物・もの things.
3 Likes
Yeah when I bought it in Japan I was with a Japanese friend and I saw the cover not knowing much Japanese at all and I think she thought it would be ok for me because it was called 日常 but it’s really not 日常 at all 
And my Japanese language partner told me that it’s like reading Shakespeare 
3 Likes
Ah, that one went over my head lol. Why did they write it in katakana though?
I think that might be because its modifying 叶わない. So, you cant use kanji there if I understand correctly.
1 Like
According to this Japanese page:
漢字の「もの」は具体的な物や品を表すとき、ひらがなの「もの」は抽象的なものを表すときに使うといいでしょう。
Which roughly translates as:
The kanji form is used to describe concrete things, and the hiragana form is used to describe abstract things.
So that gets us part of the way there. That lets us know why kanji was not used.
But why katakana? Based on my experience reading manga (especially Sailormoon, where katakana is used heavily), I think it’s just to make the word stand out more than if it were written as もの.
Edit: I should also mention that you may see もの for concrete things. It’s not a completely hard and fast rule that 物 would be used.
Slight note: The modification is the other way around. The modifier is the word that becomes before, and the modified is the word that comes after. Here, 叶わない modifies モノ.
3 Likes
Thanks for the detailed explanation! I can tell this book club is going to be a ton of fun 
1 Like
Well, page 14 took me a few tries to understand, but otherwise it was pretty manageable! I like the story. I feel bad for Shinonome, but it’s very sweet all her classmates are keeping her secret 
4 Likes
Right on, thanks for the clarification!
katakana is pretty versatile - it’s basically the japanese equivalent of boldface/italics in terms of emphasis, and it also gets used for unusual speech such as robot voices or foreign accents
5 Likes
Finished reading through chapter 1 for the second time just now. It is getting easier to understand what all is going on in the story I think. I might try reading through it again tomorrow and try to focus more on how the 3 writing systems are used to emphasize concrete, abstract, and the way katakana is used. Does anyone else here have a difficult time understanding the content at first?
For me, I focus so much on trying to become familiar with the words that I don’t know and trying to recall the words that I sort of know at first. And it seems like after reading though a few times, it is easier to focus on the story instead of all the vocab and grammar.
3 Likes
While Nichijou’s first chapter wasn’t too difficult for me (aside from having to look up some words), there are some other manga I’m reading that, while targeted for younger readers (maybe 11 to 15 age range), do give me trouble figuring out exactly what’s going on. Looking up unknown vocabulary words is always the first step to beginning to piece it together. (Earlier on for me, much grammar study would come next.)
It’s like your own form of manga-SRS =D
2 Likes
Yep, cultural references are especially brutal, like that one limbless doll or cow.
1 Like
I think I read somewhere once that the 赤べこ was some kind of superstitions remedy to ward of smallpox if I remember correctly. I’m not sure what the history is with the こけし though?
Also, looking back at page 7, what is ヤツだね? I just noticed that I can’t find ヤツ in any of my dictionaries?
2 Likes
I thought it was やつ , and then the “thing, object” meaning.
I have only seen it in hiragana before, not sure if there is any meaning to it being in katakana here?
4 Likes
Hey, welcome to the wanikani community. Just want to say, I like your avatar, Ritsu from k-on is a funny character lol. Thanks for pointing out that definition, it wasn’t bold in takoboto so I glanced over it I guess.
Its a little difficult to understand everything in that dialogue on page 7. When Tomo says ますかの赤べこだよ。 she goes on to say: でも当たったのが、生ものでなくてよかったよ。 I wonder if there is a play on words there with the word (ます) which means “to be” but also comes up as 鱒 “trout, sea trout” in my dictionary? Maybe I am just reading too much into it
Edit: Also on page 8, しゃけ can mean salmon or shinto priests at a shrine?
Edit 2: まさかの赤べこだよ。 I miss spelled oops…
3 Likes
It’s nice to be reading something instead of just doing wanikani. Do you go back and forth between reading and wanikani when you are studying? It seems more fun right now to try to read this manga then cram a bunch of kanji/vocab that are not in context.
3 Likes
Ritsu is super cute! 
You had me really confused for a moment - I think you read the sentence wrong? It says まさかの赤べこだよ。 in my copy.
For the しゃけ, I figured she was talking about the raw fish that landed on her head.
On page 2 (one of the colored ones) you can see しゃけ as well, while the panel shows the fish that later lands on ゆっこｓ head.
3 Likes
My bad, sorry for the confusion. My dyslexia kicks in sometimes, I’m bad enough with English haha. The sentence makes more sense now that I’m reading it correctly 
So, then I guess that the raw fish is just a random occurrence in an “ordinary” manga
Edit: spoiler
I try to do WK reviews right after work, then hop into my day’s reading right after that. Although sometimes I go straight to reading, then I have a double-sized review session waiting for me that night…
Just to confirm: Do you mean then or than? (It’s hard to tell, because people often use then when they mean than. It greatly impacts the meaning!)
If you’re enjoying reading manga then doing reviews, I’d say manga-reading for me is like the reward for getting my reviews done =D (If I do them…)
But if reading is more enjoyable than doing kanji/vocab reviews, I totally understand that. Especially now that I’ve gotten to the mid 20’s.
Rambling a bit on impact of WK on reading
Kanji in native material can be measured in two ways: how many unique kanji are used, and how many overall kanji are used. (Many kanji are used multiple times across a volume.)
By WK level 20, you’ll know about 40% of the unique kanji in what you read, but overall it’s going to be about 80%.
If you read a lot, the more common kanji (such as 私, 行, and 言) become “invisible”. So while you only need to look up about 20% of the overall kanji, it feels like more. And because those kanji are often used only a few times in the volume, memorizing it don’t help much later.
At this point, each time you see a kanji you recently learned from WaniKani, you can feel the progress you’re making. And because you still have 60% of the unique kanji waiting to be learned, you’re constantly learning kanji that are showing up in what you’re reading.
2 Likes