10 Minute Biographies Chapter 9 (Absolute Beginner Book Club)

[Micki]

10 Minute Biographies Chapter Nine: Sesshū Tōyō

Start Date: 27th February (JST)

Previous Chapter: Chapter 8
Next Chapter: Chapter 10
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
Feb 27	123	Chapter title page
Feb 28	124	絵を かくのが 大好きで、
Mar 1	125	おしょうさんの いかりが はくはつ。
Mar 2	126	本どうに もどろと……。
Mar 3	127	ねずみが いるでは ありませんか。
Mar 4	128	雪舟が、ゆかに おちた 自分の
Mar 5	129	絵の 勉強をする ためです。
Mar 6	130	けれども、まん足できませんでした。
Mar 7	131	雪舟を のせた 船は、中国の ある みなとへ。
Mar 8	132	けしきの れんぞくでした。
Mar 9	133	学ぶ ことは なかったです。 (also asterisked footnote)
Mar 10	134	答えを、日本中を たびして 絵を
Mar 11	135	水ぼく画と なりました。
Mar 12	136	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.

• Vocabulary Sheet

• Grammar Sheet

---

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!

[Micki]

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll:

• I’m reading along
• I’m still reading but I haven’t reached this part yet
• I’m dropping this book

If you’ve read it before but will join in the discussion (or have read ahead), please select “I’m reading along”!

[2000kanji]

title p. 123

雪舟
Sesshū
日本の水墨画を完成させた
He perfected Japanese ink painting

Sesshū’s paintings

[Micki]

Looking forward to this chapter. I don’t know anything about this person or this type of art.

[2000kanji]

It’s the second person (after Seton) in this book that I didn’t know.
雪舟’s paintings are amazing and I too am looking forward to learning something about his life and art.

[sundayRoast]

Never heard of him either. Finally caught up with you guys today. Been doing quite a bit of sporadic reading elsewhere as I ordered some manga and stuff from Japan. But back now and it’s good to be in sync

[2000kanji]

p．124

あなたは、「水墨画」を知っていますか。
Do you know “ink wash painting”?
墨だけで景色などを描く絵で昔中国から伝わりました。
Drawing pictures of scenery and the like only with ink was introduced from China long ago.
雪舟は、五百年以上前に活躍し、日本の水墨画を完成させた画家です。
Sesshū was a painter who was active more than 500 years ago and who perfected Japanese ink painting.
また、お坊さんでもありました。
He was also a Buddhist priest.
子どもの頃の雪舟について、こんな話があります。
There is this story about Sesshū as a child.
十二歳頃、生まれ故郷の岡山のお寺に預けられた雪舟。
When he was about twelve, Sesshū was entrusted to a temple in his birthtown Okayama.
絵を描くのが大好きで、お寺の修行に、ちっとも身が入りません。
He loved painting pictures, but was not at all making his best efforts in the temple’s practices.

What do the black dots indicate here? Are they just 墨 stains?

[buburoi]

I think these points are used for emphasis and a bit like cursive or underlining.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emphasis_point

[buburoi]

@2000kanji

墨だけで景色などを描く絵で昔中国から伝わりました。
Drawing pictures of scenery and the like only with ink was introduced from China long ago.

I think these are two main clauses and I would translate it as:
They are pictures of things like scenery only drawn with ink and they were introduced from China a long time ago.

[buburoi]

@2000kanji

十二歳頃、

I’m never sure with expressions like this but I think I remember talking to some Japanese people who explained to me that this doesn’t mean that he was around the age of six. ころ is used when talking about time spans, here being six. But it doesn’t imply that he could be five or seven. But as I said, I’m not 100% sure.

[Micki]

Here’s an example from the last Absolute Beginners Book Club, レンタルおにいちゃん. The emphasis here drew your attention to the deliberate use of hiragana rather than kanji in this character’s name.

[2000kanji]

Yes, I should have known! I knew that I had seen it somewhere before but didn’t remember where and what it meant.

[Micki]

@2000kanji

十二歳頃

@buburoi

here being six

Or possibly twelve

[buburoi]

Yes, of course!

[Micki]

@2000kanji

雪舟は、五百年以上前に活躍し、日本の水墨画を完成させた画家です。

Sesshū was a painter who was active more than 500 years ago and who perfected Japanese ink painting.

Does anyone understand why they use させた rather than しました here? I don’t see what the causative tense adds to the sentence.

[2000kanji]

@Micki

Does anyone understand why they use させた rather than しました here?

My explanation (tentative):
The ink painting was perfected thanks to him, so:
He was the cause for the perfection of ink painting.
Wouldn’t that be a causative tense?

[Micki]

That sounds like a nice explanation. I’ll go with that. Thank you!

[NicoleRauch]

I’m sorry for the boring technical explanation, but the thing is here that 完成する is an intransitive verb, and to turn it into a transitive verb you need to use させる with it.

Here is some more information:

「完成する」と「完成させる」とでは，どちらが正しいのでしょうか。たとえば「文章を完成（させる／する - 「完成する」と「完成させ... - Yahoo!知恵袋

(just have a look at the example sentences in the first reply, where you can see the usage in transitive and intransitive form)

[nemurineko]

@NicoleRauch

I’m sorry for the boring technical explanation

Not boring. Very helpful. Thank you!

[Micki]

That’s interesting thank you. I hadn’t thought about suru verbs being transitive or intransitive. I wonder how you know which one is which? Jisho lists two meanings for 完成: completion and perfection, but doesn’t define either as transitive or intransitive in their suru form. Although I can see from the example sentences that the “completion” meaning appears to be transitive in its suru form.