I read chapter 15 today and I think it was fairly easy, but at the beginning something threw me off:
pg. 4
1学期は散々だったので。
Does someone know what 散々 means?
When I check on jisho it says: thoroughly; completely; utterly; severely; harshly; terribly; miserably; wretchedly; badly
And from the context I can guess it means something like “My first term was bad”, right? But can someone help me translate this sentence properly?
The comment he’s making about is it that it was 散々 (harsh, terrible).
Note that the “ly” part only comes into play when it ends in な to be used as an adverb. Since it’s ending in だ here, it’s an adjective of the subject. The subject is unspoken, but we can infer it to be １学期.
And the ので gives this as the reason. I believe this connects to his line at the end of the prior page (giving the reason why he’s studying for a test),
I said I wanted to try to actually participate in this one, soooo… hi there!
Every time I get through one of these chapters, I come away thinking, “Oh. That was cute.”
Anyway. I actually have some questions about the very last panel. I think I got the gist of it, but I kinda just want to confirm/have it explained/learn I’m totally wrong if that’s cool.
So starting from the very left because why not, Urushi says “素直に尊敬しろ.” I’m wondering, what’s the に doing there? From my understanding, it basically makes 素直 into an -ly word, right? I could be totally wrong because I literally cannot find a reference and it’s driving me a bit crazy, but for some reason I remember learning that… at some point… from somewhere.
Anyway, that would make the sentence something like “Obediently/honestly respect me,” wouldn’t it? Problem is, I can’t figure out how that would follow the previous sentence, this maybe mostly because I myself can’t quite follow the previous sentence (なんで対抗心燃やしてんだ). Maybe I’m just not looking hard enough, but I have no clue what 対抗心 means and can’t find it in any of my dictionaries.
I’m assuming these last two sentences are basically her asking why he would suggest a race and not just give her respect, buuuut… could anyone clear this up for me?
You are correct. 素直に is turning 素直 (honest, frank) into an adverb (honestly, frankly), something that describes how the action of the sentence is done, just like -ly does in English.
対抗心 I could only find in monoligual dictionaries. The definition weblio gives is:
“The feeling of trying to outdo each other. The feeling of trying to compete.”
This is somewhat expected if you combine 対抗 (competition) and 心 (heart), a heart prone to compete.
燃やす in this case is similar to the analogy we use in English: “to get fired up”.
In summary, Urushi is annoyed because Ayumu is getting fired up trying to turn things into a competition instead of just frankly showing reverence to her.
I finished Chapter 15, and went ahead and filled out the vocab as I went, since it was looking a little sparse. I also adjusted some formatting (alternating colors, gave more space to the definitions and notes sections, and some alignment stuff that was easier on the eyes).
I did have a couple things that I came across that I’m not totally sure about.
Chapter 15, Pg. 5
「授業聞いてるだけで毎回学年３位くらいなんだようなぁ」
So I understand this to mean, “Just by listening in class, I’m 3rd rank in my grade every year.”
The part that has me a little puzzled is the 位くらい. Aaand, as I was typing out my question, I had an epiphany. I’ll leave my rambles in case somebody else gets confused about it.
The question was going to be, why are we adding くらい, essentially, because I knew that 位 could also be read as くらい on its own, and it felt like it was repetitious. But then I realized that it’s probably saying, “I am ranked in the 3rd position,” essentially, and the くらい is necessary because it’s the verb for the sentence, not just the noun twice.
Chapter 15, Pg. 6
「私尊敬されてない!?」
I read this as, “(That) doesn’t make you respect me!?”
Wherein the “That” is the previous statement about her ranking 3rd just by listening in class.
My question is related to the causative form, because I’m still really shaky on that. Is that what’s giving the sentence the “make” part of it? I just want to be sure I’m understanding it correctly. There are times I feel like I understand causative forms, and then there are times where I feel like it’s not really necessary to be causative, even though it is, so just looking for clarification on that.
