よつばと! Vol 13 Discussion Thread (Yotsuba&! Reading Club)

Yep! I didn’t think too much about what it was doing there at the time (tbh I tend to gloss over certain words that don’t seem to change meaning much and that’s one of them xD) but Jisho says that it can have the meaning of “have just done; just finished doing,” so I think that’s what’s happening here.

I puzzled over this for a good while and eventually came up with it being a very slangy/abbreviated ジュースの方がいいか? (Like, do you want to drink some of this, or would juice be better?). Based on how Yotsuba responds to it.

That’s how I read it!

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I’m not sure I ever would have figured that out. :joy:

Thanks for your help!

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Looks like the official English release agrees:

009a

Aside from かい being softer than か, “A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar” defines かい as “a sentence final particle which marks yes-no questions in informal male speech.” In other words, you couldn’t use かい unless the question calls for a yes or no answer.

I like what the official English translation did with the line:

009b

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I’m way, way, behind with Yotsuba and won’t be catching up any time soon, but I just noticed something…

Isn’t that page 7? Looking this up, I noticed that there is not a single page number printed in this volume! Though they do appear on the contents page! (I’m okay, I always write in page numbers when they are not there!)

Anyway, have fun with Volume 13 everyone! One day I’ll catch up! See you then!

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Interesting. Thanks for the additional info!

No, pretty sure it’s 6. The title page for this chapter is page 3, and this is 3 pages after that. The lack of page numbers does make it annoying to work out though.

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Chapter 84! :hourglass_flowing_sand:

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If there’s some kind of logic flow going on in this chapter, I lost it about five pages in. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Be sure you’re not trying to tie together the events before and after the chapter title screen. Such an act can only end in madness.

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Page 25
とーちゃんはすなばのそしつがあるのに
父ちゃんは砂場の素質があるのに

Is this Yotsuba insulting her dad? “You have the qualities of a sandbox”?

Page 26
ふーかにはたぶんそしつがないけども
風香にはたぶん素質がないけども

And then this is playing off the previous page, but her saying that Fuuka doesn’t have any qualities at all? But then follows that up by saying that that’s okay.

Page 39
いきてはかえさん

I feel like this translates to “Not allow them to leave” (referring to the bad people that fall in the hole), but I can’t actually figure out this grammar. Can anyone explain this to me?

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No, more like that he’s a sandbox genius. You can tell from the のに that she feels that she would benefit from his presence.

Aye, you’ve hit that one on the head.

I’m guessing 生きては帰さない, though 帰す feels like the wrong half of the transitive pair, so perhaps Yotsuba’s misquoting a line from a movie. Either way, “they won’t leave (this place) alive”.

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That’s actually page 25.

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If it helps any, here's where the eight chapters begin, page-wise.

Screenshot_20200512_122220

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Hmm. I checked an old volume to compare, and was sure that the contents page gave the number of the page that showed the new chapter name.

Edit: Ah, I hadn’t checked a chapter that had pages before the “title page”. I see how this works now. Who ever knew page numbers could be so confusing. :blush: I’ve updated the page numbers in my posts.

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It’s thrown me off a bit, too. I noticed while looking at page numbers today, the second-to-last chapter doesn’t show its title page until six page in!

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Possibly the trick, then, would be to count the number of pages between title pages, and see if that matches the separations on the contents page. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Page 10

Yotsuba pulls out a small tree branch from her bag and says: これはいいえだ!

This was probably covered in the previous volume (which I still haven’t read, sorry) but is the え here 柄, handle, or stalk? Peeking at the next page, she seems to use it as a dowsing rod. Looking up dowsing rod in Jisho returns nothing at all!

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Page 14

Yotsuba has given Asagi a stone and says it looks like an elephant. Asagi says ぱおーん. Any idea what she might be saying here?

Yotsuba tells he she’s looking at it the wrong way up and then she can see it. Next Yotsuba shows her another stone and in the final speech bubble of the page Asagi says: ほう. Any idea what she is saying there?

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This is 枝, branch.

Elephant noise.

Or at least, she says she can see it. :stuck_out_tongue:

Can’t remember without context. I’m gonna have to check when I get home.

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Page 15

Asagi guesses “tiger” and Yotsuba says that’s wrong, then says:

これはじがかけるいし!すごいよくかける!しろく

これは - this + topic particle
じ - character 字? time? Ground?
が - subject particle?
かける - 掛ける? 欠ける?
いし - stone

This stone lacks a letter???

すごい - very
よく - well / often
かける - lacks?

しろく- white?

I’m as confused as Asagi looks!

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Thank you so much @Belthazar!

Wow!

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