ゆるキャン△ | Week 2 Discussion 🏕

Last week totally broke my brain with all of the camping terminology and narration. This week is making me feel much better about myself as I’m actually recognising more kanji I’ve learned through WK.

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I totally felt like Nadeshiko at the end of the chapter! 私もキャンプしに行きたい~ also, the omake at the end is funny :laughing:

I have a question for Page 26 though: Nadeshiko says, 「南部町ってとこ」at the end. Is とこ here a short form for 所(ところ)? As in, “Nanbu is the place” ?

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あたしもゥー

Yeah, it is the same thing.

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So, on this week’s real-life connections: They didn’t really visit any new locations, so no map links this week. Though, since Nadeshiko mentions living in Nambu, I guess I can link to that - from Nambu to Koan Campground it’s 42 kilometres, uphill basically the whole way. Like, Google won’t even give cycling instructions.

But, for an actual reference, the image of Mount Fuji that appears on the 1000-yen note which Nadeshiko mentions on page 27 is this:

Here is an article about someone visiting the spot from which the original image was made - the Google Maps location he gives is the road right above Koan Campground.

My comments on the reading:

Page 20-21, I’m amused that Nadeshiko gets interrupted in the middle of saying スマホスマホ, and finishes with マホス. (Yen Press has bizarrely rendered that as “My phone, my phone, where is my-? My deck of playing cards…”)

And speaking of bizarre renderings, also on page 21, Yen Press has translated じゅうごかい (fifteen installments) as “multiply this by fifteen”. And granted, 十五回払い does look at first glance like “pay fifteen times”, and I was confused the first time I encountered it, but… isn’t the translator a professional?

Rin going ラーメンがキウイに化けた on page 31 makes me think of the trading minigames in the Zelda series.

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Some people really cheap out on professional translators and hire people that are basically able to parse Japanese words correctly. I know translators who speak about my level of Japanese more or less. I was able to make some bucks before working to translate sentences and such into “natural English” at the time my level of Japanese was about N3.

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Yesssss! And totally agree - that’s probably one of my favourite omake :blush:


Just want to reiterate last week’s note that you have all week to read, so don’t feel panicked by some people having managed to finish already :slightly_smiling_face:


I think that page 20 might be the first time I’ve seen もらう written in kanji :thinking: am I right in thinking that Rin “uses” kanji much more than, say, Nadeshiko, as an indication of her having a good vocabulary (from reading a lot presumably), or is it more that it gives her a slightly more formal air?

I’m actually not sure what Rin means when she says ウンだよ on the bottom of page 21 - is she agreeing to Nadeshiko’s terms? :grin:

And finally for now, on page 24, Nadeshiko ponders 家族も見当たらないし ・ 一人でキャンプしてるのかなあ? I can’t quite wrap my head around the first bubble; is she thinking that Rin can’t find her family? That her family can’t find her? She has, like, a tent and everything, so unless she’s thinking that Rin has run away from home or something I don’t see why you’d think she might be lost.

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I couldn’t say anything about the reasoning, but she certainly does seem to use more kanji - like 何故 a couple of pages later.

“That was a lie”. Basically, “I was joking”.

She’s thinking that she, Nadeshiko, can’t see Rin’s family anywhere. She’s not thinking Rin’s lost, she’s thinking that she’s camping alone.

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Yes, I noticed that one too.

Unrelated, but I have to confess that somehow it’s been so long since I’ve seen the word 家族 (??!) that I started to look up the second kanji by radical search before realising partway through :sweat_smile:

Ah, thanks - I now realise that what actually happened here is that I misread it as ウン when it’s ウソ :sweat_smile: despite the fact that when I first read it, my brain scanned it as うそ based on the context - it then specifically contradicted that and went “NO, IT IS うん - HOW STRANGE”.

Ohhhhh. Man, sometimes… my brain is just not functional. I got the second part, but having the subject the wrong way round for that first bubble made it seem like a really weird train of thought.

I’ve been working like 12 hours a day for weeks now please forgive me :sob:

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Page 20

あっちは坂道だし下まですぐだと思うけど

あっちは - that way, plus topic marker
坂道 - hill road
だ - copula
し - horrible grammar thing that means something or other but I forget
下 - below / bottom
まで - until
すぐ - soon
だ - another copula
と - if
思う - to think
けど - but

but I think if that way hill road soon until the bottom

“I think that if you [take] that road down the mountain you will soon reach the bottom”

What is that し doing in this sentence?

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Not really well read enough to make a general statement, but I have noticed that kanji vs hiragana is sometimes used to show how mature the characters are (sort of like Nadeshiko is a bit childish and so gets more hiragana, Rin is mature and so gets more kanji).

Page 21 gets me every time. ¥430(税込) is such an unnecessary piece of information :rofl:

This manga makes me happier than it should

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It essentially connects the clauses together logically. Basically “That’s a hill road, (therefore) you’ll reach the bottom soon.”

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I felt the same way when watching the anime. I was put off by a story about kids going camping and thought it wouldn’t grab me, but it turned out to be so much more in a feel-good and heartwarming way. I’m enjoying reconnecting with these characters again in Japanese (I watched the anime with subs).

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Thank you so much @Belthazar!

I love how this so perfectly describes the reading experience much of the time :joy:

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Aww, grammar isn’t the enemy…

Then again, I tend to take the “If I guess from the context enough times, something vaguely correct will stick. Probably.” attitude…

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Are we the same person?!?!

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I passed N1 thanks to that attitude with C in the grammar category, but shh, so it can’t be wrong.

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If it’s good enough to pass N1 it must work :+1:

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It’s okay, I like grammar really :wink: but damn if it doesn’t sometimes get in the way of the reading :grin: I kid, I kid, really, I enjoy learning grammar

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Indeed! It cannot be because the JLPT is flawed from not testing production :ok_hand:
Anyway, who cares about talking? Ain’t got no time for that, there’s reading to do.

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