Jisho is a popular online Japanese-English dictionary.
ichi.moe is a tool for parsing out sentences. You can type/paste in a whole sentence and it will try and break the sentence down into its individual parts.
Deepl will translate a sentence from Japanese to English. It’s obviously not going to be right all the time, so if you want to check your translation it’s normally better to ask in the thread.
Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.
Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags
Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).
Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:
Example
This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.
The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.
This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.
When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.
Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!
Participation
Will you be reading along with us this week?
I’m reading along
I’m still reading but I haven’t reached this part yet
I’ve already read this part but I’m here for the discussion
This is a pretty long, confusing sentence! Sorry in advance for the long explanation
Looks like the subject of the sentence got mixed up in your translation. The subject in this sentence is marked by は
おうじうさまの はいて いた あかい くつに、すっくり こころを うばわれた カレンは……。
Which is… all the way at the end!
カレンは
So we know this sentence is about Karen.
Working backwards, we find another phrase modifying a noun!
[ すっくり こころを うばわれた ] カレンは
Karen, whose heart was completely stolen (Literal: the heart-was-completely-stolen Karen)
おうじうさまの はいて いた あかい くつに
Princess is marked by の here, the possessive. So it’s the princess’ shoes (that she was wearing) And there’s another, tiny noun phrase in here.
[ おうじうさまの はいて いた ] あかい くつ
Literally, something like ‘The worn-by-the-princess red shoes’
So now, how do we connect the two parts of the sentence? The key is in the verb form at the end: うばわれた which is the passive form. This is a tricky verb form to understand in Japanese, so don’t worry if it doesn’t immediately make sense. It basically means that something was done ‘to’ someone (the victim) ‘by’ someone/something else (the criminal). The criminal or doer is marked by に
おうじうさまの はいて いた あかい くつに、すっくり こころを うばわれた カレンは……。
So the criminal here is the shoes
The victim is the subject of the sentence:
おうじうさまの はいて いた あかい くつに、すっくり こころを うばわれた カレンは……。
Karen!
So something was done to Karen, by the shoes.
The something:
すっくり こころを うばわれた
Karen, whose heart was completely stolen by the shoes
This sentence breakdown was really helpful, I had a general understanding of the meaning, but couldn’t say exactly how I arrived at that meaning until now. Thanks!
Bought the book, starting this chapter tomorrow, this will be my first ever read in Japanese. Feeling pretty intimidated lol, having only low level and few (not enough) grammar notions
I am actually starting by reading the もくじ, what does にわい話 stands for ? I understand the kanji being for “tale”, but cant find anything about the hiraganas before.
To get the maximum of this reading exercice, am I correct that there is no use to deepL everything, but it is okay to look up vocabulary words unknown and start from here ? What is your preffered process to understand grammar without resorting to straight translation ?
I was actually expecting more kanjis but it makes sense being for a children book they would use more hiragana . Makes it a bit harder !
I am probably yapping too much, but I already see the benefits of this exercice, the gears in my brain starting to work overtime to entangle things : seeing Hai, thinking it probably means to arrive, then -“te” so assuming it’s a form of verb I have yet to learn of. The princess with red shoes arrives, this I understood after 15minutes
I will probably make notes of everything I understood, and then of everything I didnt, and post it here once I have read as much as I could, page by page.
I think you have a typo, it is こわい話 or scary story!
Yes! jisho.org is a good dictionary for looking up vocabulary.
I would look up the words in the sentence and try to understand it with the grammar you know first. Then ask questions in the thread about anything you’re confused by!
Yep, it can be tough to parse Japanese for children sometimes for this exact reason!
Awesome job already! It’ll feel so good when you learn more and more grammar and start seeing it in what you’re reading!
I just caught up with the previous story! I was in Tokyo for the past 2 weeks, so I didn’t really have (or rather; take) time to read, haha. Both the vocabulary sheets and the sentence by sentence translations helped a ton!
Before posting my recap of page 27, I wanted to know because I cannot find anything on ichimoe or deepl about it : what does はいて mean ? I thought it was Hairu in passive form, but it doesnt seem so to me when I see the traduction of first sentence for exemple, it doesnt talk about “arriving”
Is it okay to look up every word I do not understand ? It feels like 9/10 words I will have to look on jisho, just wondering if this is the expected "work"flow
Welcome to Week 4 of 10分でよめるこわいはなし ・ 10 minute Scary Stories 
Resources and vocabulary
Discussion Guidelines
Participation
things are finally slowing down though so I’m gonna get back into this!
Yes, Hans Christian Andersen 
?
. Makes it a bit harder !
