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ひとりぼっちの○○生活 Home Thread
Week 1: Chapter 1
Start Date: 2024-12-13T15:00:00Z
Vocabulary Sheet
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11 Likes
So, like Komi-san before this, the character names in Hitoribocchi are all puns on their primary character traits, though it’s a little bit more overt than Komi-san’s. 一理ぼっち is, of course, 一人ぼっち, childhood friend 八原かい is 柔らかい, and new seat-mate 砂尾なこ is 素直な子 (probably definition 2, specifically).
12 Likes
Her goals are also slightly more realistic
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Finished this chapter beforehand. I don’t know why, but this image here is making super sad 
So, a couple questions from various pages:
Page 4
約束すどう : Yawarakai also use that すどう. Il looks like a particle, but I can’t find it.
Page 6
Why is Hitori thinking that Sunaonako had a cough ? She then awkwardly bring her honey syrup. Is it something Sunao said ? EDIT : wait, is it just Sunao clearing her throat ?
誰がおばあちゃんだコラ！What’s that コラ here ? Suano uses it again latter on during the umbrella arc
Page 7
あんたパシリにでもなりたいの ?
You want to become my dog or something ? (what’s a good english word パシリ ? The only one I can think of is “bitch” but that’s a bit hard).
私そういう考えよくわかんないから
'cause I don’t really get what you’re thinking
悪いけど他の子当たってくれる
(I just don’t get this one. She’s not interested in bullying Hitori, but is she telling to find something else ? Or that she doesn’t do that to other kids ?)
5 Likes
My physical copy came with a cute bookmark. Just a shame I didn’t get one with each volume for different characters!
12 Likes
Ahhh making me wish I had a physical copy… I looked at my local shop but couldn’t find one! Been reading Card Captor Sakura with ABBC and love the cute bookmarks that come in all the physical copies I’ve bought.
This is my first time trying to read with BBC so I’m taking the expectations for nuance of understanding really low, but I had a fun time reading this weeks chapter! Looking forward to the rest of the book 
6 Likes
I understand, but then I was expecting a imperative form or something.
Ah, I see the confusion. It’s just くれる because it’s a question/request. It would be said with a rising inflection.
3 Likes
This is my first time using some of the formatting options here. Huge apologies if I mess up the spoiler somehow!
I got a question regarding Hitori’s weak constitution and Sunao’s (Sunaonako? Sunao Nako? If this is a full name or just surname or just first name is a lil’ unclear to me!) speech patterns.
On Page 6...
Sunao calls Hitori ゲロ (page 6, first panel), which is a casual/semi-onomatopoetic word for puke, as I understand it. The meaning here isn’t exactly unclear. From context of Sunao’s very “direct” speech pattern it comes off a a pretty-stereotypical delinquent-ism. However, Hitori also happens to have a literal anxious-vomiting habit that is noticed by other students (page 4, final panel).
This could be just literally ambiguous, but to those who have more exposure of this kind of media: is ゲロ here a specific nickname for Hitori or just a general standoffish delinquent-ism?
Or, is it not even being used as a “name” at all here? From context I think it’s being used as a “name”, but when i was first trying to understand the panel I thought it might be verbal-onomatopoeia for making a puking noise.
Thanks all! Thanks ☆
3 Likes
Been reading Card Captor Sakura with ABBC […] This is my first time trying to read with BBC so I’m taking the expectations for nuance of understanding really low
I’ve been lightly following along with Card Captor Sakura but honestly that one posed far far greater challenges to understand for me than Hitori Bocchi has so far. Though, also, the size of the text in CCS is nightmarish for me, hahaha. With my physical copy I can’t even read the furigana using a magnifying glass, at least not without giving myself a headache. So, it’s really a case of “I know the kanji or I don’t” when it comes to reading that one for me (pretty hard for me to make sense of radicals in kanji I don’t know at that small a print and with “messy” handwriting in comparison to the very clean clearly digitally typed kanji here in Hitori Bocchi). But, really, CCS seems a lot more complex to me in general. I haven’t picked it up in a few weeks due to the print size though - it’s one of the ones I plan to get to with more practice reading other stuff.
Bookmarks are adorable and fantastic though. I love my CCS one as well…
4 Likes
Here’s a further question with page 11… this page in general is where I had the most trouble.
Page 11
In the first panel, what is up with the 「のも」?
