That’s an interesting one, because my impression is that it practically always does have a を when you see it in the wild; but it’s the same “を marking a location being moved through” again.
① 移動する場所・経路：「道を歩く」「公園を走る」「 空を飛ぶ」「橋を渡る」
② 動作・作用の行われる時間・期間：「この一年を無事に生きてきた」
③ 動作の出発点・分離点・経過点：「故郷を離れる」「バスを降りる」「家を出る」「2時を10分過ぎる」
④ 位置関係：「先頭を走る」「最後を歩く」
⑤ 取り巻く状況：「嵐の中を歩く」
Unless I’m confused, you can’t recast any of these into the passive with the を-marked noun becoming the subject, which points towards them not being “real” objects. But that’s a personal observation, not an expert-backed one.
This week I finished 海辺のカフカ Also, went to the sauna again (after a looong time) and read some more 星の王子さま - this week I came across the fox who wanted to get tamed, which was a bit of a touching moment for me.
ユージニア is making good progress (will probably finish this week’s reading tomorrow), and then it’s onward to the second story of 秋の牢獄! I will be a bit busy next week, but I hope that I can finish the story until the weekend.
I didn’t have much reading time yesterday so only read a little, but today I finished this week’s short story from おばちゃんたちのいるところ. Next up, Mystery Club.
I’m not very confident in my reading and I don’t know very many kanji yet but I’d like to try reading through some of my Manga in Japanese. Not very good at forming habits right now but I’m gonna do my best.
I considered skipping reading yesterday as I was under the weather, but I instead opted for my stop-gap measure of random-free-read from Book Walker. It was terrible. To be fair I intentionally choose things I don’t expect to get invested in.
I finished the ユージニア reading and the 体育館の殺人 reading today. Seeing as I’m under the weather (but feeling fine-ish? No voice but also no headache ) I haven’t got much to do today except read. I’ll probably tackle the 金田一 reading next as it’s only 30 some pages and then I can leisurely read the second story of 秋の牢獄 this coming week.
Out of curiosity, when just starting out, should I be bothering to try and transcribe/understand the Japanese? Or to just gain familiarity with the kanji and comfort with reading?
Not really Kanji, but trying to understand sentences well as a whole can be useful. So joining a book club, perhaps an old book club, is recommended.
Otherwise, some people simply open their own threads.
After getting some confidence, both intensive and extensive have their merits. I leans towards extensive first, before catching up on intensive later, though.
Volume 48 done! On to 49! I’ll still try to read Human Chair, but I may put it on hold until I’m back at a good pace with manga to hit my goal of 50 vol by the end of the year I need to read 2 volumes a week to make it. It’ll be close I think.
Trying to transcribe the Japanese will lead to more work during your reading and therefore easier burnout. I would test out what works for you. Over time seeing repeating and natural style pattern should help them become ingrained in your mind and help you internalize the meaning. Therefore the act of reading in itself is a good practice. Whether you skim, don’t use a dictionary, use a dictionary in a limited way, heavily use a dictionary, or etc is up to you. I recommend testing out each way over a week or so and seeing which way helps you stay engaged and happy the most. Set a timer for 15-20 min and then check your feelings when it goes off.
Tae Kim 242 → 255 – finished section 5! Just one major section left. Lots of time/duration/state related grammar today.
からかい上手の高木さん chapter 25, 26, おまけ, finishing volume 3! – cute chapters. Usually don’t have a lot to say about these. It is a little funny that I was just talking to someone last night about all the different ways you can talk about さつま芋アイス (in particular the enigmatically named 大学芋アイス ) earlier and then yet another form we hadn’t talked about pops up in one of these chapters.
