なぜ？どうして？科学のお話 - Section 3 Discussion Thread

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Page 110.
野菜のびっくり 実験

Surprising vegetable experiment.

野菜くずを 育てよう

Raise vegetable scraps.

あなたは 毎日 野菜を 食べていますか。

Are you eating vegetables every day?

新鮮な 野菜は 美味しいですね。

Fresh vegetables are really good aren’t they?

おうちの 人が 野菜を 使って 料理を していたち、 ちょっと のぞいてみましょう。

If your family is using methods for cooking vegetables, let’s take a little look.

料理に 使わないところが あるはずです。

There should be parts that aren’t used for cooking.

ニンジンや ダイコンの 上の 方、タマネギの 下の 方、ジャガイモの 皮などです。

Things like the tops of carrots and roots, the bottoms of onions, and potato skins. (may have looked at 2000kanjis answer here… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: the 方 confused me)

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Page. 111
野菜の 要らない 所をもらって 面白い 実験を してみましょう。

Let’s see an interesting experiment by getting the parts the vegetable doesn’t need.

実験と いっても 絵のように、 水を 浅く 入れた 皿に おいておくだけで よいのです。

Even if it is called an experiment, all you have to do is put (the vegetables) in shallow water in a plate like in the picture.

ジャガイモは、 くぼみを ふくんだ 皮を、 少し 厚めに 切ってもらいましょう。

As for the potato, let’s cut a little of the thick skin in the cavity.

It seems when just when I start to feel like I’m getting a grip on things I get a chapter I can barely understand thrown at me :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I’m going to do my own translation before I read yours, but I’m struggling with this page.

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I had to plug a lot into google translate to understand it. Which I don’t like doing :c

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I’m curious how everyone usually goes about understanding the text? It’s hard to tell what everyone’s doing really, all I can see are full translations but not how anyone got to their final results…

I usually pause at particles, look up words I don’t know (or didn’t recognise in hiragana), and go back to read the whole sentence again if needed… My grammar is a solid N4 level now, so I don’t have to look up much grammar for this book, because it’s written in grammatically correct language :sweat_smile: (compared to manga)

I’ve been enjoying reading this book along with everyone, even if I almost never post here :slight_smile: I’ll be putting this book aside after this section though (overbooked on book clubs), but I might come back for the last section!

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I do the same. Recently there are some sentences I don’t have to translate at all which is always exciting! I plug whatever I don’t know into ichi.moe and put the pieces together that way. If I’m really struggling and can’t figure it out, I will plug it into google translate which will sometimes be correct and sometimes be sooo off. If I use google translate I still make sure I understand how the final translation came about rather than just trusting blindly

I don’t know what my vocab is at, but I had until recently only gotten all my vocab with Genki lessons so that is probably why I don’t understand as much as maybe I should. If I started my 10k deck sooner I think it would’ve been a little easier

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I know right? Any time I can read sentences without looking anything up it’s like :dancer::sparkles::raised_hands: I’ve learned so much vocab from this book though, hopefully I’ll come across it again because I haven’t been actively trying to remember much of it – just relying on seeing it again elsewhere!

I’ve never had any luck with google translate though, it only ever spits out junk at me – whether I’m going JP-EN or EN-JP…

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I look up words I don’t know and tend to write a translation as I go, then put it into the correct order. If I’m very stuck I try google translate which I also don’t like doing, or look at t ranslations which others have already posted. Often it’s figuring out phrases or grammar I’m not familiar with.

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169

Same here. In the beginning I considered adding it to Anki but I have decided against it.

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One good thing is that over a section some of the same words come up in multiple chapters, and when I look up a word that I should have known I can just :woman_facepalming: because I already knew it :sweat_smile:

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Yeah! In my 10k deck I just came across たまご and I’m like pff that’s egg EASY. Except I do kind of hate remembering that mosquito chapter at the same time : /

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As an example, this is where I’m currently at with the second sentence of p111. I’m hoping it will look much better before I post! But this is where I’m struggling…

じっけんと いっても、つぎの 絵のように、水を あさく 入れた さらに、おいて おくだけで よいのです。

Experiments … , next drawing such as, again put into shallow water,

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Yeah I’m not really too sure either – I kind of understood it as something like this:

じっけんと いっても、experiment / said but
絵の ように、picture / like
水を あさく 入れた さらに、water / shallow / put / in a plate
おいておく だけで よいのです。put in advance / only / is enough

We said experiment, but as shown in the image, you only have to put (them) in a dish of shallow water.

