The next installments : for preview or prep

The KLC vocab for the next background installments will bring us to kanji 99.

0100 may get its own POST.

Here are the current drafts awaiting publication :

The mixer  44 to 50 incl.

First Try  51 to 56

Conversation  57 to 65

Date for Saturday  66 to 71

Saturday morning  72 to 82

Sketch for a Letter  79 to 83

Waiting Outside  84 to 90

First Date  91 to 99 inclusive.

I recommend the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course free flashcard sets at http://www.memrise.com/course/196282/the-kodansha-kanji-learners-course/

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First Week

The month of September would be a short month.

小の月

School only started in the second week of August and the first two days were just orientation. There were only classes scheduled for Thursday and Friday. And a dry mixer was scheduled for at least two dorms and one or more faculties for Friday and Saturday.

Most of Kate's classes were on Mondays and Wednesdays, so she was focussed on meeting people. And guys. That had been on her mind since her parents left for home on Monday evening.

Fumio, on the other hand, was not off to a good start. He arrived late and missed commencement on Wednesday : it was mid-day Thursday when his plane touched down.

"Today is a complete wash," he thought to himself as he stood in line with his new luggage, student visa and passport waiting for his turn to pass through US Customs.

He was so late because he had missed his connecting flight in L.A. Tired and a little irritable, he now felt very far from his native eastern Japan. Not only was yesterday supposed to have been his first day at a university, today was now his first day outside an airport in North America - but he felt no excitement.

At the airport curb he gave a taxi driver the name and address of his dorm and tried to explain that he was a foreign student. He should have been met by someone at international arrivals, or failing that, he should have taken a cab only as far as the commuter rail station. It was an expensive first trip to the college.

月曜日  げつようび moon-weekday-day Monday
火曜日  かようび
水曜日  すいようび
木曜日  もくようび
金曜日  きんようび
土曜日  どようび
日曜日  にちようび

月水  KLC 27.e  Mon, & Wed.
月水金  げっすいきん  Mon-Wed-Fri
土日  weekend  どにち

曜 day of the week ヨウ an On-yomi-ONLY kanji

本日 today ほんじつ

東日本  ひがしにほん  eastern Nihon
大学  だいがく university
中日
留学生  りゅうがくせい  overseas student ; exchange student

25,曜,day of the week
26,火,fire
27,水,water
28,木,tree ; wood
29,金,metal ; gold ; money
30,土,soil ; (land)
31,本,basis (origin ; root) ; book ; this
32,東,east
33,大,big ; university
34,小,small
35,中,middle ; in (throughout) ; China
36,生,life (grow); be born (give birth to); student

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From Day One

From day one of Kate's first year at college, her mother saw her as both 'green' and naive. If she had known how soon Kate would become involved with a boy met at a first-week mixer, Jean would have had her home those first few weekends instead of "getting used to being on her own."

初日
しょにち

初日から、彼女は間違っていた。
しょにち  から、 かのじょ  わ  まちが って いた。
From day one, she was wrong.

Denshi Jisho has

間違い
まちがい
1 : mistake, error, blunder
2 : accident, mishap, trouble
3 : improper conduct (e.g., between man and woman) ; indiscretion
common word ; noun

間違う
まちがう
to make a mistake, to be incorrect, to be mistaken
common word, Godan verb with う ending

Perapera browser plugin gave me

初日    しょにち    (n-adv,n-t) first or opening day; (P)
初日    はつひ    (n) New Year's Day sunrise
初    はつ    (adj-no,n-pref,n) first; new; (P)
初    うい    (adj-no,n-pref,n) first; new; (P)
初    うぶ    (adj-na,n,adj-no,n-pref) innocent; naive; unsophisticated; inexperienced; green; wet behind the ears; birth-
初    ぞめ    (suf) first doing of ... (ever, in one's life, in the new year, etc.)

Google translate gives

それは彼女の初めてだった。

for

It was her first time.

and

それは、家から離れて彼女の初めてだった。

for

It was her first time away from home. 

NOTE: also from Denshi Jisho web pages :

グループ１動詞
グループいちどうし
godan verb
noun
 
子音動詞
しいんどうし
consonantal verb (e.g. godan verb); consonant stem verb
noun

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Acquiring Kanji using KLC

A.S. Conning is of the view that you just absorb the ON-yomi as you go. Let's set THAT notion aside.

Where we agree is in not using rōmaji. I have no idea whether I will follow the use of lowercase and BOLD uppercase as he does in his book.

All that you need is to know to follow this story is hiragana script and the first 100 kanji in his book ( we start at 101. )

But I will help by giving the backstory using those first 100.

On day one you accept his way of working through the book. Or else. Day one. 日 and 一.

Or someone may say,

 初日から彼が問題となっていた。

But I doubt that I will have to say that about you !

Let's suppose that the following gave you no trouble :

  2,一,one
  3,ニ,two
  4,三,three
  5,十,ten
  6,四,four
  7,五,five
  8,六,six
  9,七,seven
10,八,eight
11,九,nine
12,丸,round
13,円,circle ; yen
14,〇,zero (placeholder) ; circle mark (blank)

Be sure that you recall the stroke order of 九 and 丸 .  Do you remember what the intro to the book says about his use of circle marks ?  ( his page 20, for example. )

If you are reading this, but do not have the book, I cannot be expected to save you from yourself.

That last phrase sounds like one Kate's mother might have used.

She probably only had a hundred of those old saws, but to Kate it seemed more like a thousand saws and had the effect of ten thousand on a bad day.

But she was only human, and her mother could rightly say that she, for one, was only one person, and that there is, after all, only so much that you can expect one person to be able to do ( speaking for herself, that is, not for daughter Kate. )

The summer had ended with Kate taking the slight nut-brown of her bobbed hair and taking it to a burnt orange with henna from the drugstore. Nietzsche no where mentions henna.

15,人,human being
16,百,hundred
17,千,thousand
18,万,ten thousand

But Kate was already 18 and at 19 would be able to enter bars with any number of tattoos exposed ... and not likely the henna of childhood summers ... but her mother could not see that.

When do we first forget to take life one day at a time ... and not to juggle more than 5 new things on a single day.

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