Thank you for doing this and for leaflings for introducing you to us. I'm new to reading vertical text that is not manga, and I'm also new to Japanese novels in general.
Besides thinking that 台所 was an "elevated place" throughout my whole first read, I didn't have any other amusing mishaps. It seems that up until 床, we are just in the narrator's mind. Then we move on to the physical world.
Some vocab were hard but if I were to ask anything I'd ask about the description as a whole. Maybe this is just my lack of novel-reading skills, but I couldn't picture the scene as vividly. I figured from the last line that it's a present-tense narration, "when I do X, I see a Y", but I'm not quite sure about the rest.
New kanji: 淋. I wondered if there's a specific nuance to 淋.
edit: I remember once saying 包丁 to a Japanese person on iTalki, who then sort of corrected me with ナイフ, and said that 包丁 is for slashing/killing. Any thoughts on that?
Well the vocab is not particularly hard, I’m even surprised some words are not in kanji. However I found it hard to understand the whole meaning of it, except that the narrator likes kitchens. I’m only at my first reading, without checking any unknown word. I’ll push through
Overall, the reading difficulty was not as high as I would have expected. Yoshimoto's style is very likeable because she uses words and expressions that are easily understood. I certainly appreciate this quality since it's difficult to achive expressive simplicity. Of course, I had to look up some words and, as Kavit, I created a vocabulary list (by the way, thanks for sharing yours, Kavita).
Maybe I could understand better what was written because I have already read Kitchen in my mother tongue. However, reading it in its original language is for me a kind of adventure, as if I were rediscovering the story again in a voice that I have to understand again.
About this first page, I would like to highlight how, from the very start, the protagonist expresses her love for the kitchen. Indeed, it's a space that consists on the centre of the home, not only where food is made. As the story goes on, we can come to understand the protagonist's eagerness to be attached to the warmth the kitchen provides her at the same time that she uses it as a shelter from the loneliness that lies beyond the window. Somehow I found this feeling familiar and I believe that anyone could have the need to find a shelter at some point of their lives.
Finally, I would like to leave a question related to this page:
Thank you for the scans, I wanted to start this novel for a while. I liked the contrast between the third and the fourth sentence on this page. Even if the main character is not living in their dream kitchen, they still like their actual dirty kitchen a lot. I am not sure I understand the following word grouping correctly: ひと冬軽くこせるような食料 "lightly crumpled food after one winter"? Or "food as to easily pass one winter"? Moreover, which kanji would you choose for ひと here, "人" or "一"?
I really like this section, because the story takes place at a very common place in the house; in her kitchen. It starts off so simple, with an easy sentence and makes you think about your own kitchen and the memories and especially as a women all the time spent there. Yes, the story starts simple enough and then it deepens more. I also liked the last sentence on the page, mainly because I could understand it, but also because the emotion of loneliness is mentioned and you can sense the main character, whose name is not yet mentioned, at this point, might be lonely, but she feels comfort inside the her house, especially in her kitchen. 窓の外には淋しいく星が光る。Outside ,the window stars are glittering, lonely.
Hi there. It's my first time here. ( ^_^)／
Thank you for doing this and for leaflings for introducing you to us. I'm new to reading vertical text that is not manga, and I'm also new to Japanese novels in general.
Besides thinking that 台所 was an "elevated place" throughout my whole first read, I didn't have any other amusing mishaps. It seems that up until 床, we are just in the narrator's mind. Then we move on to the physical world.
Some vocab were hard but if I were to ask anything I'd ask about the description as a whole. Maybe this is just my lack of novel-reading skills, but I couldn't picture the scene as vividly. I figured from the last line that it's a present-tense narration, "when I do X, I see a Y", but I'm not quite sure about the rest.
New kanji: 淋. I wondered if there's a specific nuance to 淋.
edit: I remember once saying 包丁 to a Japanese person on iTalki, who then sort of corrected me with ナイフ, and said that 包丁 is for slashing/killing. Any thoughts on that?
Well the vocab is not particularly hard, I’m even surprised some words are not in kanji. However I found it hard to understand the whole meaning of it, except that the narrator likes kitchens. I’m only at my first reading, without checking any unknown word. I’ll push through
Overall, the reading difficulty was not as high as I would have expected. Yoshimoto's style is very likeable because she uses words and expressions that are easily understood. I certainly appreciate this quality since it's difficult to achive expressive simplicity. Of course, I had to look up some words and, as Kavit, I created a vocabulary list (by the way, thanks for sharing yours, Kavita).
Maybe I could understand better what was written because I have already read Kitchen in my mother tongue. However, reading it in its original language is for me a kind of adventure, as if I were rediscovering the story again in a voice that I have to understand again.
About this first page, I would like to highlight how, from the very start, the protagonist expresses her love for the kitchen. Indeed, it's a space that consists on the centre of the home, not only where food is made. As the story goes on, we can come to understand the protagonist's eagerness to be attached to the warmth the kitchen provides her at the same time that she uses it as a shelter from the loneliness that lies beyond the window. Somehow I found this feeling familiar and I believe that anyone could have the need to find a shelter at some point of their lives.
Finally, I would like to leave a question related to this page:
● What is your favourite place in the world?
Thank you for the scans, I wanted to start this novel for a while. I liked the contrast between the third and the fourth sentence on this page. Even if the main character is not living in their dream kitchen, they still like their actual dirty kitchen a lot. I am not sure I understand the following word grouping correctly: ひと冬軽くこせるような食料 "lightly crumpled food after one winter"? Or "food as to easily pass one winter"? Moreover, which kanji would you choose for ひと here, "人" or "一"?
As usual I made a small wordlist:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-eh1P0qB1rCsrtAS-VgYEB54byjpsUlM/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102772733310968467199&rtpof=true&sd=true
I really like this section, because the story takes place at a very common place in the house; in her kitchen. It starts off so simple, with an easy sentence and makes you think about your own kitchen and the memories and especially as a women all the time spent there. Yes, the story starts simple enough and then it deepens more. I also liked the last sentence on the page, mainly because I could understand it, but also because the emotion of loneliness is mentioned and you can sense the main character, whose name is not yet mentioned, at this point, might be lonely, but she feels comfort inside the her house, especially in her kitchen. 窓の外には淋しいく星が光る。Outside ,the window stars are glittering, lonely.