10 Minute Biographies Chapter 10 (Absolute Beginner Book Club)

10 Minute Biographies Chapter Ten: Tomitaro Makino

Start Date: 13th March (JST)

Previous Chapter: Chapter 9
Next Chapter: Chapter 11
Home Thread: Link


Schedule

We are reading at the pace of one page per day. If a sentence crosses two pages it is read as part of the first page.

Daily reading schedule

Page turns at midnight JST.

Date Page Last Line of Page
Mar 13 137 Chapter title page
Mar 14 138 細長かった……かな。)
Mar 15 139 お母さんが なくなってしまいました。
Mar 16 140 かわりません。学校は、かべに
Mar 17 141 名前を きいたりするのです。
Mar 18 142 ことに おどろきました。 そして、
Mar 19 143 しらべきれていませんでした。
Mar 20 144 図かんを 作るんだ。」と、決心しました。
Mar 21 145 ひょう本に する じゅんびを します。
Mar 22 146 せいかと して すばらしいだけで なく、
Mar 23 147 ところまで、ていねいに かいてあります。
Mar 24 148 「ワルナスビ」……野さいの ナスの 花に
Mar 25 149 『牧野日本植物図鑑』を 作り上げました。
Mar 26 150 End of chapter

Resources

These spreadsheets are put together by the bookclub to help other readers. Feel free to contribute but do read the vocab sheet guidance on the first page before adding any words.


Discussion Guidelines

Summary
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked

  • If posting a complete translation of a sentence we generally blur / hide this, as seeing the translation may be a spoiler for those who haven’t read that part yet and wanted to translate for themselves. The easiest way to do this is select the text, click on the cog icon, and select “Blur Spoiler”, or you can type it like this: [spoiler]texthere[/spoiler]

  • Join the conversation - it’s fun!

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2 Likes

I’m excited for this one! I jumped into this bookclub (my first!) in the Sesshu chapter, but was always a few pages behind. This’ll be my first chapter as an active participant.
よろしくお願いします :relaxed:

10 Likes
title p. 137

牧野富太郎
Tomitaro Makino
日本の植物図鑑の元を作った
He created the base for Japan’s botanical illustrated books

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I do not know how Japanese names work but is this a case of nominative determinism (where your name determines the area you work in) or did he choose the kanji in his name because of his love of (pasture/field which made him a rich/fat/guy). Not that he seemed to end up either rich or fat :slight_smile:

I might be geting the wrong end of the stick here of course

It’s more-or-less the same thing, but I’m going with “botanical field guide” as the translation. It matches the picture given, but I’ll need to read more to find out which is the most accurate. I don’t know anything yet about Makino or what he made!

“元” is more of a toss up. There are so many definitions and most seem to work…

3 Likes

Page 137. I went with

Created foundation of Japan botanical classification.

but of course it is not literal. Glad I used the same kanji for もと.

1 Like

図鑑 definitely seems to be a book of some kind, but I think you have the right idea.

2 Likes
p. 138

「わあ、かわいい花だなあ。」
“Wow, that’s a cute flower.”
痩せっぽちの子どもが、ガサガサと草むらに入っていきます。
A skinny child is going into the rustling grass.
草をかき分けて、しゃがみ、じいっとお目当ての花を見始めました。
He pushed his way through the grass, crouched and began to gaze at the flower he aimed for.
(名前は、なんて言うのかな。)
(What is its name?)
(葉っぱのかたちも、おもしろいなあ。あれ、似たようなのを、前にも見たことがあるぞ。)
(Hey, the shape of the leaves is also interesting. I have seen something like that before.)
(いいや、あれは、もう少し細長かった……かな。)
(I wonder … wasn’t that a bit more long and narrow?)

8 Likes

Posting my attempt before looking at @2000kanji translation.

Page 138

「わあ、かわいい花だなあ。」
“Wow, pretty flowers!”
やせっぽちの子供が、がさがさと草むらに入っていきます。
Skinny child went into field of rustling grass.
草を掻き分けて、しゃがみ、じいっとお目当ての花を見はじめました。
He pushed aside the grass and crouched in front of his goal - a flower that he never saw before. (lit. flower to be seen for the first time)
(名前は、なんというのかな。)
I wonder, what it’s called.
(葉っぱの形も、面白いなあ。
The shape of it’s leaves is also interesting.
あれ、似たようなのを、前にも見たことがあるぞ。)
There, it looks like the one I saw before.)
(いいや、あれは、もう少し細長かった。。。かな。)
(No, that one was a little bit more long and narrow…hmm.)

This sentence
あれ、似たようなのを、前にも見たことがあるぞ。
is not easy for me to put together. I guessed ような is grammar point, and then it followed by のを, so it’s an direct object - of which verb?

6 Likes

Here’s my take. A few parts I wasn’t so sure of, but that’ll happen :sweat_smile:

Summary

“Wow, what a cute flower.”
A skinny child enters the dense grass with a rustle.
He pushed his way through the grass, crouched, and saw the motionless flower that was his target for the first time.
What is this one called?
The shape of the leaves are also interesting.
Huh, I’ve seen something similar to this before.
No, that one was much less long and narrow…right?

4 Likes

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out what the 似た part was, much less the grammar point lol. If it were in kanji I’d have known right away!
But I’m pretty sure that whole clause is the direct object of 見たことがある.

2 Likes

Ok, I think this maybe be this grammar point: https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/63
Verb[ ] + こと・が・ある -“have done before”.
I only need to advance 100 more pages of Genki I to reach it. Now I feel better about this sentence. Thanks!

Yep, that’s the one! :+1:

Page 138. In this sentence
草を掻き分けて、しゃがみ、じいっとお目当ての花を見はじめました。
there is a word じいっと - motionlessly, fixedly. I think by context it describes a child rather than the flower.

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I think you and @sansarret misinterpreted 見始めました. It’s not the noun 見始め but the verb 見る combined with the auxiliary verb 始める. :v:

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You are correct, it doesn’t describe the flower (an adjective would be needed for this). It’s an adverb so it describes the way the child is looking.

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That’s what I thought too, but I wasn’t sure about how to translate it. Would it be “started to look at”? That’s more like how @2000kanji did it.

I had a 50/50 chance and guessed wrong. Thanks! My new translation is:

He pushed his way through the grass, crouched, and motionlessly started to look at the flower that was his target.

4 Likes

Thanks! So that would be this grammar point: https://bunpro.jp/grammar_points/115
Verb[stem] + はじめる
To start, to begin to.

I got two new (for me) grammar points from this one page (I’m only half thru N5 according to bunpro), and it’s super hard to guess a grammar point when you never studied it before

I’ll add some to grammar spreadsheet, I see it was being abandoned recently, but I feel that grammar is equally hard to identifying vocab.

3 Likes

Just checking you got the meaning of の in this sentence too. This is the の which acts as a pronoun and means “one”. (Chapter 10 grammar point 3 in Genki)

If this sentence was written in a longer form it would be あれ、似たようなのを、前にも見たことがあるぞ (EDIT - あれ、似たようなを、前にも見たことがあるぞ - thanks for spotting my error @NicoleIsEnough). But because the fact they are referring to a flower is obvious from context, the 花 can be left out and just replaced with the pronoun の.

2 Likes