それでも歩は寄せてくる | Week 1 Discussion ♟

Japanese Language Book Clubs
61

Not sure if this was mentioned before, but searching this thread seems to suggest it hasn’t yet.

I feel it’s extremely confusing to use “only” as the translation of しか. I propose a different translation: “except for”.

私しかいない将棋部

私 => me
私しか => except for me
いない => not exists (negative of いる).
将棋部 => Shogi club

So this literally means “A shogi club where except for me, there’s none”.

If you try to use “only” this makes it extremely confusing because いない is in the negative; “A shogi club where only I exist” doesn’t have a negative verb. Personally I find this makes it really hard on the brain to follow the sentence properly.

62

I jumped into this completely blind so the Shogi element was a complete surprise. Not something I’d normally read, really enjoying it, and some extra cultural stuff to learn.

63

I have only “read” the first two pages, but already I can tell following along this will be very helpful - though my direct contribution will probably be very limited.

It is great to see the manga seems to have sparked some interest in Shogi - which was my way in to Japanese (see short bio). For now my limited Shogi knowledge (and of the Shogi-world) is greater than my knowledge of Japanese - though also that at a beginner level.

May be we eventually could start a general Shogi-thread if enough people are interested? There is currently much excitement in the Shogi world with the prodigy Sota Fujii (藤井聡太), having broken lots of records already, and just recently he became the youngest ever player to reach the highest rank of 9-dan (八段), at the age of 18. He is also currently holding two of the seven major Shogi titles.

64
Page 7

Hi, super beginner here (planned to wait several more months before trying a book but since Ayumu was free in June I decided to jump in). Thanks for all the extra help here. What does してやっても… いいぞ…? mean? I’ve got something about doing it and something about good… The fact that it’s a question is especially confusing me.

65

Hi! glad to have you here.
The full sentence in question is:

チューもしてやってもいいぞ.

You can attach some verbs to the end of the te form of any verb to acknowledge the transaction between the speaker and listener (so to speak). This essentially tells who is doing a favor to whom.
The main verbs are :
あげる (ageru)
which is used when the speaker is doing a favor (to the listener or any third party).
くれる (kureru)
which is used when the speaker is receiving a favor (from the listener or any third party).

Then there is やる, which AFAIK is only used with friends of the same age or younger (mostly sarcastically?) in real life, because it’s a very degrading form of あげる.

It’s mostly used in fiction when an arrogant character is doing a service to another character.

Now, adding ”もいい” to the te form of the verb (してやってもいい) is used to express willingness to do the verb in question despite one’s desire to do otherwise. Essentially meaning “I would (even) do x (despite y)”

So to get to the verb you asked about, Urushi is saying she would even kiss Ayumu (despite apparent desire to do otherwise) in exchange for him admitting that he likes her.

I tried to explain this as best as I could, but I’m still learning grammar so I hope someone more knowledgeable can give a better explanation.

edit: Sorry that I didn’t address the second part of your question! As far as I understand the sentence is not really a question. I think the author is trying to convey Urushi’s tone of voice with the question mark at the end.

(This is more speculative but I think the intention is to have the sentence be more of an “invite” so to speak. It’s more of a “should I?” than an “I will”)

66

I just finished reading the chapter now. The art style is really cute!

Page 7: is the も in

チューも…してやってもいいぞ

technically redundant? I feel like the っても part is already expressing the same notion.

67

I think that the first も is the one that means “and/also.” Urushi first offered a hug in exchange and didn’t seem to get a reaction, so after some thought she says,

“I might also be willing to ki…kiss?”

I could be mistaken, but that’s how I read it. Either way, I wouldn’t say it’s serving the same purpose as the てもいい construct in the sentence.

68

For new learners of Japanese, you may look at this week’s vocabulary list of 71 unique words and wonder, should you try to memorize them all? And if not, which ones should you focus on?

The purpose to learn a word from a vocabulary list is actually not to learn the word. Many words for intangible concepts in Japanese do not have a perfect English counterpart. Much like a Venn diagram, with two circles only partially overlapping, there are differences in meaning and nuance between Japanese and their closest English counterparts. You’ll see this when you look up a Japanese word in a dictionary, and it gives multiple English words as translations.

