しろ in polite form is してください, which may (or may not) be more familiar.
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Confused about the bottom-left panel on Page 78. Here’s what I’ve got:
Fuuka: それだれ? Who’s that?
Yotsuba: とーちゃんだ！ふーかもなんかかけ！ It’s dad! It also somewhat resembles(?) Fuuka!
Fuuka: おねーちゃんはうまいぞうー As for big sister, looks skillful (?)
I’m not sure what she’s trying to say here. Maybe “that’s a pretty good picture of me”?
The second one is:
“It’s dad! Fuuka, draw something too!” (描く - to draw, in command form)
The third one I am not sure, on the surface it looks like “Oh, I’m good at this” or “I’ll be good at this”.
I don’t think it’s “that’s a pretty good picture of me” though, she drew only one person and she said that it’s her dad.
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なんかかけ is short for 何か描け「なにかかけ」meaning “draw something”
ぞぉー in おねーちゃんはうまいぞぉー I believe is just one of the casual sentence enders drawn out.
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Also baffled by Page 88, top-right panel. The dad says: 気にすんなよくある事だ. I can’t make heads or tails of this. Unless maybe すんな is そんな, in which case this might be something like “There are often times with that kind of feeling.” Maybe?
Then there’s the bit in the box: テキトーななぐさめ, which I guess is “appropriate comfort.” I guess when it’s in a box like this, it’s not something said by either character, but just sort of an editorial comment?
But then after Fuuka replies そうですよね, the editorial comment is ごまかし , which means “hanky-panky; juggling; cheating; deception; smoke and mirrors”… What?
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It’s a bit more complicated it seems.
してください is a polite form of てちょうだい. (request form)
しろ in polite form is しなさい. (command form)
Command form is more firm that the te-form form (in both polite and causal versions)
[quote=“Euphony, post:398, topic:19926, full:true”]
“It’s dad! Fuuka, draw something too!” (描く - to draw, in command form)[/quote]
So it is! I totally blew it.
Another example of where reading is much easier with kanji than without it. 
Thanks!
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気にすんな ー＞ 気にするな ー＞ “Don’t worry about it”
All together, it means "Don’t worry, it’s the usual thing " (it happens all the time).
For the other one I am not sure myself, it’s really weird, but I interpreted it as something like “vague consolation” and “pretending as if it worked”. I hope someone more knowledgeable can clarify this.
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I know what you mean. Me too. I have to go through pretty much every single speech bubble translating everything. I rely on the vocab list and then tear my hair out trying to work out the grammar, then I ask questions here. Basically, よつばと！has become my textbook and the kind people in this thread are my teachers. And though it is hard work, it is great fun. And when we finishe the book at the end of November, I plan to keep going with vol.2 on my own. Anyway, that’s how it’s working for me!
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@horusscope Why do you respond to everything in Japanese? When beginners are asking for help, responding in Japanese will often be counterproductive. I feel like you’re trolling us or something.
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I took テキトーななぐさめ (適当な慰め) as the father thinking to himself “I guess that amount of comforting her was enough/appropriate/sufficient” (though it could be something like editorial comments like you said).
I took ごまかし as the deception / smoke and mirrors definition (I had to look it up as well). Basically, they both knew that what happened to Fuuka was not something that happens all the time, and the father saying otherwise was the deception.
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It looks like the English version translates it as “A suitable consolation” and “A deceptive response”, so I think we got it right.
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Ok, we struggle together! がんばってね。
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よつばとページ５８
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That’s how I was the first time I read this, a few years ago. In fact a lot of my Japanese studying has taken the form of reading things I don’t understand and looking up varying amounts (also anki-ing varying amounts). I learn the most when I find things to read that I understand 90-95% of, but as long as I understand something after looking things up I am learning. And I keep doing it because I run out of things easy enough and I like reading Japanese. (I realize I haven’t made as much progress as many people in that amount of time - but a lot of that is that I took breaks and don’t devote a lot of time to Japanese even when I’m not taking a break.)
So if you’re enjoying it, keep going, it is a way to learn the language. And if you get frustrated and stop enjoying it, it’s also fine - and a bit more efficient - to just focus on textbooks (or easier things to read, though the only example I know of is graded readers which are a bit expensive) until your understanding is a bit higher.
Currently I’m in between the beginner and intermediate book club levels, and I’d be doing the intermediate one for the challenge if I had more time. But this one is also turning out to be really valuable - there are a few things in each chapter that I never quite understood and people on the thread are helping me fill them in.
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ぺージ５９と７０
私と本当１読んでいるの時
＜３
Is this meant to be a question? I’ll assume so.
The red one was already explained by multiple people, just search the topic for “59” and you’ll find the relevant discussion. In short, it means “The one who is not pretty?”.
The first の is the continuation of the phase Yotsuba said on the previous page “おとなりさんのきれいじゃない方だ” (“The non-pretty neighbor”). The second の is just your regular explanatory の for questions (same as んだ・んです・ので for statements).
Finally, 「なにそれ？！」is basically “The hell?!!” or “What’s up with that?!!!”, and is a reaction to Yotsuba referring to her like that (“not pretty neighbor”).
Today’s the first day of chap. 3 (and the next to last day of chap. 2). I guess we’re not starting a new thread so I’ll ask this question here. On p.91, is the use of と in the sentence いがいといい奴だ translated as “and” so that the sentence means something like “Unexpected/surprising and good person!”? The vocabulary list is translating いがい as 意外 which can be a noun. Thanks
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