Week 7 of 📚 本好きの下剋上 / 책벌레의 하극상 🪱

[eefara]

I figured that was just a spur-of-the-moment name she came up with: “Easy okara pancakes!”

[mita]

Gotcha! I wasn’t sure if it was another reference since she seemed disappointed in the response.

[eefara]

I was under the impression that the lackluster response was due to two of the three words she used being foreign nonsense, but someone let me know if I misread!

[Naphthalene]

That’s how I understood it too. The thick quotation marks (?) indicate that she said the whole thing in Japanese.

[shitsurei]

Finally got through last week’s reading and I’m a stone’s throw from being caught up with the club! I’m hoping to finish week 9 on time

@Naphthalene

I was really curious about the パルゥtree since that kind of explanation made no sense to me

@mita

Feels like the kind of tree you’d find in the Forbidden Forest in Harry Potter.

Ok I’m glad I’m not the only one
I was like “what on earth is she describing?” and kinda mistrusting my reading of that section.

@brandon

It seems like it could be a coconut

@Naphthalene

I kinda pictured it as a grapefruit

For some reason I pictured it as the crystal fruit from Stardew Valley! I guess because that’s also something that you forage in the winter?

@Elec

The first chapter for this week does get points for introducing more of the world and characters, but it also almost felt like a filler episode compared to the second chapter.

@eefara

Not sure how I feel about the “invent a new food” plotline.

I had the same thoughts. I get that the author has a world that they are trying to show to us, but an entire chapter about one new plant, its usage, and finding a use for what people usually use as animal feed was a lot of words for not a lot of world building. Although I might be especially sensitive as I’m trying to read to catch up with the club.

@Naphthalene

Well, I still cannot sound out correctly all English words.

Native speaker, and yes, can confirm that is just English

Despite the relative slog of chapter 13, I’m excited for the plot points of 14 as well!

[bungakushoujo]

I fell off but now I’m back at it trying to catch up!

Anyways, after the last chapters where Myne was so annoying (for me ) these two chapters felt like a nicer read even though she’s out there inventing pancakes and multiplication (lol).

I enjoyed reading the discussion here speculating what paru looks like. I imagined it like this emoji but maybe off white in color.
By the way, I am kind of hungry for pancakes now.

@brandon

what is the ‘요’ doing at the beginning here? Is this like ‘뭐’ when it’s used as a spoken filler? It’s definitely not ‘4 or some years’ right? As in 요 = yo = yon in Japanese

Sorry for answering this so late, @brandon!! I’m sure you got the answer already, but…

You know 요즘?! It’s that 요!
So, 요 몇 년 is like these past few years.
To go further down the rabbit hole, 즘/즈음 means the time when something happens, so 요즘 is like, these times when something is happening, aka lately.

If you think about it abstractly it starts to make sense, I swear (forever bad at explaining things).

[暁のルナ]

@Naphthalene

I was really curious about the パルゥtree since that kind of explanation made no sense to me (in that sense, I was really as confused as Main at the time). Too bad I cannot unlearn what it really is

Wait what was it exactly? I didn’t really follow that closely.

I did think it was a nice “look, my crazy experiments actually do nice things for people sometimes instead of just causing trouble for my household” moment. It also felt a lot shorter than that first cooking thing early on, and is a nice reminder that I should learn to make okonomiyaki one of these days

@Naphthalene

Well, I still cannot sound out correctly all English words. Sometimes, I’ll read something like “it’s an ‘a’ like in [something] not like in [something else]” and think wait, those are not read the same?

English is a complete mess though (doubly so if American English). The words mostly come from German, French, Greek, or Latin (which all have totally different orthography), plus everywhere else we’ve gotten loanwords from. So if you know those patterns, you can often work out pronunciation, but even then we’ve altered or butchered it half the time.

[Naphthalene]

@暁のルナ

Wait what was it exactly? I didn’t really follow that closely.

I can’t remember exactly when, but you won’t know for at least one more volume, but more likely 5 or 6.

Edit: if you just mean “what is the fruit like”, here’s how the manga draws it (bottom left, the egg looking thing)

@暁のルナ

So if you know those patterns, you can often work out pronunciation, but even then we’ve altered or butchered it half the time.

That was my point as for why Main still can’t reliably read at this point.

[暁のルナ]

@Naphthalene

I can’t remember exactly when, but you won’t know for at least one more volume, but more likely 5 or 6.

Ehh?! Any chance you could just spoil it for me in tags? (Or not I guess, if it’s not that important)

@Naphthalene

That was my point as for why Main still can’t reliably read at this point.

Ohhh gotcha

[Naphthalene]

@暁のルナ

Ehh?! Any chance you could just spoil it for me in tags? (Or not I guess, if it’s not that important)

Absolutely not, because it would require me to spoil a massive element about the world itself at this point. I don’t mind doing it once you are done with this volume and it’s not a spoiler anymore, though.