78 Comments
Jul 27, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Thank you all for sharing your progress! I only made it through the first page and felt bad for being so slow. Looking up all the kanji anf thinking about the grammar takes so much time. Thought about giving up to read further and join the next reading project (whenever that may be). But now I’m motivated again! :)

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Jul 27, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Thanks a lot Bunsuke for setting up the thread! It’s great to see more people joining in! So far I’ve gone through today’s scheduled pages and, as some other readers have mentioned, I find it very useful sometimes to read “structure focus” -that is, just identifying the grammar patterns and the feel of the sentences before actually re-reading with the vocab. I remember reading that in an online blog.

Kanji search is a little bit less excruciating with the Jisho radical search function, but that’s by far the most time-consuming thing, so maybe for people focusing more on grammar this option could be useful. Nevertheless, I’m planning to re- read tomorrow with the vocab I still have missing.

Regarding には, which I’ve seen some people are struggling with, I really recommend Imabi’s explanation. Maybe most of you already know it, but just in case, to put it simply, it’s a free grammar website which teaches Japanese from the basics to very advances level. What people usually don’t like about it is that it’s not a “friendly explanation” site. That is, it’s very very detailed and quite linguistic-oriented. That being said, for me it’s the best website in order to grasp things fully, because it leaves nothing unexplained, even the slightest of nuances. In fact, I’m using it as my main manual. Here’s the link to the site (grammar points are classified according to level: check those for “The Particle に” (I-II, etc.)

https://www.imabi.net/tableofcontents.htm

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Jul 28, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

This really blew up! Some very interesting comments. Just finished yesterday's on with today's. Too many words to write in detail about em all:

🕯️ちらちら+😤イライラ =

⚡💥ぎらっと

鐘が鳴る当時に鐘楼にいたから鐘のボンボンでぼんやりとしちゃった

⏰🔔ボンボン😵ぼんやり

曇りの【曇】の音読みはドン:

どんより = from Don Cloud🌥️🎩

overcast, gray, leaden, dull...

しゃばる is another しゃべる, right?

there's something I 'gotta' do... 'again', something I 'gotta' do... I'm confused…

ごった返す

In Japan you don't just get knee-deep into, you get 没頭 into

おもむろに / 徐に is very confusing:

suddenly but slowly. Abruptly but gently. ☯️🙄…🏜️🐛🏜️🛡️⚔️🛡️…

大沢、大澤。眩しい。目つき。ぎらっと、ぎらぎら。ちらちら、いらいら。放つ。生々しい。引っ込め。大して、たいして、対して。余計。ぼんやり。暇潰し。あれこれと取り留め。世間話。対向試合。物静か。しゃばらない、喋る。悪魔で。吊り上げる。悪口。抱かざるをえない。風貌だって。いかにも温厚。程遠い。地点で結びついた。見当2。機動隊、動機。どう考えても。どんより。ごった返す。些か、些っと(も)。些細。ただじゃすみません。故意に凶器を。行為。腹を立てる。どこにでもある。東洋。二度輩出。気が進まない。繰り広げる。年上。きゅっと。没頭。一言で。おもむろに、徐に

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Jul 27, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

As I expected, it was hard, really, really hard, as I expected hahahaha. I ended up being able to only read 2 of the pages before my head started to ache a little and I realized I had to take a break. I will still try to compensate later, maybe continue reading, maybe trying something else to keep it a fresh experience.

What I noticed is that the big obstacle is the number of kanjis that I simply don't know yet. I went after each one of them manually, but that took a big chunk of the time I spent on the book up until now, but I guess there's no helping it.

What I'm worried about is that I'll probably soon forget about them. I'm thinking about keeping a notebook by my side and each new word would be written in there for a quick check later and hopefully writing it myself will help me remember it. I wonder if the idea is worth the time it will take?

As for what I read so far, the story is pretty nice and I'm happy that even though I got a little frustrated, I was able to at least get an idea of what was going on in a more general sense (I cheated a little and checked afterwards the english version up until where I stopped just to make sure :p).

In general, I'm proud of what I was able to do, considering everything; hope I can get back to it soon so I won't be left in the dust.

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Jul 27, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Before anything else, I just wanted to say that I think this was a great idea! I was a bit busy and only got through two pages yesterday, so I'm trying to catch up today. However, so far I'm wondering about this one sentence: それはボクシングを始めるときにいやっていうくらい叩きこまれるんです。I think I'm specifically having trouble with the っていうくらい part. Is he saying that he was told not to do it (or hated it) so much that they had to drill it into him to hit someone? Thanks in advance.

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Jul 27, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Hello, I’m excited to be reading along with you all! I decided on this method of reading - I’m annotating the PDF with the kanji readings (and if necessary the English translation of individual words) for one page, then reading through it again a couple of times to see if understand the story. I surprised myself by finding it not too difficult, and so far there’s not too many new words or kanji for me! I guess I’ve been working towards this point for a while now, but this is the first adult native level short story I’ve attempted. I’m not a really detail-oriented person and grammar is not my strong point, but I’m happy if I can understand what is happening in the story, and so far so good. I’ll copy out new kanji by hand too, as suggested, and see how that goes for retention, and maybe remove my annotations later if I think I can read without them… I love how it’s recognisably Murakami, even in Japanese. I’m also enjoying reading everyone’s comments!

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Jul 27, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Thanks Bunsuke!

I'm enjoying this little project as I'm quite free this week :D. I'm slowly working by rewriting the story onto a word document (so I know what the readings of the kanji are) then breaking bits down that are new or I don't feel I really understand. I might stop rewriting it, but it's partly so it's easier to read through for me if I'm gonna spend some time looking at it~

This feels like a really good level for me to be honest, I can read through most of the kanji (of course not all), but the grammar/meaning aspect is tough after previously practicing with mostly children's books! It took me about 30 minutes per page to rewrite it out!

One of my first questions was about using kanji in this way:

訊ねる instead of 尋ねる

肯く instead of 頷く

When I search 訊ねる on jisho.org, I see 尋ねる as the main entry and 訊ねる is listed as an "other form".

Is there any enlightenment you can give about such "other forms"? Are there any fairly common usages you can think of? Is there a meaning difference? Is the context what matters?

Another question would be any advice when trying to decipher bunches of hiragana missing kanji, for example the following:

「レストランの暖房はいささかききすぎて。。。」 which I'm guessing is the same as -> 「レストランの暖房はいささか効きすぎて。。。」

Is it just practice and getting used to it? Because my brain read "いささかきき" (??? wat) followed by "すぎて" (too much), then just melted slightly.

I might have some grammar questions tomorrow if that's ok, I still haven't finished properly digging into this section yet :p

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Jul 27, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

You all are acing me! I got through the first page and got bogged down on looking up characters and phrases and re-reading. But I figure: that's the way it is. Just keep going and share.

So: Maybe my dictionary is limited but what is ぎらっとした? A Japanese friend of mine suggested it's a darker version of きら but I wonder if anyone else ran into this little odd item.

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Jul 27, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Hi Bunsuke! First of all thank you for doing this project! It's been very immersive so far hehe, I started later than I hoped so I've only properly read (and vaguely understood/ translated) the first 2/3 of page 380 (sorry), but I have a lot of questions already.

Initially I went through the 4 pages with nothing just to get a feel for the structure. When I was translating I found it pretty hard to figure out the clauses within the sentence but I found reading it out, recording it (and playing it back - I'm more confident in my listening than reading) and scribbling down potential options helped a lot.

I was surprised by how manageable it was by the last few sentences, and I think given time I could have managed 4 pages (I will attempt to catch up by tomorrow). I was a bit confused by who was doing the action sometimes but I think the context helps with figuring that out...?

I have some specific grammar questions but my first question is about nanori - I went into this completely blind (and I'm aiming to not look up anything related to the story for the duration of the project other than what's on here) so I'm still not sure what the reading of 大沢さん's name is!

I went with Oosawa (using jisho.com #names). I feel like if I refresh the page I might find out whether this is right or not, but I want to just send one comment fresh off the reading... (are there resources on common name readings? Is it something that just comes with experience?) In a book, are there usually furigana to help with the reading?

P.S. it's an essay as always, I am unable to write short comments

P.P.S I say as always but I've really not commented much, I aspire to more in the future...

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Jul 31, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

A bit behind on commenting but here are my thoughts on the first section...

I was pleasantly surprised at how little I had to look up in this first section compared to my previous experience reading Murakami in Japanese.

Like others, I also was stuck rereading いささかききすぎていて a few times. I'd never seen いささか before and the lack of kanji for きき in ききすぎて made it difficult to parse the verb from the unknown word before it

The part where 大沢 relates fighting in a match to being in a deep hole immediately reminded me of a very short piece by Murakami that I read during one of my classes abroad - 「夜中の汽笛について、あるいは物語の効用について」Both the way that it is written and the emotion of that section is similar to a part in the other piece.

Looking forward to the next sections...

