sad, there doesn’t seem to be an Ebook version that I can find anywhere. might have to purchase the books straight from AmazonJP which will take such a long time, kinda wish I joined the book club earlier. I’ll drop for now and join for the next round so that I would be able to read along. set me to inactive please?
I finished the first chapter! That’s officially the most text I’ve ever attempted to read in Japanese. (Although I have to say…I was relieved to get to the part with less text 
)
I think this experience is really helping me identify some of the more common/useful pieces of grammar to focus on/study for the purposes of reading. I’ve had trouble staying motivated to slog through a grammar textbook, and I think it’s at least partially because there’s no larger context and no immediately gratifying application (unlike with Yotsuba, where the gratification for looking up a grammar point is - hey - I understood the story and I know what’s going on! 
). Thankfully, a lot of the stuff I haven’t learned yet seems to repeat pretty frequently, so even though I still have to look them up all the time, I feel like I’m at least getting better at recognizing different verb conjugations and sentence constructions.
Honestly, it’s been relatively painless given my very minute knowledge of grammar (I’ll credit this thread and some of the vocab resources that I pre-studied for that - everyone who’s been explaining stuff on here has been a big help, especially with some of those longer sentences!). Also, Yotsuba is pretty cute, so that probably helps, too. ^^ Looking forward to the next chapter!
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The thread is starting to get quite long, glad to see that so many people are actively reading and discussing this manga.
I have a small suggestion that should make researching the thread easier.
When asking a question about some vocabulary or grammar, please include the page number. It would probably help people who can’t read the whole thread to research if something they don’t get has already been adressed.
Everyone using the same format would make everything easier.
For instance Page - XX then you can ask your question/give your answer.
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I think this is a good solution - then, people can just search the topic for the page number and easily see if the question has already been addressed. Many people have been including the page numbers in their posts already, and I’ve been using this method a lot to search the thread. It’s by far the quickest way I’ve found to search for a specific point, and it would be even better and more effective if we could make it systematic like this.
Looking back at the discussion above, separate threads for each chapter seems…excessive. Especially since most chapters are shorter than this first one. If most people want that, I won’t stand in the way, but creating separate threads still won’t solve the essential issue of not being able to find anything with search, unless we also implement this page number system.
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I agree with the inclusion of page numbers, though I don’t see what the dash adds; most people have been naturally using Page XX, and I’d suggest we stick with that.
I still think a separate thread per chapter is not excessive. This thread on the first chapter is nearly 300 messages long! That seems very long to me. If most chapters are half that, at 150 messages they’d still be very long threads. And it gives a sensible place for general comments about each chapter as a whole (i.e., not tied to a particular page number).
If we do it all in one thread, it’s going to end up thousands of messages long — way too long to browse, and with no clear place for such general comments to go.
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And it’s now the 15th of October here in Tokyo, so we can start chapter two! Yipeeee!
So, this thread or a new one?
Personally, I’d prefer a new one - but have no idea how I’d set it up!
I can see the logic in this. But another thing to consider is that more threads means more division of the book club members. I can’t speak for those who’ve been answering questions, but people may not have the desire to keep up with 7 threads at once (which is what it will end up being by the time we reach the last chapter). That means that people who come in late may not get their questions answered as quickly, because no one will be watching the older threads. Personally, I’d rather keep up with 1 longer thread than 7 shorter threads. But that may be just me (and that’s fine - like I said, if it’s just me, don’t let me stop you. I’m just trying to consider it from other angles).
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- Create a new thread for each chapter
- Keep everything together in this thread
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Might as well get numbers for it, since we seem to have differing opinions.
Personally, I’d naturally expect questions about earlier chapters to get answered more slowly because people will have forgotten things, and I can also see a single massive thread deterring people from jumping in just as much as it might invite questions from anywhere in the book at any time.
Well, okay, here goes with chapter two (new thread or not!)
The first few pages are lovely, nice story and pictures and no hard work!
My first question came on p.56 when よつば is waking up her dad by pushing on his chest.
The dad says おぶっ.
I asked my wife (Japanese) (who never reads manga) what that means and she said she’s never heard it used and doesn’t use it herself.
But it’s clear from the picture (and the bubbles!) that the dad must be burping, with よつば on his chest and everything.
Sounding it out, it must be the noise of a kind of burp!
Lesson one complete! LOL!
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I saw it as a “huff!” from the exertion of her pressure. But the bubbles over his mouth could indicate a burp or yawn, in this case it does look more like burp. I guess it might be an unusual burping sound due to her pressure on his chest =)
Indeed! That’s just how I see it!
Well, it’s got to be said, the thread is very quiet considering we’ve just started chapter two. Perhaps because people are waiting to see if there will be a seperate thread or not.
But anyway, my next observation is also on a sound. On page 58 よつば drinks her drink and then says ぷはーっ. I love that! That’s the noise you hear in Japanese beer adverts when people drink and then go “ahhhh”, or, more acurately, ぷはーっ and look lovingly and longingly at the brand name on their glass!
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I must say many bits are quite challenging although everyone seems to list yotsuba in the easiest manga to read section
And while we are on page 58, does anyone know the difference between うまい and おいしい? Is there a difference?
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うまい is ‘good’ and おいしい is delicious. i have heard うまい being used outside of food, so more good. Though others may give opinion because I’m not anywhere good at Japanese yet.
Just back on the idea of starting a new thread. I didn’t read all the comments on it (sorry if someone mentioned this). I think another thread would be better because for people like me, who don’t have much time to keep up, can go more at their own pace. (embarrassingly I’ve barely started) so then having another thread would keep the thread looking monstrous and making them feel really bad about it, and less motivated to try or just making them feel less embarrassed about asking a question from a chapter covered a few chapters ago. And for a number of other reasons like these.
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I found a funny comment about that through google!
"There is no difference in meaning between 「おいしい」 and 「うまい」 — “delicious”, “tasty”, “yummy”, etc. — but there is a difference in usage and nuance.
Source
「おいしい」 sounds more refined and often more feminine than 「うまい」. 「うまい」 sounds more down-to-earth and intuitive, and it could carry a small amount of light vulgarity.
If you were a Japanese-speaking parent, you would probably not want to hear your little girl use 「うまい」. Even if your kid were a boy, you would still not want him to use it too often until he was, like, out of elementary school. I am actually speaking from my own experience here. I am male so I usually somehow got away with saying 「うまい」 as a kid, but my sister did not. Our mother basically never used the word herself nor did she allow her daughter to use it."
So Yotsuba using it is considered wrong in a rude way. I guess this seems to be a pattern of hers, as she picks up from her dad and Jumbo rather than peers and other females.
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Thank you! Very useful! (And I agree about the threads!)
Brilliant! Thank you!
I have a question about the following sentence from chapter 2. I guess the translation looks like this:
You shouldn’t push that button when you have no business at the house .
Orginal sentence: あれは用もないのに押しちゃだめなのよ?
I don’t quite get the idea of ~もない part. I feel it’s a grammar point, which i haven’t learned yet. What do you think/know about ~もない? 教えて下さい。
Page 75 (for searching purposes)
も, as you probably know, is like “also”, used to omit repetition, but it can also be used to imply that something follows from context. And ない is typically negation. Together, they can convey “do not have X”. 用もない is thus roughly “no [other] task”, making the sentence breakdown something like this:
あれは about that (thing)
用もないのに no purpose behind it
押しちゃ calling on someone (guessing from context; I don’t know exactly what this conjugation means, but it refers to making a request, pressing the button)
だめなのよ? it’s not good, you know?
All together, it’s along the lines of “If you don’t have a reason, you shouldn’t push the button.”
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