I thought of you (this bookclub group) today. I met a Japanese girl who was reading a copy of Yotsuba vol 2 translated into English, to improve her English.
Discussion of Chapter 11 starts here.
Oh, it’s that time already?
I love よつばこ.
Page 92, frames 2 and 3. Have some pity on us learners, Yotsuba - we can barely read it even when you’re speaking normally. What exactly is she trying to say? (I mean, I get the meaning, but what’s the precise word?)
Good question… All I can tell is that Yotsuba is having a hard time finding the right phrase for “I’ll let you sleep”. She seems to be combining sleep 眠る (ねむる)and let do させる (taken from する but made into causative form), but there’s also multiple attempts in the 3rd panel. I dunno about those. T_T
The causative form of 眠る is 眠らせる. する isn’t really involved here.
That could be what she’s trying to say, come to think of it…
Oh yeah, you’re right! That’s probably it then.
The よつばこ!! xD I love that it would work as a pun in both English and Japanese. I also tried looking up the part you mentioned with no success and could not for the life of me figure out what was going on word-wise (besides something about sleep). I kind of just wrote it off as Yotsuba nonsense xD But I think yours and @BobaGakusei’s thoughts make sense. I guess 眠らせる is also a verb on it’s own, meaning “to put to sleep”? Not sure if the causative form of that (眠らせさせる) could be mixed in there as well. The conjugation does have a rather large number of syllables, so it would make sense for her to be stumbling over it xD
As a side note, I went to look up 眠らせる in Jisho and I had a good laugh when I saw that the second definition is “to kill” (as a colloquialism) xD Reminded me of Chapter 9.
Page 89
とーちゃんひと仕事終わったぞ
Could someone tell me what the ひと is here? Of course I know ひと as “person”, but the word list has it down as “one”. And what is it doing here in this sentence?
Thank you!
To further elucidate seanblue’s link, remember that 一つ is read ひとつ.
I gave English translation a try for this chapter. I tried to explain some of the comedy too, since some of it (e.g., Yotsuba’s conjugation trouble, rudeness to the newspaper guy, and phone call etiqutte) might be lost in translation.
Chapter 11 Don't Mind!
Page 86
Yotsuba: rolling Good morning! Daddy isn’t here!?
Page 87
Yotsuba: (Is he in…) The television room!? The office (LIT: room for work)!?
Page 88
Dad: dancing strangely
Yotsuba: What’s that?! Daddy’s dancing has appeared! Hya! dances
Page 89
(dancing continues)
Dad: Yotsuba! One of my jobs has finished!
Yotsuba: O~!
Dad: There! Breakfast (LIT: Morning food)!
Yotsuba: O~!
Page 90
Yotsuba: Tasty! Today’s miso soup is a Nobel Prize thing!
Dad: laughs (modestly) Don’t say that!
Yotsuba: Ah. tips over glass, which spills Ah… Ah…
Dad: Don’t mind! Don’t mind!
Yotsuba: What? What’s that?
Dad: “Don’t worry about it” is what it is.
Page 91
Dad: Don’t mind!
Yotsuba: Don’t mind!
Dad: Wipe it yourself.
Yotsuba: wipes
Dad: Thanks for the meal!
Yotsuba: Thanks. (Yotsuba uses さん instead of さま here, which should be less polite.)
Dad: Well then, Yotsuba, I haven’t slept much here (his futon bed) for several days. Yesterday, I didn’t sleep at all. Therefore, I’m no longer any good.
Page 92
Dad: I’m already sleeping. I’ll leave the rest… (to you)
Yotsuba: O~! Understood! About Daddy, I’ll “sleeping let you”… “let be sleeping”… “sleeping letting”… “sleep…”
(I think the correct answer is 眠[ねむ]らせさせる “to let you sleep”/“will let you sleep”. Thanks @windupbird! This is quite a tongue-twister for poor Yotsuba. Who eventually gives up. ねむらせる might also be it. Thanks, @Belthazar)
Yotsuba: Go to sleep!
Dad: Be quiet (for me/please)…
Yotsuba: Understood!
Page 93
(Yotsuba looks through her Yotsuba box (Yotsubox) よつばこ is a pun since はこ is a box, which can become ばこ with rendaku.)
Yotsuba: That’s it! For today, let’s make my box look good.
(box is emptied)
Yotsuba: I’ll draw Juralumin. (Juralumin/Duralumin is Yotsuba’s mistaken name for Julieta, Ena’s teddy bear from Chapter 10. Thanks @Belthazar!)
(doorbell rings)
Yotsuba: Oh!? Did Jumbo come?
Page 94
Newspaper guy: Hello! It’s the newspaper…
Yotsuba: Huh? What kind? (Probably intended to be “Who are (you)”, but 何様(なにさま) seems like a formal way to say 誰(だれ). For this sentence, Yotsuba is trying to being polite and used ですか)
Newspaper guy: Um… Is your father or mother present, perhaps?
Yotsuba: Dad is. Mom isn’t.
Page 95
Newspaper guy: Then, could you call your father?
