ライオンと魔女

I love this book, and I know it well.  So I'll try reading a bit of it in Japanese.  I went to Amazon.co.jp and found they do have a Kindle version, and I can download a sample.  (To do this, I have to give my address as somewhere in Japan, and I can't have Amazon.com downloads on the Kindle at the same time.  No problem.)

I'm not that strong on Japanese, so it would help to have a rikaichan-like dictionary.  As it happens, it wasn't hard to get one, though I read online that this didn't work on Android Kindle apps but only dedicated Kindles:  after highlighting a word, I told it I wanted to download the 日本語 - 英語 dictionary, and it did.

Internet doesn't seem to know how to disable Wikipedia lookup.  Too bad:  screen's looking cluttered.

Hey, that's interesting.  If I highlight a single word, I get dictionary.  If I highlight something longer, I get Bing translation.  Seems to work OK.  I wish there weren't this menu continually blocking part of the highlighting.

Sometimes the Japanese-English dictionary doesn't bother with any English (!).  You can click and go to another page with more detail.  It's easier to use the Popup Japanese app, but you still have to highlight, which isn't that easy, and then say copy.  With rikaichan, all you have to do is touch part of the word (and maybe adjust).  I haven't found an easy way to do this yet.  Argh.

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Here's my notes as I struggle.  Maybe they only interest me.  We'll see.  BTW, put no stock in these translations; I'm stretching here.

ライオンと魔女 

１るーシイ、衣装だんすをあけて みる
 1.  Lucy,         wardrobe        open and see
 Lucy looks into the wardrobe

むかし、ピーター、スーザン、エドモンド、ルーシイという
In the past, Peter          Susan          Edmond           Lucy       called
四人の子どもたちが、いました。
 4       children                  were.
Once there were four children named Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy.

この物語は、その四人きょうだいが、   この前の戦争（せんそう）
In this story,     those 4    brothers & sisters, the previous war
（第二  次  世界      大戦   ）の時、 空   襲 を さけて ロンドン から
    #   2 next world great war   ’s time,  air raids     avoid   London    from
疎開          した時におこったことなのです。
evacuation did   when occurred        because
This story occurred when the four brothers and sisters left London to avoid the air raids during the last war (World War II).

New kanji to remember:
襲.  Boy, this one's a bear.  It's composed of a jinmeiyou (used-for-proper-names) kanji for dragon, the top part, and the bottom part is clothes.  It means pile on or attack.  Dragon's piling on/attacking your clothes?  I guess I'll put this in Kanji Study and see if I can get it..
疎.  The left bit is a radical I don't know and the right part is bundle.  Together they mean penetrate/sparse/shun/neglect/rough/alienate.  Will have to consult Henshall on this.

New vocabulary:

衣装だんす or
いしょうだんす:       wardrobe
戦争      せんそう:     war
次          じ                  counter that applies to wars
世界      せかい:         world    
大戦      たいせん:     great war
空襲     くうしゅう:  air raid
疎開      そかい:         evacuation
おこる or 起こる:      occur

New grammar:

なのです。Per Japanese Stack Exchange, のです means the sentence is an explanation. な is there before the の because what precedes is a noun or a な adjective; if it were an い adjective or a verb, we wouldn't need な.

A lot of work for three sentences!  OK, for one; the first two were easy.

I don't know if I can keep it up.  But I'm interested to see that な goes before explanatory の or
 ん for な adjectives and nouns.  I keep thinking the rule in Japanese is to put a lot of vocabulary I don't know and then end your sentence with an apparently random stream of particles.  Hah.  Maybe it'll be less random now.

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Patent 革の靴

革: leather.  The top looks like a cow's head if you squint really hard.  Maybe the bottom is the legs, and the big rectangle is flappy skin.

靴:  shoes.  That's what 革 leather can change/take the form of 化.

And, yes, 革靴 (かわぐつ) is leather shoes.

革靴

㐮 and friends: Clothes Inspector #6 goes to work

㐮 -- now that's complicated.  To me it looks like 六 six, plus a pound sign, plus 衣 clothing.  So I say this hyougai (uncommon) kanji is the one that drops that message in new clothing:  "Inspected by #6."  Here are her derivatives.

