よつばと!Vol 1 Discussion Thread (Beginner's Book Club)

I’m unsure about this the よう […] part

I realise I’m quite late (like, over a year late lmao), but I found this really helpful blog by maggie sensei.

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Greetings! yotsubato’s wanikani bookclub. And sorry for reviving this thread again :sweat_smile:

it’s just that on page 211, there is this bit of speech that I literally couldn’t even begin to decipher.
It was enna (at least, I think it’s enna) saying: これとりこんだらたたまなきゃだめよ.

can anyone please help?

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The lack of kanji makes it a bit of a wall of text, doesn’t it? Here’s my translation with a few links to grammar explanations.

これとりこんだら (from 取り込む)
If you take this in

たたまなきゃ (=畳まなければ) だめ
you have to fold it.

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Excellent explanation! WK does have WaniKani / Vocabulary / 畳 as noun but not 畳む - Jisho.org as verb, although Jisho says it’s usually written in kana. Still, I think it’s interesting that “to fold (clothes)” is related to tatami mat.

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The lack of kanji makes it a bit of a wall of text, doesn’t it?

It really does! when you first finish learning hiragana and stuff, you see these taunting kanji nonsense and you’re like: “if only everything was in hiragana I would’ve been able to read this!” and then you learn a bit and you realise kanji is your friend and hiragana is the enemy.

thanks for the explanation! I really appreciate it.

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Hallo!
I have started reading Yotsuba!, it is my first book, so I guess I will be making use of all the comments on the thread. Thank you for your work.

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Funny how you can guess where someone is from just by hearing about their local recycling system! Or well almost at least, I thought you’re a fellow Finn because here in Finland it works the exact same way. But Norway is close enough! :joy:

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image

Is this a case of the tendency of Japanese to leave out words/particles?

追いかけてくる方か

The one that chases me?

Is there a の missing here or am I missing something?

I’m assuming it’s this pattern. Phrase + のは + Noun + の方だ

Or am I all wrong?

I thought that when 方 is used for a person, it’s read as かた, and not ほう? In any case, I don’t know the answer to your question, except to say Yotsuba is a young kid and doesn’t always use correct grammar. Perhaps that’s why she left out the の.

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I was using BunPro’s grammar entry as the basis for my translation of 追いかけてくる方か

https://www.bunpro.jp/grammar_points/のはxの方だ

Hover over the kanji and it switches to all hiragana which does show ほう as the reading.

Orthogonally, am I the only one that pays BunPro $3 a month, doesn’t use their SRS, but have found the grammar lookup feature exceedingly convenient? I love how it will tell me which page of the half dozen grammar books I have on my desk to go read.

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If my search skills in this very forum were better I would have seen this…

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On page 76, 風香 appears to say, とりあえずよつばちゃんち行こうか.

What is the meaning of the ち appended upon to Yotuba’s name? Is that a shortened version of 家 without the possessive の?

Which might then translate that as “For the time being, shall we go to your house?”

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That is correct. Over time, as you read more, you’ll find it’s used fairly commonly.

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Aye. You’ll also find it in the dictionary as んち - the ん is an abbreviation of の, but it’s omitted here because よつばちゃん already ends in ん.

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On the bottom right of page 87 I can’t figure out what the かっこ means in かっこ悪い and I can’t seem to find it in the forum here either. Any ideas?

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It’s a word in and of itself.
It’s basically the antonym to かっこいい which you might now? かっこ悪い - Jisho.org

It’s a spoken shortend form of かっこういい/かっこうわるい
You will find it sometimes with stuff like ほんとう too which will be shortened to ほんと and others where Japanese drop an u.

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Ohhhhhhhhh, i only searched かっこ and I didn’t seem to find what I was looking for so I did not bother scrolling down. Now I understand, so it means something like “bad appearance” if mirror translated and thats where it comes from. Yeah I know a few like that but I heard this one for the first time so it got me a little confused.

Thanks a lot @downtimes :slight_smile:

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Bonus tip: Type a sentence into ichi.moe and see how it parses out. It’s not always perfect but should help out a lot.

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