Hello,
I created an Amazon Japan account, and put a Japanese fake address in order to buy the ebook. But the website says that the Kindle version is not available in my country… please help I really would like to join this reading club 
How about:
For the names of the countries, regions, etc. introduced in this book, the pages on which they are mentioned are indicated on the map.
Or should it be:
For the countries, regions, etc. introduced in this book, their names and the pages on which they are mentioned are indicated on the map.
What do you think? The second one definitely makes more sense in English but I’m not sure if it’s a faithful translation. That first comma is really messing with me, I feel like there should be some kind of particle after 名前…
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So I bought it from ebook japan (credit card worked fine hooray), and is there any way to zoom in? Stuff is barely readable at this size.
There’s an additional comma after the を:
この 本の とうじょうする 国や 地いきの 名前、出てくる ページを、地図の 上に しめしました。
which to me makes it sound like the sentence is listing what is shown on the map:
“Showing (1) country and region names, and (2) the pages that they are mentioned on…”
So, @zuzu, I like your second translation and I think it sounds accurate.
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So for the inner part of the cover, I’m reading the part about the whale and the tree and I see they are using:
大きな
Is this just a condensed form of 大きい + な?
Also does 大きな 木 have some sort of different connotation than 大きい 木?
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Knew I should have searched. Thanks!
I was also trying to find something in Tae Kim about this but all the words I could find for this form came up with no results in his grammar guide.
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Hi,
Sorry if this question has already been asked, but I searched through the previous questions and didn’t notice it. I bought the ebook and downloaded the ebireader (ebook Japan app) for iphone. Everything in the app is in Japanese, so I don’t know how to navigate through the app and access the book. Can anyone help explain how to do this?
Second question - I can read hiragana but have extremely limited vocabulary (I’m currently working on Level 3 on Wanikani). Am I even far enough along to be reading this book?
Thanks in advance!
Rich
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You have to go in and actually change the country in the Content and Devices section. I ran into this problem too and was confused about it. Go to “Manage Your Content and Devices” > “Preferences” > “Country/Region Settings”. You’ll have to enter an address again.
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You won’t understand everything without help, but so far with a good dictionary and a grammar guide I can piece together mostly decent ideas of what sentences say and I only just moved to lvl 4 today. It’s challenge but does not seem insurmountable.
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I’m seriously dying of the cuteness! I think I will order both books on payday even though I don’t think I’m ready to start with you all yet!
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Brilliant! Thank you Saruko! (And a lesson to me about commas. I’m usually very careful but I’ve missed commas before and they seem to make a huge difference in Japanese). Thank you!
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Yes, although of course the less Japanese you know, the longer each page will take. But we are only doing one page per day and this group will rely very much on getting lots of questions! Welcome to the reading group!
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In a later level, you will encounter 大きな. It’s the adverb form of 大きい, translating to “in a big way”.
edit: this is false. Retaining for conversation flow.
Thank you. Any chance of a link? I’ve found 大きな in Jisho, as a pre-noun adjectival just meaning “big” or “large”, but can’t find it in WK and don’t understand how it is an adverb.
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Jisho has it right, of course. It was 大きく I was thinking of.
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So I started to read the book and noticed that my lack of grammar makes this difficult to read. Should one have a fair amount of grammar before tackling this? There were a few sentences in the very beginning that had me guessing:
おすしは、子どもたちから お年よりまで、たくさんの 人に 人気の、日本の 食べものです。
すを まぜると ごはんが ながもちするので、むかしから よく 食べられてきました。
Roast me in the forums, but I used google translate Japanese to English to figure out the first sentence and then realized I might be out of my depth here because I’m not sure what to do for the second sentence. What would the process be for me here? Hit the books or tank through this with a lot of help and time? Any advice is appreciated!!
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First off, you know that the group starts on November the 1st, right? Until then, it would not be right to start discussing these sentences.
But, in terms of general advice, I see that you mention you have problems with the 4th and 5th sentences, how did it go with the first three? If you could read and understand them, then you will be fine!
For the others, I’d first identify anything I do know. I’d try to identify what is vocab and what is grammar and see how much I understand. Then I’d use a dictionary too look up what I believe to be vocab.
Gradually some meaning will arise and you can then ask here. Asking for a translation is not the most useful thing to do. Offering your own translation is much better as it makes you work at the sentence and people can see where your problems are. Like showing your working out when you do maths.
Come Thursday there are hundreds of people ready to help as much as we can! See you then!
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Since there are still some days until the group officially begins, start sneaking in some basic grammar. This free cheat sheet has pretty much all the N5 grammar on it (the particles in particular should be helpful), and you can start stepping through the brief explanations and reference links in bunpro as well.
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