I recognised the highlighted word as one that I just learnt on my level but I don’t understand what the sentence is trying to say? What is being completed? The haircut?
Anyway, I don’t really need an answer. I’m just reading to practise reading kanji, not for comprehension. I figure that comprehension is something that would come after seeing the words over and over again. In the first place, I didn’t understand what WaniKani meant by completed as the meaning for that kanji which is why I don’t understand why it’s being used here.
Back to work today, so I am tired and my brain is mushy. But it was fun to dig in the dirt.
I read two Level 0 books on Tadoku: 畳生活 and ぼくのお父さん. These were actually much closer to my reading level, and I was able to read the clues to correctly guess which animals were the fathers. I’m glad I started out easy because I did not have as much success with the other stuff I read today.
I then read an article on NHK News Easy. I ALSO read the article about the drawing seal hahaha. I didn’t understand the content, but I was able to pick out some words I knew.
I also read the Pocket Watch on Reajer. I’m not used to the way the text is presented so that site will take some getting used to for me. Wouldn’t have understood it at all without the English translation. But at this point my brain had given up entirely.
Maybe I’d be better off just reading the Tadoku books on weekdays when I’m tired and tackling the NHK articles on weekends when I have more brain space.
I found this page in my book, and I think he means something like “is just a trim fine?” (Since he barely takes off any hair, just tidies it up basically) My dictionary has this example sentence: “毛先をそろえますか” which is translated as 'Do you want a trim?" I’m guessing this uses the definition of 揃える that means “to make uniform, to make even”.
Cardcaptor Sakura was one of my favourite earlier manga series that I read! I hope you’re enjoying it too!
Read this week’s assigned reading of 舞妓さんちのまかないさん, so I’m caught up now after falling behind slightly during the holiday season. Sometimes it feels like the Kansai-ben is just as difficult for me as when I started reading volume 1, even though I definitely am more familiar with it. And then I read half of a chapter of しまなみ誰そ彼.
one HP page is clocking in at about 15 minutes. I think I’ve gotten faster than when I started, which must have been at least 20. Going to try and put in a strong effort on this during the challenge
Also trying to read other things in English at the same time so I don’t completely neglect all my goals there so we’ll see how it goes!
Only time for three pages this morning, but still managed to get 16 new Anki cards from them!
Some new words
制す せいす to command, to control
決闘 けっとう duel, shoot-out
陣形 じんけい battle formation
And another nice moment!
Was doing a bit of casual reading of 文豪ストレイドッグス Vol 1 last night before bed, and the passive form finally clicked! I’d done a few grammar studies of it but it hadn’t really sunk in, but then I saw:
孤児院を追い出され (I was) kicked out of the orphanage (by…)
and
あんた川に流されて…大丈夫？You were being carried away by the river, are you okay?
I know this is probably simple stuff lol but it was one of those nice lightbulb aha moments!
I was really happy with the effect the autumn challenge had on me or my (JP) reading habits, therefore I’ll try joining in here again
I’ve pretty much stopped reading again after the other challenge was over, which I’m not really happy with and is another reason for that decision
I still haven’t finished レンタルおにいちゃん and ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん even though I really enjoyed them so that’s definitely on the list
I also bought a lot of ホリミヤ volumes so keeping up with that book club definitely is a goal too
And maybe I’ll even manage to catch up with the この美術部には問題がある book club (though this is for keeping in the back of my mind for now ^^')
the main goal - and I’m gonna be very lenient with myself here because my life is still a horrible mess ^^‘’ - is to just read something/anything in Japanese every day
I also don’t really know how much I’ll be posting about my daily reading, might just keep track here, will see
Since one of my big reading goals for the year is also to whittle down my english 積読 piles, we have some more broad language representation in the thread this time, and also there’s been some interest in the stuff I read outside japanese, I think I’ll start including those here on my reading updates too.
