Or “pointless”. Which is to say, it’s raining so heavily you’re going to get soaked either way.
Anecdote time: I went to see a street food festival near me a few years ago, and shortly after I arrived and bought my food, it started raining so heavily that the rain literally went through my umbrella as though it wasn’t even there.
Page 104
外出たら 飛んでっちゃうよ
“If you go outside, you will (unfortunately) fly!”
傘広げてたら - “if the umbrella opens up
ビューって風がきて - “whoosh, the wind will come”
ピューって飛んでっちゃうよ - “swoosh, you’ll (unfortunately) fly off!”
ほんとに飛ぶかもしんないな - I guess the かもしんない here is the same as かもしれない, “you may really fly”, is that right?
Page 105
だいたい文化祭って子供だましだよね
“Generally + school festival/s + quotation marker + kid/s + だましだ + the sentence ending particles よ and ね.
Is the だましだ the same as だました? Is she saying that kids get cheated at school festivals? Or kids cheat people at school festivals? It’s a con, but who is the victim? (The visitors I guess… they get “cake” that tastes like bread!)
Can anyone help with the second part of the mum’s text?
やめときな すげあきるよ - “it’s time to stop, I am super bored”
Page 106
どんどん 強くなるなー - it’s getting stronger
Page 107 - Such a funny page! Even though we knew it must be coming, brilliantly done! Brilliant!
Right, off to bed! Happy Easter for tomorrow (if you celebrate it) and hopefully I’ll be able to make a start on the next chapter soon! Thanks again so much!
I’d say it is, yeah. 
That’s correct, they’re onomatopoeias, so they’re quoting the sound the wind makes.
That’s right! 
Yes, she’s saying (for some reason) that school festivals are for tricking/deceiving kids. Might be because you get them to buy the food, or the haunted houses and stuff like that. But she says that it’s usually in a fun way, instead of just giving them bad cake.
あ これって 効果 (I somehow knew the kanji for this 
) あるかな
“Ah, I wonder if this has an effect.” or “Ah, do you think this is effective?”
(Probably talking about the catalog they’re reading)
えー やめときな、すぐあきるよ
“Eh… Stop it, you’ll get tired of it (whatever it is they’re seeing in the catalog) immediately.”
I struggled with this one. 
If it’s about getting tired of it, then it has to be a product that has to be used, instead of something that’s just applied, or eaten, and if it’s about it being effective, it’s probably about some type of exercise machine.
Happy Easter to you.
Same, I still haven’t read this chapter since I was away, and now I’m super tired.
Thank you! Thank you so much again Kazzeon! You really are too kind! Thank you!
Hopefully I’ll get started on the next chapter tomorrow, and that means I’m with you guys as you are…
That is an amazing achievement! So no more flakiness from Marcus… let’s get to that finish line!
Page 114
I know that かくれんぼ is hide-and-seek, but (I’m really sorry) I still get confused when a vocab item is followed by a long list of hiragana:
な - isn’t this used to link adjectives? So it must be doing something else here?
のに - but, unless the の is a nominaliser and then it has a に particle stuck to it?
なあ - hey
Any ideas?
大体俺の隠れられる所がねーんだよな
Mostly the places I can hide are ねーん!”
What is that ねーん?
Page 116
I had a tough time finding 描! The book gives the furigana as か, but jisho has it as えが. I know, probably a different reading, but funny that it never came up as か. Anyway, if 描く is “to draw”, then I guess よく描けてる is ‘well drawn”, or is it “you can draw well”? Jisho lists 描ける as the potential form.
ちょっと俺にわかるように説明してみろ - “Try to explain a bit so that I can understand!” Funny, Janbo thinks Asagi has got a boyfriend! (Is the みろ at the end of the sentence the imperative form of 見る, meaning try to?)
Page 117
あさぎとくるまでおでかけします
あさぎと - with Asagi
くる - to come
まで - until
おでかけします - go out
I’m lost here. I’m pretty certain it is Yotsuba speaking. Is she saying that she’s waiting for Asagi to come round and then they will go out together?
Page 120 - Great move by Yotsuba there! She’s as effective in a fight as I’d be! Lol!
Page 122
食べに行く - this must mean “go out to eat”, but I guess the joke here is also that they are “going to eat” Yotsuba!
Right, sadly I must stop there for now. Thank you anyone for any help you can offer! Much appreciated!
I don’t have the manga right now, but なのに is how you use のに with nouns (and な adjectives).
隠れられる場所がないんだよ
There are no places I can hide.
It is!
I leave the other ones for Belthazar, or when I read the chapter. 
Thank you so much again! Really, much appreciated! Thank you Kazzeon!
Discussion of Chapter 54 starts here.
Remember you can always ask questions about previous chapters.
Only two (three for me) chapters to go!
I was thinking that some of your questions are around different pronunciation of words, like すげー、ねーんだよ、or conjugations like いそげー, cut out parts like いやっちょ…, or stuff like でなー.
All of these things appear a lot in anime/series/movies, have you tried giving that a try?
(if you have time)
I probably knew all this stuff before I started learning kanji or vocabulary, just because I watched a lot of anime. 
(Of course I didn’t know why they worked out like that, but I knew a lot of words. 
)
It’s easier if you read something and imagine it being said, it will usually help you figure out what it means. (I think?)
Oof, that was a long chapter. We finally get to see those happi we’ve been hearing about. 
