To add to what’s been said already
うち can be humble and thus often closer to “my house” in English
it’s also used as a metonymy for “me”, “my family” or “my household” (cf. “the white house decided that…” in english, obviously the white house is not literally making a decisions, being a building)
いえ is a neutral term for house
Is it too late to jump on this?!
Nope! 
And I have to fill 10 characters at least
Page 56
猫が好きな ひとりくらしのおばさん というので、カポネも つれていった。
I took Capone along with me to visit the old lady who lives alone and likes cats.
I think I have the gist, but I can’t figure out what というので means! Jisho is no help at all because I guess this is not vocab but a string of grammar. Any pointers?
I think という here means hearsay, i.e. I heard that ~, They say ~, and ので means because, the phrase before ので is the reason for what comes after it.
So, というので would mean ~is what I’ve heard so~
They say she’s an old lady who lives alone and likes cats so, I brought Capone along with me.
Page 56
Thank you so much! I’d never have got there without your help! Thank you!
という can also be used like this.
世界が終わるという知らせを聞いた。
という modifies the noun after it with what is behind it.
So, literally this would mean,
I heard the notice which said the world will end.
If we interpret, というので like this, it shouldn’t be wrong, but hearsay feels like a better fit. I thought I should point this out so we can discuss which meaning suits better.
XでY can mean something like “X being (the case), Y” which is an indicator of circumstance that often implies causation.
X here has to be a noun (or noun phrase) which is why a nominaliser の is used
So XのでY is something like “It being the case, that X, Y” or “Since X, Y”
という (it is said that) is probably literal here (as greasyButter said)
nb: sometimes it doesn’t involve any saying at all and is used “grammaticalised”, meaning simply “that” (cf. “I’m going to help” which doesn’t involve literal “going”)
“Since it is said that she is a cat-loving, alone-living old lady, I took Kapone along as well”
(It’s not quite accurate to translate it as “since” since the implication is only implied, so something like
“Having heard that …, I took Kapone along as well”
is a bit closer to the Japanese in that respect)
Here’s what i grabbed from my copy of “ドイツからこんにちは” (I summarized and loosly translated the German explanation):
For “house” there’s いえ, うち and おたく.
いえ: house in the sense of “building”
=> にほんはきのいえです。ドイツはいしのいえです。
Japanese houses are made of wood. German houses are made of stone.
うち: house in the sense of “my house”, “home”; more than just the building itself
(not the building at all in some cases)
=> わたしのうちは５にんかぞくです。
My family has 5 members.
うちのこどもたちはよくほんをよみます。
Our kids like reading books.
うちのかいしゃはアメリカのかいしゃです。
Ours is an American company.
おたく: more polite version of いえ/うち
=> やまださんのおたくはとてもおおきいです。
The Yamada family’s house is very big.
おたくのおこさんもほんがすきですか。
Are your children fond of reading books?
Page 56
Thank you aiju!
(I’m going to be really busy for the next couple of days so won’t be able to post for a while. My first break from this thread. But I will keep the page count up to date in the title. Back soon! M)
おつかれさま!
I forgot to mention something which might be helpful in trying to figure out who is saying what when looking at quotes.
If you look at p58, it looks like a big mess of quotes piled together. So who’s saying what?
Believe it or not, the quotes on this page are actually easy to separate out from one another.
When you see a quotation marker which starts near the top and what looks like an indentation (but technically is not), it indicates a change in who’s speaking. The dialogue on p58 between Hanae and Ipponmatsu-san is a continuation from p57.
Just added some colored lines to the page below to point this out.
Green = Speaker A (Ipponmatsu-san)
Red = Speaker B (Hanae)
So look for what appear to be indentations as hints to figure out who the speaker is. Doesn’t always work 100% of the time but most of time it does.
Edit: Sorry. In original post, I mentioned new paragraph indentations but these are not. This book actually doesn’t seem to use new paragraph indentations for some reason.
@marcusp we will miss you here!
Pag 56-57
「まあ、うちのキャサリンのアメリカン・ショート・ヘアーのかわいい ねこちゃん なのよ。それにくらべて、そのねこわ ずいぶん おもしろいかおなのね。」
I don’t understand why does she bring this up? Is she just making small talk?
Also on pag 57
カポネが フンというかおで そっぽを むいた。
What is フン？ on jisho it says Hun or feces. I don’t know what hun means in English and looking on google it gives me “a member of a Nordic barbaric group” which does not make sense. I don’t think feces fit either.
The only thing I thoughts is フン as a written noise that kapone does as a protest for the comment on the other cat and in fact he turns the other way.
I think so. Or maybe she just wanted to comment about Capone.
I maybe wrong on this one. But I think it’s like the sound expression for when you’re annoyed, and turn your face away and give an annoyed sigh. Maybe someone else can explain it better.
“Hmmm, you know, my Catherine is a cute kitty – an American Shorthair. Compared to her, this cat has the most interesting/amusing/fascinating face, doesn’t he.”
I think she just wants to point out Kapone’s facial expression is funny and quite different from her cat’s.
See
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/フン
“A generic sound indicating agreement or acceptance, or disagreement or skepticism.”
“skepticism” fits best here (I imagine the wide variation implied here would in speech be distinguished by a change of tone).
I think here it’s something like “Hmph!” in English.
The picture in the book makes it pretty clear.
Ahhhhhhh I did not realize she was talking about her cat in the first sentence…I thought she randomly started talking about this Catherine…that is why I was soooo confused!!! I misunderstood うち again, without realizing it is still the same case when it means “my” as it was explained before!!!
I was silly when I checked on Jisho, I stopped reading as soon as I saw it was giving a definition for ふん and not フン. Thanks you so much!
From what I’ve read, sometimes words that are usually written in hiragana are written in katakana just for emphasis.
As you already know, katakana is used for foreign words but there are other uses for it as well as described in this article.