Read:
とらドラ！- pg 188 → 190 - glad I waited until I was home and awake enough to read this section, since even some of the words I had to look up I also had to read jp definitions for
ヤニ吸う - a bit more of my volume 1 reread
Chinese History - a New Manual (CHNM) start → 6 - I think this is the most intimidating book I’ve ever received. 1200 pages of like 8 point font, supposedly it’s about 1.7 million words long, and it weighs almost 6 pounds in paperback. I asked for a “good, broad, and not like weird propoganda overview of chinese history” for christmas, and my friend said this was the textbook for a series of college courses she took. I uh, do not know how long it will take to finish this, but I’m already really impressed with what I’m reading!
Imagined Communities - pg 122 → 140 - picking this back up, it alternates rapidly between being a slog of looking up references to parts of history I don’t know and then zipping through sections that are extremely insightful for the parts that are building arguments off of the parts of history I am familiar with
でいい？ here is functioning like kind of a soft “is it alright if I do x?” and like jintor mentioned the 揃える is probably “to get ready” “to prepare”, or maybe the 3rd definition “to make uniform” or “to make even”, and since it looks like he’s throwing the lil hair collar over the other character’s shoulders, I would probably interpret this as something like “Is it alright if I start getting ready [to cut your hair]?”, or maybe “is it alright if I at least even it [your hair] out?” depending on how that conversation is going. I know you said you didn’t need an answer but that’s a really good one to know
The Wikipedia page for it says the author wrote it in his spare time while EU ambassador to China!
(Also that in 1980, while working as a diplomat in Japan he wrote Japan versus Europe: A History of Misunderstanding, which was a bestseller in Japan in the translation 誤解・ヨーロッパ vs. 日本. Busy guy…)
1月3日
While waiting for my doc appointment, I was able to read through 2 stories at level N5 on Tadoku Dojo / Yomujp (not sure which is the correct name now ): One about colours and one about shoes.
I had fun reading both even though not all was clear to me. But hello to understanding most of it through context
I am now super curious about the seals and the writing on NHK easy so heading there now for either another reading today or tomorrow. Thanks!
Oh and thanks to all of you explaining how to centre and bold text here! Much appreciated
One of the things I’m really enjoying about it so far is that he does include sections about how different academic communities treat certain topics differently, with a lot of information on about how japan specifically views chinese history, so that japan connection doesn’t surprise me at all! I’ll have to check out this other book if it’s anywhere near as thorough as this one is. Although… it may be a while, since I have a pretty thick book on Okinawa I was hoping to tackle next, until this fell very heavily into my lap
It sounds like it’s more focused on a specific thing rather than wide ranging, and aimed at a more popular rather than academic audience, and the topic is a bit of its time (Japan/West trade issues were a hot topic in the 1980s but less so today), but certainly might be interesting. I was hoping the Japanese TV programmes he did as a result might be on YouTube, but sadly not.
My Japanese history related Christmas present was To Stand with the Nations of the World, a history of the Meiji restoration. Not very far into it yet but it seems good. I do wish publishers would use footnotes rather than endnotes, though – flipping back and forth is very awkward. (Related to your mention of Imagined Communities, one of the arguments of this book’s author is that the Meiji government was, among other things, taking and making use of the template of “the nation-state” as a proven approach to surviving in the modern world.)
first chapter of vol 6, not too bad so far, this is an arc split into multiple parts so we’ll see how it goes! also read a chapter of ドラゴン which was more of the same with a slightly creepy angle. did get briefly distracted reading some stuff on this site cos i was reading a pixiv comic as a break and saw a name with a bunch of numbers next to it and wanted to know what the numbers meant (fortune telling was the answer)
today’s nhk article was this one, did another granblue chapter, and read the entries on なしでは and ねばならない in aDoIJG
words that stood out
桜蘭：
アメフト - american football. everything has an abbreviation pt 2!
父兄 - parents, guardians, father and older brother
天高く馬肥ゆる秋 - autumn comes with harvest time and clear weather. …opening line of the volume…
ドラゴン：
卿（きょう）- suffix for names that means lord
卿（けい）- you
百聞は一見にしかず - seeing is believing
瑕疵担保責任 - warranty against defects
I’ll be interested to hear more about how you find this book! I saw it before in my Chinese dictionary app (Pleco) as a paid add-on, and briefly considered reading it. I guess it’s a pretty well-known book then!
１日２月 
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