If you want to see it in motion, it probably looks something like this:
I got to see a festival quite like this one the last time I was in Kyoto - the Omi Matsuri at Omi Jingu - though not quite so grand, and it was entirely comprised of smaller mikoshi. None of the standard festival stalls either - there were a few booths near the 一の鳥居, but the general feel of them was more like it was a standard weekend markets type deal rather than festival stalls. I was, however, able to enter the inner courtyard of Omi Shrine - I get the impression that’s not usually possible. My friend and I were literally the only foreigners there, though.
Page 183, that’s the same policewoman that Yotsuba gave a flower to umpteen chapters ago, right? In the flower fairy chapter?
Page 185, who’s that woman giving out the candy? She knows Yotsuba’s name somehow. Much bigger bag of candy than I was expecting, though.
Yes, I watch an episode of original Gundam every night with the wife! We watch in Japanese and I can follow along as I already know the story (we started with the compilation movies, which had English subtitles, plus I listen to the great Mobile Suit Breakdown that analyses each episode in great and glorious depth), so that leaves me free to concentrate on the listening.
There are no subtitles, English or Japanese, so I have to work hard. My concentration often goes and I can’t say I catch much, but I do hear the odd word now and then. Mainly 行きまぁぁあああす, りょうかい, and こいつ! But with 40 years of the series ahead of me to catch up on, I’m sure that will get better soon!
But yes, getting back to Yotsuba, you are right, I really must move on to actually reading it, rather than just treating every speech bubble as a translation exercise!
Thank you Kazzeon!
Oh my goodness! Yes, you are right! From chapter 18, in volume three! Isn’t that brilliant?!
And nice photos too! Thank you!
Great question, I would have completely missed that. So I had a quick flick through the back volumes, and it looks like she appeared in volume 4, on pages 144 and 145, where she was stamping the kids’ hands in the park (which would also tie in with her role giving out candy here).
Huge shock; while flicking through my back volumes, all of them covered in notes from this book-club, I noticed that I didn’t finish reading volume four! I’ve no idea what happened there! It’s the only bit I’ve missed. I’ll have to go back and finish that off one day!
Aha, of course. Though, it’s only Yotsuba’s hand she stamped - for everyone else, she was stamping their punch cards.
I still haven’t finished reading volume one…
Now that really is a shock! 
lol!
To be fair, the volume one book club was before I really joined the forums.
Page 123
あぁ お前 ムチャクチャ 七味 とかしょうが のせて食ってたな
あぁ - ah
お前 - you
ムチャクチャ - absurd
七味 - blend of spices
とか such things as
しょう - let’s (???)
が - が particle
のせて - put on and
食って - eat and
た - ???
な - sentence ending particle
Sorry, I’m just totally lost here. I think this is Janbo responding to Yanda’s comment about the 七味 being delicious in Yoshinoya, and I think he’s saying “are you crazy? Why would you put stuff like 七味 on your food when you eat it?”. But I’m lost.
それで服をよつばごとだ
それで - and
服を - clothes + を
よつば - Yotsuba
ごと - every? Including?
だ - copula
“And include Yotsuba (in the) clothes?” (I’m guessing more from context than from the text here)
Page 124
I feel like an idiot for not knowing this, but why does 大きくなった (became big) take the form it does? 大きい is an い-adjective right? And it is added to なる, to become, which in the past tense, is なった, right? To connect an い-adjective you have to take off い and add くて, so shouldn’t it be 大きてくなった? I’ve been searching and searching but can’t figure this out at all.
I suspect rather than しょう＋が it’s just しょうが = ginger. “You always put an absurd amount of shichimi and ginger on it”
Adverb form. For い-adjectives, you swap the い for a く, for な-adjectives, you add a に.
大きくなった
静かになった
(In my head, I keep wanting to add に every time - like, 大きいになった - and I have to continually remind myself that’s not how it’s done.)
Brilliant! Ginger! Got it! Thank you so much!
Okay! Thank you! I’ll stop reading for a bit now and study that! Thank you so much Belthazar!
PS - I notice you’re at level 59 now… wow! Congratulations!
Two hours of solid, uninterrupted reading today in the library saw me cover 20 pages! Which means a stack of questions! Sorry!
Page 128 - しばらく見ないうちに - I’m confused about the うち. Asagi is saying that she hasn’t seen Yotsuba for a while, but what is the うち? At home?
Page 129 - よつばの 兄みたいなもんで - Yanda is saying that he is a kind of older brother to Yotsuba, but what is なもんで?
Page 131 - no question, just that I almost disturbed the peace and quiet in the library laughing at the shift in Yanda’s expression from the 2nd to 3rd panels! Brilliant!
Page 140 - つくだいの こと!? - preserved food boiled in soy??? I’m as confused as Ena is!
Page 141 - “happi, because happi”, “ha ha ha”, “because happi, Happy”, “eh? about what?”, “now it’s not so”. Does that look right?
Page 143 - 山車を神社に ひっぱってくの - I’m a bit confused by this final く. I assume it is 来る, but why is the る left off? I’m reading Tae Kim but can’t find anything about that.
Page 144 (panel 1) - 山車ってのはなぁ… - “float” + quotation particle + nominaliser (thing) + subject marker + なぁ = utterly lost!
Page 144 (panel 2) - does そういうこと mean the same as そういうことか?
Page 148 - たたかせて - this looks like the て-form of the “causative” of ‘to play the drums’. Can someone tell me what that means?
Thank you so much for any help you can offer!
