Recently in Japanese I have been sending my teacher a couple of paragraphs about whatever I have wanted to write about and we have been going through them together. The key phrase is always, 「これのほうが自然な言い方かな？でも、意味がわかりますよ。」 When you’re learning a foreign language, all pride kind of goes out of the window. Then we move on to an article from a magazine or newspaper and just go through any bits I struggled with etc.

I find it quite hard to think of topics to write about, so this week I sent this to read – 空洞. To me, this style of ...

• アーモンドプードル – アーモンドの粉末。アーモンド パウダー。
• 卵白・らんぱく vs 卵黄・らんおう
• 泡立て器・a whisk
• ゴムヘラ・a spatula (rubber)
• Dry (for cakes)
  • ドライな
  • ぱさぱさしている・水分や脂けの少ないさま。「―したご飯」
  • ボソボソしている –  水気がなくてひからびているさま。ぱさぱさ。「―（と）したパン」
    • ひからびる – dry up/shrivel up
• 生焼けっぽい – underdone/half-baked
• 少なくとも vs せめて
  • 少なくとも - 最小の程度や最低の段階に言及するさま。中立
  • せめて – それで満足というわけではないが，最小限これだけでもという話し手の気持ちを表す。

Theme: Me moaning about Italian cakes and biscuits being too dry and not liking them.

...

• I got asked the other day whether it was harder putting ひな人形 up or putting them away but the word the lady used for putting away was 直す which I hadn’t heard in that context before. I asked my teacher and she said it was dialect and asked where the lady was from. She was from Kumamoto but apparently Kansai and other areas use 直す for 片付ける.
  

• 中国本土・ちゅうごくほんど = mainland China

• 下処理・したしょり = 料理の下準備

• お手上げだ = 全くどうしようもなくなり，途方にくれること・I don’t know what to do.

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