JBC's はたらく魔王さま!(The Devil is a Part-Timer) It's the final week!

Yeah I know that. Most of the “,” are not exactly “,” but can also work as periods. Just the sentences are pretty long in some cases.

Yeah, I’ve had to re-read lines a lot more than I’m used to, so I’ve fallen behind the pace I was hoping to set.

A bit frustrating, but it’s doable, so it can only help in the long run.

I think I’m gonna watch the first episode of the anime adaptation tonight to give me context and check some assumptions.

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I actually watched the anime adaptation when it was airing, but I have forgotten a lot of stuff. I did want to know what happened after the anime, so this is a nice way to catch up.

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Another question:
Page 22 (at the end) (physical book):

人間の姿になってしまった今では、赤字がシーツ羽織ったような不自然極まりない姿であり、しかも王や将としての威厳を保つための禍々しい装飾がそこかしこについている

I don’t understand parts in bold.

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The first one is actually 赤子, not 赤字.
It refers to the previous sentence, which mentions that both of them had much stronger bodies than regular humans. Now that they turned into humans themselves, their clothes fit as much as if babies were wearing sheets.

I’m less sure about the second part, but what you wrote in bold means “attached/stuck all around the place”, so something around the line of: Moreover, the ominous ornaments that characterized the ranks of king or general where all over their clothes.
That brings to mind the spiky shoulder pads of Maou on the cover.

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Question:
Page 23 line 7 from the end:

魔力はその世界に住む者の意識によって世界に空気のように湧出するのだが、無いものは供給されるはずがない。

I understand the words but I can’t put them together so that the sentence makes sense. :sweat_smile:

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FULL DISCLOSURE: I haven’t read the section you’re asking about yet, so I can’t verify the context but hopefully it helps.

魔力はその世界に住む者の意識によって世界に空気のように湧出するのだが、
Depending on the awareness of the inhabitants who live in that world, magic springs forth like the air
無いものは供給されるはずがない。
but it’s impossible to have nothing available.

In other words: Those who know about magic in that world know that it’s plentiful, like the air, and always accessible.

Hopefully that helps. I’m not sure if that matches with the context of what you read, but if not someone else is free to correct me.

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Keep pushing through! The challenge with these books is the beginning. Getting through the author’s reading style and word usage can be a bit discouraging at first, but if you just continue to trudge through you’re going to receive some good gains.

People often quote “i+1” as a mantra for learning, but what does that actually mean? In other words, what portion is the +1 pertains to? I feel that this subjective measure give many license to interpret this as adding only a small amount to whatever they are learning, when Krashen (the author of this concept) probably intended adding a new concept or level of difficulty. However there’s nothing out there saying that i+5 (or whatever reasonable degree) doesn’t work, it’s probably statistically infeasible to complete without help (WK is a good example of this). So hopefully this book club and watching the anime gives you the support you need to push through the book.

By the way, I’m not just directing this to you, but everyone who’s starting to come to the realization that reading this book is going to be an undertaking. In the beginning it will always be this way, but over time it will get easier and easier.

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Yep, I have no intention of giving up, though I’m likely going to have to resign myself to falling off the schedule. I might catch up, or I might finish a month late, but that’s nothing in the scope of learning a language.

I’m able to read Kino and OreImo with minor difficulty (I’d say they’re like +2 for me) at about the pace that was outlined for us with this book, but I’m struggling much more than expected between the vocab and lack of a clear mental image of each setting, which I attribute to missing a few key words and hoping they’d get restated in another form later.

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By the way, you can also check floflo for vocab.
Even if you don’t care about the SRS, looking at the frequency 1 list (words that appear once or more in the text… so all words that you don’t already know from WK) give all an easy look up of words in the same order as they appear in the text…
(Words are not always correctly parsed, but the list is more than 90% correct from what I have seen so far).

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Ah, I forgot to reply. The two negations are not affecting the same thing, so you can’t make them into a positive :sweat_smile:

So, to reformulate a bit:

The inhabitant of this world believe that magic is all around, like air, but something that does not exist cannot be supplied

The context is that Satan and Arciel (? don’t know how to spell that) have lost (or mostly lost in the case of satan) their magic, since there’s none available around.

Edit: By the way, I asked my partner (native speaker) to confirm my interpretation. Their first reaction was “wow, that Japanese is so weird”, and they had to re-read the sentence a couple times to get it :sweat_smile:

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Question:
Page 28 line 5-6
What is トイレは部屋毎のアパート?
I understand that 毎 means every, but “toilet in every room”? :thinking:
There is another suffix with reading ごと (共) which means “including…; with …; inclusive of”, maybe it will make more sense here?

部屋毎 is indeed “in every room/flat”, but the は does not refer only to トイレ, but everything that was before:
rent of 45 thousands per month, no key money, no guarantor, no bath, toilet, for all apartment in the complex.
(アパート is a complex, not a single apartment).

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How are we doing? Is the pacing too fast? Is anyone having trouble with the book?

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I guess I’m not the main target of this message, but I’m doing fine :stuck_out_tongue:
I’m not following the schedule, actually. I’m reading until I have encountered 25 new words (based on floflo frequency 2) for the day.
I’m currently around page 158, if I remember correctly (roughly in the middle of the book).

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I finished the first third of the book yesterday. I’ll probably go back and reread a few sections instead of moving on to the next chapter right away.

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I am behind at the moment (page 37), but I’ll catch up during the weekend.
I think pace is good.

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I’m pretty far behind (page 20), but I’ve been a bit too busy to commit time each day (not back home 'til next week) and went in expecting it to be a difficult undertaking; I’m still upper beginner, reading-wise.

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I’m behind (page 25) and i’m not going to have much of a chance to catch up for the next couple of weeks.

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Question:
Page 56 line 6

芦屋は一瞬でドアから後ろに飛びずさり身構える。

What is 飛びずさり?