日常 | Week 4 Discussion 🦌

Chapter 6

Pages 51 - 62

Start Date: 15th May
Last Week: Chapters 4 & 5
Next Week: Chapters 7 - 9

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Chapter 6 is episode 1 at 11:20. Although as a heads up there are quite a few small differences between this scene and the manga.

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Did anyone get the “jokes” the school principal was saying? I get they are supposed to be lame, but how are those jokes at all?

How I understood the jokes

“Compared to you, I will be much colder” touches bald head
“If you don’t listen to what is said, the school principle will become the principle of another school~”

Like… am I missing something, or are the jokes just that bad :joy:

And then for the actual language questions:

page 56

とにかくこういう時はみんなをジャガイモに見たてて

Is she saying, that she imagines everyone as potatoes? I am not sure I understand the 見たてる correctly.

いやその前に手に人って字を…

This I don’t understand at all :thinking: The Furigana in Katakana are throwing me off too. They make me think that this is some kind of play on words, but what do I know :woman_shrugging:

Any help is much appreciated, as always!

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I think it's just bad jokes
  1. I think it means that since he is bald, he gets colder than other people who are getting warmed by their hair.
  2. He is basically threaten to play UNO reverse card: if usually bad students are being kicked, this time it’ll be the principal who’ll get transferred.
lang
  1. Potato
    Yeah, looks like 見たてる. [v1,vt] to liken to something else; to regard as something else (e.g. to use another person as a mirror)
    I couldn’t find English grammar explanation, but first Japanese result gives 別のものになぞらえる。仮にそのものと見なす and so it seems に is used to what other part is actually other. (But then again, there were no potatoes for the counselor to pretend that potatoes are everyone)

It seems some folk belief: I read somewhere that japanese people sometimes write the kanji for “person” (人) on their hand three times with a finger and then pretend to swallow it when they're nervous, and I was wondering what was the story behind that, like how did it come to be? | HiNative

Eating The People On Your Hand — Japanese Folk Belief | USC Digital Folklore Archives

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Potato

I guess the を marks the thing that “is being regarded as something else” and the に shows where that actions goes to, so what the thing is being compared to.
At least only that would make sense here.
(Also, thanks for pointing me to the japanese explanation!)

Ohh that’s really interesting! I don’t think I have heard of that before. It also makes perfect sense in this context (poor 桜井先生 messing up her speech).

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This was the funniest chapter to me so far, I feel like I’m finally getting into the writing style.

another question about p56

生徒指導なんて引き受けるんじゃなかったよ

Deepl translates this as “I should never have taken on student teaching” - I’m gonna go with Jisho’s definition of 生徒指導 as student counseling instead but my question is more about grammar, where’s the nuance of “I should never have…” in this sentence? It’s what I would’ve guessed she’s saying from context but I don’t see how じゃなかった expresses that.

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Sounds like you have an excuse to (re)watch the first couple of minutes of K-On!! (season two) episode 20.

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I actually never watched the second season - I read the manga and watched the first season afterwards. I don’t remember something like that being in the manga, but it’s also been a long time :sweat_smile:
I will check out the episode you mentioned!

According to

V + んじゃない = prohibition
V + んじゃなかった = regret

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Thank you!

some notes on page 56 grammar

を always marks the direct object (the thing you’re doing the action to) and に marks the indirect object.
(私が)-> subject (omitted)
みんなを → direct object + marker
ジャガイモに → indirect object + marker
見たてて → verb

grammatically, this works exactly like in english:
I → subject
liken → verb
everyone → direct object
to potatoes. → marker + indirect object
the english is a bit unnatural but I wanted to keep the grammar simple

basically に (and in this example, “to”) marks a related thing that the verb isn’t actually doing anything to

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I’m having quite some trouble with this chapter (and frankly the last one as well) so this might take a few sessions.
I ran into some sentences on page 53 which I just couldn’t get the meaning of.

