Wow, thank you again so much Kazzeon for all your wonderful, clear, detailed replies to all my questions! I don’t know how I’d ever be able to read this at all without you. Thank you so much! Really, much appreciated! Thank you!
And yes, congratulations Belthazar on that gold medal you have there! Superb! Nice one!
Page 155 - どうなるの - this looks like “how” + “become” + question, ie, “how will it become?” or, perhaps, “what will happen?”. I suppose the best translation is just “what is it?” or “what is it used for?”. Any ideas?
Page 156 (first frame) - こうしたら頭がよくなる - “if you do it like this, your head becomes good”, “it good for your head if you do this”. “Head” as in “brains”.
Page 156 (final frame) - 今日はどんなに大声出しても怒られない日だ
今日は - today + は
どんなに - how, how much
大声 - loud voice
出して - produce (a sound) - definition 6
も - even (acting as “no matter” in this sentence)
怒られない - (1) to get angry, (2) to tell someone off - in passive negative form
日 - day
だ - copula
“Today is the day that no matter how much noise you make, you won’t get told off”
No question, just pleased with myself for working it out! Lol!
Page 157 - よーいやさー - Perhaps this is just a sound and has no meaning. But I have “ready” for よーい, any ideas for やさー?
I feel like Koiwai has a ridiculous amount of faith in just handing Yotsuba the Tabasco bottle. I mean, aside from the obvious, what if she gets it in her eyes?
Think I’ve eaten pretty much everything that Yotsuba got in her lolly bag.
It’s only been 4 days since I read the 2 previous chapters, and it feels like forever!
If I have to suffer with my brain coming up with songs every time I try to write something, then you guys suffer with me.
Also, since there’s not really a place to talk, I’ll just do it here: @marcusp, I saw your recent instagram photos, and they’re pretty cool! Also the one with the library, it looks comfortable even from the outside.
In the meantime, I’m reading the latest chapter of Yotsuba (online), so that’s 99/103, and it’s so good! It has everything!
Thank you for the nice comments on the pics. And sorry I haven’t been reading. You’d think that I would have plenty of time over this 10-day Golden Week, but I’ve been working (giving tours of Tokyo) and of course visiting family, so I’ve had less time than I expected. And I’m back to doing some teaching tomorrow.
It may look like I have plenty of time from my Instagram pics, what with all the gunpla, but I actually do very little of that. I just do an hour now and then to relax, so it actually takes me a month to do what most people would produce in a day or two!
But the biggest problem is not time at all. It is motivation and ability. Ability is simple - I have none. Go a day without Japanese and I forget literally everything. If I tried the N5 again now, I’d fail miserably. As for motivation, I never actually need to use any Japanese and have no one to practice it with, and spend most of my time homesick for England.
The only things that keep me connected in any way to Japanese is reading Yotsuba (which I can only do with lots of time and all the great help you supply and which I feel guilty about) and watching Gundam (understanding nothing as I do so). Some of us are just naturally not language learners!
I almost forgot this week’s chapter!
Time to read that.
I see the Tabasco sauce part now.
I love some Tabasco on my shark fin (imitation) soup, but the bottles are known for barely getting sauce out, so unless she pointed it straight into her eyes and shook it like there’s no tomorrow (which honestly could still happen), I’d say it’s pretty improbable.
I’ve only had うまいぼs and probably a few other Japanese candies, so I’m not really knowledgeable about that. /:
I’m still way back in the middle of volume 8. I will finish it, I’ll hopefully do some reading tomorrow in fact, and if you go on to volume 9 I’ll also be there too. But way behind. Sorry.
I love that none of us voted in the poll xD
I’m behind, but likely to stay that way for a bit, and I don’t want to make Belthazar wait for me in two bookclubs. xD When I actually have time to read, I don’t think it’ll be too hard for me to get caught up, even if you guys go on. But if you guys could take like…a tiny break? Like one week? I probably won’t catch up in that time, but it’ll make it just a little bit easier for me to catch up later
Back with a few questions…, thank you so much for any help you can offer!
Page 162 - がんばります means “I’ll do my best / do your best”, but what does the ので at the ned add to it?
Page 164 - Yotsuba has just learned that there is always a Tengu at this festival and she asks おまつり 大好きなのか? “Does he love festivals?” Can I just check…… The の is there as an explanation particle, and the な is there because you need a な between a な-adjective and an explanation particle. Is that right?
Page 166 - よすばはわかる! あれはおめん! おめんをとればにんげんにもどる!
“I understand! That is a mask! If you remove the mask, you return to being human!”
My only problem is the conditional. ば is “if”, but Tae Kim says “Change the last /u/ vowel sound to the equivalent /e/ vowel sound and attach 「ば」”. That doesn’t seem to be happening here. Or is the verb not 取れる?
Page 167 - I guess that みちのまんなか is 道の真ん中, the middle of the road. But what is とおってる? Something about being a long way off?
Page 171 - as soon as I read ものすごいでかい, I knew who it must be! LOL! But what does the next frame mean… おやだまだ? I have no idea.
Page 172 - Finally, can anyone help with めがさめたか? It’s obviously a question. Perhaps something to do with eyes? No idea!