Tobira study group - chapter 1

This is the thread for chapter 1 of Tobira. Our home thread for this study group is here.

Here is the link to the Tobira web site where you can find recordings of the main text and dialogues in each chapter plus kanji and grammar resources.

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We are beginning tomorrow correct? Is there anything more I (we) should know at this time? I am a bit clueless about what to expect :sweat_smile:

I have the book and I have done chapter 1 in the past (once) but it wasn’t too extensive, so I am very motivated to dissect it properly!

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Yes, we start tomorrow! I just wanted to get the thread ready.

Read the text, ask questions, answer if you can. We’ll all make this work together!

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Maybe can we do the role play here in the forum?

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Yes, good idea!

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In case others find it useful, @Kawazoe shared some advice on how they used Tobira in a classroom setting: https://community.wanikani.com/t/shared-study-log/42168/98

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Time to get started! Who will participate in the study group and study chapter 1 of Tobira this week and next?

  • I will study chapter 1 with the group now
  • I will study chapter 1 later

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Great advice! Thank you! I have skimmed the text in chapter 1 many times, but I see that I have to study it more thoroughly. I’ll be back with a couple of questions later today!

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I’m definitely gonna catch you guys up! I just booked another flight last night for 3rd May, so here’s hoping!

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I just had my first “I can read this because of WaniKani” experience: Page 4, line 6, the word 全体(ぜんたい)。The word itself is not in WK ( I checked), but just before starting this lesson I unlocked the character 全. That’s already a win!

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Excellent advice in that post by @Kawazoe. I already read the 地理 text during weekend, but will read it a couple of times again and ensure that I really understand every single sentence also with the grammar, and can read it aloud with a good speed.

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I really struggle with one sentence, the one that starts with 400 on page 5, line 19. It’s long, two whole lines, and I just don’t think I understand it. I don’t want to quote too much of the Japanese text here, but I’m sure you can find it in the book.

Looking at each piece of the sentence, I get:
The white walls have remained for more than 400 years
The shape of the building looks like a white egret relaxing and stretching its wings
Because of this, the castle is called white egret castle (Shirasagi Jou).

Putting it together, I get: The white walls have been there for more than 400 years, and because the shape of the building looks like a white egret relaxing and stretching its wings, the castle is called White Egret Castle.

Am I even close?

The translation is correct, just some subtle things if we are doing strict translation (forgive meeee)

I’m just not sure if 白鷺(しらさぎ) is actually just Egret or White Egret in English…

Thank you! Yes, I think a strict translation is the way to go here. Thanks for checking it for me and for confirming that I had understood most of it, and for giving me the correct translation!

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Any reason why this could be a problem? I’m writing a lot of things down on Japanese.io and I was thinking of sharing them but would that be considered wrong cause we are sharing the book or something?

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I was thinking the same. I’d actually like to translate the dialogue portion as practice here. I saw some bookclubs actually doing translation of some sections of the book per line.

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Yes, that’s what I was thinking. This part of the forum is open to search engines. I don’t think it’s OK to write the text from the book here. Posting your translation should be fine though.

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Can’t you translate the dialogue without writing the Japanese text here? We can all look at the book to check your translation after all.

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I don’t think short extracts like this would be illegal or bad practice – we’re not exactly making the whole book or chapter content available for free, it probably falls under fair-use laws in most countries…

Also, posting the sentence along with an attempted understanding makes it easier for anyone to jump in and correct us!

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If it’s for educational purposes, isn’t okay to quote some of the text from the book? It’s not like we’re posting chapters or anything. :thinking:

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