This is How to Japanese, a monthly newsletter with something about Japan/Japanese and a dash of いろいろ.
日本・日本語: Thesauri in Japanese
I’ve found that dictionaries, both J-E and J-J, sometimes aren’t actionable enough. They will work for a temporary fix if I’m reading and need a better sense of what a word means (I recommend 10ten for browser plugins because it includes intonation guidance), but if I’m trying to lock in understanding, make use of a word/phrase in a piece of writing myself, or get a sense of a word’s range of use, a 類語辞書 (るいごじしょ, thesaurus) is often more effective.
The easiest way to search for 類語 (るいご, synonyms) is to Google a word + 類語. I haven’t explored all the various websites, but I really like the way Weblio organizes the search results. For example, I was trying to better understand the phrase ドジを踏む (どじをふむ). I had an OK sense of it from context but wanted to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding anything:
Weblio’s results divide up the meaning into two main usages: using something incorrectly/with a mistaken purpose resulting in something bad, and making a mistake.
The definitions are written in straightforward language that I’d argue is easier to understand than the dictionary definitions from Weblio and Kotobank; with those, you’d have to know 間の抜けた (まのぬけた, silly/idiotic) and へま (blunder/gaffe) for them to make sense. They also give the sense that ドジを踏む can make a judgment about the person making that mistake but that it doesn’t always make that judgment/that judgment can range on a scale from neutral to true boneheadedness.
A thesaurus is also excellent to break down a verb with multiple meanings/kanji, such as のぞむ. Take a look:
Here are all the potential meanings:
Having strong hopes/expectations
Wanting to get/acquire something
Wishing something were a certain way
Strongly wanting something to be a certain way
Looking at something like scenery in the distance
Being adjacent to something, such as the ocean or a building
Not only do we get these clean and clear definitions, we also get multiple ways to express the same meaning! It’s a great way to triangulate the meaning of a Japanese word without peeling yourself off into another language. Weblio also links each of the 類語, so if there is one you’re curious about, just click through to see what it means.
Ruigo try it out for yourself! (womp womp)
いろいろ
Time to address the elephant in the newsletter: I finished reading The City and Its Uncertain Walls (街とその不確かな壁) during Golden Week, but I haven’t yet written my review. I’ve been working on putting together my thoughts, but I think it will take me a while. I spent three days last week just trying to write a summary of the damn thing. This book eludes concise summary, even more so than Killing Commendatore. You can see my initial thoughts and wrap-up comments over on Twitter and Mastodon: It is not a good book, and if you are thinking about reading it in Japanese, I’d say don’t waste your time unless you can read Japanese extremely fluently and the book won’t take you long to get through. If you’re looking for something to read to study or to improve your Japanese, I’d recommend reading something much shorter by Murakami or an entirely different author altogether. In general, my recommendation is don’t read any Murakami fiction written after 1987.
On a side note, I still hate the English title Murakami provided for the book and hope that it gets translated as The Town and Its Uncertain Wall. I do wonder whether this is a hint that Jay Rubin decided to translate 街 (まち) as “City” instead of “Town” in his new translation of Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. I still haven’t seen any information about when that will be published.
The Saeki Yuzo exhibit at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art is supremely good and very extensive. Worth a visit to Osaka. It’s open until June 25.
Higashimura Akiko has a new serialization in Big Comic Original. My manga habit died out a little over the past couple months. I got sucked into Murakami hell and something had to give. (It also laid waste to my J Drama habit, unfortunately.) I’ll hopefully get back into it at some point, likely once I finish this review. I’m picking up the Kindle version of this issue. Never read manga on Kindle before, so I’ll report back. I really enjoyed reading Murakami on a Kindle, so I’m trying to make reading a habit on my commute and during lunch.
Tears of the Kingdom is incredible so far. Just insanely “Can I have some of those drugs?”-level creative and expansive. If you haven’t already, please buy a Switch and play Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Take your time with them. Don’t rush through. Explore. Be mindful about your time in Hyrule. Have fun!
This I believe:
Mister Morales, please do not read any books other than "Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". None of them would be the same as that one, trust me.