👻 Week 3 10分でよめるこわい話・10 minute Scary Stories (Absolute Beginner Book Club)

[soggyboy]

@darkR4bbit

I have a question about the meaning of いちもくさん. I struggled to find its definition when looking up the book’s version, いち目さん, in both ichi.moe and Jisho. Should I generally stick to using the hiragana form when reading this book?

Obligatory plug for the vocab sheet; the correct definitions should already be on there!

As for your question, this book only uses kanji at the grade 1 level. So words that are usually spelled with kanji (一目散) would only include the kanji that a grade 1 student knows. That does confuse jisho sometimes, so yes, try the hiragana version and usually that comes up with the right word.

@darkR4bbit

For my second reading experience, I’d like something that complements my WaniKani kanji learning. Which book club would you recommend for that—specifically one that focuses on texts where words are written with their standard kanji forms?

Hmmm, are you looking for manga or for prose/stories?

For manga, most of the ABBC picks should use standard kanji spelling, but would have furigana. The BBC will sometimes read easier manga with no furigana.

If you’re looking for stories, the 2nd grade readers would have more kanji (up to the required 2nd grade kanji knowledge of a Japanese student), but wouldn’t use standard adult spelling. Children’s novels also use more kanji, but spell some words with hiragana. Checking the BBC’s past entries, this club looks like it read a book that may use more kanji.

[Wait]

(Skipping ahead a bit, as I haven’t had time to write up translations for pages 23-24)

けれども、しょうぶと、よもぎの 中に かくれて いる ごさくを、見つけだす ことは できませんでした。

Page 25, Sentence 1

けれども however
しょうぶ Japanese iris
よもぎ sagebrush, mugwort
かくれる to hide, to be hidden
見つけだす to find, to locate
できる to be able to do

However, she was unable to find Gosaku, who was hiding in the irises and sagebrush.

It still throws me off that できる acts on a noun, rather than a verb. In English, we say “she was unable to find Gosaku”, but this sentence seems to literally say “as for the finding of Gosaku, [she] was not able.” I have a long, long way to go before I’ll be thinking in Japanese.

おにばばあは、とうとう さがすのを あきらめ、そのまま どこかへ いって しまいました。
I have a question on this one.

Page 25 Sentence 2

とうとう finally
さがすの searching
あきらめ resignation, acceptance
あきらめる to give up something, to abandon
そのまま immediately, just after, without a pause
どこか somewhere
いく to go
しまう to do completely, to finish (usually written using kana alone, after the -te form of a verb
いってしまいました gone

The witch finally gave up searching, and immediately was gone (somewhere).

I’m confident this is the sense of the sentence, but I’m uncertain of あきらめ. This looks like it needs to be a verb (to give up something), rather than the noun form (resignation), but what verb form is this that simply drops the -る from the dictionary form?

やれやれ。にょうぼうの ために、ひどい 目に あった。

Page 25 Sentences 3-4

にょうぼう wife
やれやれ good grief!, oh dear!
ために for the sake of
ひどい terrible, awful
目にあう to go through, to suffer, to experience (something unpleasant)
ひどい目にあう to have a bad time, to go through a bitter experience, to get into trouble

Good grief! For the sake of a wife, I’ve gone through a terrible experience!

ごさくは、ごうして、やっとの ことで、あぶなく いのちが たすかるました。

Page 25 Sentence 5

こうして thus, in this way
やっとのことで just managing; with great difficulty
あぶなく narrowly, nearly, close (i.e. a close all)
いのち life
たすかる to be saved

In this way, with great difficulty, Gosaku’s life was narrowly saved.

[soggyboy]

page 25

@Wait

It still throws me off that できる acts on a noun, rather than a verb. In English, we say “she was unable to find Gosaku”, but this sentence seems to literally say “as for the finding of Gosaku, [she] was not able.” I have a long, long way to go before I’ll be thinking in Japanese.

こと is pretty hard to grasp at first, I had a phase where I was mentally translating every instance of こと as ‘thing’ which made every sentence sound like ‘the thing of being able to find gosaku’ or whatever in my head. Luckily with more exposure this will begin to make intuitive sense, but you’ll just have to trust the process on that!

@Wait

I’m confident this is the sense of the sentence, but I’m uncertain of あきらめ. This looks like it needs to be a verb (to give up something), rather than the noun form (resignation), but what verb form is this that simply drops the -る from the dictionary form?

This is essentially a written て form, implying a sequence of events. Quartet calls it something like the written て form or the formal て form. It’s just made with the masu-stem of a verb!

Ah, here it is on bunpro:

連用形 (JLPT N3) | Bunpro

[soggyboy]

If you’ve finished this week’s reading, then congratulations! You’ve finished an entire story in Japanese.

How did it go? (Polls are anonymous)

Difficulty

• Very hard; I couldn’t have read this with no book club
• Just right; I didn’t feel overwhelmed
• Too easy; Book club was not necessary
• I’ve read harder books than this

And did you like the story?

Enjoyment

[soggyboy]

And now, we move to week 4 and a brand new story!

Week 4 10分でよめるこわい話・10 minute Scary Stories (Absolute Beginner Book Club)

Welcome to Week 4 of 10分でよめるこわいはなし ・ 10 minute Scary Stories Learn more about the Absolute Beginner Book Club here Visit the home page for 10 minute Scary Stories here Remember to set this thread and the Scary Stories home page to watching to receive notifications! [scary stories] Week 4 March 22 2025 Start Page 27 End Page 36 Chapters 赤い くつ part 1 Previous week Week 3 Next week March 29th Home Thread Here Page numbers may differ between digital and phy…

[tinynikki]

Hello everyone

I didn’t post on the previous weeks, but I’ve been reading along!
This was harder than I expected
Thanks everyone for attempting to translate everything, it helped a lot!
See y’all next week!

[HopeWaterfall]

I’m catching up little by little, I currently just fnished the first story with ごさく. Overall, this was super fun! The level is quite nice, some part of me was expecting this to be harder than it actually was, but following along with the vocabulary spreadsheet makes it really convenient, and it seems like whenever I have a question, someone here has already asked it!

Now all that’s left is reading the next two stories so I can actually follow along with the right week.

[soggyboy]

Awesome, glad you’re enjoying it!