Postby kraemder » Sun Jun 18, 2017 7:16 am
I just finished the 2nd volume of 騎士団長殺し. As you may or may not know, if a book is on the longer side, the Japanese publishers gleefully publish it in multiple volumes, doubling or tripling the price of the story accordingly. I think it was about 1100 pages total. It's the first work of Japanese literature that I've finished and I'm pretty happy with myself for that. I fully enjoyed the story up into the end although the metaphor world was a little slow to read. It didn't last too long and I think it added to the story although I'm not really sure how.. I'm doing my kumon homework right now. My 2nd visit to kumon, the teacher talked to some corporate guy who really felt I should be taking a course meant for foreigners rather than 国語 meant for natives. We had this conversation already the last time so it was annoying. Basically, their Japanese for foreigners text doesn't truly go to an advanced level of Japanese. And besides, I've done Japanese for foreigners texts to death at this point. So repeating myself was a bit annoying but I'm continuing with the same course.
Currently, the text from kumon that I'm working with is a translation of Daddy Long Legs. I think I read part of it as a kid or whatever because it was so familiar. At the same time it was pretty hard - tons of vocabulary I didn't know. I googled and peeked at the English original online and of course the English is easy for me but at the same time I can see how it's an older text and a true piece of literature. It's no easy read for a child I don't think nor a foreigner, but welll written and worth the additional effort.
I also downloaded あなたの物語 from Amazon and converted it into Aozora format for reading on Wakaru. Last night I was eager to start my next Japanese book. Of course, I wanted to see how much I had leveled up by reading 騎士団長殺し. To my dismay, it was one word I didn't know followed by another. I persevered. And it got s lot easier right before I gave up for the night and went to sleep. I think this is a recurring pattern in novels true for Daddy Long Legs and あなたの物語. In order to set the scene proplery and give the story a unique feel, they start out carefully picking every word to give the utmost artistic effect. Then, one this is accomplished, they relent and although still picking words with care, they don't over do it so much. Thank goodness.
My Daddy Long Legs homework got easier several pages in too.
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