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[flemmings]

I have reached those Agatha Christies where I remember whodunnit, alas, even if I remember little else. Still, summer reading is summer reading. I continue with Five Little Pigs and Murder is Easy.

But I did take my new Rainy Willow Store tankoubon to Starbucks today, sure that I could understand it from a few pages read. Mmm, no. Not when we're dealing with Chinese or possibly Buddhist legends. Futzed about with kanji apps for the phone, all of which are memory hogs and none of which had the kanji in question. Came home and looked it up in the Wordtank: it was there, but with no definition or compounds. Finally have it from mandarintools: 穆, meaning 'solemn', also used for the mu of muslim. Who the Rainy Willow's 穆王 is remains unknown.

Clearly I need to get an app for the tablet if not the phone, because the Wordtank must be coddled, but reports are varied for Jim Breen's app adaptation, and other hand drawing apps simply don't work for me. This is as good as mandarintools, but argh the wwwjdic layout sucks.

(Oh, OK. 穆王 is Zhou Mu Wang/ King Mu of Zhou, 10th century BC, who went off to visit the Great Western Mother and her peaches.)

Comments

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

Most all of the dictionary tools are weak. I haven't played with them in years, but the old pay ones only contained the more commonly used words, less than helpful if you're looking for obscure things. I'm tickled pink to hear there's a new Rain Willow volume, though. Perhaps I should go spelunking and see where I'm at and if I can get caught up.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

That's dispiriting news. Maybe I should just learn all those upper kanji the way you're supposed to and keep the wordtank for the obscurities. Or- horrors!- go back to Nelson or H&S.

There's been several Rainy Willow volumes since I bought my last. This one I think is 16.