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Jul 31, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

A bit off the schedule, more like too much off the schedule but can you put up with me please? I am at pg385 right now and will try to run through to day 4 as fast as I can. But my head is spinning right now. First I have to confirm the name of characters. 大沢 is Oosawa-san and 青木 is Aoki-kun right? Because I suck at names and is there even a way to improve? In pg383, 自分の肉を削らなくてはなりません、What did he mean there? I could understand literally but can you explain more about that context-wise? Also my head spinning is not because of the difficulty of the text but more of jp-jp dictionary. I get lost in unknown words which is expressed in more unknown words. Do you recommend me using jp-jp dictionary or jp-eng dictionary? I feel like jp-jp dictionary benefits me in the long run but it takes so much time.

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Jul 28, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Hey everyone. Thank you, Bunsuke and Harry, for this wonderful reading opportunity. This is a purely appreciative comment !

I've read until page 387 (as I'm already on day 2 over here in France) and have been enjoying the story very much. The relatively short sentences surely help ! I've been adding every yet-unknown-to-me word to my Anki deck (17 words for day 1, 11 for day 2) with captures of the sentences where they were used for added clarity.

One suggestion : I read "猫を捨てる" by Murakami earlier this year (highly recommended, about 100 pages), which I believe would also work very well in this format.

Can't wait to continue this journey with you all !

Jon

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Jul 28, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Just finished reading the short story and I have to say: It was more interesting than I expected!

When I think of japanese literatures, I always envisioned that it was going to be packed with words that I've never seen in my life before, but surprisingly that wasn't the case. Not only was the theme of the story (or at least the first four pages) philosophical, it also made me think of how I've been progressing for my self- from my own studies to personal hobbies such as japanese. Although I'm still wondering how the title is related to the story, but we're only 20% there (and the ending of the 4th page is on a cliffhanger too! How cruel). Nevertheless, thank you to Bunsuke for introducing me to this!

Now for some of my remarks:

- I counted how many kanjis/phrases that I have to search for in the dictionary, and it ended with the total of exactly 50 of them. One problem I find rather frustrating are the hiragana phrases (eg. ぶるぶる or あくまで) that has no indications of kanji whatsoever. I wonder if there's a book that contains all of those kind of phrases that can help me memorize those.

- Also, to whom would you recommend the story? If an N3 student wants to read this, will you recommend it? or is the difficulty lower than my thoughts? or higher?

-I don't really understand the last part when daizawa ( or 大沢, I'm not sure how to pronounce the name) talks about what he learned from boxing. He talks that in life people will win and lose. And then he talks about how there is solitude inside of everyone and we have to try our best to go resist it. Did I get that right? or am I interpreting it wrong?

Once again, thanks for doing this Bunsuke. I really appreciate it <3

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Jul 28, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Hi! Got through the first four pages yesterday, skipping a few words to keep the lecture smooth. I have two questions.

First, why is he using 彼は so much? I don't know if that's something particular to Murakami, or if its something about this story, but I didn't think it was necessary and it definitely felt a bit unnatural (not like I should be telling Murakami what is natural Japanese and what isn't...)

Second, in more literary terms, what do you think makes Murakami a good writer, and what positive aspects could be highlighted about this story in particular? Before studying Japanese I wasn't very interested in literature, and I feel like I still struggle finding interest for it.

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Jul 28, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Bunsuke-san, Thank you so much for setting up this reading project. I have been trying many different ways to get more motivated to read, so this is great!

I have read some literature before (working my way through this book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/432143.Breaking_Into_Japanese_Literature), but this piece is the longest text I have read so far, and with almost no background/furigana/vocabulary notes. I was happy to see that I knew about 95% of the kanji, but was taken aback by how little I understood, I guess because of my poor grammar.

I was worried that I would get side-tracked looking up vocab and would not get through the four pages, so I tried sounding it out as I read and trying to follow as I would if I was overhearing a conversation. All in all it still took me about an hour to get through. Today, I plan to look up the vocab I didn't get, and re-read it before the next 4 pages.

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Hi everyone,

I've read some of Murakami's work before but in English. I've always wanted to read his work in the original Japanese it was written in so this is an amazing opportunity, thank you Bunsuke!

It took me quite awhile to work through the text (~ 2 hours) but I'm actually surprised at how much vocabulary and grammar I recognized. I took note of 19 vocab words that had kanji that I couldn't quite recall the reading/meaning for to add to my Anki deck.

There were a few lines that I couldn't quite comprehend at the end of pg 381, starting with 普通の人間はが誰かを殴ったって and ending with 等しい行為ですからね. I had trouble understanding 打ちどころが悪ければ変なことになっちゃうんです and これはただじゃすみません in particular.

The story is really interesting and the topic of boxing made me think of a Hemingway short story that I read! Looking forward to reading more with you all!

Evelyn

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