But I’m just a learner so I might be off the mark :sweat_smile:

(EDIT: just opened the book again and fixed my understanding above)

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So I may have given up a little early!

P111

やさいの いらない ところを もらって、おもしろい じっけんを してみましょう。

After getting unneeded vegetables, let’s try to do interesting experiments.

じっけんと いっても、つぎの 絵のように、水を あさく 入れた さらに、おいて おくだけで よいのです。

We’re saying experiments, except only like in the drawing, next put them into shallow water, it is enough.

(With thanks to @skymaiden for hints)

ジャガイモは、くぼみを ふくんだ かわを、少し あつめに 切ってもらいましょう。

The potatoes, try to cut out a cavity from a little thickness of peel.

I’ve realised that I have だけで -“just by” - coming up in my next Bunpro session!

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This was a tough one! As for my technique while reading, I’ll usually paste the whole sentence into ichi.moe, read through it a few times to try to recognize any words and parse the verbs and come up with a rough meaning if possible. Where there are sections that I don’t understand, I’ll either check jisho.org, bunpro, and finally the vocab sheet if necessary. Google Translate is also my last resort if those all fail and I need to try and gleam some meaning (didn’t actually need to use it in this case… but maybe I should’ve).

やさいの いらない ところを もらって、おもしろい じっけんを してみましょう。

Take the unwanted parts of vegetables, and let’s try an interesting experiment!

じっけんと いっても、つぎの 絵のように、水を あさく 入れた さらに、おいて おくだけで よいのです。

You could say this is an experiment, similar to the next picture, all you have to do is place shallow water in a dish.

ジャガイモは、くぼみを ふくんだ かわを、少し あつめに 切ってもらいましょう。

Potato, with cavity containing peels, have someone cut it because it’s somewhat thick.

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I agree with you all that this was a tough one, especially the second sentence.

I proceed the other way round than most of you:

  • First I type the text with IME and try to find/guess the correct kanji.
  • Then I copy/paste it to google translate for a first impression and a translation of the unknown vocables.
  • I use jisho to look up other kanji and understand the translation of words consisting of several kanji.
  • I use ichi.moe to understand the grammar.
  • After these steps I construct my own translation.

p. 111
野菜の要らないところを貰って、面白い実験をしてみましょう。

Let’s take the unneeded parts of vegetables and try an interesting experiment.

実験と言っても、絵のように水を浅く入れた皿に、おいて置くだけで良いのです。

Although it is called an experiment, all you have to do is to put them in a shallow water in a dish as shown in the picture.

ジャガイモは、凹みを含んだ皮を、少し集めに切ってもらいましょう。

As for potatoes, let’s gather a few cuts of peel containing dimples.

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While google translate can sometimes produce nonsense, at times it can be really useful. This page was a good example.

I couldn’t figure out だけで良いのです and Jisho and ichi.moe weren’t helping. I put the whole sentence into google and it came up with “…all you have to do is…”

With a bit more looking I managed to find a reference that translated だけでよい as “all you have to do is”. Interestingly, while Jisho doesn’t list “だけでよい” it does list “だけでいい” (link) as meaning the same thing.

My other useful source recently has been Weblio (I’m using the app but there’s a website too). This will sometimes have something Jisho doesn’t have.

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I didn’t even think to search for that whole segment as an expression, that’s a great idea! I just saw だけで as “only by” and よいのです as “is enough”, and joined them into the clumsy “you only have to” :sweat_smile:

I’ve heard of weblio but haven’t started using it - how are you using it? For the dictionary or the example sentences maybe?

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So far it’s been either to type in a Japanese word or something that feels like a set phrase that I’ve not found elsewhere.

Or, if google translate has suggested a translation that I’ve not found a reference for on Jisho, to put the English phrase in Weblio and see what comes out. For example on page 103 I typed “as much as possible” into Weblio which gave 少しでも多くの as a Japanese translation for this expression.

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Page. 112
早ければ 二日から 三日で、 葉が のび、めや 根が 出てきます。

From two to three days at the earliest, leaves grow, and spouts and roots come out.

日の あたる 明るい 所に おくと、その あとも さらに 大きく 育ちます。

If you put it in a bright place where the sun hits, it will grow even bigger after that.

水が へったら、 足しましょう。

(Because) the water decreases, let’s add more.

ふだん 食べている 赤い ニンジンは、 根です。

The red (orange…)carrots you usually eat are the roots.

この 根には えいようが たくさん たくわえられていて、 水を あたえるだけで くきや 葉が のびます。

In this root is a lot of nutrients stored, just by adding water the stem and leaves grow.

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