にゃんにゃん - Kitty Detectives - Vol. 1

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Summary

Yes, I did - 4 months of 0 reviews, 0 lessons for health reasons, and several of the levels that I had studied before that fell victim as well (my headaches were so bad that it was having a disturbing impact on my memory - for many WK items lvl Apprentice 4+ I had zero recollection of ever having learned them :cold_sweat:).

The good news is I am so much more organised now than last time around - I’ve spent much of today figuring MS OneNote out, and making weekly study plans that include graded readers, kanji writing practice, grammar, listening, etc in conjunction with WK.

Hey, I’ve just noticed that you’ve levelled up in the last day or so. Good on you!

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Page 90

My second question from this page.

「これは たいへんだ。とにかく 家のなかに はいりましょう。」

I’m reading this as “That’s awful. Somehow of other, lets get inside the house”.

Is my reading of とにかく as “somehow or other” (one of the options given at Jisho) correct do you think?

Edit:

off topic

Nice one Rowena! And I hope your health is better now too. Thank you!

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Page 91

そういわれて、あたしは 家のはんたいがわに まわった。

そう - in that way; thus; such
いわれて、- 言う - to say, 言われる - passive, 言われて - te-form
あたしは - I + topic particle
家のはんたいがわに - to the opposite side of the house
まわった - 回った - past tense of 回る - 1. to turn; to revolve, 2. to visit several places​

“after it was said like that, I turned round to the opposite side of the house”
“after [he] said that, I spun round to the other side of the house”

How’s that?

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Page 92

この家は 密室なのかしら?

この家は - this house + topic particle
密室 - room locked from the inside (while you are outside!)
なの - ???
かしら?- I wonder?

So Hanae is wondering if the whole house is locked up from the inside (do we have a locked room mystery here?), but the main mystery for me at the moment is that なの.

I don’t know if it is nominalisation (every time I see の these days I think nominalisation!) or if it is a female term for assertion/questions. And how could I tell which it is?

“even during” works better in English, but yes. It’s 間に → 間も.
One reason も is tricky is that it has a voracious appetite and eats other particles, such as は, が, を, に and probably some others as well, which leaves you guessing which particle should be there.

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とにかく = anyway; anyhow; in any case

fits most naturally here I think.

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Wow! great description! I’ll remember that! Thank you!

What would we do without you aiju? Thank you so much!

Seems about right but I think 回った might be better translated as “went around” or even just “went” here.

Remember, だ becomes な before の.
I think this is the explanatory の.
I have to admit I still don’t really know what it means in every case.
Here it’s literally something like “I wonder whether it’s the case that it’s locked from inside?”
and you would probably just drop it and make it “I wonder whether it’s locked from inside?”

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Thank you so much aiju! You are a :star:!

Page 93.

あわてて 音のしたがわに まわると、窓ガラスが わられている。

あわてて = to become confused
音 + の + したがわ + に = the sound from the underside / from below
まわる = to turn (maybe here it is more like “to come”?)
と = conditional
窓ガラスが = window’s glass
わられている = to be divided

Taking some poetic licence, I understand it something like:

Confused, since the sound came from below, the window glass was divided/broken.

Which kind of relates to the picture in the book, where the sound comes from the level of Hanae’s feet.

However, I’m not really sure of my interpretation, specially of the あわてて.

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I have a slightly different reading:

あわてて - te-form of 慌てる - to be in a hurry, to rush
音のした - isn’t this more like “heard the sound” with した as the past of する, to sense. But yes, not sure about that の.
がわに - to the side
まわる - to hurry
と - when
窓ガラスが - window pane + が particle
わられている - from 割る, to break; to crack; to smash

“when [I] rushed round to the side where the sound [came from], the window was smashed”

Together I’m sure we can come up with a perfect translation!

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I’m actually to the point where I get the gist, but if I where to ask about all the things I didn’t understand fully I would ask about everything :wink:
Though I probably would be able to find more if I stopped and actually looked things up. I’ve done the “read without stopping” method, and managed to understand more or less what happened in the story, but missed a lot of the details. I plan on coming back to read it again and maybe even look things up later.

But don’t stop asking questions! Your questions with breakdowns is of great use to me! I love reading them and feel I can pick up a lot from them and they help me learn =^_^=

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I had that same reading and translation.

