That’s definitely interesting, but I feel like the actual experiment doesn’t really provide enough data to strongly support a 98% figure. In particular, they never actually test anybody on a 98%-known-vocab text – they only tried 80, 90, 95 and 100% and are extrapolating between those. Ideally there’d be more data points between 95 and 100 since that seems to be the range of interest.
Empirically, I find when reading that unknown words fall into two categories – important to understanding of the text, and unimportant (very often adverbs), and you can generally tell which is which. So 95% known words plus a dictionary doesn’t mean you have to look up one word in 20 for comprehension.
Definitely! Reading a lot of Paul Nation’s stuff, he’s mainly doing theoretical and computational work, so even this amount of experimental evidence is a huge (and for work done at a masters thesis level, this is pretty impressive). Google scholar marks this article as being cited by 1800 other papers, so it’s definitely not the end of this story. The data set was small, the method was clever but pretty convoluted, and the conditions for comprehension may have been way too strict for such a short piece of writing. Clearly more work needed to be done, and clearly more work has been done. But I’ve seen the 98% number pop up a lot in other papers, so It’s good to know more or less where that idea comes from in the literature.
Found a yojijukugo: 切磋琢磨
・1) diligent application (to work or study); cultivating one’s caracter by studying hard
・2) mutual encouragement (to improve); working hard together; friendly rivalry
So true. Can’t have too much shounen manga factor! At some point, I must have forgotten what happened to マイン at the end of the second arc, leaving her in a position where she can’t stay with her family in the 下町 anymore. Interesting how both of those incidents were at the end of arcs As for me forgetting, may be due to how smooth it went to pick up those four ingredients for the magic potion (except for the initial try, of course).
Today I read Chapter 46 of Mitsuboshi Colors.
It was quite a quick read, so I considered reading something else too, but then decided that since I’m pretty tired, it was ok to let myself have an easier reading day today.
I had a use it or lose it occurrence after work and decided to take the opportunity, although it took up a good chunk of time. After that and dinner, I was off focus and then it was 1am before I knew it
I got to start Pompeii at least. I’m really excited to be reading this in its original version.
My goal was to read 5 chapters of Shield Hero volume and ended up reading 6 yesterday. Today I plan to finish the book, but leaving the extra stories for tomorrow. I went ahead and ordered the next 4 volumes because thats all of season 1, and I have trip coming up. Can’t believe I read this much but its been so fun I can’t put it down. Luckily I have other obligations so I am eager to jump back when the chance arrives. Otherwise I would probably just burn myself out through the free time.
More ブルーロック today! I finished off volume 14 and then ended up reading all of volume 15, which was… quite the adventure lmao, if you know you know but yeah it was lots of fun as always, though I did encounter a lot of words I really didn’t expect to in ブルーロック
I finished the ユージニア reading today and the first 2 sections (of 3) for 体育館の殺人. I need to finish that tomorrow and try to drag myself through the final short story of 死仮面. Maybe it will turn out to be actually very interesting!
My vote is for the target audience. Cold logic cases can be straight up fun, but this one just has rather silly and illogical characters surrounding what’s supposed to be a very logical case. I’d probably dig it if I were in middle school, and it’s a chill read (I kind of turn off my brain while doing the reading), but I’m not exactly at the edge of my seat wondering who did it.
This is an earnest entreaty to Japanese authors!! Please stop using 苦笑 so much!!!
When I only read translations one of my biggest pet peeves was saying the phrase ‘bitter smile’ and ‘wry smile’ over and over again, a fairly direct translation from 苦笑. What made me so annoyed is that this translation is often deaf to the nuance of the sentence itself and English has so many more fitting words to replace it with.
Now that I’m reading Japanese I’m putting some of the onus back on the writers! With such a diverse language 苦笑 doesn’t need to constantly be used as a catch-all!!!
jpdb.io lists 苦笑 as appearing in お隣の天使様 91 times across 4 volumes and 苦笑い 13 times while probably still missing a few additional instances. It actually blows my mind how much the word is loved.
Word of the Day: 雫 - drop of water. I don’t really have much to say other than it’s a pretty odd-looking kanji to me. As someone who knows a bit of Chinese the 国字 are always very obvious to me and this character is no different.
耳をすませば pg 70 → 105 – I might read even more later, but i’ll take a break here since it’s a good stopping point. Parts of the story are starting to be structured quite differently than the film, but this doesn’t make me dislike it. I’m still really enjoying this, and it’s been a pretty quick read, despite the jump in text density from よつばと！and からかい上手の高木さん.
耳をすませば pg 105 → 134 – round 2 babyy
Good Words
むつか = 難し ー difficult
興味「きょうみ」ー interest (in), curiosity (about)
態度「たいど」ー attitude, manner
予感「よかん」ー hunch
浮かない顔「うかないかお」ー long face, looking depressed
面会「めんかい」ー seeing, meeting (face to face) (here, being called out of class to meet someone)
自意識過剰「じいしきかんじょう」ー excessive self consciousness (lmao)
よっぽど ー very, greatly, considerably (here, よっぽど変)
鈍い「にぶい」ー thickheaded, dull
偶然「ぐうぜん」ー by chance
眩しい「まぶしい」ー dazzling, radiant
孫「まご」ー grandchild
輝く「かがやく」ー to shine, to sparkle
Pokemon Violet 16:55 → 21:18
Not too much actual reading here for the amount of time played since I’ve been exploring a lot.
I had a bit of a moment when I was reading aloud and found the にがスパイス My brain registered the English version of that word before the Japanese.
The one gym that I did challenge was kind of dumb lol. but I learned that かくれんぼ means hide-and-seek. Just a little fun one because it’s something a kid would know but probably something that wouldn’t really come up in formal language study.
Card Captor Sakura volume 1 or Aria: the masterpiece volume 2 – progress report
Yesterday: started with volume 1 of Card Captor Sakura. Read up to page 17(?).
Today: Read up to page 30 of Card Captor Sakura.
Not too much progress today due to explanations (Sakura’s family, discovery of the Clow Card book) not being done yet. I’ll still have to make my way through a good amount of them tomorrow.
I also wasn’t aware that Kero is speaking Osaka dialect – that would explain some of his unusual looking dialogue and verb-endings because I have no idea what the infamous Osaka dialect sounds and looks like. I’ll look it up later.
Last but not least, does anyone know what the following expression いぢわるなのが in the description of Sakura’s brother ‘この いぢわるなのが とうやお兄ちゃん 高校二年生’ means?
I assume that the sentence means something along the lines of ‘this one (is) my … older brother Toya, (a) second-year high school student.’
I searched in Jisho.org and it showed me ‘malicious, mean-spirited’ which would fit, but it’s written
いじわる (意地悪 ). Can じ and ぢ be used interchangeably or is it another word or even a spelling error? The latter seems unlikely because I have seen it at least twice in the 1st chapter so far.
Word or expression of the day:
夜更かし (+する） (よふかし) - staying up late, keeping late hours, nighthawk
The niece tries to tell a story but then the children appear and there are many interruptions with many questions and it’s hard to remember who is saying what.
Nov 21 
As for me forgetting, may be due to how smooth it went to pick up those four ingredients for the magic potion (except for the initial try, of course). 
青桐.
ミニスカ宇宙海賊 1.
鋼の錬金術師 7; 
魔王城でおやすみ 11.
but yeah it was lots of fun as always, though I did encounter a lot of words I really didn’t expect to in ブルーロック 
November 22nd 
11.21.2022 
Pokemon Violet 16:55 → 21:18
