それでも歩は寄せてくる | Week 7 Discussion ♟

第11-12局

Pages 97-112

Start Date: 21st August
Previous Week: 第09-10局
Next Week: 第13-14局 + おまけ

Vocabulary List

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7 Likes

I’ll be honest, I kind of skimmed through the first chapter since I felt like I couldn’t really get a good grip on it, but perhaps I’ll go back later this week

The second chapter though was fun and they actually managed to go on a date, even if neither of them wants to admit it was one

Page 106

image
She looks so happy about showing off the portable shogi :slight_smile:

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But it’s the required sharing an umbrella chapter that couple stories have to have!

Remember the common story beats: shogi advice, real-world situation, application of shogi advice to real-world situation, outcome.

For chapter 12, what I want to know is whether that portable shogi is the kind with a magnetic board and pieces.

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Page 111 first panel

じっ just じっ? Jisho gives a long list of 実 compounds… but at the end I found じっくり
meaning deliberately; carefully; thoroughly; without rushing​. It’s fitting for the scene and onomatopoeic too. Is it just an abbreviation like I’m thinking then?

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I believe this じ is the onomatopoeic sound for someone staring at someone else. I’ve see two variations, じっ (sometimes just じ) which is more like normal stare, while じーっ (or sometimes じー) is more for a long, concentrated stare.

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Ahh, makes perfect sense. How do you search out these tiny fragments?

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For this type of sound effects I usually rely first on the jaded network :


I also sometimes check onomatopedia.jp, but sadly it’s not as complete, but can sometimes find stuff here that is not anywhere else

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Thank you so much! The resources I’ve found in just two book clubs so far has me totally hooked.

I have a copy of Jazz Up Your Japanese with Onomatopoeia within reach when I study but I rarely find what I’m looking for. So again, thanks, bookmarked and bookmarked.

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Now that you know about じっ, expect to start noticing it and じぃ over time as you read more.

Random Examples

i-025x

089x

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Aw, that was a really sweet couple of chapters. :heart_eyes:

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Here we go again. Just read Chapter 11. Pretty rough one for me. There were a lot of words I had to look up and try to hold multiple in my working memory per sentence, and some that I really struggled to make sense of even when I (thought I?) knew what the individual chunks meant. I feel like I could ask about practically every panel, but let’s go with these two:

It's always the first page

詰め将棋もっとやらないとだなー

I got kind of lost here at the とだなー . So with what I do know, we have “more shogi problems” and “don’t do.” Contextually and with a deepl test, it appears the answer is to actually turn that into a “you need to do” which must be the function of the part I don’t know? I know the usual sort of “have to” phrases (“なきゃ” and all the variations) but I’m unfamiliar with this. Is it a shortening of something else? A new pattern I don’t know but also can’t seem to find when I search for it? Am I being very dumb in something I’m overlooking, because I have a weird suspicion that I am?

Second page top left panel

I dunno if this is just me, but I found ぎゃく defined as “reverse” on the vocab list confusing until I looked it up myself and found ぎゃくに as “on the contrary.” That might be a nicer way to put it on the list? Don’t get me wrong, totally appreciate the work in compiling the list though!

That whole chunk of text from Urushi is still kind of confusing me. I’m assuming that ても is the sort of “even if” usage, but where I end up trying to translate this is like “On the contrary, even if a little outsmarting might be good…” which is kinda incoherent. I intentionally left off the subject there because I just can’t quite get this sentence to make sense and contextual subjects don’t help when your grasp of the language is poor, heh. Is she saying showing him this makes it harder to outsmart him? Just a guess, more context than actually understanding the writing right now.

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Evil first page

This is a construction very similar to なくてはいけない (the なきゃ you mention). It’s basically ないとだめ or ないといけない, where と is simply working as a conditional => If don’t do A, it’s not good => Must do A. Just like with なくては, it’s very common to omit the だめ / いけない, as it’s taken for granted.

だな are just だ (the copula) and な (the sentence ender similar to ね).

詰め将棋もっとやらないとだめだな
Lit. Not doing more shogi problems is no good, you see.
(You) must do more shogi problems, you see.

Next page

I’m not very confident about this part but my interpretation is the following. Let’s go back a couple panels and start with this:

でも素直な攻め筋は好感もてるぞ

At first I thought Urushi was still talking about the Shogi problems, but instead it seems she went back to her previous subject, which was Ayumu’s progress in Shogi.

