It’s a Monday and I’m back to reading about Kona’s adventures because manga is a bit too heavy for me on the weekdays. Sharing a personal win: Today, I realized I’ve finally reached WK to the point where I don’t need any furigana for the titles of each episode in this series! I set my Satorireader settings to furigana according to my knowledge. And I just guru’ed 冒 and 険 this morning! It’s such a small thing but it got me really excited!
Words of interest
住み心地 「すみごこち」 comfort of leaving, ease of living
機会 「きかい」 opportunity, change
二度と 「にどと」 never again (used with a negative verb)
好奇心 「こうきしん」 curiousity, inquisitiveness
And because of Kona’s internal dialogue, I searched this other phrase in Japanese 好奇心が猫を殺した。 A literal translation but I wonder if that’s an actual Japanese expression…
Also just to add how funny that image is of a cat on a deer’s back…
What a great ending! It was really interesting to note the differences between the anime and manga here especially. In the manga, it felt a lot more clear that Mista will shortly accept Bucchiarati’s death off screen and also, the boulder looked more like it was reforming into Bruno’s, Abbacchio’s, and Doppio’s faces rather than Naranchia instead of Doppio.
Also, I’ve decided to give up on the prefecture stories and human chair story for the time being. They just don’t capture my attention like JoJo does even though they both interest me. I think it’ll take me needing to be further along in my learning journey to enjoy them like I feel like I should.
back to 蟲師 and oh wow chapter 3 of volume one is so different to the previous two! quite sad, too. i flew through it though, was a great chapter and i’m looking forward to the next one tomorrow!
no specific words jumped out at me, but 通い路 and 通路 both turned up several pages apart, which is fun. there was also some brief discussion of 枕 in context cos the legend about it being where the soul goes when you sleep was relevant to the story.
spoliers for chap 3 vol 1 of 蟲師
it’s a short tragedy tale, following a man who had dreams predicting the future thanks to a 蟲 which had infected him. ginko gives him medicine and is like i’ll be back when those run out and leaves. turns out when he comes back the village is in ruins cos the guy didn’t take his medicine (the townspeople were relying on his predictions and when there was an unfortunate tsunami after he started taking his medicine he felt incredibly guilty and stopped taking the medicine) and his dreams kept coming true cos turns out ginko sort of maybe lied to him. it wasn’t that he was seeing predictions of the future, he was dreaming and it was becoming true. so when he has a nightmare about his whole village succumbing to a mystery illness, guess what happens…
At the moment what I’m doing is that I look words up in my electronic dictionary while reading, but only when I feel I really need to. Then later on I use the dictionary’s history function to list the words I looked up, and I add them to a deck in jpdb.io. That site’s SRS has a create cards from words in text function so it’s easy to get cards with audio, definition and example sentence. When jpdb has a premade deck for the book I’m reading I use that instead, generally studying words from it in frequency order within the book up to 95% coverage. Unfortunately unless you like trashy light novels jpdb coverage can be rather spotty…
If you read electronically there are setups that can be even more automated and use the sentence you actually found the word in rather than some random one; but I read on paper so have no specific suggestions there.
かっさらう = to snatch (and run). From 掻っ攫う, where there was 攫う previously.
ハマる = to be addicted to; to be hooked on. From 嵌まる.
譲る = to hand over. I kept confusing with 許す.
解れる = to become loose. Has Furigana in context.
煽る = to fan in the wind. Sound almost like 扇ぐ / 扇子, but with fire (火).
櫛 = comb. This one has Furigana, but I failed to recognize anyway.
梳く = to comb
結い直す = to fix hair tying. From 結う.
行き止まり = dead end. Rendaku tripped me a little.
力ずくで = by brute force. From 力尽く.
一同 = all of us
二の舞 = all over again. Probably, dancing a second time.
その他大勢 = and many others
懸案 = unresolved problem. Probably feels like 懸念の案.
