三毛猫ホームズの推理 ~48% to 50%, end of chapter 2.5 (and halfway through the book!)
Didn’t read much 三毛猫 today, but I did at least reach the point where I could look at those spoilers that aren’t a week or so ahead (ahem…some people read fast). I wanted to go on reading, but after also finishing chapter 2 of 佐賀のがばいばあちゃん my brain decided it had quite enough reading for today, thank you.
words etc
怪奇映画 - horror film
拝金主義 - mammonism, which I had no idea means “the greedy pursuit of riches”
木が気でない - feel uneasy, on pins and needles
振り付ける - to choreograph
寒気 - chill, shivering
いても立ってもいられない - unable to contain oneself, itching to do something
いい気味 - it serves you right
I’d probably think it was “By the way, when male dogs become adults, they start to raise one of their back legs high up to pee.” (which is pretty close to what you wrote)
You can see here that ようになる means “以前は〜じゃないが、今は〜である。状況や能力の変化を表す。” “It wasn’t that way before, but now it is. Expresses a change in ability or situation.”
Here’s a kinda similar example sentence from the website
大学生になってから自分で弁当を作るようになりました。
(After becoming a college student, I began to make my own lunch boxes)
And here is a random example from a part of a website (website is here, see 生存戦略としてのモフモフ・真っ白 section) talking about how animals will adapt when they molt to match the climate and daylight hours of whatever place they’re in
昔から日本にいる固有種はもちろんのこと、外国からやってきた動物も、日照時間の変化に合わせて換毛期が現地に適応するようになります。
.
Note: 固有種 are animals native to the country, 日照 is daylight, 換毛期 is molting season
Today my reading was the preview of カラフル, a book I might be reading with a friend
Now I’m going to go do the translation I’ve been delaying for ages. That’s also kind of reading
Lol let’s pray I at least get past the 50% mark help my grades
Finished chapter nine. Thoughts: Very influenced by Chinese culture. Baozi, would eat
(Spoiler I guess but also word of the day) Maomao reveals she’s a strong drinker from having tried various medicines and concoctions with lots of alcohol. Was described with the word 酒豪 which means “heavy drinker” BUT the furigana was actually ざる, which can mean "draining basket, sieve, strainer "… So Maomao when she’s drinking is basically like pouring alcohol through a strainer. Just thought that was hilarious.
In what is always the way of things, 居ても立っても居られない then came up again in an episode of きのう何食べた I was watching this evening! It’s always so fun and odd when that happens.
I’ve been struggling because my health problems have really flared up again in the past week which includes very frequent blind spots (as sort of potential migraine precursors) creeping into my vision when looking at a computer screen. It’s rough. Plus today’s reading was kind of hard – I’ll get into that under spoilers. But I eventually made it through 5000 characters so that’s success, though it’s hard not to be frustrated by how hard I keep finding things.
Partially because I’m enjoying the silliness, and partially to explain my difficulties, I wanted to talk about the plot for once. So Umi and a group of the island’s children joined together to take over a shack of sorts on the mountain, armed with strong water guns, and barricade out all adults. Full child shenanigans. In response, the adults set up a countermeasure task force at the city hall, which is mostly an excuse for them to get drunk and reminisce about getting in trouble when they were kids. And therein lie my issues, I guess. It’s mostly just that they’re flinging around long idioms, over dramatic “task force strategy meeting” style words, and on and on. At least I guess I’m finding some of the adult male colloquial contractions and sound shifts more natural now? Meanwhile this week of the book club beat me down a bit in dialects (plus unknown vocab galore) so there’s always something more to not understand, heh.
Today I learned 出来上がる can be used as “to be very drunk.” I don’t have too many great words today, but I’ll share 解放区 (かいほうく), meaning “liberated zone or area.” It’s intuitive enough if you know its parts. This is a totally natural part of language learning this way, but it always amuses me to consider the simple basic things I haven’t come across yet while reading about something like liberated zones.
Heh, I’m only reading this one book though - aren’t most of you bouncing around to different books?