でも => however
素直な => honest, upfront
攻め => attack
筋 => logic / reasoning
好感もてる => potential form of 好感もつ => can have appeal / can give a good impression

Despite (you needing to train more with shogi problems), your straightforward logical attacks are appealing.

To this Ayumu replies 「素直ですか」 => “Straightforward?”

Then we arrive to the panel in question. Urushi says:

逆にもう少し裏をかいてもいいかもしれないけどなー

逆に => On the other hand, on the contrary.
もう少し => a little bit more
裏をかく => to outwit, to outsmart
裏をかいても => even if (you) outwit / outsmart
いい => good
かもしれない => maybe
けど => however
な => sentence ender

So basically 逆に and けど are hinting that this phrase is going to be something that contrasts with the previous one. That contrast happens between 素直, straightforward, and 裏をかく, to outwit. Basically she’s saying that it would be good if he also tried outsmarting their opponent instead of going for a straightforward and open attack.

“On the other hand, it would be good even if you outsmarted (your opponent)”

Gotta admit “even if” doesn’t feel like the most natural translation here, but basically here the idea is that the particle も exudes a sense of inclusion - if Ayumu included “outsmarting” along with his “straightforward” attacks, it would be a good thing.

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Sorry, I was triple-tasking at the time I was filling that out! Vocabulary sheet is now updated.

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Thanks ever so much for this breakdown of page 98 I’d been baffled by this too because I had assumed the topic was still the shogi problems, and your helpful explanation was just what I needed.

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@2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz Excellent answers, thank you so much. The first was indeed just a shortening of a form I hadn’t seen at all before so I needed it spelled out. Looking at the second line… I do get it, thanks so much for the explanation. Now, to be able to understand something like that on my own in the future? Well, I might have a long way to go, haha. So be it :slight_smile:

I actually don’t feel the need to ask about much in chapter 12! It’s a reward for struggling through the last, hah. Lovely little chapter in content, too, as others were saying.

I learned the word 集中 in WK literally earlier today, and actually realized it before I ran off to the vocab sheet, so that was really nice. I even knew もぐもぐ;often when it comes to onomatopoeia I just see what sound they’re using and let it go, for now.

One of these days I need to get my hands on taiyaki

6 Likes

Just finished the chapters today! I think both were really fun :slight_smile:

I feel the same way as @VikingSchism for the first chapter though.
I sort of got the overall story:

I think the idea was that Ayumu is always too forward 素直 with his attacks, so Urushi is giving him some sort of advise on how to play shougi and tells him to do more practice problems(?). Then they talk about the umbrella and walking together under it, where Ayumu is also super honest that he wants to share with his センパイ. But when Urushi asks if Ayumu loves here, he is not honest 素直 at all.

So I think I got the grasp on the story, but the grammar was so complicated I can’t really say I understood it completely and I think asking about every sentence probably doesn’t make much sense. :sweat:

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I have finished chapter 11 (actually did so yesterday, but had a bunch of driving to do and couldn’t make a post until now). Like others, I definitely struggled a bit more with the grammar in this chapter, and I will definitely be revisiting it to properly break every sentence down when I can find the time to do so. If it doesn’t seem like a totally unreasonable amount of time after we have moved past this thread, I will post the breakdowns here and get feedback. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I still need to read Chapter 12, but it’s sounding like that one won’t be as much of a struggle! I’ll likely have an opportunity to read it tomorrow.

Thoughts on the Chapter 11 Story

While I definitely struggled with the individual bits of grammar, the story was pretty straightforward, and it was definitely pretty cute. I can’t help but enjoy Ayumu’s steadfast refusal to even remotely admit he likes Urushi, no matter how much she presses, and how obvious it is by his actions.

I especially love how he still asks her to walk under his umbrella with him despite the fact she said outright she had her. It was such a blatant, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” that I couldn’t help but laugh. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Chapter 11

I actually thought he was the one who forgot his umbrella at home and was wondering if he was by chance lying, because he wanted them to share. :smiley:
So he actually had one?

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Chapter 11 again

Ah I actually checked back on the thing that confused me and it was this sentence:
帰りオレの傘に入りませんか。

Since it’s a negative form I thought this was supposed to mean something like “I left my umbrella at home.”
but looking back at it I think it actually says:
“Don’t you want to enter under my umbrella on our way home?” (or something like that)

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That’s right. Verb in negative masu form followed by か is a common way to invite someone politely to do something in Japanese. A bit like, “won’t you join me for a drink?” in English.

https://www.bunpro.jp/grammar_points/ませんか

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