遂行 = execution
不覚 = blunder
穀潰し = good for nothing. First Kanji is for grains (穀物), but takes atypical Dakuten. I also confused the Kanji with 殻 / 甲殻., which the latter has table / hat-like shell. The former is just grain radical (禾).
撹拌 = beating; whipping (of egg yolk, cement). Just like 攪乱, there is another official version = 攪拌
汚物 = filth; excrements
肥溜 = tanking for holding human waste = 肥溜め. From 肥 + 溜める.
岩礁 = reef (coral)
昏倒 = fainting; swoon
幸先 = good omen. First Kanji is usually 幸い or 幸福.
押送 = transferring (a convict to a different prison). Has Furigana.
厩 = a stable (for a horse). With Furigana and reading is explanatory.
補導 = protective custody / guidance.
王家 = royal family
卓越 = superiority; transcendence
満喫 = eating to one’s heart content
軋轢 = discord; strife / friction. The second Kanji is that for running over by a car (轢く). Like some hot (熱い) and broken brick (瓦礫) sounding.
遺恨 = enmity (a word that I can’t spell before); grudge.
継母 = stepmother. 継～ is step-. (No way people would say mama twice in two variations.)
傀儡 = puppet. Some time ago, I also saw 傀儡.
屋台骨 = foundation; framework
在処 = hiding place = 在り処. Has Furigana in context. The first part is probably 在る, but I don’t know about the latter half.
齟齬 = inconsistency; disagreement. No Furigana, but not in manga dialogue, but in a short essay.
弱輩 = inexperience person. Also written with 若輩
不手際 = clumsy. Opposite is 手際よく.
観念 = resignation; preparedness
虎視眈々 = waiting for an opportunity. Tiger’s eyes. The last Kanji is watching intently with an eye (目), compared to 耽読, which is addicting voice (耳).
適材適所 = right person in the right place
人身御供 = human sacrifice. 御供 is sacrificing to a temple.
飛車角落ち = playing shogi with only rook (飛車) and bishop (角). Actually, 飛車も角も落ち in context.
王手 = check(mate) the king
まっぴら御免 = flatly refusing
骨身を惜しまない = unsparingly; tirelessness
二の足を踏む = to think twice; to hesitate
機に乗じる = to take advantage of an opportunity
SFX
ちゃっかり = shrewdly; cunningly
ぼさぼさ = ruffled (hair)
ぐるりと = surrounding
どっかり = plucking into a chair
パラパラ = flipping of a book
Kanji
軋
rubbing with friction
Compare: 軌 (軌道)
アツ
軋轢
軋る, 軋む
轢
running over with force
レキ
軋轢
轢殺, 轢死
轢く
継 (Level 36)
継～
継母, 継子
結 (Level 17)
結ぶ
縁結び
結う
結い上げる
In longer past, I didn’t take note of vocabularies in reading at all. I simply looked up in a dictionary. I trusted Wanikani and Core 10k for necessary memory. For those decks, I took notes and mnemonics in Anki (AnkiDroid, Anki on Android), while SRS’ing. I also copied texts from websites (via in-Anki hyperlinks) to AnkiDroid. So, Anki is like a portable personal database. Tae Kim and textbooks are simple enough to try to remember most things, so I didn’t really actively try to remember and SRS everything. (Though I tried very hard to remember Kana at the very beginning, but no SRS.)
I imagine that jpdb.io or koohi.cafe would be saner starting points for pre-made deck outside Wanikani; but I didn’t really use those myself.
Since last year, I took note for selected words in Google Sheets; but recently, I simply typed here. I also add some words detected by Yomichan to Anki. Original context (sentences) aren’t added to Anki.
I didn’t sort Anki cards by frequency in the past, but maybe I do a little very recently.
However, more often that I find Kanji more important than vocabularies, otherwise I would try to (arbitrarily) breakdown Kana-based words to smaller words and risk losing the original meaning.
