…
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I’m mostly trying to isolate individual words, and plug them into a translator…if that fails, then a whole phrase.
I think if you do it that way, you can start to identify the words and work around that. Being a children’s book, a lot of the words and phrases repeat, so I think it gets easier.
What page are you up to?
(I fell asleep before I could post p20 last night, and been busy today, so will do it tomorrow)
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I am on page 20/21 so I guess I am actually doing pretty well, but I have only been able to move on and understand things by following the forum posts. I have been isolating individual words as well, but it can be still pretty confusing. I am not at all used to natural Japanese material so maybe that is part to why it is so confusing. I have only read sentences from textbooks
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Basically, that’s what I’m doing, too. I type each sentence in a word processor, using IME to find kanji replacements for the words written out in hiragana. Then I copy/paste the whole sentence and/or single words to https://jisho.org/, https://translate.google.com/ and https://ichi.moe/ to translate the sentence and try to understand the grammar (the most difficult part for me).
I think it is a good occasion to see grammar at work. The other thing I have learned is that sentences are easier to understand with kanjis than with hiragana. For japanese children this may be different as they probably know the words when they hear them.
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The other thing I have learned is that sentences are easier to understand with kanjis than with hiragana.
I agree. Very hard to tell which variant of the word is meant without some of the kanji in there.
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