Home post - September 28th - reread ハチの話 graded reader and just flew through it, it can’t have taken me more than 10 minutes and I didn’t have to second guess anything. Rereading graded readers is great. I had wanted to tackle a more advanced story today, but I ran out of time, so had to settle for squeezing this in instead.
hey all, still just about hanging in here - I work at a university and term just started and that’s usually quite full on anyway, but we’ve also just gone back to being on campus for the first time since March 2020… For the last few years I’ve completely stopped doing WK lessons during the first semester and just kept up with my review. I think I’m going to do the same this year but I am absolutely definitely keeping up with this reading challenge regardless!
New vocabulary continues to be about trees and mud, to a quite unfathomable degree. For example today I learnt 木立ち, こだち which means a grove or thicket, so reasonably self-explanatory for once, but I’m still starting to ask myself how many words for groups of trees does one language really need?
日27
昨日の日本の本: 日本人の知らない日本語
I wasn’t able to update my progress yesterday becuase I tired The usual. I was doing my hair yesterday and didn’t feel like reading afterwards. SOoOo I watch the show this time … and well you know how that goes one ep leads to the other … I watched 4 eps… they were petty dope. If your looking for a manga or show that talks about 日本人 grammer then I would recommend.
日28
今日の日本の本: げんき(page 57)(かいもの)
This time the mc is going into a restaurant, she ask what とんかつ is and ask if it’s fish but all this dude (waiter) says is and I quote “いいえ、魚じゃないです。肉です。おいしいです。” like =-= waaaa. I wouldn’t have gotten it, like that’s vague at lease say it’s pig. like give me something… ごめね. All this to say it was a funny read!
Clicked on the story advertised on the home page of hukumusume. Maybe it’s just on this story, or that I didn’t notice it before (most likely option), but it tells you where the story originates from, in this case it’s Mie Prefecture. Which leads to another really handy section of this site, information about all the prefectures such as: symbols (flowers, trees, animals), local folktales, size, population, cuisine specialties, attractions, schools… seriously so much information and so many links! This site is insane!
Anywayyyy
There’s a YouTube vid with this one, which is just the audio played with the pictures, still, fun to watch and listen.
To say that this is for kids, this story is pretty dark.
~Word Section~
海女 (あま）- a female diver who collects seaweed, seashells etc.
困ったわ (こまったわ) - Jisho gives a lot of meanings, but it’s to be in an unmanageable/hopeless situation in this instance.
サザエ - Horned Turban (shell)
I was sure Sazae was a name, I looked it up and it is, kanji version for the name is: 沙座絵
海草 (かいそう) - Seagrass
成仏 (じょうぶつ) - entering Nirvana, becoming a Buddha
Here some new vocabulary mostly biological words
ミトコンドリア mitochondria
微笑む ほほえむ to smile JLPT N3
颯爽 さっそう galant, dashing
受容体 receptor
クリーンベンチ Laminar flow cabinet
And then to be slightly less mature, kaka is a word that means poop in many languages (apparently Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, and a few more), and it is used by children in some English speaking countries to mean the same.
I don’t always read them but I definitely try to, and I’ve got lots of useful vocab out of them which I’ve added to Anki =D
Some cute onomatopoeia from this chapter:
ちょこん - slightly (of an action); (looking) small and quiet
うとうと - falling into a doze; dozing off; nodding off
I have been reading! But not posting because of crazy Life. Today I finished the book club reading for last week. The other members of my club seem to have disappeared, but I’m only two weeks/fifty pages from the end, so I’m going to finish it anyway.
Plus, I have you guys.
Fun words and spoilers
キノコ狩り きのこがり・In the normal world this is mushroom gathering. In my book, 妖精 fairies ride puppyback and hunt down イダテンキノコ.
イダテン・Skanda (swift-footed guardian deity), or great runner.
イダテンキノコ are belegged mushrooms who run around all the time. Don’t worry, once they are caught they turn into normal mushrooms who don’t run around. Whether vegetarians can eat them or not is, IMO, up for debate.
I’m now part way through section 3, chapter 6 of 手紙！ I haven’t had a lot of time to post here, but I have been taking time to read everyday
We’re about to move, again, so things are pretty busy around here. I miss posting here, and am aiming to make time for it as often as I can.
@chrisosaurus Glad to hear your surgery went well! I hope you have a smooth and speedy recovery!
I love reading everyone’s words! Thanks for taking the time to blue the readings, since guessing is one of the fun parts. I try to doing this too since I saw your efforts : D
Welcome to people joining in!! I can’t wait to see what you’re all reading!
My tutor had me using a lot of カピバラさん books when I first started (ngl, this is probably why I stuck with Japanese) and they used うとうと to describe the capybaras so it’s one of my favourite onomatopoeia.
Day 20（9月 28日) What did I read:
Bad reading day, and a pretty tiring day tbh… I only read a bit about Miyagi prefecture, from the treasure trove of a link Zakarius shared.
Thank you so much! I love reading and learning about prefectures, and honestly this page is a goldmine!!
Read as far as the emblem, flower, tree and bird of the prefecture go, leaving the deer out. But will definitely go back to it!
Emblem is meant to look after a the prefecture flower,
and then the logo was modified to resemble the letter み as in みやぎ県. How cool!
Bless you, I’m loving this whole post, so educational and documentaristic haha! In Portuguese too, カカ is also like baby talk for
Don’t you guys find it amazing how a single concept can have similar-sounding words in so many different languages, lol
Thanks for linking this! Navigating the site without using any translation I was able to find free capybara chapters. So cute!!
Thank you for writing this post even though you were tired! I wish I could give it more than one heart! It was super fun to learn a little about Miyagi prefecture.
Decided taking another pass on this book aimed for young Japanese learners to encourage reading. I had followed it before with the book club on wanikani, but it was pretty hard to keep up and interest waned. To change things around a bit I’m reading a story every night before bed. Normally I would read manga during the day, either before or after doing reviews.
Look it has a cute snail carrying a house on its little shell! This book has 13 different short stories. Most of them are classic Japanese stories, but there’s also poems, a haiku, western stories and a bit of science.
Yesterday I read the first story (きつねのしゃしん) again. Not gonna lie, I still struggled reading through it, but luckily not as much as before. Part of the difficulty is in the hiragana and lack of vocabulary.
Anyway this will keep me busy for a while. Gives me a bit more room to think up what to read after that.
カラフル (52 → 57% audio but was falling asleep again)
→ listening to audiobook has it’s benefits even if I’m sleepy - I had to figure out where I am in the story each time I woke up
(yes, it was only a 18-minutes fragment and yet I managed to get several mininaps during that time )
but I’m going to relisten to it once more.
→ officially changing my goal to 108, because I’m going to read every day anyway until I finish カラフル and catch up to the 授乳 book club
(…I hope 108 will be enough because I’m no longer sure. But I should have more free time at least for the next 2 weeks)
Why 108
The number the Buddhist temples’ bells ring in Japan at midnight on December 31st. I have a soft spot for that number since I learned as a teenager that’s why Death Note has 108 chapters.
I’m not very into its spiritual connotations, but it has a meaning of completion/end-of-old-start-of-new for me.
(but i’m aware it does have connotations in things aside Buddhism too)
… and well you know how that goes one ep leads to the other … I watched 4 eps… they were petty dope. If your looking for a manga or show that talks about 日本人 grammer then I would recommend.
::: TANUKIDATE 20210928 ::: 
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Day 25
Day 20（9月 28日) 
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Why 108