Aria the Masterpiece Home Thread (Beginner Book Club / Aria Book Club)

Yes, the = is indicating the starting and ending location of the flight.

いただく is the humble version of もらう meaning “to receive” if that helps. So it’s really “thank you for (us receiving) your use of [our company/flight etc etc]”.

I don’t have a good explanation for why it’s いただき but I think it might be related to humble form.

Edit: いただき (masu stem) could also be in place of いただいて (te form), which I saw in Kiki a bunch (using masu stem in place of te form that is, not いただき in particular). But that was never used in dialog, so I have no idea if that’s relevant here.

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Today my books finally arrived! Already peeked into the first chapter and I can (mostly) easily understand what’s being said. Compared to Kiki’s the grammar seems to be easier, which makes sense I guess since it’s a manga and uses mostly dialog and less narrative. Vocab seems to be on a similar level.

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After further reflection, I’m quite happy with the furigana being so small. It’ll help me get better at reading kanji if it takes more effort to read the furigana.

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Got my book! The art is beautiful. I love the color pages. So do most people read ahead? I noticed there’s already vocab in the vocab sheet.

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I don’t think most people are reading ahead, other that to see how well they understand a few pages. I read the whole first chapter ahead of time to see if I can learn all the vocab I didn’t know in two weeks, but I won’t be doing that for the whole manga.

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Yeah, as seanblue said, I read the first chapter when my copy arrived mostly because I wanted to check before everything kicked off that I wouldn’t be a complete disaster at it (and partly because I was excited).

I’m planning to re-read it once we hit the official start date, and I wasn’t particularly planning to read ahead for future chapters.

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They use an equals sign because using a hyphen, like English would, would just look like 一 or ー.

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That makes sense I guess. I just hate when I see symbols that I don’t know how to “pronounce” in Japanese (because I subvocalize everything :expressionless:). In this case it’s dialog anyway, so I wonder how they’d say it in real life. Using から and まで perhaps?

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Yeah, I got nothing. Pretty sure the usual with today’s aircraft is, for example, トーフグ航空42便東京行き (this is Tofugu Air flight 42 bound for Tokyo). Been trying to listen to announcements on YouTube, but my computer speakers don’t work so great when it’s cold, so I can’t hear a thing.

That’s a pretty good point! I think one of my big problems is that I was trying to read in a room without enough light.

I’ll be getting the book late. Any chance someone can share the first bit of vocabulary with me if you’re making a list?

There a group vocab list linked in the first post, and it’s already filled out with over 100 words. :slight_smile:

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Oh god that’s what I get for making a quick post on my phone. Last time I checked it was empty and I didn’t scroll up to check, sorry.
Edit: By empty I mean I didn’t see that the vocab was on another tab.

Ordered mine and I should have it tomorrow!
Also, I remember ordering manga and DVDs from Amazon Japan a few years back, and this time it was so much easier, because… it seems I can read most info on the pages! All hail the Crabigator.

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The company my partner works for is actually having their annual summer event the weekend Aria starts. But I’ll be damned if I’m not taking it with me! I may not be able to participate in the thread until the Monday, but I’ll be reading!

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I just wanna say I’m definitely joining you guys!
I’ve been busy with life stuff so I haven’t practiced reading in a while…

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Welcome! Glad to have you join us!

Got the book in the mail the other day!
I tried to read a couple of pages and can understand half of what it’s written. All in all I’m pretty pleased since this is basically my almost first attempt at reading anything.

I have just one question: am I the only one that can’t read the kanji? I don’t mean the meaning or reading… I literally can’t read them! They are so tiny I have to use a magnifying glass!

Tell me I’m not the only one T__T my eyesight is not great, but I thought it was still passable…

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Some of it is really small. Some the furigana also threw me off-- I got stuck trying to figure out whether something was a bi or pi. It was so tiny I couldn’t see if it was a circle or two lines.

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I can generally read the kanji, but sometimes I have trouble with the furigana. I think recognizing kanji, even when the kanji are tiny or blurry, becomes easier as you learn and practice more.