Instead, the purpose is to tune your brain to being more readily able to recognize the word when you see it again. Simply giving a word attention can be enough to make it stand out the next time it comes up when reading. Or maybe you’ll be watching anime, enjoying those English subtitles, then suddenly you’ll hear someone say a word you recently learned, even before you see the subtitle for it.

If you’re the type of person who can go down a list of 71 words and commit them to memory, go for it! If you’re like me and you struggle with just a few words, it might be helpful to have a curated list to focus on.

Here are some of my recommendations for words to focus on if you don’t know them yet. I’ve listed them in order with the most common ones first, so if you focus on some of these words, those near the top of the list are best.

Word List
Word    Comments
する The most generic verb, meaning “to do”. It looks very different in its different forms (negative, past, etc), so you don’t always see it written as する. It often gets attached to other verbs.
こと This one can take a while to get to really understand. Having it in mind early on will help you see how much it gets used.
私(わたし) Probably anyone who’s watched anime/Jdrama or played video games with Japanese voice acting already knows this one. If not, you’ll see it a lot.
なる Another generic verb, meaning “to become”. It often gets attached to other verbs.
いい
何(なに)
やる Another generic verb which often gets attached to another verb.
もう
言(い)う
知(し)る
ところ Like “place” in English, this can be a physical location or a conceptual location.
お前(まえ)
男(おとこ)
今日(きょう)
心(こころ)
時(とき)
すごい
好(す)き
入(はい)る

I can’t guarantee whether these words will show up in later chapters in this volume, only that these are high frequency words in Japanese.

On the shogi side, you’ll see 手(て) used to refer to a move in shogi. This makes sense, as one uses one’s hand to move a piece.

69

I may be mistaken but isn’t 手 also used to mean “move” (as in chess move) in the general sense as well?

For example “(彼が)あんあ手で来るとは思わなかった” wouldn’t this mean something along the lines of “I didn’t expect him to make that move”?

70

I’m currently unfamiliar with that usage, but it’s now something I’ll likely notice if I come across it!

71

I could almost swear I heard the example sentence I gave somewhere, so I looked it up and google and to my surprise I didn’t find any related usage to ”手で来る”.

I did however find a few sentences that sounded familiar, like “その手があったか” which I’m guessing means something like “You had that move?”. The usage sounded familiar enough to my ear so I probably messed up and created a sentence that doesn’t make a lot of sense (sorry🙇)

72

Not sure what the original etymology is, but 手 can be used to mean a trick, move, or technique in general, not necessarily for something involving the actual hand doing something, or a particular game with pieces like chess/shogi.

image

73

Yes that’s what I meant. Couldn’t phrase it well haha

74

To add on to this, I find that generally just by reading the high-frequency stuff will tend to get reinforced pretty often if you’re looking up stuff frequently and reading a lot. I tend to use my phone to check the dictionary while using my computer to read - alternatively you could use a second monitor if you have one or use multiple windows or something (more generally when it’s actual text and not images I’m reading, I use a popup dictionary like yomichan). Parsing words and figuring out what to look up can be a challenge due to lack of spaces but it’s something you kind of get more of a sense for over time. Thankfully the manga has furigana to make it easier to look things up, since searching kanji by radical can be a pain

75

Isn’t やる just a normal verb? I don’t think it means the exact same as 上げる, and it certainly isn’t an infrequent word either.
Espescially やった comes up all the time (and I have heard it several times outside of fiction) with the meaning “I did/accomplish it”
As long as you say やります, I don’t think it is degrading/informal either? Though I am not 100% sure.

76

Sorry for not being clear about it! I meant using やる with て form of the verb à la してやる.
You are correct with what you’re describing.

77

Ooh I see! Thanks for clearing that up :grin:

78

Honestly I actually tend to think about it the other way, where い adjectives feel very verb-y to me, though in this case the key point is that it’s part of a modifying clause and not a noun like one. I agree that it’s definitely helpful for remember how ない forms conjugate. Internally, I also tend to think of clauses as “noun-y” or “not noun-y” when working out how they fit together in a sentence, but I think a lot of my understanding here comes from taking college semantics courses and feels hard to express in a simple way.

