Cells at Work! 🦠 | Week 4

Week 4 17 December 2022
End page 59
Pages 17
Previous week Week 3
Next week Week 5
Home Thread Cells at Work!

Vocabulary and Grammar

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Page numbers

The schedule is based on the page numbers that sometimes appear on the bottom of the pages. Both the Kindle and the BookWalker versions seem to be 2 off (44 instead of 42)

Last page of the week

Live Readings

Live readings are currently not organized. If you are interested in organizing one, tell me and I’ll update the post.

Discussion Questions

Questions
  1. What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!
  2. What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
  3. Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m reading this book after the club has finished
  • I’m no longer reading the book

0 voters

If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have read this part.”

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!i

4 Likes

I wanted to try to transcript some of the easier boxes too :package: So here goes:

くしゃみ Sneeze

鼻の奥に付着した埃やウイルスなどの異物を体外に排出しようとして起こる反射的な反応。その他にもアレルギー反応や、こよりで鼻腔をくすぐったり、コショウを吸い込んだり、太陽を見たりといった刺激を受けると発生する。

It is the reflexive reaction that occurs when (the body) tries to eject out of the body foreign substances, like viruses or dust clinging to the inside of the nose. It also occurs when (the nose) is stimulated by things like an allergic reaction, tickling the nasal cavity with a paper string, inhaling pepper, or looking at the sun.

The grammar here is a bit weird because I tried to stay as true to the original sentence as possible…

These two are pretty easy but still:

白血球の数 Number of White Blood Cells

1μLあたり約3500~9500個。

Per 1 micro litre there are approximately 3500 to 9500 (of them).

A micro litre is like really tiny, one thousandths of a millilitre. I didn’t know there were this many cells in human blood. Red blood cells are even crazier in that regard.

赤血球の数 Number of Red Blood Cells

1μLあたり成人男性で約430万~570万個、成人女性で約390万~520万個。

Per micro litre there are approximately 4.3 million to 5.7 million (of them) for men and approximately 3.9 million to 5.2 million (of them) for women.

If anything is wrong and/or you have a better translation, please tell me :smiling_face:

5 Likes

This is actuallly called ACHOO syndrome (Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helioopthalmic Outburst, you might find a few letters missing or omitted). And it’s actually a superpower, that I thought more people had, but apparently only about 20-30%

6 Likes

Ahh, I think I’ve heard of that! I always thought it was just a joke though haha
I love its acronym although it seems to be adding/removing letters arbitrarily lol
I wish I had a superpower like that…

4 Likes

It’s great, I have it, and it’s great for getting rid of those painful, either drawn out, or actually cut short sneezes. That’s why it’s a superpower.

4 Likes

I also have it. Always looking at bright lights to trigger the superpower. There is a cooldown between two uses though. you can’t abuse this great power, it would be OP otherwise

Thanks for the transcription, I was going to do it this afternoon ! :slight_smile:

4 Likes

Oh, so there is a limit to how much you can use it. I think it would have had to be nerfed otherwise!

You can still do the transcription if you want, I just did it for myself and it may not be completely correct. :smile: :smile:

2 Likes
Highlight

Just a cute platelet waving at virus-san departure


Highlight 2

The ship has begun ! :smiling_face:


Can’t wait to see the crisis in the liver when the body owner gets wasted on a Friday night !

5 Likes

Now onto chapter 2!

4 Likes

Hey, I have a few (hopefully small!) questions for this week’s chapter end.

page 48

こんな手使って恥ずかしくねーのか

I get the meaning of the sentence. Should be something like “Aren’t you ashamed of using this kind of thing?”. But I cannot parse how 手使って is build up (even ichi.moe splits it into 手 + 使う).

page 51

その他にもアレルギー反応や、こよりで鼻腔をくすぐったり、…

Vocab sheet translates こより as “string made from twisted paper” + . Feels a bit random to me, since anything could tickle the insides, no? :thinking:

page 57

白血球っつってもいっぱいいるわけだし

っつっても = とても?

The last page of the chapter was amazing :joy: Couldn’t stop laughing from the faces.

3 Likes
Pg. 48

Ichi.moe parses it correctly. In casual speech, particles are often dropped. There would usually be an を between. In this case, 手 is like a method or technique, so rather than “kind of thing,” I would say “kind of technique.” But you’re otherwise spot-on.

Pg. 51

I couldn’t find a satisfying answer to this one. I mean, when you look it up, it refers to a very specific type of twisted string of paper that is used in crafts, like binding books and the like. It’s also perfectly shaped for tickling somebody’s nose as a prank (kinda like the trope of using a feather in English cartoons), so I dunno if it’s a cultural thing that way? If it is, I can’t find any reference to it specifically.

紙縒り:

1114_675

That said, the VTuber 博衣こより skews search results a bit, so it’s difficult to find much in general. :joy:

Pg. 57

っつっても → と言って + も particle

3 Likes
Pg. 51

Searching for 鼻こより seems to bring back relevant results. This is bizarre – there are even TikTok and YouTube pages showing how こより are used for fun.

If you can’t be bothered to make your own with tissue paper, you can buy a pack of 5 for ¥460 (ships internationally):

2 Likes

Thanks! Actually, it struck me now that 手 doesn’t necessarily mean only “hand”, but in fact has a lot of other meanings too: technique, trouble, type, … to name a few.

:laughing:

2 Likes