I am happy to be back into this manga. It’s super comfy, much like Takagi-san, but it does have the feel like it challenges me a bit more in the grammar here and there, which is good! As for some specific comments on the chapter:
Chapter 15 Comments
This manga’s best feature for me is Urushi’s expressiveness. And right from the start, I was already having a bit of a laugh.
This panel, when she initially sees him writing and thinks it is another love letter is what I’m referring to.
And, as somebody who always enjoys a good Smug™ face, this chapter was loaded with varying, but all enjoyable degrees of it:
Pg. 4
Pg. 5 (Probably the best one I’ve seen yet)
While there were more, those two were my standouts, though I was also a fan of the panel just before she got embarrassed on Pg. 10.
I also enjoyed how quickly Ayumu managed to calm her down from her rage on Pg. 8. The sudden switch from, “I KNEW IT, YOU DON’T RESPECT ME!!” to an immediately attentive セナパイ was quite funny to me.
In your translation you used “every year”, but I believe Urushi is using 毎回 (every time). This probably means every time they have an examination period, I guess.
You mention that くらい is necessary because it’s the verb, but くらい is not a verb… In this particular sentence, we have the copula だ (as part of なのだ) which would be the closest equivalent to a verb in English (to be).
Page 6
I agree with your understanding. させる is implying that the previous statement causes Ayumu to 尊敬する.
Yes, that’s how I understand it too. 毎回 is in this case acting as an adverb (as in, specifying the frequency with which the verb [to be] occurs). Adverbs only affect verbs, and not nouns, so it wouldn’t be directly connected to 学年.
毎回 can also work as a noun though. In that case, if you wanted 毎回 to affect 学年, which is another noun, you’d normally need to connect them somehow. You could, for example, do that with の, though I’d have a hard time understanding what a 毎回の学年 is (“the school year of the every time” ??), though grammatically it wouldn’t have any issues.
Sometimes two or more nouns are squashed together to form a new noun, so 毎回学年 could be something, but seeing how it’s not in a dictionary, it’s unlikely.
If you want to say every school year, you’d normally just use 毎 as a prefix - 毎学年.
After the little break from we had from Ayumu, I loved that opening panel. Perfect way to start a volume. I’m realizing I missed this more than I thought! Maybe that’s a sentimental attachment to my first manga, but either way, it’s great to be back. I’m also feeling so much more comfortable than I did in volume 1.
One thing I need a little help with, page... 9? I think?
字まで書くなんて
One of those many instances where I think I know all of the parts but I can’t seem to quite arrange them right. 字 being used as “written text” more broadly than Wanikani’s teaching it as letter/character seems probably important. まで I usually think of generally as “to X extent” and related meanings but it feels like I still need more time to fully internalize the ways it gets used. “Even” from jisho makes enough sense but, to be honest, didn’t have that sort of usage in my head so I was more confused until digging these words. 書く is just “to write,” easy enough. なんて… I dunno, sometimes I get it, sometimes I don’t. Seems to be a couple different words that are なんて depending on how it’s being used and even those have somewhat broad meanings I can’t quite seem to consolidate in my mind still.
Actually, one more general question, too. Late in the volume there’s a use of だって and I’m pretty sure I get that panel and it’s just functioning like “also” here, but だって is one of those words that also remains pretty elusive. When you look it up, you get a long list of seemingly disparate meanings: “because, but, after all, even, too, they say, etc.” So… is there a good way to either determine how it is being used in a given instance beyond running through the options, or a better way to think of the word’s function as a whole that I’m just not seeing when looking at a contextless list of possible usages? I mean I see how bits of it could be very obviously different contexts, the usage here is 私だって and I have a feeling it’s not “they say I” haha. But since it has so many usages, particularly sort of non-concrete, grammar part ones, I just can’t seem to figure this word out.
A few years in, and なんて still throws me off a lot =(
If this なんて is emphasizing the content of the word balloon it’s in, then I read the two middle word balloons something like, “You solved it instantly from upside-down, and even (went) so far as to write (upside-down).”
In this interpretation, which I can’t say if I’m right or wrong, I’d say the writing part comes off as sounding even more impressive than the solving part.
