ちいさな森のオオカミちゃん 🌳 Week 1 (The Wolf of the Small Forest Book Club)

Hmm, if this does become a recurring need, I might end up whipping something together with imagemagick to automate cropping which would pair well with that :slight_smile:

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p1

This is easier, once you know some more words, but yeah, は here isn’t the particle, rather part of はずれ, and に is a particle.

In the first part here, あいだ refers to “within a group”.
“Long ago, among the people [the forest was feared as a place where wolves live]”.

The actual breakdown is something like this instead:
おおかみ - wolves
の - replaces が in subordinate clauses, so think of this as a form of が
住む - usually “to live”, but because this is a modifying clause, this is something like “lived in”
森 - forest
として - as, as in “known as” “feared as”
恐れられ - feared

The first part, おおかみの住む森 is “the forest where wolves lived”, 森 being modified by the sentence before it.

It is “don’t go at all”. 奥 is “the within”, “don’t go to the within of the forest” → “don’t go into the forest”.

Transmitted is a very raw translation here, more like passed down.

p2

The narrator is the wolf.
はじめまして is a common greeting. Something along the lines of “Good to meet you”
The second sentence is just
このもり - this forest
に - in
住む - to live
おおかみ - wolf
です - am
I am the wolf that lives in the forest

p5

Yeah, the tl;dr translation is
“When I was a child…”
“I was separated from both my parents”

両親と - with both parents
はなればなれ - separated
になって - became
“I became separated with both [of my] parents” → “I got separated from my parents”

The だ in だけど is actually the copula, so this is a full sentence before the けど
“I am alone, but”

暮らす is to live, that して is not する rather the て form す verbs

p6

There’s a typo here, forgot to triple press that n
そんな私 is “someone like me”
“Even someone like me has a job”

this こっか is the informal form of こうか, and the verb here is actually 行く, so this is “shall we go” or “let’s go”

More accurately she’s describing what she does. “When I find a human that wandered into the forest, I scare them out”

恐れる is “to fear sthg”. Here “Everyone fears me”

Typo there, you missed the す from です, which makes it not implied.

p7

This has a typo, missed a つ after 待

あとは - after that
来るの - Here の nominalizes the verb, so this is “the coming”
を - object marker
待つ - to wait
のみ - This is the “only X to do” grammar pattern
“After there’s nothing else to do than wait for them to come”

今 - now
待ち伏せ - ambush
してる - ている form of する
の - explanatory の particle

I’m [waiting to] ambush [someone]

p8

Not quite, いつの間に is “when [did you]”, the extended い is the sound of her getting scared and extending the first syllable.

Typo here, it’s しっぽ

だって here is acknowledging the いつのまに question. So this is basically answering that.

This Xと言う or Xって言う pattern is a common way to say your name. Close to “They call me Mia”.

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Just because I saw you mixing up the terms a few times already. What you mean is “furigana”. :wink:
“Okurigana” are the hiragana that come together with a kanji. For example in 行く, the く is the okurigana. Or taking the word you mentioned (恐れられ), the okurigana is the れられ

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Fixed, thanks

Thanks so much for explaining this and for all the examples too. I have read it multiple times now, and it is super helpful! :heart:

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I finished reading this week’s section, and with a few vocab look ups, I understand the majority of the text! This is very encouraging to have a tangible indication of how far I’ve come in my Japanese learning journey lol.

Onto next week!

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New to the Wanikani forums and just discovered this bookclub! I am so excited to work on my reading skills. I’m about halfway through Genki 1 and these pages were definitely a struggle to get through, but the discussion here was so helpful that I don’t feel discouraged. Thanks for being such a friendly and open community! :slightly_smiling_face:

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Welcome! As a newer learner myself, definitely take it easy and don’t get bogged down too much in getting exact translations. At last for me, at this stage in learning it’s more important for me to get the gist of the text and enjoy reading!

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Thanks! I’m trying not to spend too much time getting bogged down in details. Every time I got stuck, I would look at the thread and realize someone had already explained whatever I had been anguishing over. :man_facepalming:

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I don’t think that’s facepalm-worthy - you’re also learning things by trying to figure them out yourself :slight_smile:

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Thank you for linking this channel! Very useful

I just finished the first week of reading :heart_eyes: It took well… a week, but I’m so glad I started the book club! I reviewed grammar points I already knew while learning new ones. Same thing for vocabulary (the sheet is so useful). Thank you! Let’s go week 2! :heart_hands:

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I just got this book and read up to page 10.

I’m curious how we are supposed to know that Mia is the girls name? Is that just a common phrase in Japanese? It’s already confusing enough that she says「あたし」instead of 「わたし」. Then she somehow does a て-form of her name? This is some sort of baby-talk?

Are we expected to just memorize っていうの as a child’s way of introducing themselves? I spent a few minutes trying to decipher みあって and gave up. It wasn’t until the next page that I realized it was a name.

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You may not see it often, but it does come up as a way for someone to give their name.

More specifically, it’s like saying, “I’m called —”.

Here's an example from another manga, where a character introduces her friend.

image

It's also seen with kanji, as in this scene where an aquarium employee tells the name of an otter.

image

When someone gives a name this way, it often ends with の or similar. This is because this use of の has a grammatic use of explanation.

って is another way to say と, and so you may see this written as と()う and という as well.

Note that 「nameと()う」 translates as “called ‘name’” and this can be used to state what something is called aside from a name.

Here's an example where a woman refers to her mirror as a talisman.

Regarding Mia’s line, she’s saying, “Is called Mia.” The pronoun is left unspoken, but from context, we can tell she’s referring to herself.

This is not unlike someone in English saying, “The name’s Scott.” The speaker can be saying his name is Scott, or he can be answering someone asking his son’s name, or his pet poodle’s name.

Context helps fill in the “who” that is called the given name or word.

You get used to it with exposure (reading and more reading) and experience (learning along the way).


Although there’s no rush to learn them now, over time, you will encounter:

  • (わたし)
  • あたし
  • (ぼく)
  • (おれ)

…and many others. (Some characters use うち is used as a pronoun.)

There are different pronouns used to refer to oneself. Some are typically used by boys, and others are typically used by girls. Some are more feminine (あたし), and some are masculine ((おれ)).


I mentioned this above, but you’ll find that the と used for quoting often is spoken as って.

It may seem confusing at first because it seems like it’s acting like the て form of a verb, but you’ll get used to it over time. When you see a noun or clause with って attached to it, that means it’s being quoted (either a direct quote or an indirect quote).

This っていう thus is short for と()う, but you may also see って by itself being short for と()う.


If you search the thread for っていう, you can also see prior discussion on it:

image


I guarantee that with enough reading experience, you’ll look back on this and say, “It’s so clear and obvious this girl is giving her name.”

There’s a first time for learning everything, and I know I sure went through my share of spending time trying to figure out the basics. It’s all part of the learning process!

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Good old “その私” used as a pseudo pronoun.

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Please don't remind me of the line that I spent the most time on only to get no clear answer when reading my first manga in Japanese...

image

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(Did you get your answer now years later?)

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Not really =(

In other contexts, I get a feel for it. But not in this one.

That said, I’m fine with letting this one go.

Eventually.

Probably.

It’s only been about five years since I read it.

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Seems like a valuable goal to work towards.

Just picture it, 10 years later, you’ve amassed a ton of experience, read countless works, you can hold a conversation about anything, watch anything, read anything without as much as a dictionary in sight. So you sit back down, open up this manga once again, and you can finally go “Wait a sec, I still don’t get this”

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Is there a boy time too?
lol think you have a typo

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