Week 2: 小川未明童話集 - Ogawa Mimei’s Collection of Children’s Stories

OMG so true :exploding_head:
“The doves opened their mouths wide and laughed.”

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I knew I read that sentence wrong the first time.

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I open the thread to see if anyone else had been wondering what was up with 言うに and I don’t even need to scroll past the second post :grin: The joys of being a latecomer!

Thanks everyone for all the interesting posts!

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Also been lurking and following along with the book club so thanks all for your explanations! I think all my questions have been answered but man, I wonder what other weird gems we’ll come across in this collection…

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The wires are electrical conductors (the telegraph signal ARE electrical signals).
Probably it happened back then that lightening regularly hit them, and the electricity ran all along the wire, burning everything on the way (I once saw the result of that on a phone wire in a house)

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So yes there is quite a bit of power in telephone/telegraph. Originally (yes I’m old - not that old but still) … long before we had cell phones a high voltage signal was used to actually physically ring the bells of the old phones.

When you pick up the phone and hear a dial tone, etc…there is a voltage that’s allows the telco to operate…it was about 48-50V…(it’s been a while)…but that voltage is still there! Also telephone/telegraph poles didn’t just carry phone lines, they generally carried high voltage power lines as well. Ringing voltage could be as high as 120V IIRC (maybe higher)…when I was a kid I remember the dude on the pole would tell people he’s working on the lines (calling everyone) asking them not to use the phones during those times.

of course this was in the days when everyone still had phones in their homes (landlines)…we still have one but I realize they are going away… though now the signal coming in comes from an ONT (fiber) so not sure how they handle all of that now … but in the olden days :wink:

How does this old telephone ringer work? - Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

If you wanna know a little more lots of stuff on the internet.

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FINALLY!!! Geez this is hard…these long sentences I just cannot process… 失望してる!

I’ll try the next one but after that…might have to admit I’m too lame for these stories right now.

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Long sentences take a while to get used to. Personally, I found some useful strategies in “Shin Kanzen Master N4 Reading”. Having a good grip of basic grammar helps too. In the end though, getting exposed to long sentences is what would help the most. がんばってね

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I enjoyed this reading of the story. It’s very slow and calming with moody piano background music, I quite liked the combination.

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Very nice indeed! It’s also a great way to check the pronunciation (makes it very clear that my pronunciation is not up to par yet :sweat_smile:). Thank you for sharing!

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I’m going a bit random with the order, but almost caught up with this book club!

After reading 4 of these chapters, I think I started getting what to expect, and more importantly, what not to expect from Ogawa Mimei stories. :slight_smile: This story was also an interesting and odd one. I would name it something like 電信柱さんに困らせる妙な男くん!! if it was a current manga or light novel. :smiley:

Thanks to the discussions, I got all the answers to my questions!

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