79

I wanted to return to the 「verb(さ)せて＋もらう」 to see what I could find in various anime. Here are some examples.

Note that the English subtitles I’ve included don’t always reflect the nuance of the Japanese, so they cannot be considered a one-on-one interpretation.

Aoharu Ride episode 6

Makita tells Futaba about when she fell in love with Mabuchi:

「あの森(もり)で川(かわ)を渡(わた)らせてもらった時(とき)」

From the DVD release English subtitles:

“(But the moment that I really fell in love) was when he helped me cross that river in the forest.”

Bottle Fairy episode 4

Kururu’s group finds the missing Hororo, only to find the latter has become a Mad Scientist. Kururu says she’ll use her special technique to restore Hororo to her old self.

Hororo responds:

「見(み)せてもらおうじゃないか くーちゃん」

I feel the DVD release’s English subtitle doesn’t quite catch any kind of nuance of the Japanese (nor should it be expected to), but here’s what it went with:

“Show me, Ku-chan.”

Cardcaptor Sakura episode 4

After Sakura captures the Clow Card that’s caused trouble in her home, Kero heads off to take a nap.

「ほな わいはちょっと寝(ね)かせてもらうわ」

From an English subtitle file:

“Well, I’ll be taking a nap now.”

Clannad episode 1

Tomoya samples one of Sanae’s bread creations, bread with a rice cracker inside. Sanae thinks it’s a winning idea, but Tomoya remains quiet. When Sanae asks what’s wrong, Tomoya says:

「はっきり言(い)わせてもらうけど、これは失敗(しっぱい)作(さく)だろ」

From the DVD release’s English subtitles:

“I’m going to blunt. This is a disaster.”

Clannad episode 2

Sunohara is surprised to see Tomoya of all people working to restore the after-school drama club. After chiding him for it, Sunohara heads off, saying:

「まあ、そのうち詳(くわ)しく聞(き)かせてもらうさ」

From the DVD release’s English subtitles:

“Well, one day I’ll let you explain it all.”

Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb episode 4

Yuno reflects on the events from earlier in the day, specifically the swimming event at school.

「結局(けっきょく) 泳(およ)げるようにはならなかったけど記録係(きろくがかり)やらせてもらえてホントによかった」

From the DVD release’s English subtitles:

“In the end, I wasn’t able to swim any, but I’m really happy that I got to be one of the timers.”

Honey and Clover episode 7

Reflecting on how much Hagu’s changed over the years, Shuji thinks back to when she was staying with her grandmother, and he visited. At the time, he wanted another look her paintings.

「はぐ また絵(え)を見(み)せてもらえるかな？」

From the DVD release’s English subtitles:

“Hagu, can you show me the pictures again?”

Is the order a rabbit? episode 2

As Cocoa and her friends prepare to leave Chiya’s family’s cafe, she reflects on how things would be different if she weren’t staying with Chino’s family and working at their cafe.

「私(わたし)私の下宿(げしゅく)先(さき)が千夜(ちや)ちゃんの家(いえ)だったらここでお手伝(てつだ)いさせてもらってたんだろうな」

From the DVD release’s English subtitles:

“If I were staying at your place, I’d probably be helping you here, Chiya.”

Sailormoon episode 4

Motoki asks Usagi why she hasn’t eaten in a day, along with a quip:

「テストの店(てん)が悪(わる)くてママにごはんを食(た)べさせてもらえないとか？」

From the DVD release’s English subtitles:

“Maybe you did so badly on your test, your mom won’t feed you…”

Saint Tail episode 7

After Asuka Jr. receives an advance notice from the thief Saint Tail about a dagger she plans to steal from a museum exhibit, Asuka plans to hide out of sight near the dagger and catch her in the act. His plan succeeds and he grabs Saint Tail by the arm, saying to her:

「顔(かお)を見(み)せてもらうぜ」

From the DVD release’s English subtitles:

“Let me see your face!”

80

I did the first pass thru the chapter, and while huge bunch of stuff is super unclear, just an observation how these characters compare with the previous manga Teasing master Takagi-san: there the boy was an open book for the girl, while here the guy keeps his poker face perfectly, and the girl is all flustered :slight_smile: