しろくまカフェ: Week 3 Discussion (Chapters 5 and 6)

Japanese Language Book Clubs
1

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しろくまカフェ home thread

Chapters 5 and 6

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Start date: March 27th
Previous Chapter: Chapters 3 and 4
Next chapter: Chapters 7 and 8

Page numbers

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Vocabulary list

You can also check the page numbers for new and old versions here. If you have an old version, chapters 24-28 are in the second volume!

Translations/Grammar Breakdown

Expand for a nested list of links covering each panel
Page 21
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24
Page 24, afterword
Page 25
Page 26
Page 27
Page 28

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :panda_face:

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this chapter yet
  • I’m no longer reading this book
  • I’m skipping this book
0 voters
2

Yay, I’m ahead of the curve this week! Thanks for making the thread again!

I even made my first contribution to the vocab spreadsheet, after painfully deciphering the scribbled 食物繊維, I figured I’d try to save others the trouble :slight_smile:

3

Can’t wait to discover the new adventures of this goofy crew: our waiter-polar-bear, our crazy-dancing-“punda”, our narcoleptic-surfer-penguin and our gardener-lady-kangaroo!

4

Hah. I quite like the puns in chapter five.

Page 26, first panel - is パンダらけ a pun? パンダ + だらけ?

5

That’s how I interpreted it, too, though I’m not particularly confident in it. I’m pretty sure it’s a pun of some sort, at the very least.

6

Honestly i find it hard to understand this manga with all these puns, it’s sad that i can easily understand a manga in the Beginners Club but not a manga in the Absolute Beginner Club :pensive:

7

It’s weird, too.

I’d say 少女終末旅行 is harder than しろくまカフェ by most standards.

8

But… they’re just rhyming puns. It’s not like the plot hinges on them, or anything.

9

Actually I’m reading through Yotsuba&, which started as a beginner club book.

Yeah but i can’t get the puns, i know it’s pun and that’s it. Most of the words they use are used just for the pun and nothing more
this is different from a natural conversation where i can understand mostly everything

Sorry guys i don’t want to seem like I’m complaining, it’s just that this is all i can think about when i read Yotsubato.
Now that’s all well and done, let us get back to translating these bad boys

10

Just barely finished chapter 4 in time yesterday evening, so I can still answer with “I’m reading along” today… :sweat_smile:

Looking forward to start the next one today after work. I really enjoy the little stories so far, even if the puns tend to be “slightly” hard to translate. :slight_smile:

11

I bought Yotsuba and Shirokuma at the same time. Don’t worry, just because the beginner did Yotsuba and this is Absolute beginner does NOT mean Yotsuba is harder! I gave up on reading it alone, just too much vocab and puns =P
We chose Yotsuba before we had this group, so it didn’t get ruled out for being too easy. Today it would have been bumped to this group’s voting instead, like Shirokuma did.

Yotsuba is much easier than this one in my opinion. (though it has a good bit of slang and child talk)
And the next manga we will do, Chi’s Sweet Home is even easier (in my opinion).

This manga is OK for the club, since it is still considered a somewhat easy manga, but those other two are even easier I feel =)

12

I spent some time trying to figure out this pun last night and couldn’t. My guess is that it’s a pun about the tai chi form they’re doing, but I couldn’t find Japanese vocabulary for that anywhere.

13

oh so that’s why, I was wondering about that

14

All right, let’s get started with this week’s.

Page 21, bis version

  • Panel 2

    • Panda: なにか考えごと？
      • なにか - something, some kind, some
      • 考えごと - something to think about, one’s thoughts, concern, worry
    • Panda: Something on your mind?

  • Panel 3

    • Shirokuma: カフェのシーズンメニューを作ってる

      • カフェ - Cafe
      • の - (possessive/modifier particle)
      • シーズンメニュー - seasonal menu
      • を - (direct object marker)
      • 作ってる - making, preparing, writing, etc. (shortened form of the “ongoing”/ている form of 作る)

    • Shirokuma: I’m preparing the cafe’s seasonal menu.

    • Panda: ああ 期間限定のやつね～

      • ああ - ah!, oh!
      • 期間限定 - limited time
      • の - (modifier particle)
      • やつ - thing
      • ね - right?, don’t you think?, etc.

    • Panda: Oh, that’s a limited time thing, isn’t it?

  • Panel 4

    • Shirokuma: デザートでなにか食べたいのある？

      • デザート - dessert
      • で - (context particle)
      • なにか - something, some kind, some
      • 食べたい - want to eat (“want to” form of 食べる)
      • の - (nominalizing particle)
      • ある - to exist

    • Shirokuma: Is there some kind of dessert you want to eat? (I want to say the subject marker has been dropped after の here, but I might be wrong.)

    • Panda: ハイッ！

      • ハイッ - Yes (はい in katakana with a sudden stop)

    • Panda: Yes!

15

Ahh, finally caught up! I think these two might be my favorite chapters so far.

So I’m really curious, how do you guys read this? I’ve found that I like going all the way through a chapter to see what I know and then go back with the vocab sheet to fill in any blanks. Then I go back a third time (with the help of these lovely forums, thank you translators!) and really try to understand the grammar and see how right/wrong I was about everything. What about you?

I’m actually surprised to find fewer things I get completely wrong with each chapter. It’s a pretty powerful confidence boost tbh.

16

I personally do basically what you’re doing. A read through without looking anything up, then another run through to look up words I didn’t know (even if I could guess what they meant the first time through.) Then back through as people post translation/when I write up my own to post. When I’m writing my own, I tend to look up any grammar I don’t absolutely know for sure (though that hasn’t saved me from making mistakes even so :wink: )

17

I do something similar. I try not to use dictionaries/the vocab sheet my first time through. Then I’ll go back and figure it out with their help. Then I make notes on anything that I got confused by or found interesting for when the discussion thread gets to that part.

18

So it looks like it’s pretty common! I was wondering if I’m the only one that does it that way, but good to know that isn’t the case.

20

I read it the exact way as you described!! So happy to be caught up this week!! LOVE LOVE this forum!!!

21

Okay, so I called on a friend of mine who spent a couple years in Japan. She says that パンダ + だらけ is spot on. Apparently だらけ is a very common pun word? She says that this text is something like “[the courtyard is] covered in pandas.”