作品Free Graded Reading
みじかい音The Sound the Water Makes
by Yomimaru
Two families in one mountain village make the kitchen knives the whole country cooks with, and only two teenagers are left to take the work on. Everyone expects Sota to inherit the trade. Months before the examination that decides it, he starts teaching Aya everything he knows.
What you'll learn
What you'll learnThe village puts two knives on a white cloth, one from each of the two houses that still make them, and the old man who judges likes one and not the other. A test in March will decide who makes the village's knives. Between now and then the two young smiths spend their evenings at the forge, where hot steel goes into cold water and every quench makes a sound.
Key vocabulary
Key vocabulary| 包丁 (ほうちょう) | hōchō — a Japanese kitchen knife, forged with a single hard cutting edge |
|---|---|
| ぬの | cloth; a length of fabric |
| 村 (むら) | village |
| 試験 (しけん) | a test; an examination |
| 音 (おと) | a sound; a noise |
| 石 (いし) | a stone; here, a sharpening stone |
| 火 (ひ) | fire; the forge fire |
| 虫 (むし) | an insect; a bug |
Grammar points you'll meet
Grammar points you'll meet- ～ていた (V-te ita) N4The past of ～ている. It describes a state that was going on: things were lined up, someone was looking. The story tells almost everything in this form, so read it as a picture rather than an action.白いぬのの上に、包丁が二本ならんでいた。
- しか～ない N4しか plus a negative means "only", with a sense that it is not many. The verb has to be negative, so ふたつしかない says there are two and no more.包丁を作るうちは、二つしかない。
- ～があります N5～がある states that something exists or that an event is scheduled. Here the plain ある is used for a date on the calendar: there is a test in March.三月に試験がある。
- ～ている N5The te-form plus いる for an action in progress. In a line of dialogue it often answers a question about right now, so 見ている means "I am (just) looking".見ているだけ
- ～く/ ～になる N5An i-adjective drops い and takes く before なる to say something became that way. あつい becomes あつく, so あつくなった is "got hot".手があつくなった。
- ～てから N5Te-form plus から means "after doing X". It orders two events, and the second one only starts once the first is finished.あかくなってから、うった。
Cultural notes
Cultural notes- One town, the country's knivesJapanese kitchen knives are tied to the towns that forge them, and a very small place can supply the whole country. The skill is not taught in a school; it passes inside a workshop, from the people who already have it to the next pair of hands.
- Uchi is the house and the tradeUchi means a home, but it also means the household as a going concern. A knife-making uchi is a family workshop, so counting the houses in this village is the same as counting the makers.
- March is the end of the yearIn Japan the school and business year runs from April to March, so March is when terms finish, results come out and places are settled. A test set in March is a test at the last possible moment.
Sensei's reading tip
Sensei's reading tipThe particle の often stands in for a noun that was already named. When a line reads "Souta's, Aya's" and then stops, supply the word knife yourself and the sentence lands.
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Topics & grammar
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