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I came across this long sentence that I am not sure of what it means:

電子書籍を読むようになってから、かえってリアル本屋に足を向けて本を眺める習慣ができました。まあレアケースなのかもしれませんが。

With the help of safarikai, contextually I (very roughly) interpret it as:

It is rare to walk to the read bookstore looking for ebooks, in compare with real books.

Is this correct? Please correct me.

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  • Why do you translate two sentences as one? – Earthliŋ♦ Mar 2 '15 at 9:56
  • @Earthliŋ The best answer I can give here is I don't really understand the sentence. I hope it is not too much to ask for a breakdown explanation. – sooon Mar 2 '15 at 12:15
  • It would be very helpful to know how much of the Japanese you understand. Are you just guessing the meaning from looking up the individual words or do you understand some of the sentence structure? – Earthliŋ♦ Mar 2 '15 at 13:14
  • @Earthliŋ In this case I admit I am. Now I understand that I did not take in account of the inferred subject. – sooon Mar 3 '15 at 1:25
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Ironically, after starting to read ebooks I actually developed the habit of browsing for books in a real book store. I guess I might be an exception, though.

This is my (loose) translation.

(Since you haven't (yet) provided any other explanation of where you're having problems understanding the sentence, I don't know where to break down the sentence further.)

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The gem of the sentence is かえって which you can see here. I believe on JLPT-N1 You need to differentiate it from むしろ which is listed as a synonym in the link.

Depending on how much wiggle room you have, you might translate it totally differently to sound more natural in English, but I'd do something like this:

After starting to read ebooks, contrary to what one might think, I started the habit of walking into real book stores and reading books. Well, I might be a rare case...

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  • 1
    Note that it's 読むよう, not 読めるよう – ssb Mar 2 '15 at 13:41

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