Good Words
習字「しゅうじ」ー penmanship, calligraphy
悩む「なやむ」ー to be worried
逆効果「ぎゃくこうか」ー opposite effect
現状維持「げんじょういじ」ー maintaining the status quo
攻める「せめる」ー to attack
はっぺた ー cheek
限定「げんてい」ー limit, restriction (here, 秋限定焼いもアイス)
パンク ー flat tire (puncture)
尾行「びこう」ー shadow, tail, following
競走「きょうそう」ー race
It’s nothing that hasn’t been said already, but I completely agree that how closely you want to read the text depends on how much motivation, time, and personal endurance you think you have.
I personally started reading about two months ago with the intent that I would try to fully comprehend everything I read, which sometimes meant being stuck on single sentences for 10+ minutes before I either figured it out myself or a friend bailed me out. As a result I gained a lot of insight really quickly, but I admit I definitely was on the verge of burning out a few times. If that doesn’t seem palatable to you then I would read in the way that’s most comfortable, because the experience you gain will be valuable either way! And most importantly make sure that you’re reading something you actually enjoy
Help me, I can’t stop reading 昨日 as さくじつ… I’ve seen it probably hundreds of times by now and yet my brain’s first reaction when seeing 昨 is さく, I don’t know how much time I’ve wasted just mentally correcting myself…
Word of the Day: 履き違える - literally to put on the wrong shoes but more figuratively to make a mistake or misunderstand. I’m not sure why but this expression conjures a surprisingly vivid image of its meaning!
Read very little this weekend, maybe one chapter of Chainsaw man here and there. But mostly played MarioKart xD I have no idea why I was so into that this weekend above everything else.
I read a few pages of コミク魔女の宅 急便 during my lunch break. I was really happy because I recognized 屋根 without having to look it up, despite it being one of the wanikani words I’ve been struggling a bit with recently. There were a couple other words that I though I knew well that I ended up looking up though . There was a part where Tombo mentions a "クラブのパーテイー” and I read it as “crab party” instead of “club party”. Had a good laugh over that
Lots of people have added good info here already, but I’ll add some stuff from a SLA Linguist’s perspective:
Basically, anything works as long as you do it regularly and put time in! If you are motivated to spend time doing super close readings, those will help. If you enjoy reading a lot and just want to skim through and hop over grammar that looks too hard? that will also help! Changing methods depending on how you’re feeling that particular reading session? also will help!
Adult language acquisition is a long process and we (the field of linguistics) don’t completely understand how it works. Anyone who claims they do is probably trying to sell you something. But it really does seem like the best positive correlation between learning methods and adults who acquire language proficiency is just consistency. The sort of internalization of grammar and vocabulary that builds up your unconscious knowledge of language isn’t a cram before the test sort of thing. So however you want to read, listen, watch, play in Japanese that keeps you motivated to keep doing that every day? Figure out what that is and do that.
A lot of the tricks and tips people come up with (doing anki 2k/6k to build up recognition of common words or wanikani to build kanji recognition, for example) are sorta just ways to functionally get to the part where exposure is more enjoyable more quickly.
(that being said you do kinda want to make sure you’re exposing yourself to natural Japanese, not just textbook or learning material stuff)
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So the “exceptions” has a pattern that makes sense after all. Thanks for pointing that out!
Also, went to the sauna again (after a looong time) and read some more 星の王子さま - this week I came across 
) I haven’t got much to do today except read. I’ll probably tackle the 金田一 reading next as it’s only 30 some pages and then I can leisurely read the second story of 秋の牢獄 this coming week.
On to 49! I’ll still try to read Human Chair, but I may put it on hold until I’m back at a good pace with manga to hit my goal of 50 vol by the end of the year 
I need to read 2 volumes a week to make it. It’ll be close I think.
November 13th 
11.13.2022 日曜日 
I read a few pages of コミク魔女の宅 急便 during my lunch break. I was really happy because I recognized 屋根 without having to look it up, despite it being one of the wanikani words I’ve been struggling a bit with recently. There were a couple other words that I though I knew well that I ended up looking up though 
. There was a part where Tombo mentions a "クラブのパーテイー” and I read it as “crab party” instead of “club party”. Had a good laugh over that 