Yotsuba: That’s no good.
Newspaper guy: shocked (A direct refusal in Japan is abnormal, so Yotsuba’s refusal is understandably shocking to the newspaper guy.)
Yotsuba: Shh! leaves
Page 96
Yotsuba: Next is… either a cicada or cake, I guess… Which of the two looks good/cooler, I wonder…
(phone rings)
Yotsuba: It’s the phone.
Page 97
Yotsuba: What’s up?
(This wasn’t a 申し申し(もうしもうし) or standard telephone greeting.)
Phone: confused …? Is this Mr. Kuroda’s house?
Yotsuba: ? This is Yotsuba (though)?
Phone: …? Um… I made a mistake.
Yotsuba: Don’t mind! Don’t mind!
Phone: !?
Yotsuba: Don’t worry about it! Get it!? hangs up
Page 98
Yotsuba: Oh yeah! I wonder if Daddy’s sleeping really wellproperly.
moves blanket and gets an idea
Page 99
(draws Daddy on the box)
Yotsuba: It looks like him. Let’s try to add on facial hair! A good idea!
Page 100:
Yotsuba: Cool~! (ALT: Looks good~!)
Page 104:
Yotsuba: thinks “He might get mad.” tries to rub the marker off thinks “It won’t disappear”
Page 105:
Fuuka: Huh? Erase a magic marker? What did you draw on?
Yotsuba: Daddy’s face.
Fuuka: …
Yotsuba: … because he was sleeping, you know?
Fuuka: Wait. I’ve seen this on TV before. It’s said to be erasing advice or something…
Page 106:
Fuuka: Ah, mayonaisse! If you apply mayonaisse and wipe, it will disappear!
Yotsuba: O~! runs off
Ena: Yotsuba came here (+explain)? Why did Yotsuba come?
Fuuka: She came to ask for the way to remove magic marker writing from skin. I saw it before on TV! With mayonaisse, it’ll disappear (+was what it said).
Ena: It’s butter (though)?
Page 107:
Yotsuba: worrying at Daddy’s messy face It’s not really disappearing…
Page 108:
Yotsuba: Don’t mind!
I wonder why is Yotsuba’s teddy bear named Juralumin/Duralumin?
Page 90
気にすんなってことだ
I don’t want to ask this as I know that it’s been answered before. Probably more than once.
But my brain is a very dense and slow moving mass of crud and I simply can’t remember what this って does here.
(I do apologise for driving people crazy! Pity my poor wife, sometimes she tries to help me with Japanese but after seven years in the country I constantly forget even the most basic words! At work I have to carry a bit of paper in my pocket with おつかれさまです written on it because, although I say it constantly all day long, there are times I still forget it!)
What is rendaku?
(Great translation again! Though I’m going to try not to look at it till much later in the week! Thank you!)
In Japanese compound words (usually a combination of kanji), the reading of the latter kanji can become “harder”, which is a phenomenon known as rendaku.
For example, grammar (文法;ぶんぽう) is the combination of 文 and 法. The latter is normally read as ほう, but becomes ぽう here.
This can also happen for trash can (ゴミ箱; ゴミばこ) since trash is ゴミ and box is 箱 (はこ). In this case, the sound hardens from はこ to ばこ.
In any case, the sounds that follow this are k->g, h->p or b, t → d, s → z, and sh → j. Rendaku can be frustrating for Japanese learners since it doesn’t always happen.
Wow! You really know your stuff! What a fabulous explanation! Thank you so much!
Comments on translation
Page 86: Daddy’s not here?
Page 92: The ~てくれ is a more casual form of ~てください, so しずかにしてくれ is more like “Please be quiet”. I’m honestly a bit unsure that it’s meant to be 眠らせさせる - 眠らせる is already tongue-twistery enough, and it already means “I’ll let you sleep”.
Page 96: “Which one is cooler, I wonder…”
Page 98: “Properly asleep” might be better.
Page 99: “Let’s see how he looks with a beard”
Page 100: “Cool!” Or maybe “Stylish!”
Page 106: I reckon the (+explain) can be better incorporated by rephrasing it as “Why did Yotsuba-chan come here?” or “What’s Yotsuba-chan up to?” or something. Ena’s final bubble is “Butter, wasn’t it?”
It’s Ena’s bear. And it’s because Yotsuba couldn’t pronounce (or remember) “Julietta”. Check page 60. (Spoiler alert: Yotsuba does get her own actual bear in a later chapter. Think that one might get named Juralumin, but I’m not certain on that point.)
Quotation marker, essentially. "It means ‘Don’t worry about it!’ "
Tofugu article on rendaku:
Thanks.
The butter thing is really unfortunate, since I read it correctly the first time and saw it as ダメ on the second pass.
In retrospect, I should have taken a pass to revise. (みよう for example instead of みた makes a big difference in meaning.) T_T
EDIT: Edited per your suggestions. I think of 格好(かっこう)いい as “good-looking”, though it also means “cool”, so I left both in there.
Thank you!