p 53

毎回受け入れられてないことぐらい本人が一番よくわかってると思うんだけどなぁ

毎回 - every time
受け入れられてない - to accept, in potential, progressive as well as negative form, so “he’s not being accepted”
こと - normalizes the previous phrase
ぐらい - to the extent, although I’m not sure what it means in this particular case
本人が - said person
一番よくわかってる - knows best
と思う - I think
んだけどなぁ - ,but… (not really sure about the なぁ at the end)

I think he knows best that he’s not always being accepted, but…

受け入れられないことを知りながらもむしろなお努力する姿勢を現代のすれた若者見せているのかも
受け入れられないことを知りながら - while he knows that he’s not accepted
も - I think this is used for emphasis: EVEN THOUGH he knows…
むしろ - rather, instead
なお - still
努力する - to make an effort
姿勢を - attitude (and I think maybe this normalizes the previous phrase, so therefore it can be used as an object later on in the sentence)
現代のすれた若者 - today’s jaded youth
見せている - is showing
の - normalizer
かも - maybe

Maybe, even though he knows he’s not accepted, he is instead showing today’s jaded youth the attitude of still making an effort.

The main thing I still don’t understand is how むしろ as well as なお fit in, exactly.
For むしろ I could see that it’s maybe linked to the last part of the sentence, as in: “he’d rather show them…”

I took that むしろ to be contrasting what one would expect. He knows today’s jaded youth are not accepting him, which you would think would discourage him. But rather than letting that discourage him, it makes him dig in his heels and try even harder. I think the なお here is the second definition in Jisho, meaning more/still more.

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At ebook 35%:

Did anyone get the joke at the end? Is the announcer implying that the principal is going to lose his job? Is that because of the present he gave the teacher, which she interpreted as a prank?

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I believe yes and yes. (I took the speaker to be the teacher herself over the mic, but I could be wrong.)

Ah. I feel like before the announcer and the teacher were two different people. Maybe the teacher took over.

I was a bit late this week but finished reading the chapter. I realized that the person who is making this manga difficult to read is 笹原 :D. Other than his parts, I was mostly able to understand this chapter and both of the 先生 were hilarious. Again, the replies above helped a lot too.

So, I have one question about 笹原’s part:

p58

なぜ私が二足歩行でスタコラで歩かばならんのだ

スタコラ: Jisho translates this as “helter-skelter​”, but I don’t know what this is in English either and Google search didn’t help much. :smiley:

歩かば Is this a form of 歩かない + ば ?

Overall, I would appreciate any help or breakdown with this sentence.

I’m so excited for you since you can experience the second season and movie of K-On! for the first time. :smiley: My favorite series ever.

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スタコラ essentially means “to walk in a hurry”. (See also, Tofugu’s onomatopoeia guide.)

I don’t know this one, but here’s a link:

Off-topic K-on

Ah, I still need to watch this. I got slower and slower in watching the last episodes until I was watching one every several months (delaying ending it!), and finally got to the last episode a while back. But a first viewing of the movie awaits for me, as well!

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Thank you now the sentence makes more sense!
I suppose ねばならない should be a colloquial form of なけらばならない then.

K-On!

Yes, the worst thing about K-On is it ends at some point. I keep watching clips on Youtube and listening to the songs all the time.
Also, I just got K-On! College manga, which doesn’t have an anime adaptation. I will attempt reading that as my first manga without furigana.

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about ねば

Apart from ない, there’s another negative auxiliary which is ぬ (you’ll probably come across this conjugated as ず, or shortened to ん). in the conditional form, this conjugates to ねば.

It’s more limited in use and ない has pretty much entirely replaced it though. I think it’s mainly used in stereotypically old-fashioned/grandiose speech now (also probably some dialects have kept it). it’s good to be aware of, but you’ll basically never need to use it

edit: should probably explicitly say that ねばならない is an archaism and not a colloquialism

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