I see 音のしたがわ(に) as one chunk meaning the “sound’s made side” aka the side where the sound was made. I think here it’s the possessive の and した is the past tense する, which modifies がわ (made side). So strange. Freaking Japanese

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You’re close. It’s indeed a relative clause.
音のした [where] the sound was made
がわ the side

i.e. “the side where the sound was made”

In a relative clause the subject can be marked with either の or が.
There is no difference other than one being potentially more ambiguous in a given example.
It’s one of those silly things that is caused by history but doesn’t really make much sense in the current language on its own (It doesn’t make sense “synchronically”, a linguist would say).

Putting it together, the whole sentence is literally something like
“When I went, surprised, around to the side where the sound was made, the window’s glass was broken”
more natural would probably be something like
“I was surprised and when I went around to the side where the sound came from, I saw that the window was shattered.”

(There is some subtlety with ている here, I think, as it can imply when a state was perceived which corresponds to something like “I noticed that …” in English)

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Sounds like a good idea! Thank you so much Toyger for this post! Much, much appreciated!

Freaking Japanese indeed! Funny how it is just so odd! Thank you so much Adrian0121!

Thank you again so much aiju, your post is packed full of loads of great explanations as usual! Thank you!

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Another funny subtlety I just noticed.
One might object to my interpretation since 音がする is not passive, but “the sound was made” is passive.
But in Japanese, the sound is actually the subject of active する!
More literal would probably be to translate する as “occurs”.
おとがする → “A sound occurs”

see

for examples on this
e.g.

雨の音がする
“A sound of rain occurs”
(=> more naturally “I hear the sound of rain”)

Their translation of “hearing a sound” is, I think, more an example of something that might be more natural in English, but it’s not really a “direct” translation.
Just like ている above, this is another example where English is a bit more explicit about perception and it’s implicit in Japanese.

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Wow, thanks! so this makes the trick !

For those interested on reading a bit more, I’ve found an article from maggie sensei that talks about it. I quote the interesting part:

Note 2: You can use a particle の ( = no) as a topic marker,
*マギーの作ったおにぎり= Maggie no tsukutta onigiri.
This may confuse you because you have learned the particle の ( = no) is a possession marker or it means “of”.
But in relative clauses, you can also use の ( = no) as a subject marker.

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Yay, my books arrived and today I had the chance to catch up with you! :grinning:
I needed to look up very much, but with your questions (and answers, of course :wink:) I could understand most of it. Despite being tough, I had much fun reading my first pages in japanese :grin:

Because it is my first time, I’d quickly like to show what I understood so far and add some questions:

p. 86-87
[We were] on the road back from Capone’s health check.
East(? とうぜん) from the street next to our home a voice called “help!”.
I wondered what [that was].

.
p.88-89
I rushed over to the front door.
Despite ringing the bell, no-one came out.

I don’t understand this sentence: ドアには かぎがかかっている。
ドアに = at the door
かぎ = key
かかっている = te-iru-form of かかる (to come) ?
Can someone help me with that, please?

A person came along the street.
“What’s the matter?”

.
p. 90
Even during giving an explanation, the voice continued to call “help!”.
“This [is] serious. [We have to] break into the house anyhow.”

.
p. 91
We turned to the side of the house.

And there it is again: おや、この窓はかぎがかかっているぞ。
おや = Oh
この窓 = this window
ぎが = key
かかっている = ?
ぞ = ?
ぎが doesn’t seem to mean “key” here; is it something along the lines of “locked”? I didn’t find anything.

“Please look at the window on the other side [of the house].”
After [he] said that, I went around to the other side of the house.

.
p.92
The window on the other side was also locked_??_
はんたいがわの窓も かぎが かかっている。
Argh. :confused:

I wonder if this house is locked.

.
p. 93
At that moment, [there was] a banging/slamming noise.
Right after that, the glass broke. (した = right after?)
I rushed to where the sound came from and the glass of the window was broken.
(where does まわる go into that sentence?)

いまの人が なかに はいったのね。
Something along: There was a person in the middle of the living room?
いま = living room - “now” doesn’t seem to make sense?
人 = person
なか = inside; middle
はいった = ta-form of はいる (to enter); to break into
のね = ?

いったい、この家で なにがあったのかしら?
I wondered why there was a body in the house? Something like that?

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かぎ here means lock. Yes it means both key and lock, confusingly.
かかる is a mean verb that can mean a lot of different things.
かぎがかかる as a combination means something like “to engage the lock”
So the whole sentence here means the “At the door, the lock was engaged”. I.e. the door was locked.

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Fabulous!

Maybe not yet…

Could be…

Cracked it!

That was a masterclass in learning new vocab from reading! Thank you! I just wish I could pick things up as quickly as that. I’m serious.

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