Thanks! That helps a lot with interpreting the なんて panel. It’s tricky figuring out these words that have somewhat broad uses or, at least, definitely a cluster of uses that don’t exactly map onto an individual English word. I don’t get bothered at all by encountering grammar and words I don’t know, that’ll all come with time, but the one thing that does frustrate me in Japanese if it catches me at the wrong time is when I (to some degree) know everything going on in a sentence but can’t make any sense of it anyway, through some combination of the language’s high-context nature and/or the words not being used in the narrow English sense I’m mapping them onto. I know eventually you want to get away from translating everything, but I’ve been at this for 4 months, just making do with what I can now. But it’s those times when the faith gets a little shaken, y’know?
As for だって, thanks a lot, that’s the exact sort of information I was looking for. Hopefully applying that sort of logic when I encounter it in the future can help me figure out how to intuit it better.
I’ve seen those Maggie Sensei pages, I think, and I love all the detail she gives on these points, but sometimes it feels like such an exhausting list of all the ways that these grammar points can apply in different situations, and I find myself hoping that there’s somehow a more unified, singular way to orient my thinking towards these terms to make all of it make sense as a single word. In some cases that might be asking too much (I’m well aware how many English words I take for granted as intuitive that are actually used in dozens if not hundreds of technically different senses), but I always hope for it.
If you are reading on Kindle, you can subtract 3 from the “location” to get the right page, if that helps. That carried over from the first volume, thankfully. The same may be true for bookwalker, but I am not sure because I don’t use it.
Hey. I just finished reading the chapter, although it took me like 5 hours … Thank god for the vocabulary list otherwise I’m not sure I would have been able to finish it. I have a lot of questions. I hope they aren’t too dumb, I had to look up almost everything up to make sense of the chapter.
Page 4
そろそろだもんな
Is だもんな some form of だもんで? So the sentence would translate to “Because they’re coming soon (the tests)” ?
勉強できる人って尊敬する？
Is って just a casual は? I believe this phrase translates to “Do you admire people who are able to study ?”.
Totally unrelated to the meaning of the phrase but is actual japanese always this elaborate ? I mean i would just say smart people instead of people who are able to study x)
Page 5
私ってさあ
Im curious about the さあ. A quick google search said its just like “uhhh” you know what you say when you’re thinking about what to say.
授業聞いてるだけで毎回学年３位くらいなんだようなぁ
This phrase was already translated in one of the previous comments but im curious about the なんだようなぁ at the end. I think it’s some sort of “you know ?” but im not sure.
Page 7
尊敬されてるからな－しょ-がないから教えてやる
It’s mostly the からな－ that throws me off but i guess this would translate to something like “It’s no use, because you admire me i’ll have to teach you”
ウソだと思ってたの
This phrase seems really weird to me.
I’m really not sure about the particles here or the why lie is written in katakana but i guess this would translate to “You thought i was lying ?”
Page 9
字まで書くなんて
I am not sure what the 字 is doing there, a quick search told me it means handwriting.
It seems like he’s impressed because she was able to write the solution from the other side of the table but not sure why make emphasis on handwriting… well maybe it’s just japanese being more elaborate than english/spanish.
私だってやるときはやるんだよ
I gave up on this one. I have no idea what she means by this x）
Page 10
そのへんでいいぞ
Another one that made scratch my head. I tried looking for an answer but couldn’t reach any conclusion. If I had to guess I’d say something like “That’s enough” because she seems flustered by all the compliments.
When I was first starting out, I probably would have taken about as long for this amount of material. It’s really slow up front, but over time it’ll slowly get faster, little by little!
No such question exists here!
Page 4
I believe it’s a combination of もの and the sentence-ending particle な (which can also be ね).
Ending a sentence with もの is like saying it kind of like saying "It’s is a thing that (sentence preceding もの). In this case, 「そろそろだもの」 would be like saying “It’s a thing that it’s soon.” That sounds odd in English, but Japanese isn’t English.
You’ll get used to it over time, because this use of もの at the end of a sentence is fairly common for this writing. I forget, did you say you’ve watched the anime for Takagi? If so, rewatch a few scenes, and you may just hear some characters end a sentence with もん or もの.