Very poor effort last 2 days - I essentially just read to say I had! But I was only in New York for 2 full days, and with my sister, so I didn’t have much reading time (kind of figured I should talk to her…)
7/1 2 pages 夜カフェ
8/12 1 page 夜カフェ
I’m at the airport waiting to board a 14+ hour flight to Tokyo so I’m certain to get more reading in. Will have to decide how to calculate my reading as I’m crossing the international date line. I’ll probably count the reading before I nap as 9th then after as 10th.
Finding it hard to know when to stop reading this for the day, just one more sentence turns into just ten more.
Words found under the kotatsu
赤蛙「あかがえる」ー Japanese brown frog (Rana Japonica); any brown/red frog of the Ranidae family 入夫「にゅうふ」ー Marrying into the wife’s family 凱歌「がいか」ー Victory song 折檻「せっかん」ー Physical punishment; beating; severe scolding 囈言「うわごと」ー Incoherent mumbling 唐変木「とうへんぼく」ー Oaf; bigot 寺入り「てらいり」ー To enrol at a temple school; incarcerating a criminal at a temple for punishment; to go to a temple and repent 日蓮宗「にちれんしゅう」ー Nichiren school of Buddhism 記憶力「きおくりょく」ー Ability to remember (記憶力のいい is to have a good memory) 托鉢「たくはつ」ー Asking for alms 鐘楼「しょうろう」ー Bell tower; belfry 愕然 「がくぜん」ー Astonished; amazed; aghast
Forms
淋しい ＝ 寂しい「さびしい」(Lonely; solitary)
Character Name List
for easy referencing later, because these will take some remembering
Also probably some spoilers, but this is a historic novel, so can spoilers really exist for things that have (for the most part) actually happened
五郎大夫 「ごろ だゆう」// 祥瑞「しょうずい」(Goro’s Chinese name)
– Servant of Goro: 捨次郎「すてじろう」
– Mother of Goro’s child: 梨琴「りきん」
– Rikin’s & Goro’s child: 楊景福「ようけいふく」
Historical People
阿倍仲麻呂「あべ の なかまろ」ー Japanese scholar & poet (around 700AD)
白楽天「はく きょい」ー Late 700s Chinese poet (Bai Juyi / Bo Juyi) also known as: 白楽天「はく らくてん」in Japan.
道元「どうげん」(or 道元禅師「どうげん ぜんじ」ー Japanese Buddhist Priest, writer & poet (Early to mid 1200s) (also known as 栄西禅師「えいさい ぜんじ」)
空海「くうかい」ー The one and only Kukai or Kobo Daishi - a Buddhist monk. Posthumously given the title of: 弘法大師「こうぼう だいし」born as: 佐伯 眞魚「さえき の まお」(late 700s to early 800s)
Reply
I write any new words I encounter down on my daily posts and then hope for the best. Going through the effort of writing each down does help me remember it better, and most of the time, the word will be popping up again in whatever it is I’m reading so if it’s a common enough word I’ll eventually remember it that way. Some words are just too obscure to really remember effectively.
I’m sure there’s probably a lot of ‘new’ words that keep reappearing in my posts.
Watched the g-witch finale today and had a very hard time sitting down to read slice of life manga after… that Still did some studying, but mostly listening stuff. Couldn’t get my eyes to focus on the page for the life of me, thankfully today’s chapters were fairly light
Read:
ホリミヤ 61, 62
Good Words
ホリミヤ
一応「いちおう」ー more or less
現役「げんえき」ー active duty
幼稚園「ようちえん」ー kindergarten
卑怯「ひきょう」ー unfair, sneaky, dastardly
More stories! Today’s first story is about the compass, and where on the map you can find certain coutries. Hey, I know these Kanji already. Neat! Then, the two travelling animals are using this new knowledge to go to Gabun. Except someone can’t read maps and they end up in the Arctic.
In the next story we appear to be in a quiz show. Apparently the second Harry Potter book was the Goblet of Fire in this parallel universe. And a panda’s favorite food is bread (パン) because of a pun. That’s story logic for you, can’t argue with that.
