Time for chapter 2! How are you doing so far?
We’ll spend 2 weeks on chapter 2, September 14-27. The home thread for this bookclub is here.
Who will read Harry Potter now?
0 voters
It’s still only the 13th in Japan. And I’ve still got ten pages of chapter 1 to read…
And since we started chapter 1 on the 1st, at least in theory, chapter 2 should really start on the 15th.
It’s easier for me to remember to post the threads on Sunday so they’re ready for Monday morning in every time zone. You can start to read whenever you want though!
Literally me… I read 99% of the chapter on Sunday LOL
I will go through chapter 2 in English and in audiobook format before trying to read the Japanese version this time too. I also find that it’s easier to read the book if I listen to the audiobook at the same time, pausing when needed. I’ll try to do that for this chapter too.
That’s what I’ve settled on doing too. After reading the English version. I’ll read through a few pages and then listen to the audio book up until that point and then read again.
I’ve also been annotating unknown words. The Kindle annotations are pretty good as you can review them all.
Definitely Japanese first for me. I find if I read the English first, I stop paying careful attention to the grammar in the Japanese, because I simply remember what it’s trying to say.
I’m intrigued by 金切り声. In English a shrill voice can metaphorically shatter glass - apparently in Japanese, it can cut gold instead.
A few lines later, I was staring at 完璧 going “well, I know the first character is the かん in かんぺき, but what on earth is the second character?” Spoiler alert: it’s the ぺき in かんぺき.
豚がかつらをつけたみたいだ lacks some of the poetry of “he looked like a pig in a wig”. 
Goo’s dictionary suggests that this phrase refers to the noise made when gold is cut, rather than the voice cutting gold by being shrill. 金切り声（かなきりごえ）とは？ 意味・読み方・使い方をわかりやすく解説 - goo国語辞書
A few sentences I found interesting so far in Chapter 2.
質問は許さないーーーダーズリ家で平穏無事に暮らすための第一の規則だった。
質問は許さない “questions not allowed” (ref. “Don’t ask questions” in the English version)
平穏無事 na-adj: tranquility and peace
“No questions allowed—the first rule of how to live in peace with the Dursleys.”
同級生の男の子を全部束にしてもかなわないほど頻繁にハリーは散髪させられたが、全く無駄だった。
ほど particle indicating an extent or degree
させられた past causative passive form of する ~ “was made to do”
無駄 noun, na-adj: futility, waste
“Harry was forced to have his hair cut as often as even all the other boys in his year put together, but it was no use.”
The sentence structure in this book is really pretty complex. It’s a great medium for reviewing sentence patterns and grammar points I probably learned at one point and forgot, plus learning new ones.
Another super complex sentence. I’m proud of myself for (I think) mostly understanding it.
ハリーは骨折したばあさんに同情すべきだと思ったが、後一年間はティブルスやらスノーイー、ミスター・ポーズ、タフティなどの猫の写真を見ないですむと思うと、同情しろという方が無理だった。
すべき
べき auxiliary expressing the speaker’s judgment that someone should do something or be in some state. Typically formed with nonpast infinitive + べき but when the verb is する it’s すべき “should do”.
やら particle meaning “such things as A and B”
It’s interesting that やら is combined with など, another particle meaning “and so on.” Really gives the impression that it is a non-exhaustive list of Mrs Figg’s cats.
見ないですむ “to end without looking [at]”
しろ imperative form of する
“Harry thought he should sympathize with the old lady who broke a bone, but when he thought about being able to go a whole year without looking at pictures of cats such as Tibbles, Snowy, Mister Paws, Tufty, and so on, it was hard to force sympathy.”
Mrs Figg, right?
I was doing SO WELL keeping up until my family gave me a Nintendo Switch with Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild last Sunday… My Japanese reading productivity took a MASSIVE nosedive…
Your guys’ discussion is so much more helpful than the dictionary that I have on my kindle reader…
Play the game in Japanese.
Are you using the default dictionary or some kind of a custom one? Because the default one is really bad with conjugations, but the one mentioned here is a real game-changer. (It only works on physical Kindle and Android for me, not on a PC app.)
Yeah the Kindle app doesn’t do inflected lookups, 食べる works but 食べた won’t. As far as I know, you can only do this with JMDict on Android and physical Kindles.
On PC, it’s not as big of a deal to alt-tab to Jisho.
Honestly, I’ve added translations to help me figure out the reading. It’s kind of convoluted but it works.
めをさま 
Yes, that’s what I get for posting late at night when I should be sleeping XD
Fixed.
I do really like your postings in the Harry Potter threads, how you keep highlighting the grammar. I’m sure it’s useful to the others here as well. Keep it up!
Thank you! I feel like I’m kind of monopolizing this thread recently so I welcome everyone else to join in too! Since this is my second time reading through I’m doing a deeper dive into some of the parts that I glossed over the first time because I didn’t fully understand them right away.
This sentence tripped me up at first.
とうとう、指人形ならいざ知らず、ハリーにはとうてい着られないほど縮んでしまった。(Talking about a time Harry did magic without realizing it, causing something strange to happen, when Aunt Petunia tried to force him to wear an awful sweater.)
~ならいざ知らず is a set phrase meaning something like “Maybe for ~, [but not anything else]”
とうてい is an adverb exclusively used with a negative verb, meaning “cannot possibly ~” or “no way to ~”
“In the end, it shrunk to such a degree that a finger puppet might be able to wear it, but Harry certainly couldn’t.”
I think I glossed over that, too, when I read it this past year. I glossed over a lot!