The な (which is often ね for female characters) is used when seeking agreement, sort of like making a questioning statement in English and ending it with “huh”. “Tests are coming up soon, huh?”
Technically it’s different, but essentially it works out the same.
The particle は (as well as も) is used to mark a noun as a topic. What follows after the は (or も) is a comment about the topic. The topic is the thing you are commenting on. It’s basically what you’re talking about.
って is used for quotation. As an indirect quote, it’s kind of like saying “Talking about (noun)…” This is typically followed by a comment about the noun that is being talked about.
You can see that in both cases, は and って are marking the noun being talked about, effectively the topic of the sentence being commented on.
Yes.
In English, when we get this elaborate, we typically shift the modifier to after the noun. “Do you respect peoplewho can study?” Look for those “(noun) who (modifier)”. It might be more common in English than you think!
Page 5
That’s correct. It’s also kind of like saying “you know” in English.
“When I take a test, you know, I find the more I studied, uhh, the better I do on the test.” (This is just an example, not what’s anyone is saying in the comic!)
This くらい can be followed by だ. I’m not certain if this くらい functions as a noun or what the reason is. I just know it can have だ at the end.
A sentence that ends in だ means it’s a noun sentence. This sentence is a bit complex, so it’s not the best to explain the difference between noun sentences, adjective sentences, and verb sentences. (But let me know if you want a primer with simple examples, and I can type one up.)
You can a whole sentence as turn it into a noun by adding の to the end of it.
Consider a scenario where you get to work late. Your boss asks why you missed the important meeting.
“My car broke down.”
“It is because my car broke down.”
The first sentence is a verb sentence: the subject (the car) did an action (broke down).
The second sentence is a noun type sentence: the subject (it) is in the category of the noun (“things that are my car that broke down”). This “thing” is kind of like the の used to turn a sentence into a noun.
It’s okay if this is vague right now. You’ll see it more, and can ask about it again when it comes up again. It gets easier over time!
Continuing with these two English sentences, why would you use the second sentence rather than the first? The first is stating an event. The second is giving an explanation.
If you haven’t yet, eventually you will see grammar resources that talk about “the explanatory の”.
You can turn any of the sentence types (noun, adjective, or verb) into a noun by adding の. For a noun sentence, the だ at the end changes to な.
Remember how I said くらい can end in だ? When the の is added, the だ changes to な. This is why we have くらいなの.
Since the explanatory の turns the preceding sentence (or clause, or word) into a noun, it gets だ added (as noun sentences do).
Again, it’s all right if a lot of this goes over your head right now. Right now, just being exposed to the kind of things you will learn about over time is enough. But feel free to ask for a further explanation about any parts.
After this, we have よ and な, which are two sentence-ending particles.
The よ is typically said to make a statement more emphatic (like using an explanation point in English). There’s a bit more to it than that, but I think that’s a good way to look at it initially.
I believe the final な is like the one on the previous page, but in this case not necessarily seeking agreement. Especially since there’s the ぁ to stretch it out a bit, I think may be reducing the impact of the よ a little. It’s a bit hard for me to explain, so maybe don’t pay much attention to this paragraph.
Page 7
She’s just using so many な here, you’d think she’s just trying to throw you off on purpose.
Her first balloon ending in the conjunction から is being use to explain her word balloon at the end of the prior page.
In English, it would be something like this:
“I know. I’ll help you study!”
“Eh?”
“Because I’d received your respect.”
This is something of an “inverted” sentence, where the result is given first, then the reason is given second. If it were all one sentence, it would be “reasonからresult”. However, it’s common (at least in manga!) to make a statement, then afterwards state the reason.
Some words get written in katakana a lot. ウソ is one of them. I don’t know why.
Some authors like to put various other words in katakana as well. (The mangaka of Sailormoon did this all the time.)
Sometimes the katakana is used for emphasis, sort of like italics in English. But not always.