As soon as I started reading, I didn’t feel like continuing. I thought maybe it was because the first story didn’t grab me right away, so I pushed through and read a second one. That went a little bit better, and the ending for it was kind of cute.
The first story for today was 8 pages and took 19 minutes and 35 seconds to read. The second story I read was 10 pages long and took 22 minutes and 56 seconds to read. Though I want to finish this book before moving on to the next, I might switch it up tomorrow just to give me a break and maybe renew my desire to continue reading this.
Aria: the masterpiece volume 3 – progress report Yesterday: Continued up to page 38, finished chapter 21. Today: Continued up to page 53
Mostly smooth sailing due to the chapter not having that much dialogue or rather only small explanations as of yet. I’ll read through this chapter and maybe the next one before switching to Card Captor Sakura again.
Reply
It’s great that you have material ready – the first two look pretty relaxing and wholesome while the monkeys one, according to the description at least, seems on the comedic side. I hope that you’ll enjoy your next pick whichever one it will be.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Word or expression of the day:
初期 - (しょき) - early (days), initial stage
Yesterday finished off at 53 pages which was the end of the first chapter, I read the whole 2nd chapter today so I’m currently on page 89. Gaining momentum in reading already, awesome to see how fast I can get used to using japanese again after such a long break. This time I would have understood the meaning of the sentences perfectly without looking up those few words I didn’t know. (I must admit I’m spending some time with the memrise course for Yotsubato so that definitely helps) All in all, I’m satisfied with today’s progress and also starting to worry on what I’m going to read once I finish this
Replies
Oh yes! I’m using mine too here and there. Which one you got? I got a Casio Ex-word and I’m pretty satisfied with it but I should probably use a lot more of its functions.
That’s why I like it a lot too, don’t need to have loads of pages open in my browser. I’ll have a look for those SRS systems and choose one that fits my needs the most. Thanks for the tips!
Back when I first started studying I didn’t really do anything other than wanikani and textbooks until reaching an N3 level (I unfortunately took a long break so now im trying to regain it bonks themselves on the head) so I suppose it should be doable even without those SRS tools, but currently I’m just trying to get to know as many tools as possible, try them out and see what works for me and whether I find them more effective than my current methods. So thank you for those recommendations, notes taken!
That’s what I’m doing with the words that I find important right now, usually just write them down on paper or try to create a sentence with them to also have output. I completely agree with the obscure words, it’s probably not even worth really trying to remember them as they wont pop up that often so might as well focus on the more important ones. Do you post those words here on the forum or somewhere private? Would have a look to see how much I know if it’s on the forum.
Thanks for your answer ^^
Day 7
I read some more of Your Life in April Vol.3 and got back to reading Monobeno visual novel but only had time to read some lines.
825 pages read 19175 to go
Sorry for my late answer. I’m using the Kitsun website/app for my SRS it’s a little pricey but at least it has a computer voice which can pronounce and it’s easy too make your own cards. There is even a thread for it in this forum.
Of course you make your own SRS without a computer although it would be super inconvenient with a big amount of cards.
I actually tried this once, 20 years ago, with a load of index cards in a box with some dividers, the first time I had a go at RTK. I really don’t recommend it
Wow this site looks neat, for now I’ll check out some other apps and sites before spending on it. However, I might reconsider it in the future. Thank you
I set my Satorireader settings to furigana according to my knowledge. And I just guru’ed 冒 and 険 this morning! It’s such a small thing but it got me really excited! 
The Tanuki Kotatsu Reading Den 
１月９日 
Still did some studying, but mostly listening stuff. Couldn’t get my eyes to focus on the page for the life of me, thankfully today’s chapters were fairly light
Today’s 
ラストで君は「まさか！」と言う 冬の物語 (60% → 69%)
I thought maybe it was because the first story didn’t grab me right away, so I pushed through and read a second one. That went a little bit better, and the ending for it was kind of cute.
