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How’s everyone’s reading going? I finished chapter 11 yesterday and I’m hoping to get started on 12 today. What I found in interesting in chapter 11 was the exploration of the hobby themes and the dolls for drawing, and also that Chiyo does watercolour painting - I feel like there is still much about their characters that we actually don’t know yet, so I hope it will be further explored. Though I must say, sometimes I am just unimpressed by a few punchlines - I feel like they recycle the formula of Chiyo being surprised and expecting something from Nozaki a bit too much
Question - eBook page 14
I was wondering if someone could help me with this one, regarding the 平常心 that Chiyo tells herself in the second part of her bubble? What does that mean exactly? Jisho only gives me “one’s presence of mind” as a translation, I imagine Chiyo is somehow trying to calm herself, but what does the expression really mean/why this choice of words?
It’s going alright for me! It definitely helps that I read this ages ago in English, so my brain is subconsciously filling in parts when I’m confused, and that I generally know what the characters are about. I feel that with some jokes, the punchlines aren’t connecting with me fast enough to make me laugh, but I was pleasantly surprised how much I did laugh out loud, which I almost never do when reading! I’m super here for Mikorin’s antics!
The thing one has to understand about this series is that literally every single one of these characters is moron4moron. Understandably, that dynamic/setup isn’t for everyone, but it’s probably what I personally love most about about this series lol: that there is not one single brain cell between any of them (except Ken-san. I was talking about the kids, but I don’t remember any of the adults not being dumbasses either, aside from him…)
How did I only just make the connection that 前野さん is Nozaki’s 前の担当. He’s even introduced last volume as “前担当・前野氏,” yet it didn’t click until today.
Somehow this volume feels so much harder than the first one! Maybe because I was expecting it to get easier …
I only have a few more pages to go for this week’s reading, but figured I might as well go ahead and post the questions I have so far.
p7
The kanji in the last panel.
筋肉が増い
I get the idea, but can’t figure out “増い”. Haven’t been able to find it in any of the dictionaries I checked.
p13
Last panel:
まで想像した
Again, I think I get the idea, but in this case it feels like a weird sentence fragment … I guess he’s basically saying “Paint as a hobby, huh … I imagined releasing a book of paintings …” right?
This is exactly how I am about hobbies, by the way. I feel you, Nozaki.
p21
Again, the last panel. I don’t understand what Maeno is telling her to do? It seems like he’s saying that “Suzukaze” clearly isn’t living up to his name, but in the illustration it seems like Suzukaze is being kind … And then Maeno says to make him more of a “yokel”/“dud” (according to jisho)? I don’t get it.
p22
What does “通りがよかった” mean?
Whoa!! I definitely didn’t make that connection either. Nice noticing!
Would it help if it were framed as “「画集発売決定!!!」まで想像した”?
He’s imagined as far as a book of his paintings being announced for sale.
pg 21
Maeno’s saying that his appearance doesn’t fit his name and to give him more of a hick sounding name. The name Suzukaze does befit a kind character, but Maeno thinks only prettyboys should be named that.
イモくさい comes from イモい “rustic; unsophisticated; provincial; hick; uncool; unstylish” + くさい
pg 22
He’s saying that he should have drawn that mini character he’s imagining in the corner. At least, that’s how I understand it, since it’s got that conditional と after 描いておく (so the よかった is “[doing verb] would have been good” or more naturally “should have [done verb]”) though admittedly I don’t exactly know what that 通り is doing there lol
I’m totally wrong lol I’m an idiot who can’t learn grammar, see heikimi’s answer below vv
Ohh okay, I thought he was wondering if he should have done that and saved himself some trouble. I parsed that final な as like the “wondering to oneself” な. Do you know what it’s doing there, then?
I think it is actually “expressing something after consideration” な. A male speech ね. Well, I don’t care much about the sentence-ending particles if they are not changing the meaning of the sentence drastically.
Let’s look at our sentence: あとはミニキャラを端っこに描いておくと通りが良かったな
The first thing one notices is that the sentence is in the past tense: …が良かった
通りが良かった is the main clause.
…と part is the subordinate clause.
と means if, when, whenever, and then, etc. You can use it to express known to be true results, natural consequences, or actual conditions. You can’t use it to express hypothetical situations. If you want to say “should/would have been good”, you use “ば良かった”.
Okay so you can have といい and ならいい, but those can’t be past tense, only ばいい and たらいい can. I still don’t have the conditionals and the differences between them down; that’s something I need to focus on at some point. Thanks!
I finished chapter 11 the other day but still need to finish all of 12, glad we’re back to reading!!
Haha I agree, I love that dynamic!! I can see how it might not be for others, but I think it’s hilarious and it endears you towards these loveable idiots
No, I will try again. It is not about who is right or wrong. We are both learning and I am not good at explaining stuff in English. with me.
“通りが良かった” is a full sentence with a subject and an adj/verb. It is S+V. When you translated the sentence, you did discard the subject to tailor a grammar point, といい in our case.
We spot the pattern, if there is one;
We don’t create them, if there is none.
Knowing how/when to use と helps. But let’s say we know nothing about と except it means “and”. We can still understand the whole sentence. “I did x and (then) y happened.”
Oh, sorry, I wasn’t trying to say you were wrong or anything. Conditionals are just something I haven’t gotten to stick in my brain yet. If I’d had them down better, my brain probably wouldn’t have gone, “Hey, there’s a conditional (と) and よかった, it must be this! Dunno what that 通り is doing in there though” but instead maybe “Okay you can’t have よかった with と so obviously this has gotta be something else but I have no idea what” or “you can’t have anything between a conditional and いい so this can’t be that” if not figured out what it actually is. (Sorry, I’m not very good at explaining myself either)
I feel you, Nozaki.
with me.