I’ll try to answer the 読み物 questions on page 39. Please correct me if you want! Or answer the questions yourself without looking at my answers and then we can compare.
I’ll try to translate the dialogues on page 34 and 35 too. They are hard to translate because of the different speach styles, but I’ll give it my best effort. Please correct me if I made some mistakes! I know the translation isn’t 100% literal. How do you translate さん and 頑張って?!
Page 34:
Kobayashi: Yes, hello.
Kimura: Excuse me, is this the Kobayashi residence?
Kobayashi: Yes, this is Kobayashi.
Kimura: Well, my name is Daisuke Kimura, but is miss Kumi there?
Kobayashi: Oh, you are Daiskue. Kumi is always indebted to you (That sounds really weird in English!)
Kimura: No, the pleasure is all mine. Well, the thing is I sent many messages to Kumi’s cell phone, but I haven’t recieved any reply…
Kobayashi: Is that so. I’m sorry. I heard that Kumi left her cellphone somewhere yesterday.
Kimura: Is that so. Is miss Kumi there now?
Kobayashi: Well, right now she’s not here.
Kimura: Oh, is that so. Then I’ll try to call her later. Thank you for your help.
Kobayashi: Is that so. OK. Thank you.
Kimura: I’ll excuse me for now.
Kobayashi: Excuse me.
Page 35
Daisuke: Hello
Kumi: Ah, Daisuke. I’m sorry. I didn’t reply today.
Daisuke: That’s OK. I’m sorry too that I couldn’t see you.
Kumi: That’s OK. Are you busy at work?
Daisuke: Yes. The section chief asked me in a hurry to prepare the data he needs for a meeting tomorrow.
Kumi: Oh no, that’s hard.
Daisuke: Yes. I’m still at work. I have been here for 11 hours.
Kumi: Oh. You had better go home.
Daisuke: Yes. But there are still a few things I need to do.
Kumi: Is that so. Don’t work too hard.
Daisuke: Yes. I’m really tired but I can do it.
Kumi: Can I see you tomorrow evening? Can we go somewhere and eat something delicious?
Daisuke: Well, I don’t know yet. But if it looks like I can leave the office early, I’ll call you.
Kumi: But I don’t have a cell phone now!
Daisuke: Yes, right. Well, can you call me from there around 5?
Kumi: Yes, I understand. I’ll call you then.
Daisuke: OK. Well, until tomorrow!
Kumi: Yes, good luck with your work!
Daisuke: Thank you!
Chances are that you don’t care anymore or already know it but 千尋 (Chihiro) is simply the main character’s name which gets changed to 千 (Sen) by the witch
The reason I’m posting in this old thread is that I’ve recently started working my way through Tobira. Probably won’t catch up to you guys but those threads are still helpful!
I read through the text now while listening to the recording from the Tobira website. The text is long, 4 pages, and the recording is almost 10 minutes, but it didn’t feel too hard. Time to hit the grammar book!
Same here. Was pleased to find I could still understand a lot of it. I think listening to the audio blind would be a quite different story, though. Very interesting chapter. The part about how the gap between male/female speech is disappearing maybe explains why so many older Japanese guys sound so gangster when compared to younger men.
yay!!! i’ve already began, checked the vocab and grammar and worked through half of the text; probably will continue in the evening if I get some time! The second text (and overall chapter) is super interesting!
by the way, I was thinking that if time zones and schedules allow, I would be delighted if any of you would like to have a read-aloud session,or such, together? idk, I just thought it’d be interesting
I think I could host a ZOOM session if people are interested. I just need some time to change the security settings so people outside my organization can join. My time zone is UTC/GMT -4:00 hours ( Eastern Daylight Time).
Another idea, given that we are all in different time zones - how about using an app or something where we can record voice messages?
We can do the dialogues from each chapter for example, so person 1 records the first line, person 2 records the second line and so on. We could use FB Messenger, What’sApp or any app that allows you to record a message and play it back later. What do you think?
I love both ideas! the latter is definitely more convenient to fit all timezones,and with saved recordings we can always go back to them : )
LINE and Telegram are also very convenient apps as well.
the former method with zoom would allow for some real-time commentary and input also maybe? as for timezone, I’m GMT+2…
Sure! But I’ don’t know most of the apps, can you set up the poll? Since my phone broke, I will try to get a new phone tomorrow. For some reason, even if these apps have desktop versions they often ask for a phone number.
okay, I will do it now- though I have no idea how to poll… I will figure it out…
Oh yes, most of them require the phone number thing… sorry your phone broke, I know how it is… I was without one for about a month last february…
If you’re on a computer, all you need to do is to click on the ‘gear’ icon in the post editor toolbar and select ‘build poll’, then start entering options. Be sure to make the voters public so you can see who’s available at what time. If you’re on a phone… I’m not sure, but I think there should be a ‘build poll’ option in the post editor toolbar as well.
EDIT: Ah, my mistake. I see you already posted something on the home thread. Oops. Well done anyhow.
If I’m reading grammar point 4 correctly, you can’t just use (私)にとって to mean ‘to (me)’ / ‘for (me)’ in any situation - there are only select situations? (I’d previously thought you could just use it any time you wanted to say ‘in my specific case’.) Three of the book’s examples use 大切 and the other one is about an important memory so they’re clearly focusing on that aspect.
So, for example, would 「私にとって30度は暑すぎる」not be correct usage?
I don’t think that’s the case. The textbook also uses the abbreviation ‘etc.’ at the end of that sentence and the adjectives that it includes have nothing in particular in common (unless you’ve found something?).
I certainly think it’s correct. The monolingual definition I have for にとって isn’t much more specific than Tobira. If anything, it’s more vague:
ある基準となるものを表す。
Expresses something that acts as a standard/basis
I think the point of Tobira’s authors was that one should use 〜にとって when there’s an opinion or thought that’s specific to ~, and that it shouldn’t be treated as, say, something interchangeable with は, which, if you think about it, might be considered pretty similar if they had just stopped at ‘to ~; for ~’, since it’s often translated as ‘as for’ in literal translations.
the latter is definitely more convenient to fit all timezones,and with saved recordings we can always go back to them : )