Chatting with Daisoujou bout low energy days
I kind of wonder if it might be a mental help to have an easier fallback item for days when you’re low energy? I have said before to you I think that I suspect you’d find books like スマホを落としただけなのに or おやすみ、夢なき子 to be something of a cakewalk compared to the screenshots and vocab you’re posting from these games. They both also seem content-wise something you’d enjoy. For myself I usually read manga when I’m especially low energy, because 30 pages of manga isn’t nearly as much text content as 30 pages of a book but it gives a similar feeling of “yes, I have accomplished reading today” but books are a) cheaper per hour b) easier for lookups if you get digital.
Read a story about why rabbits have long ears and half of a story about why elephants have long noses. Completing only 5% of book per day is frustrating (even though it’s better than not reading at all), but I didn’t feel like reading today (spent a big part of the day procrastinating 200 wanikani reviews ).
Yeah I’m sure you’re right. Part of what’s kept me wanting to specifically read the VN every day is that I have by far the best setup for sentence mining with it, though I could potentially achieve something similar if I read an ebook or something on the PC. That would depend on the format and I’ve not looked into it too much because I’ve defaulted to VNs for mining and then I have the kindle. But I’m sure it could be worked out.
In addition to that though, more stuff that doesn’t use the computer screen would definitely be appreciated given the aforementioned health issue. The Kindle actually seems fine because whatever their screens are made out of are far less harsh on the eyes.
On that note, I’m only going to be gone a couple days, but I mentioned being out of town soon, and I’ve been thinking about what I want to do in that time. I still have the current book club book, but I’ll probably get beyond that in my time. Was definitely considering if I might want to pick up スマホを落としただけなのに or something…
Could even hold off on mining for those low energy days. Be kind to yourself, ya know? Japanese is always gonna be there, and just letting it wash over you rather than SRSing on days when you’re being walloped by life might be more of a relief than you’d expect. I mentioned here the other day that I’ve stopped adding new cards to my main SRS decks and it’s been a needed relief during a busy time at work.
You know all of this of course, but sometimes I need being reminded of things, so hoping that’s the case for you as well.
Ah, e-ink. I wonder if a blue light filter running for reading apps might help as well I don’t think either book I recc’d is available on American kindle, but I don’t know if that’s an issue for you as I know there are ways to purchase them from America (but I don’t use kindle so not the person to ask)
I started Volume 8 of Yotsuba today, and read the first chapter (Chapter 49). The panel where she unknowingly smashes the bag of pears into the ground, and then the final page of her trying to hide the damage were both pretty funny.
In other Yotsuba news, a gift my husband bought me arrived today.
Yeah, I’m just very stubborn, haha. Part of the issue is everyone has low energy days and that’ll just happen but if we’re talking specifically the low energy days caused by my inflammation flareups or whatever they are, they kinda ebb and flow. Hence times when I go “oh I’m trying something new, hopefully I’m getting better!” then I’m back a little later feeling terrible. That’ll end up lasting for a week or longer. And there’s of course logic to just taking care of oneself, but at the same time, when I don’t stubbornly fight through it I’m going to be more annoyed at feeling like I’ve reached a point where it’s genuinely preventing me from doing things. Tough situation all around, though I’ll admit to knowingly not always doing the wisest things, heh.
A while back I actually switched f.lux on my PC to be always on, and it was probably for the best, but still seems to at least not be enough. I’m still experimenting with lighting, settings, whatever I can, but I dunno.
It took some struggling, but I managed to get mine set to Japan and it’s worked to purchase things, so no problem there
視認 = しにん confirm by sight, sighting. Context was 視認範囲, the area of vision where you are spotted by enemies. Not good, rings the alarm.
姿勢 = しせい posture, stance.
手裏剣 = しゅりけん shuriken!!! How cool is it to see it actually written in kanji!?
回収 = かいしゅう recovery, retrieval.
疾走 = しっそう sprint, dash.
唯一 = ゆいいつ only, sole.
樽 = たる barrel, cask.
射撃 = しゃげき shooting, firing.
Started Shadow Tactics today cause why not. Though for sure I won’t be understanding everything: the game is set in feudal Japan and there’s a lot of samurai, ninja and old-men talk, so yeah, not a chance. But it’s fine, the game alone is fun and I can at least get what’s going on or what I have to do. I was tired today and wasn’t looking forward to starting something new, so I’m not sure how long I will be playing this one. I miss the Switch already ;-; .
).
I don’t think either book I recc’d is available on American kindle, but I don’t know if that’s an issue for you as I know there are ways to purchase them from America (but I don’t use kindle so not the person to ask)
