Day: May 2, 2017

Those old-fashioned skills 1: learning by heart

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I am not a language learning specialist but learning languages is one of my favorite hobbies and I invest a lot of time in it. What follows is just advice based on my own experience. Learning by heart, a lost skill? I went to a private school and I remember that learning by heart was a skill à part entière that our French teacher wanted us to acquire. We had to learn poems and recite them in front of the class. I know it may sound old-fashioned but my school was the old-fashioned style. I don’t think that they were doing it in public school at the time (I am not sure though), or that they are doing it now. Anyway, I am thankful to have been through those boring hours when, walking in circle in my room, I was saying out loud again and again, first those children-friendly Fables de La Fontaine, and later poems from Verlaine or Baudelaire that I didn’t fully understood. Today learning something by heart isn’t a daunting task to me, …

どちらかが彼女を殺した～３章～１

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The previous part is here. This is the first part of chapter 2, from p.99 to 105. A rather short one this time! Reading notes 葬儀・そうぎ　funeral service 絡み・からみ　involvement 煩雑・はんざつ　complex, troublesome 解剖・かいぼう　appeared in chapter 2-2, it means autopsy 縫合・ほうごう　suture, seam, stitch p99. “訊かないはずがなく、…” A double negative form, using the はずがない grammar which means, “cannot be, impossible”. So the phrase means that people cannot not ask (the cause of death)”. 訊く・きく　is used by Higashino Keigo instead of 聞く to mean “to ask”, 聞く is mostly used to mean “to hear”. 避難・ひなん　criticism, blame, reproach ゆえに therefore, consequently 号泣・ごうきゅう　lamentation, wailing なだめる　to calm, to pacify 打ち解ける・うちとける　to open one’s heart 馴染み・なじみ intimacy, friendship When Kaga calls to ask if Yasumasa will go to his sister’s appartement he uses “行かれる”・いかれる. I read on a forum that it was a little less polite and formal than いらっしゃる. Honorific language is not easy… 😕 BUT I saw once in a bookshop a japanese book to learn how to use 敬語・けいご (honorific language) properly… and it was not a book for foreigners who learn Japanese. …