よつばと! Vol 2 Discussion Thread (Yotsuba&! Reading Club)

It was sad ;-;

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Page 15

Perhaps I’m totally lost, but does the plain past form of a verb serve as a noun?
The reason I ask is because of the final panel of page 15.
Yotsuba says よくかんがえたなー!Which must mean “good - noun - huh?”
But then Miura says 考えたの私違う - Which must mean “not my - noun”
Or am I barking up completely the wrong tree here?

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Yep, that’s right.

Somewhat literally, it’s this:
でも - but
えなも - Ena and
ふーかも - Fuuka and
とーちゃんも - Dad and
みんな - everyone
うまい - good, skilled, tasty
って - quotation pseudo-particle
いった - past-tense of “to say”

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It’s the の that turns it into a noun. Or, more specifically, the の takes the place of a noun inferred from context. It’s a really powerful, but also very versatile, particle with many different uses.

よくかんがえたなー! ~= “that’s a good idea!” (with the なー here reflecting excitement)

考えたの私違う ~= “the thought wasn’t mine” or “I’m not the one who came up with it”. Somewhat literally, “the thought [of this thing]”, where the thing, represented by の, is embedding wheels in shoes.

See Noun-related Particles – Learn Japanese and get to the example-sentence “白いのは、かわいい。”

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Thank you! I think this will keep me busy today!
But what I don’t understand is how you, fl0rm, could see the の which Yotsuba has obviously dropped. How do you know oit is there? And why does both she and Miura say かんがえた and not かんがえる.
As you can see, I’m very confused. My apologies!

It’s not that Yotsuba dropped it, but rather that she’s introducing the context to begin with.

But I think I actually made a mistake with my interpretation. I think の can also be a stand-in for a person, like a pronoun in English, which would make Miura’s sentence a bit better-structured. I’m looking for a reference now.

Reference found: http://maggiesensei.com/2013/07/17/how-to-use-のno-one-indefinite-pronoun/ in the section about attaching it to verbs. “the one who X”, so “the one who had the thought” and the second part, “私違う”, is “someone other than me”, a bit informally phrased.

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Ah, this is where I’m out of my depth. I think I need to lie down in a darkened room for a while.
Seriously though, thank you so much for your explanations and links which I will spend the rest of the day working through. I still don’t get why they both use the plain past of the verb, but I hope I’ll soon get that worked out. Thank you so much fl0rm, you really are a star.

It could be because there’s no real “infinitive” form in Japanese. There’s the plain dictionary form, and "ます” form is kinda close, but I think it’s because they’re talking about the actualised state of the idea, the wheels in the shoes, which requires that the idea be described in the past tense.

A literal take on Yotsuba’s line could be “it’s good to have thought of this”. That’s a lot less meta, but still explains why past-tense was used.

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That makes perfect sense to me, and I’ll go with that explanation! Thank you so much!
Now, I’ll get back to your links! Thank you so much and have a wondefrful day fl0rm!

Okay, on page 11, at the bottom Yotsuba says さんせー. What’s this supposed to mean? I can’t find anything relevant on jisho.

Thanks to the vocab cheat sheet:

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From anime, I know this is an expression of agreement. I’ll update this response with a source as soon as I find one.

@marcusp beat me to it. It’s a slurred word.

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Oh, I knew that さんせい meant approval, but I didn’t see how it was relevant to her just shouting it in this context.

Well, it’s funny because no one has actually invited her along but she enthusiastically accepts their invitation anyway! Which is why Miura responds with an え?

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Oh right! I never thought of it like that, thanks! And thanks @fl0rm!

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It’s probably just regular old past tense of 考える.

So, I was looking into this a little more. And while I’m not sure, I think Yotsuba might actually be using another similar, but slightly different, meaning of 考える, which means “to come up with” or “to devise” according to jisho. I tried looking it up in a Japanese only dictionary as well, but I couldn’t really make sense of the definition well enough.

Using that definition though, Yotsuba would be saying something like “(you) devised that well”, to which Miura responds “I wasn’t the one that came up with it”. It’s important to note that 考える is transitive, which means that someone (even if unstated) did the devising.

One more thing to add to what @fl0rm said about の making the verb into a noun. Here, I think 「考えたの(は)私違うし」is「考えた人(は)私違うし」. I think the unspoken noun that の replaces is 人, the unknown person who invented the shoes with wheels.

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Have you found any ways to guess at the valency of a verb when it’s not immediately obvious from the context in which it’s used?

I seem to recall reading once that, like English, you just have to learn each verb individually, but my grammar is lagging well behind my vocab right now.

Can you clarify what you mean by “valency”?

Like whether it’s transitive or ditransitive, or if an actor needs to perform it as an action.

It’s a pretty open question, so I’ll just leave it on those points.

I just couldn’t figure out what “valency” meant by googling it, that’s why I asked.

As for transitive/intransitive verbs, over time you should get used to which verbs are transitive or intransitive. You’ll see them in context more and more and the subjects/objects won’t always be unspoken. If it uses が, it’s intransitive. If it uses を it’s transative. Hopefully after a while you just remember for a specific verb, and then when you see it when the context is implied you’d know.

In this case, I just happened to notice that jisho said 考える was transitive when I was looking for additional meanings.