48 Comments
Jul 29, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Good luck to everyone else still reading!

I have a grammar question. I never seem to understand when to use ように (well, one of the many) and for example, in this phrase from the text, could it be used instead?

(From the text, p386) それを買ってもらえることになっていたんです。

(Rewritten) それを買ってもらえるようになっていたんです。

If anyone finds it useful, I made this document last year with most basic usages of よう https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GM0iJLBtOgURBKEkwZu2CbjNLhoh0pik/view?usp=drivesdk

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Jul 28, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

I read some more last night up to ⅓ of page 381. This morning I flipped through what I did yesterday and was pleased to find I remembered a good amount of the new vocab. This evening I finished page 381 in 1.5 hours at a pace of around 3-4 minutes per sentence... (hopefully my future self will find these dubious statistics useful)

I’m still optimising my reading - I was writing out full sentences, underlining new vocab and adding necessary kana readings on top, while now I only write out clauses I don't understand, and mainly annotate directly on my printout to have everything in one space. Lots of footnotes and questions :3

When I said translating in yesterday's post, I meant transcribing my thought process (because there’s not enough working space in my head...) Incredibly I found towards the end I didn’t need to do this much anymore because I could store more clauses in my head - initially I was getting to the end of a sentence and forgetting what had happened at the start!

It feels like I’m learning how to read all over again - in English, if I turn to a page and just have it in my line of vision I can get an idea of where I am, what’s happening - but here it really is word by word; the word order is really important haha (I finally get what delaying the verb to the end of the sentence for dramatic effect in Latin was all about...)

I'll probably have some more language questions tomorrow - hope everyone is still having fun, and looking forward to reading your comments! I am also aiming to catch up... dubious whether I can make it to page 387 before tomorrow, but even one page more is more literature exposure, and the more I read the faster it becomes, so that's progress!

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Hello everyone, I am happy that I found this community. I was not sure how much I would be able to understand literary Japanese but so far I am able to understand and enjoy this story. I am still on Day 2, although it is Day 3 here in the US. I will catch up today.

Thank You Bunsuke and Harry for this initiative.

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Jul 29, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

It’s almost the end of another day here in Nagoya and I’ve read up to page 387. A bit behind schedule, but I’m enjoying the reading. Today my favourite new phrases were 「籠る」to seclude oneself, 「寡黙な」untalkative,

「孤独」loneliness, 「浅薄」shallow, superficial, 「泥沼」bog. I always forget the 的 words and have to look them up every time - 「生理的」instinctive, 「具体的」specific, etc.

So, I can understand the story, but it doesn’t really come to life for me like reading in English does… I guess that comes with experience. The characters aren’t especially likeable in this story lol!

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Jul 28, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

So I decided to turn it down a notch so I can take it better. I wasn't able to ready today's pages, I tried to focus in getting to understand all the new kanjis that I haven't seen before, so I tried writing each one of the ones I didn't know, then find the meaning, then reread the whole line. As a result I'm still a little short of finishing the 4th page since I'm taking way longer now.

But even then, doing it like this was considerably more enjoyable than if I were to just search the meaning online and move on, so even though this will make me fall behind a lot, I don't mind anymore, this is contributing a lot more for my vocabulary that I needed so much, so I'll stick to it.

I still can't take more than 2 hours reading, but I'm working my way to implement japanese elsewhere other than here, so I guess it's fine. I started playing some games in japanese so there's something else happening to not get tired too quickly (too bad I don't know any games we could all play together for practice).

I will still update what I feel here, even though I'm making more of a diary than actually asking questions. I just find it easier to understand something when I find the answer myself.

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Jul 31, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Done with Day 2 - had more words to look up this time than last but still not too many overall. Did struggle a bit with 浅薄 only because I kept accidentally typing 簿 instead of 薄...

I was glad to get into the backstory about why 大沢 punched 青木. It was good to see 大沢 critical of his own past behavior and say how that may have made 青木 dislike him as well.

I'm interested in seeing how both characters respond after the incident and what they do next.

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Jul 31, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Day 2 finished. 大沢 hated 青木's 傲慢 but I felt the same thing from him along the text. At least he recognized that part of himself. It was quite easy this time. I only had to learn one kanji. But I am surprised 剃刀みたいにすぱすぱと切れる男 lays there dumbfounded getting punched. どうやらそこまですぱすぱではなかたですね.www

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Jul 30, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Hi everyone,

I'm a little bit behind! It's Day 4 but I just finished reading the last bit of Day 2. It's still morning here in the US so I think I will try to read Day 3 and some of Day 4 today!

I really liked the part where 大沢 likened his natural dislike of 青木の pridefulness and ego to people's natural dislike of body odor 😂. That part made me laugh!

I'm looking forward to seeing how 青木 reacts in Day 3's reading!

Evelyn

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Jul 29, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Well! Now we have reached the backstory of him hitting a person. And although it seems justifiable, Oozawa-san tells the story in such a way that I can kind of relate on his regrets of hurting people can be like.

This time, only 28 unknown Kanjis/phrases! Unlike the previous 4 pages where it's double the amount! Though there were some phrases that I have to reread a few times to get the meaning, it was otherwise pretty smooth sailing. Which felt pretty nice for me!

And of course it ends in another cliffhanger XD Can't wait to see what aoki's reply will be when he wakes up. Can't wait for the next day to come!

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Jul 29, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Hi All, I tried to read through the entire 8 pages last night... I made it, but was so tired at the end I cannot really remember what was happening in the story/ what the content was.

What I would like to ask is, do some people make notes on the stories (in english) as they read, as a way of kind of signposting so that it is easy to pick back up again where you left off? I'm not sure I can read through 12 pages tonight....

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Jul 29, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

Good morning! I wanted to ask about some things I've seen on the page that I don't really know what they mean or why it's there:

1 - A long single dash seen twice on page 380 ---------- (I assume it's some kind of pause? Does it have a name? Is there any specific usage?)

2 - An asterisk * 3/4s the way up the page (again, I guess this is like a new paragraph/section kind of deal? Is there a name? Since when was it used?)

3 - On page 384 there is a series of commas 、at the same time as words: それがわかったんだ - What's that about?

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Jul 29, 2021Liked by Bunsuke

To Bunsuke or anyone else who'd like to answer—how many words do you single out to memorize later on? Through much of the story I'm saving (almost) every unknown word to Anki (I've left out a few that just seem really specific). I'm not sure if I should be doing this to be better prepared for the future, or just read, look up definitions of unknown words and moving out. The former approach seems more safe, though takes a lot more time, and I might forget more on the latter approach, though I suppose I can add study the word if I've forgotten it and come across it again?

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