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I’ll do my proper formatting later; quickly typed up my answers on my dinner break
読み物1
読む前に
1.毎日、仕事でメールを書きます。
2.先生へのメールが敬語を使います、でも友達へのが敬語を使いません。
Translation Paragraph 1
John is emailing his teacher Suzuki sensei
Re: Please would you write me a recommendation letter
Suzuki Sensei
In Japan, a cold wind blows and everyday is cold. The snow has been contuining over there, I hope you are doing well. I am finally getting used to living in Japan and I’m enjoying every day. On New Year’s Day, I ate osechiryouri/traditional NYD dish for the first time. My host family taught me about the meaning and how to make each dish, and it made me want to know more about Japanese food.
I think this was mostly straight forward but I had to get some help from ichi.moe for the last sentence. I could parse the first clause, but the second one threw me, I couldn’t quite split up the conjugations.
Translation Paragraph 2
Now, I’m actually emailing you today to ask for a favour. The university in Minami city has a volunteer programme every year for exchange students. This is helping with the city’s international exchange departing to work with junior and highschools and community centres putting on weekly culture sharing events. At the event, people in the town share parts of their culture, like food and language. I have decided to apply because you can only experience these kinds of programmes in Japan and I think it will help when applying for future jobs.
Grammar wasn’t hard to decipher again, but there’s some compound words that the dictionary was whipped out for!
Translation Paragraph 3
It’s a sudden request when you are busy but I need a letter of recommendation and I wonder if you could write one for me? The application deadline is in a month so if you sent it by early February that would be fine. I apologise for the sudden email, but I would be very grateful if you could reply. Thank you.
It’s easy to catch a cold this season so take care of yourself!
•和食についてもっと知りたくなりました。I saw くな and immediately jumped to negating the sentence, I had to re-read an work through each conjugation of 知りたくなりました.
•これは市の国際交流かの仕事を手伝いながら、小•中学校やコミュニティセンターで異文化交流イベントを毎週行うものです。This sentence seemed really long and I had trouble locating the main point.
•いかがお過ごしですか。I thought it was “how are you spending your time?” but according to jisho it’s a set phrase meaning “how are things with you?”
•今年の夏もサマーコースを教えられるのでしょうか。I don’t see why 教える used the passive form.
•つまらないものですが、こちらの大学のペンを一緒にお送りします。I know what all of these words mean separately, but can’t put them together in a way that makes sense.
New grammar is in bold, things I’m unsure of are in italics
拝啓医者さん、
こちらは秋が始まり、だんだん日が寒くなります。冷たい朝のうちにお茶を飲むことが気に入ります。いつの間にかハロウィンがあります。インフルエンザの季節が、お元気に気をつけてください。
さて、私のお礼のために書きたいです。２０２１の九月に、甲状腺機能低下症を見立ててくださってありがとうございました。診断と薬のおかげで、普通な生活に帰れるようになりました。よく寝れるようになる、髪が抜けることをやめると痩せます。十キロしかなくさなかったが、とてもうれしいです。まるで若者のように感じます。医者さんにとって大切な事件じゃないらしいかもしれないが、私にとって大切な事件でした。
では、これからますます日が寒くなり続ける、風邪をひかないことに気をつけてください。いいホリデーシーズンがあるといいですね。
敬具、ホットドッグさん
I’ve started my translation of the first reading. I made some little notes under the reading but would like to add some further detail that’s not specific to the text.
I don’t know if people are aware of this tool, but there’s a great website called https://ichi.moe/ that will parse sentences and can even break down conjugations. It doesn’t give a translation, which I find super useful, because it allows me to just extract the missing pieces I need to complete the puzzle.
I understood 和食、について、もっと、知り。The end bit is what through me, I don’t think I’ve encountered “want to”/たい along with “to become”/なりました together like that.
I could stick this into a translate tool and just get the answer, but instead with ichi.moe, I was able to break down the grammar bits I didn’t know and still translate the sentence myself with a nice prompt, not just getting the full answer.
I struggled with the exact same part. I see くな and immediately negate the sentence, and I have to slowly work through each conjugation 知る → 知りたい → 知りたくなる → 知りたくなります
I think this can just be 使う, since the politeness of the entire sentence is determined by the verb at the end.
If you mean, does it infer you don’t use keigo with your teachers, then I don’t think so. です/ます show your politeness levels towards the listeners (i.e. the people reading your sentence) You’re using keigo with your teachers regardless of how polite you are with us.
Although, reading it again, I realize the sentence is actually two clauses, so maybe it is okay ¯_(ツ)_/¯
(All that aside, the gaijin card is really nice to have)
Things I’m confused on:
Reading 2 line 17: つまらないものですが、こちらの大学のペンを一緒にお送りします。It’s nothing but, we’re going to send you a pen from this university. I’m guessing “we” is George and the friends he mentioned in the previous sentence.
気に入っていただけたらうれしいです。I’m guessing it’s “If you like it, I will be happy” but don’t you have to change the subject from ‘you’ to ‘I’? Otherwise it’s “If you like it, you will he happy.”
I also got a bit confused by the reading 2 line 17 sentence, but 一緒means george is sending the pen along with the letter to the teacher
for 気に入っていただけたらうれしいです, japanese being a contextual language, the sentence means that george would be happy if the teacher likes it. You also see this たら・とうれしい structure a lot, so I don’t think it can ever mean the other party will be happy lol, and only refers to oneself
I agree with @hai265 explainations
Here’s a note on うれしい and similar adjectives that I’ve seen recently in Satori Reader, attached to the sentence そう言われたことが、私はすごく嬉しかった (The Jam Maker episode 10)
Didn’t spend too much time on these so they were written pretty roughly. I didn’t know what word to use for event organizers so went with オルガナイザー for readability (tho Jisho suggests the abbreviation オルグ is more common)
I read 読み物1 and generally understood! Tho I am a little confused why they add furigana to seemingly easy words like 友達 (friend) but not others like 推薦状 (letter of recommendation) … I wish I understood the reasoning.
I’ll complete the rest of the Reading Section tomorrow after work and update this post!
Really excited to catch up on all yall’s posts when I’m caught up :>
Similar to 読み物1, I think I understood most of the contents of this letter! I agree with what others have said that Chapter 2’s reading feels easier than the first chapter!
I’m skipping 読み物２ー読んだ後で to prioritise the grammar so I can finish this week’s pages today
Quartet 1 and 2 Study Group
(Quartet - 読む - Chapter 2)
a lot less unknown vocabulary this time around.
