Grand Comic Reading Project #5: Kabu no Isaki

[feihong]

Welcome to the fifth installment of the Grand Comic Reading Project!

Chinese Title: 井崎的飞机

Japanese Title: カブのイサキ (Kabu no Isaki)

English Title: Isaki of the Cub (literal translation)

Character Set: Simplified

Country of Origin: Japan

Year of First Publication: 2007

Genre: Aerial Adventure Slice of Life

Series Info: http://en.wikipedia....i/Kabu_no_Isaki

Read Online: http://www.dm5.com/Type.aspx?id=6767

Jump to first page: http://www.dm5.com/C...ee56_page-4.htm

Buy Online: N/A

Difficulty: Medium

Legibility: Very good

Summary: Young Isaki borrows his neighbor's plane to go on aerial adventures, in exchange for running errands.

Page Counts: Volume 1: 164, Volume 2: 163

CBZ File: Download from wiki page

Word List: http://grandcomic.wi...Isaki_Word_List

[Chinadoog]

Sweet. I've been hoping to stumble across another easy-to-read comic other than Doraemon. I'll try to get through this in the next few days.

[feihong]

I do think it's a bit harder than Doraemon, although I'm not sure by how much.

[daofeishi]

I've taken the liberty of extracting some of the vocabulary from the first part. I've labeled it by what page it first appears.

p. 1

乡村 xiāngcūn village, countryside

城镇 chéngzhèn town, city

啥 shá (collloquial) =什么, what

注重 zhùzhòng lay stress on, pay attention to

p. 2

邻居 línjū neighbor

性能 xìngnéng function, ability

p. 3

呼 hū exhale

燃料 ránliào fuel

剩 shèng be left over, remain

p. 4

坠机 zhuìjī airplane crash

燃气 ránqì natural gass

呜嗯 [probably supposed to be 呜咽 wūyè, (interj.) sob, whimper]

p. 5

穿过 chuānguò pass through

连着 liánzhe countinuously, linked

山脉 shānmài mountain range

广阔 guǎngkuò vast, broad

大陆 dàlù mainland, continent

陆地 lùdì dry land

p. 6

遥远 yáoyuǎn distant, remote

塔 tǎ tower, pagoda

p. 7

咻的一下子 "in a 'whoosh'"

唉 āi/ài (interj.)

诶 éi/ěi/èi (interj.)

切 qiè (here: interj.)

p. 8

哇 wā (interj.) wow

不声不响 bùshēngbùxiǎng quietly, stealthily

景色 jǐngsè view, scenery, landscape

小气 xiǎoqì stingy, petty

p. 9

降落 jiàngluò descend, land

调布 tiáobù (Chofu, Japanese City west of Tokyo)

大致 dàzhì rougly, approximately

勉勉强强吧 miǎnmiǎnqiángqiáng ba "Hang in there!"

p. 10

总算 zǒngsuàn at last, finally

p. 12

提升 tíshēng raise

高度 gāodù altitude

机体 jītǐ fuselage

正要 zhèngyào to be about to (do something)

未知 wèizhī unknown

飞越 fēiyuè fly over/by

p. 13

抖 dǒu shake, tremble

云海 yúnhǎi sea of clouds

p. 14

舒缓 shūhuǎn slow, gentle

东北风 dōngběifēng northeastern wind

雾 wù mist, fog

关东 guāndōng Kanto (in Japan)

平原 píngyuán plain, flatlands

p. 15

西沉 xīchén to set in the west (of the sun)

横滨 héngbīn Yokohama (in Japan)

逆风 nìfēng go against the wind

p. 18

燃烧 ránshāo burn

人间 rénjiān the human world

p. 19

吸收 xīshōu absorb, assimilate

p. 21

建筑 jiànzhù building, structure

p. 22

迎风 yíngfēng face the wind, go against the wind

p. 23

跑道 pǎodào runway

砍掉 kǎndiào chop down

p. 25

草堆 cǎoduī haystack

说不出口 find it difficult to say, cannot bring oneself to say

p. 27

悠闲 yōuxián leisurly and carefree

慢吞吞 màntūntūn painfully slow, sluggish

边上 biānshàng side, edge

p. 28

蹲 dūn squat

[feihong]

@daofeishi

Feel free to add these words to the word list on the wiki. But if you find the table interface too annoying, then don't force it.

[Chinadoog]

I read through the first volume which I enjoyed. It's too bad that there's only two volumes... someone at an advanced level could skim through it all in an hour. Hopefully a third volume comes out soon

[jbradfor]

Added the words @daofeishi posted. [Have a script that formats it for me, so it takes only a couple of minutes. Note, however, that the script takes the definitions from MDBG, so some of them have changed. Feel free to edit if you like.]

If daofeishi or others want to add more words, feel free to post them here or PM me directly and I'll add it. If you would, my preferred format is

# <page number>

<word>

pinyin and definition not needed. There can be multiple words grouped together, e.g.

# 1

乡村

城镇

啥

注重

[feihong]

@Chinadoog

Another work by the same author is Yokohama Shopping Trip. There are a total of 14 volumes, in traditional characters. Incidentally, one of my favorite comics series ever.

@jbradfor

Thanks for adding those entries to the word list! I know we talked about this before, but did you still want to have the pinyin column use tone marks? I've decided I don't really care either way so the ones I added just used tone numbers.

[jbradfor]

Tone marks or tone numbers, I don't really care either at this point. After several hours of work, I got my scripts to handle either. B) I do think that tone marks looks "fancier", but they might be harder to enter.

[Chinadoog]

Hey can someone help explain a couple sentences? What does ''嫌麻烦'' mean? Also, what does ''猥琐'' mean?

如果没啥事这里也是个降落都嫌麻烦的岛

我的姐姐怎么这么猥琐

[jbradfor]

From MDBG, 猥琐 means "wretched (esp. appearance) / vulgar". So I would translate the second sentence as "how could my sister be so wretched?".

The grammar of "怎么这么" is a bit confusing. As I understand it, "怎么" is the question word, here meaning "how". "这么" in this context is not a question word, but means "this much" or "so".

[feihong]

@Chinadoog

I would roughly translate

如果没啥事这里也是个降落都嫌麻烦的岛

as

If you don't have a reason to go there, this island is a troublesome place to land.

"嫌麻烦" here means "regard as troublesome or inconvenient".

[Gleaves]

I just finished up volume 1. Very enjoyable. I actually found it trickier than Yotsuba or Ranma. There is not a whole lot of text, but there is a fair amount of vocab, some proper names, lots of interjections, some odd usage like 啥, etc.

The story surprised me in how it switched gears. I expected the first chapter to continue right into the second, but instead each chapter shifts into a different scenario, which was fun. It felt more about a sense of wonder than plot. There are definitely a bunch of cute moments.

I'm not sure I completely understood the mirage (海市蜃楼) sequence, p. 112. Was it just optical illusions or was something supernatural actually happening?

Also, I did the math* and 白小姐 opens her eyes approxiamtely 6% of the time.

* this is a lie

[feihong]

It was definitely some kind of optical illusion, but I couldn't figure out exactly what was happening. I consulted the Sensory illusions in aviation page on Wikipedia, but couldn't find anything that matched what was depicted in the comic.

I also looked at the English fan translation of the same chapter, but didn't get any clues from that either.

[feihong]

So, does everyone agree with the "Easy" rating? I'm wondering if I should change this to "Medium" instead. When I re-read some of the chapters I found there that there were a few phrases that made me think a bit.

[jbradfor]

I think you're going to have a difficult time getting full agreement on the levels. If someone knows the words and can understand it, it's easy; if they don't, it's hard

That said, after only two chapters in, I'm not finding it easy compared to the others. There is a higher text-to-picture ratio, perhaps providing less content. While I'm not encountering a lot of words that are new to me, it does seem slower going, perhaps the sentence structure is more complex.

[feihong]

Based on your comment and my own intuition, I've changed the difficulty rating to "Medium". But yeah, my ratings are only slightly useful, since it's all relative.

However, I do think that you'll find the two titles coming after Animal Sense to be pretty easy. Well, we'll see ;-)

[jbradfor]

Quick question: on this page he asks 我想上個廁所; I was surprised to see 上 there. Where else does one use 上 to mean go to?

[James Johnston]

It might help to think of 上 here as meaning more 'get on (top of)'. Imagine sitting on the toilet.

So 上床，上车，上飞机 are all comparable.

上课，上学，上班 all have a sense of 'go to'.

[renzhe]

上课，上学，上班 all have a sense of 'go to'.

I'd say that these all have the meaning of "to begin (doing an activity)", but are typically translated using some version of "to go".