嬢:  daughter, girl, Miss.  Inspector #6 is a young woman.

壌:  dirt, soil.  Inspector #6 will certainly find any soil on the clothing.

譲:  convey, defer, turnover.  At the end of the shift, I got word from Inspector #6:  it's time to turn over the job to the next inspector.

醸:  brew, cause.  Now that she's off work, Inspector #6's hobby is brewing sake.

嬢壌譲醸

吉 and friends; 甫 and friends. Or: the joy of needlepoint

吉:  joy, luck.  Either a cross on an altar (how lucky we are to have it!), or a human figure stretching his arms out for joy, standing on a pedestal, celebrating his good luck.

結:  tie, bind.  "Blest be the ties that bind."  We're joyful and lucky to be bound by such a common thread.

詰:  rebuke, reprove.  It's good luck to have those whose words rebuke and reprove us, pushing us toward virtue.  Sort of like "faithful are the wounds of a friend."

舎:  cottage.  The small roofed dwelling is a joy that we're lucky to have.

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Henshall says 甫 refers to hands using a tool.  But he also suggests treating that stuff at the top as a needle and a point.  I'll go further in my mnemonic from point of a needle (I think he means) to needlepoint, the craft. This helps because I can base mnemonics for many of the derived characters on needlepoint.

So here we go

甫: for the first time, not until.  Some sweet old thing is making a needlepoint for baby's first time in the world, but not until baby arrives.

舗: store or shop.  A little cottage-like building with needlepoint supplies is a kind of store.

捕:  capture, catch.  Use your other hand to catch loose threads while doing needlepoint.

哺:  nurse, suckle.  Do needlepoint while letting baby eat.

浦:  bay.  Branch out in your needlepoint and do an image of the waters of the bay.

補:  learner, compensate, offset, supplement.  The learner of needlepoint can supplement income by mending clothes, too.

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屯 and friends; 再 and friends

Why do I post these tiny groups?  Because they haven't made it into Kanji Portraits, and I need to learn them, so here they are.  (And I've gone through more of the big groups, like those based on

屯:  barracks, police station, camp.  Maybe it looks like the front of a roofed, symmetric building, with a path coming in from the right?

純:  genuine, innocence, purity.  When you've done your basic training, you go in dressed in innocence, and come out with a genuine uniform.

鈍:  blunt, dull, slow, foolish.  The metal (sword) you use in basic training is apt to get blunted by your inexpert practice.

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再:  This is described in Henshall as 一 plus a basket, but I'll think of that line at the top as a handle.  Anyway, it's a basket.  The meaning is again, twice, second time:  if you want to keep your stuff for a second time to use again, put it in your basket.

構:  pretend, build, posture.  Build your baskets out of wood and you'll have a posture problem (because they'll be massive!).

溝:  ditch, sewer, drain.  Put water in baskets and it'll drain fer sure.

講:  lecture.  A lecture is baskets upon baskets of words.

購:  buy, subscription.  You'll need baskets of money to buy this subscription.

至 and friends

A kanji cluster, with notes to help me (and you?) remember them.  Heavily informed by KanjiPortraits.

至:  an arrow (the top half) hitting the ground (土):  the climax, conclusion, attainment of its final result.

室, as in 寝室 (bedroom):  when that arrow is fired in the house, it'll never make it out of the room you're in.

屋 (roof, shop, store, seller, house):  I think of the top and left part as an awning for a shop, so this elementary kanji is easy for me and the first I learned of this group.  It's like a one-room shop (薬屋、果物屋、肉屋、etc.) or its manager.

握: What you might do with your hand at a (sushi) shop is grip, hold, and mold sushi.

到: Apparently the sword to the right used to be a person, but changed (!).  So when a person, maybe with a sword to cut off the process (?), reaches the climax, conclusion, attainment, etc. of 至, we say that person is arriving.

倒: Whoever reaches the climax of his ambitions -- especially with the sword -- is bound to fail, collapse, break down, and be overthrown.

 致:  The teacher with the stick in hand (right half) makes/causes you to reach the climax, conclusion, attainment of your instruction.

緻:  When your teacher has helped you reach the resolution of your learning, you'll be rich enough to afford fine-weave threads.

