よつばと! Vol 6 Discussion Thread (Yotsuba&! Reading Club)

Japanese Language Book Clubs
103

Page 177

Just doing a little advance reading for next week and I’m wondering what Yotsuba is upset about at the bottom of page 177.

She’s asked how Janbo is going to make the holes and wondered if he’ll use a (laser?) beam, and he said he’ll use something more amazing than that. Yotsuba says “more (amazing) than a (laser) beam?” and then, in the panel on the bottom right says なんだ… and looks very upset. Almost as if she can see Yanda far off with her laser vision, but it’s not that, not yet, so what is going on? Is she just trying to figure out what could be more すごい than a laser beam? Writing this out, I think that must be the case. Still going to post though, don’t want to have written all that and wasted it!

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What can possibly be more amazing than a laser beam?

She’s trying to figure it out.

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I get what it means, but holy hell what is going on with しなくちゃなんない ?

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仕事(しごと) can become a verb by adding する, resulting in 仕事(しごと)する.

We can take する (one of our lovely irregular verbs), and make it negative, resulting in しない.

Next, to make the て form of ない (which functions as an adjective), we first change the い to く, resulting in しなくて.

There’s a common grammar form, 「ＸなくてはＹ」, used in sentences to loosely mean “Don’t do Ｘ (and Ｙ happens).”

Adding that は get us up to 仕事(しごと)しなくては.

However, in spoken language, なくては is often said as なくちゃ, so now we have 仕事(しごと)しなくちゃ. But the meaning is still the same, loosely: “Don’t do Ｘ (and Ｙ happens)”.

The “Ｙ happens” is often something bad, such as いけない or だめ or ならない. In that use, “Don’t do Ｘ (and bad thing happens)” has the sense of “I must to do Ｘ” or “I have to do Ｘ.”

In this case, he’s saying ならない, which is the negative of なる (to become). I actually don’t know how to fit an explanation onto this one, as I’ve only learned it as a fill in for “something bad” like だめ.

By the way, when spoken, sometimes an R-sound character becomes ん when followed by an N sound character, resulting in なんない.

And then we have the し at the end because a reason is being given.

「仕事(しごと)＋しなくて＋は＋ならない＋し」

This gets us something to the general effect of “It would be bad if I didn’t work” meaning “I have to work.”

I’m still working out on being able to parse these on sight. I’m…not there yet.

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Great explanation!

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ch40, p167 – what are these なると constructions?

ch40, p162 – Also, what is おとのけもの? From context, I’m guessing it’s “a thing I brought for you,” but I can’t find it in a dictionary.

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I’m reading these are two different なる＋と.

The first would be a conditional と. The second would be と marking an indirect quote.

The YenPress English release adds the words “really” and “taste” for its translation: “I always thought that when milk is really good, it tastes just like a vanilla shake.” This translation matches the feel for what I’m think she’s saying, but I’m not very familiar with adjectiveく＋なる.

I’m guessing she means お届(とど)けもの. The YenPress release went with “dilivery”.

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So, in the first case, if were to be very literal, it would be, “Milk, if it’s tasty, becomes like vanilla milkshake.” I get that part now, but why is there a second (に)なると, then?

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The first part would be more like “when/if milk becomes tasty”, and the second part like “it becomes vanilla shake”. (But obviously not literally becomes.)

I’ll admit that it’s a bit difficult for me to grasp the Japanese (beyond a general idea of the meaning), as I’m looking at it through an English lens.

Hopefully someone can chime in with a better explanation or more detail. (I think adjectiveくなる means the same as nounになる, but I’m not 100% positive…)

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Ahh, I get it now. It certainly makes sense, even if we’re not sure it’s correct. Thanks.

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