As for the particles:
と is like って in that it marks quotes (whether direct or indirect quotations). I like to imagine quotation marks if it helps me conceptualize what is being said:
「ウソだ」と思ってたの
The 思う is “to think”, so 「ウソだ」と思う would be “to think it’s a lie”.
This 思う has had the verb いる attached.
You can string verbs together by changing their their て form (思う => 思って), and typically this means the actions of the verbs are done in sequence.
But いる is a special one meaning the prior verb is actively being done:
思う - “to think”
思っている = “to be thinking”
To make it past tense, いる becomes いた:
思っていた = “was thinking”
And in this verb+て+いる (or いた), the い is often dropped in speech. (Think of it kind of like saying “can’t” instead of “cannot”.)
思ってた = “was thinking” (い dropped)
Earlier I mentioned that “the explanatory の” is used to explain something. But there’s a bit more to it.
The explanatory の is used when explaining something to a person who doesn’t know it. But you can also use it when seeking an explanation for something you do not know.
Here, the sentence “You thought I was lying?” is turned into a noun (by adding の) to the end. This changes it to, “It is that you thought I was lying?”
This usage “the explanatory の” is a grammar concept that we don’t really have in English. I wrote a bit about it in another thread, which I recommend reading at some point. You have a lot that you’re taking in right now, so you might not want to read it just yet. But it may be worth bookmarking for later.
Consider the following in English: “That’s amazing. Although it’s upside-down, you were able to solve it right away, and even to write.” In this case, I read it as “Not only were you able to do X, but you were even able to do Y as well.”
This is a tricky one.
I’ll add quotes around the “indirect quote” because it helps me visualize it, and I’ll add a kanji in just to make it a little easier to read.
「私だ」ってやる時はやるんだよ
The first part, 私だって, is like saying “When talking about me” or if we do a lose translation to something that might commonly said in English, “When it comes to me”.
やる時は sets the topic that will be commented on. The topic is とき or “time”. But there are all kinds of time out there, you know? There’s time to go to bed. There’s time to eat dinner. There’s the time a movie starts. What “time” is she referring to? The time is specified by the modifier before it, やる, which is the verb “to do”. This, this time is when it is “time to do” something.
So far we have, "Talking about me, when it’s time to do (something)…)
The comment portion of the sentence is やる, “to do”.
This brings us to, “Talking about me, when it’s time to do (something), I do (it).”
In English, we might say this as, “I do it when I have to” (referring to solving the problem and writing upside-down).
The んだ at the end is the explanatory の, which is sometimes spoken as ん, followed by the noun-sentence-ending だ.
This means that rather than just making a statement, it’s more of an explanation. “It’s because for me, when it’s time to do it, I do it.”
I realize this isn’t the best of explanations and translations. If no one offers better, consider it a chance to practice tolerating ambiguity and being satisfied to move on so long as you (hopefully) get at least the gist of it
Page 10
This 辺 means “area”. It’s sort of like in English if you say, “That’s far enough,” we mean “The area you’re at is as far as you need to go. You don’t need to move into the next area.” “You’ve said enough. You don’t need going.”
Here, we have the sentence 「そのへんだ」, “(It is) that area.” Then we’re attaching something else, so the だ becomes で (just like how verbs get changed to end in て to attach another verb). After we have いい, an adjective like “good” or “find”. It’s common in Japanese to say 「(noun)でいい」 meaning “(noun) is fine”. “That area is fine”, or as we’d typically say in English, “That’s far enough.”
Completely off topic, but can I just hire the noble Fritz to write a grammar book? I just learned so much I didn’t even realize I didn’t know. Truly what I aspire to be. Thank you for the enlightenment, dear gentleperson.
I need to read it again since a lot of it just went past me, probably because it’s 1am over here x). I’ll read it again tomorrow and try to understand it better.
You should definitely write that book like Naytrib said
Looking forward to the rest of the story, it looks like it’ll be really fun and wholesome just like Takagi san !
… Thank god for the vocabulary list otherwise I’m not sure I would have been able to finish it. I have a lot of questions. I hope they aren’t too dumb, I had to look up almost everything up to make sense of the chapter.