窒:  Bringing that hole 穴 to resolution, climax, etc., would be plugging or obstructing it, leading to suffocation if it's your air supply.

動物えんに父 (Dad at the zoo) 第 3 章

Skip the notes if you don't need them.

I assume the reader knows how to read kana, plus the basics of Japanese sentences, －て form,and particles.  For kanji, you may want rikaichan or rikaikun for automatic furigana.

Kanji notes:  重 means "heavy"; put it together with 力 to get 動 "move," as in うん動 "exercise," 自動車 "automobile" (literally "self move vehicle"), and 動物 "animal" (literally, "move thing").

A person 人 who's doing a lot of movement 動 is likely working 働く.

Vocabulary

運動	exercise	食べ物	food
ええー	Yeah...	手伝う	help
大きい or 大きな	big	どうぞ	Please have this/here you go
オーケー	OK	とら	tiger
男の人	man	箱	box
お願いします!	Please!	働く	work
重い	heavy	見る	see
ください	Please	休み	time off/holiday

父は男の人と大きな箱を見ます。
父：何をしていますか？
男：働いていますね。
父：ええー
男：うん。重い箱です。手伝ってください、オーケー？いい運動です！
父：ここで働きません。今日は休みです。
男：お願いします！
父：これは何ですか？
男：とらの食べ物です。
父：はい！どうぞ！

とら：いいですね！

どう物えんに父 (Dad at the zoo) 第 2 章

Skip the notes if you don't need them.

I assume the reader knows how to read kana, plus the basics of Japanese sentences, －て form,and particles.  For kanji, you may want rikaichan or rikaikun for automatic furigana.

Kanji notes:  the radical 豕 (pig) shows up in several kanji.  You can think of it as a pig lying with its snout to the fence, front legs down left, and perky tail sticking up.  It's a largish animal; give it the big ears you see here (?) 象 and you've got a huge one: "elephant."  Put a person (a sculptor?) next to that and you've got "statue."

Grammar notes:  (Verb)ことができる means "can do (verb)."

Vocabulary

え〜っ!	Argh!	話す	speak
こと	abstract thing	本当	truth
象	elephant	見る	see
像	statue	もの	thing
父	father, daddy	わかる	understand
何	what	私	I, me

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父：    何ですか？[父は象を見ています。]
もの：私はぞうです。
父：    象？
もの：いいえ。像じゃないです。象です。
父：    像？
もの：いいえ。像じゃないです。
父：    象の像？
もの：いいえ。象です。
父：    わかりません。
もの：像は話すことができません。
父：    象も話すことはできません。
もの：本当です。
父：    え〜っ！

どう物えんに父 (Dad at the zoo) 第 1 章

Skip the notes if you don't need them.

I assume the reader knows how to read kana, plus the basics of Japanese sentences, －て form,and particles.  For kanji, you may want rikaichan or rikaikun for automatic furigana.

Kanji notes:  牛 means cow.  (I tend to think of the left top tweak as a messed-up horn.)  Put it together with something that looks like it has long tusks (an elephant, though it's not the kanji for elephant), and you get 物, meaning "stuff" in a very general sense.  You can find it in many compounds:  食べ物、飲み物、どう物 and どう物えん ("animal" and "animal park"; yes, I'm leaving part of that in kana, to keep the words simple).

 第１章, meaning "Chapter 1," is a combination of 第, which is an ordinal marker, and 章, "chapter."  第 shows up in other compounds:  第１号 ("the first"); 第１話 (also "Chapter 1").

Vocabulary

牛肉	beef	とら	tiger
サンドイッチ	sandwich	フー！	Whew!
父	father, daddy	持つ	have, hold
食べ物	food	やった！	[I] did it!
どう物えん	zoo, animal park	私	I, me
どうぞ	Please have...	思う	think

父はどう物えんにいます。牛肉のサンドイッチを持っています。
父：　すみません。どこにいますか？
とら：どう物えんにいます。私はとらです。　
父：　私は男です。
とら：いいえ。食べ物です。
父：　いいえ！　牛肉をどうぞ。
とら：いいですね。　
父（おもう）：　フー！
とら（おもう）：やった！*

*I later learned this word: うまくいった, meaning something like "That did the trick!"  Too complicated for such a basic story, but... cool.

醜い、か女性らしい？