Here’s how I’d transcribe this sentence with the punctuation and line breakup that I’m intuiting:
なんだその・・・ 友達になりたいって言われるのも うれしいもんだな。だから もう変な気はつかうな
This part really throws me off; I’m really not sure what the role of these particles are or if they’re being combined or not. One potential explaination that seems perfectly correct is that の is acting on it’s own as a nominalizer for 言われる. That makes perfect sense. However, what throws me off is that I have no idea what the も is doing in that case!
The only uses that I know of a single も in a sentence are (1) as an “also” version of the particle は, (2) as emphasis, but only regarding numbers and quantities of time, and (3) approximation, but again only regarding numbers and quantities.
The (1) use is the only one that’d make sense in this sentence but… I don’t understand why it’s been used instead of は. I don’t see anything else in the sentence it could be going “also” too, nor anything following up from the panels of the last page.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
4 Likes
Yeah only one chapter in but have to agree so far. Bocchi is catching me more off guard with the vocab than anything so far but I was surprised at not getting all too tripped up relative to CCS
3 Likes
This is one reason it’s difficult to know which club to nominate something for. Results can be unpredictable!
7 Likes
Yeah for sure. As someone who was trying to read manga pages the same day I first learned Hiragana, I feel bad for the people who are too intimidated to try media that hasn’t been explicitly “rated” by others. Probably the most famous example of a manga recommended to beginners is よつばと, and while that’s inarguably an easy read overall, I’ve 100% noticed people getting highly demoralized and thinking they’re not good enough to read more complex media yet because they’re thrown off by things that are MUCH easier to understand once you have some more reading experience (colloquialisms, dialects, sentence fragments, nonsense phrases). A lot of really simple manga are full of these things that can make them difficult to read if you don’t already know what they are, whereas more complex manga with longer sentences actually give way way more context to work with. Similarly, I know people with vastly more vocabulary and experience than myself who don’t view themselves as good enough to read anything but graded readers. I think this is a bit of a tragedy because, in my experience, grader readers are honestly pretty difficult to read because the sentences are too simple.
The first manga I read where I felt like I could just intuit what sentences meant with context from the vocabulary and grammar was 真夏のグレイグー, a mystery/horror manga with a lot of science/military/government vocabulary. Unlike something like よつばと, I really was able to confidently read and enjoy it because the longer sentences provided a lot more context and really reinforced tenants about Japanese sentence construction in my mind.
Then again, I also probably have a much higher tolerance for looking up every other word in a manga than most people. That seems to be a deal-breaker for a lot of people, which is understandable! Personally, I would find isolated vocab study much more difficult without external reading though!
3 Likes
It’s time like these I wish WK forums had reactions this is a grade A meme
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I started a quick translation while I had time. Some questions remains in there.
page 3
Starting today, I’m a middle school student ! In order to make friends, the first self-introduction is essential ! Very much !
Well, next one !
Y…yes !
Let’s be cheerful !
I… aaam…
(sound of someone puking) Hitori san, are you ok ?
page 4
Of course, self introduction is not enough / not good. But even talking is like torture…
But I promised.
Iinbochi ! We will be separated during middle school, so we have to work hard to make friend !
So, until the middle school graduation ceremony, I decided to end our relationship as long as I’m (we’re ?) not friends with the whole class !
That’s crazy !
No it’s not !
(crying) but I promise I’ll reconcile with you once I have a lot of friends (or is it promise me ?)
So, first, I’ll talk to the person in the seat in front of me ! So I can reconcile with Kaichan ! Kaichan, I… I’m going to vomit.
page 5
The girl in the front seat, Sunaonako san. She’s a bit scary…
But… I have to do it… I have to talk to her… talk…
I have a cramp…
5 seconds ! If/when I rest for 5 seconds I’ll then talk… 1, 2, 3, 4…
GO ! (is this a jp-eng pun ?)
(Then I can’t exactly read but hey, I don’t think it matters)
page 6
What’s that ? Vomit ?
“Vomit” ? But then… this means…
SHE TALKED TO ME !
I’m chatting with a student from the same year ! Sunaosan… (I can’t figure out what いつぶりだろう means here )
You’re such a good person !
What the heck is this…hem…
A cough !?
Right !
Grandma used to say “honey is good for the throat”
Here… Here is honey syrup. It’s good. Grandma…
HEY, WHO ARE YOU CALLING GRANDMA ???
2 Likes
