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 people who 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.
Teasing Master Takagi-san 😝 ・ Volume 1 - #181 by ChristopherFritz
Page 9
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.”