Best way! 
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Page 68
I love the artwork on this page!
But my question is from the 4th frame when Miura says じゃ近いほうにしとこーよ
This is what I understand:
じゃ - same as じゃあ - well, well then
近い - ちかい - close
方 - ほう - this one always gives me trouble, but it’s used in comparatives, ie. closer
に - location particle
This is what I don’t understand:
しとこー I guess it is something like する plus ところ but I have no idea!
Can anyone help me out here by explaining what is going on? Thank you!
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I’m thinking して行こう.
It’s another piece of evidence in support of my theory that Miura is from Hiroshima, because していく → しとく is a Hiroshima dialect thing.
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My wife has perfect, native level, English and we only ever speak English together. Most couples with different languages usually stick to just one I think. I’ve tried getting my wife to teach me some Japanese, but it’s the same as one spouse teaching another to drive or something, it never ends well (my fault!)
But she’s helped me out a lot here! She says she thinks しとこー in this sentence is actually しておこう, which is する in the て-form followed by 置く in the “let’s” form.
I still don’t completely understand, but I feel that perhaps I’m now half-way there!
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Well, if it helps, -ておく means to do something in advance, e.g. in preparation for something to come. So in volitional form it’d be something like “let’s do it in advance/to get ready.” Here’s a lesson about it.
I haven’t read this far in the book yet so I don’t know if that makes any sense here, but in case it helps…
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It certainly does help! Thank you so much! I’ll study that next! Thank you @jstrout
I think she’s basically saying “well then, let’s go to the closer store” (since they have no idea which one is better), though I’m not really sure what using ておく (the “in advance”/“in preparation for” meaning) adds to the overall meaning of the sentence in this case. Maybe it’s just that they’re going to the store in advance to buy the cake.
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p. 64 last frame, Miura-chan says :「わがものがおだな」
I know that わがもの means “one’s own possessions,” but I can’t make much sense of the rest of it. What’s she saying here?
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I know the essence of what she’s saying is “You treated it like your own?”, but I was only able to draw that from context.
-edit : found a source-
Jisho.org: Japanese Dictionary appears to be the answer. Looks like an expression.
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So it does! Dang, I looked in jisho but somehow didn’t find that. Your jisho-fu is stronger than mine!
Do you have Yomichan or some other browser extension? I used it on what you typed in your previous post and the answer came up.
I have Yomichan, but it doesn’t work well at all. I miss Rikaichan — it worked much better. Yomichan, for me, often fails to bring up anything I hover over; other times it brings up something I just pass by while trying to point at something else, and then that pop-up doesn’t go away, even when I click elsewhere; I have to turn Yomichan off to get it to go away. So I end up leaving it off most of the time. 
But alas, Rikaichain doesn’t work with the latest version of Firefox, so I think I’m stuck.
Try Rikaichamp 
There was an incompatibility issue with the forums that was recently fixed by Discourse, so that shouldn’t be an issue anymore. There’s also an issue open on github for the creator to address this in Yomichan itself so it doesn’t happen again in other websites.
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ジュラルミン
Page 69
Yotsuba says:
きょうはよつばはケーキをかうんだった
Which must be:
今日はよつばはケーキを買うんだった
I have two questions
- は seems to appear twice. Two topic markers. I don’t think I’ve seen that before. Is it correct or am I misreading?
- What is the grammar in 買うんだった? It looks like the dictionary form plus んだった.
According to this link here, it expresses some kind of regret, but does anyone know for sure?
But it certainly fits as Yotusba is angry at learning how cheap taiyaki is and is saying, in effect, “today I came to buy cake, the real stuff, not this cheap substitute!” So funny!
The second は is for contrast. And I think the んだった is the explanatory ん that you’ve seen earlier.
So it means:
Today, Yotsuba (as opposed to everyone else) was going to buy cake (with an explanatory tone).
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I understood it as: Sorry! I came to buy cake! (almost forgot)
Edit: Although on the English translation she seems to be more adamant in tone.
You really get more information from the original though.
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Thank you! But, then, why is it in the past tense?
だった is the past tense, right?
Oh dear, Monday morning and confused already! lol!
Isn’t it something like:
(I can’t buy taiyaki because) I was already going to buy cake.
Or I had planned to buy cake.
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