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So I accidentally finished this segment last week and really enjoyed it. I really liked the twist of Emi being scarier than the freaky monsters, i could see that innocent delivery in my mind’s eye lol
Haha agree, this was a fun twist. I liked how this story felt much different compared to the one before. I appreciate some predictable elements to make comprehension easier, but they are different enough to be entertaining
Finished this week’s reading. I loved the magical girl vibes of the ring pop. And I feel a little bad for Shinya, although if I had to guess he’ll find a non scary way to terrorize his sister.
My unpopular opinion is that this is harder than MataYume. Nanoka talks in meandering sentences, but it’s all really common language. This has so much onomatope that I’m constantly looking up words
wow, i feel almost precisely the opposite, I feel like I’m breezing through these. though the amount of lookups is probably the same (actually it’s probably less for また夢, it’s just keeping up with Nanoka’s wandering sentences does a number on my brain)
The reason I find the other one harder is the grammar and really weird and unexpected sentences that make me doubt what I understood. But I’m also looking up lots of words in both, so vocab isn’t that different to me, lots of new words for both books. I agree though, with this one, I’ve been struggling with the onomatopoeia, but at least now I feel like I have slightly a better grasp of it.
Hmmm, mimetic words almost always add nuance to the next verb, so I find many of them a) Optional and b) more memorable linking them to a context. So in general, I don’t study the ones I don’t know yet, and I don’t usually look them up. I just guess and move on because looking them up rarely changes my impression, so I only really look at the definition if I’m going through, eg, the vocab spreadsheet anyway. And I find it’s not worth trying harder than that until I’ve come across a mimetic word a few times. At that point it’s really quick to learn and more memorable because I’m already familiar
Just wanted to throw that out there. For example, for someone where a lot of lookups are hurting their enjoyment, maybe that’s helpful. I have a pretty good tolerance for ambiguity though, lol.
Finished this week’s reading as well! Like others have mentioned, I didn’t expect the spin on the POV character not being the one to buy the candy and how nothing bad happened to Emi – I guess buying the candy from the store isn’t necessarily dooming you to some traumatic experience. Hopefully Shinya will behave now? I guess the moral of the story is to read the instructions
Agree. And they also tend to follow loose rules which make them easier to guess at. But the more metaphoric of them are less easy to guess and more likely to heavily influence the meaning of the sentence as a whole. When reading physical media I mostly don’t bother, but for me this is the benefit of digital.
I also don’t study at all anymore, I just read, so lookups are the only way I’m going to short circuit the slow process of figuring out word meanings just from repetition and context. For me looking up all the words is maybe -5% enjoyment for having to start and stop the audiobook I’m reading along to, but +2% for getting the meaning of all the words: It’s not enough of a drag to my reading to not do it.
Instant lookups really help, especially compared to even handwriting lookups. I can only deal with manga lookups using my phone because the volume of lookups is so low compared to novels. Conversely, I don’t think I could read the novels if I had to do manual lookups…
Instant lookups are great! However I feel like I get into a mindset where I have to understand every single thing sometimes when I have those. Reading something where I look up a maximum of 5 words per page, even when there are many more that I don’t know, is actually a lot less tiring for me. But obviously that’s only possible if the book’s level isn’t too high, and between this book club and the one with Nanako, there’s too much new vocab for me to do this.
I do like to alternate though, and for some books I do very active reading, with manual lookups of every new word+grammar that I then write down to review. But I’m also going very slowly with those, at around 5 pages a week, and reading each chapter at least twice (one to make the lookups, and one to truly take it all in).
The one place where I really hate doing lookups is mangas. I usually read mine online, so half of the time when I change tabs to a dictionary, when I go back it’s right up at the top of the page again and I have to find out where I stopped. This happening multiple times in a row is just unbearable.
I need to dip into some of my physical media and do this as an exercise at some point. I have very little stamina for physical reading and I think it’s because I have a background thread in my mind the whole time wondering if I should look up words and if so, which ones.
Not sure where you’re reading digital manga, but if you have the ability to get the images on your computer, using Mokuro to OCR the images is amazing. I even run them on series I don’t actually need much help with just because it’s so nice to be able to just tap and have the definition pop up. The fact that it can also recognize handwritten text is just *chef’s kiss*.
For this, I have some very loose rules. I usually don’t look up mimetic words and descriptive adjectives, unless I feel like I’m really missing something. And even for other words, I’ll only look them up if I’m lost, I feel I’m missing something or because I’m too curious about a specific word. I also try to read the sentence first and do lookups if I need to afterwards, that way I at least try to guess the meaning of the unknown words, so it sticks better.
I recommend reading a paper copy of something just at the edge of comprehension in bed. Then you’re too lazy to do lookups and it’s easier for the brain to just have fun and guess stuff. I don’t do all my reading like that, but it’s really enjoyable and has transformed my perception of my reading ability
I don’t, unfortunately. You could do a Google search to see if someone’s edited the Mokuro code to work for Korean. Or look for OCR (I forget what comics are called in Korean, but that word) and see what comes up.
That is in fact a great idea and maybe I’ll poke around in my stack for something that fits. I finally put in all the shelves in my bookshelf yesterday (we moved in October ), so I’m going to be going through my books when I unpack them anyway
Agree! The shoe is on the other foot now, so Shinya better behave!
Yes, I was a bit apprehensive that the stories were going to be too formulaic and would get boring quickly, but I was pleasantly surprised with this chapter.
I mean, I felt bad when he was told he wasn’t allowed to buy anything even though Emi could, but I think he gets his just deserts in the end for tormenting his sister.
Not exactly the same as mokuro, but Capture2Text works with lots of languages, including Korean.
Finally finished this story. Glad Shinya got his comeuppance for tormenting his sister, and thought the twist that he would have to watch out for her from now on was funny. Also enjoyed him being listed as おまけの男の子 at the end
That was my first time coming across that sense of おまけ as I’d only known it as something at the end of a manga, and now I’m seeing it pop up everywhere!
Bit late finishing this chapter (I got part way through with the bookclub and then stopped because it was too difficult but managed to read it over the last few days). My understanding of parts is a bit hazy. Did the biscuits come alive? Or did he just believe the did or have I completely missed the mark there? . I think I just missed a chunk of understanding before the end, where I realised he was at home but wasn’t entirely sure exactly what happened except it scared him pretty badly. I did like the fact he was marked as a bonus child in the ledger though, that made me laugh .
Other than that part I was a bit unsure of, I understood most of the rest with look ups. Will revisit it at a later date once I’ve read the rest of the series and see if my understanding is any better.
Yes! They started attacking each other and then turned on Shinya. Just when they were about to attack him his sister showed up.
The small print was - he was meant to have eaten the human biscuit first before the animal biscuits to gain the ability to tame the wild animals. But instead he started with the animal biscuits if I remember right.
. I think I just missed a chunk of understanding before the end, where I realised he was at home but wasn’t entirely sure exactly what happened except it scared him pretty badly. I did like the fact he was marked as a bonus child in the ledger though, that made me laugh 