カードキャプターさくら・Card Captor Sakura Book Club 🌸 Week 4

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Welcome to the fourth week of the カードキャプターさくら :cherry_blossom: Card Captor Sakura Book Club!

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Week 4 28th September 2024
Start Page 28
End page 39
End phrase 誕生(たんじょう)や！
Pages 7
Last Week Week 3
Next week Week 5
Home Thread カードキャプターさくら
Last Panel

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Vocabulary

See also Manga Kotoba

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
  4. How was Kero’s Osaka-ben this week?
  5. Do you like any of the newly introduced characters?
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice

  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

  • For the Bookwalker version of this manga, the page numbers in the panels and the page number in the UI are always 2 apart. If you subtract 2 from the UI page number, this will give you the accurate page number!

Proper Nouns

Name Reading Image Notes
木之本桜 きのもと さくら image Main character
大道寺知世 だいどうじ ともよ image Sakura’s cousin and best friend
木之本桃矢 きのもと とうや image Sakura’s Older Brother
月城雪兎 つきしろ ゆきと image Sakura’s Older Brother’s Best Friend
ケルベロス
ケロ		 ケルベロス image Sakura’s companion

Discussion Questions

  1. What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!
  2. What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
  3. Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part before the thread was posted
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m reading this book after the club has finished
  • I’m no longer reading the book
0 voters

If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!

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Useful Grammar Points

Dialect Guide

Another Kero heavy week so we get some more Kansai-ben

Kansai Standard Translation
あんさん Casual You
<sentence>さかい <sentence>から Because
Vとる Vている Is currently Ving
へんかった[ら] なかった[ら] [if it] wasn’t

Plus a couple of phrases which I’m not quite sure if they’re actually Kansai-ben or just Kero being very casual

Kero Standard Translation
「Name」ちゅう X 「Name」という X The X called Name
しもた しまった done accidentally
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Hope you feel better soon araigoshi!

Against my better judgement I’ll be posting my translations this week. If anyone has any corrections that would be super appreciated!! Also for other people looking, it’s probably a bad idea to use these as any basis! I have next to no clue what I’m doing :slight_smile:

Page 28
  • Kero came out from the cover of the book
  • My true name is keruberos, I’m the seal guardian creature of this book
  • Huh?/what?
  • I’m not always in this form (small)
  • I’m really much bigger. Right now I have insufficient powers so that’s why I’m in this “stuffed animal” form
  • Kero’s true form is amazing… or it was at least (I still haven’t seen it)
Page 29
  • meowing sounds?
  • Huh?!
  • You! You woke me up - thanks!
  • … Osaka dialect…
  • Well, to make a long story short, the book was in Osaka so I picked up the dialect
  • … where is the battery?
  • I’m a guardian creature of this book/seal!! I’m not a toy…
  • Guardian creature? What’s being sealed?

I was going to do some more tonight but took one look at the big block of handwritten text and decided I’d leave it for another day. Hopefully I’ll do some more tomorrow - this week is funny so far though.

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Thank you for the thread and rest well @araigoshi !

I knew I’d be quite busy this weekend, so I had already read this week part and had 4 pages of translation ready.

This week was significantly harder than the last, but funnier too !

My translations, with some notes:

page 28

So, Kero-chan came out of the cover.

His true name is “Cerebus”. He’s the “beast of the seal” guarding that book or something;

Ah, there’s no way this is his regular form.

In reality, he’s much bigger but, right now, he doesn’t seem to have enough magic power. Looks like he became this plushie form (interesting use of らしい and みたい here. Not sure about the exact nuance, but Sakura is clearly not very sure about all this. It’s all things she was told by him I guess.)

Kero-chan’s true form is “super cool”… or so he keeps saying.

page 29

Konyanachiha !

Eh?

Yeah, you… You woke me up ! Thanks (all with a strong accent holy cow)

O… Osaka-ben

Yep, that’s because this book has been in Oosaka for a long time (さかい is Oosaka ben for から)

Kansai ben ended up completely moving into it.

Where’s the electronic part ? (she thinks this is a plushie with a talkbox)

I AM THE BEAST OF THE SEAL GUARDING THIS BOOK

… the beast of the seal ? Sealing what ?

page 30

(handwritten part c’mon. Maybe I’ll come back to it, but as far as I can say it’s an insert-joke so not really part of the dialog)

It’s this book ! (that is sealed)

This book is no ordinary book. (we’ve been reading this ただ a lot haven’t we ?)

The cards called ”claw cards” are stored inside. (lot to unpack here. ちゅう sounds like it’s short for という. 入っとる is short for 入っておる which is kansai ben for 入っている. And here, I’m translating it as an English passive (are stored inside), but it’s not a passive in japanese. It means “the cards are in a state where they entered the book”. And they should still be in there, but as we’ll see in the next image they are not)

[basa basa] (sakura still checking that book in the background)
That said… they are not inside !
WHICH MEANS THIS IS BAD

If the claw card are not kept locked inside the book, they’ll materialize and will do nothing but bad [things] (Wow that one was hard, I had to ask for help on a japanese discord. しまっとけへんかったら is actually 締まっておかなかったら、with the kansai ben へん for negative form.) (Again, I’m using a passive verb here “kept locked” but this is NOT a passive form in japanese, it’s an intransitive verb.)

Bad things, you say… Like, stealing the okazus during dinner ? Cutting flowers ? Not doing your homework ? Staying up late ?

page 31

Not that kind of small scale bad !

Claw cards. When this seal is untied, disaster shall enter this world.

This ain’t no joke. Seriously.

The so-called Claw Cards, A magician with immense power called “Claw Rido” created them.

They are cards that hold magic power.

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This week was really tough for me too! I find it helpful to just focus on verbs and nouns when I’m struggling and not bother too much with the sentence construction (especially if it’s in Kansai-ben).

If I understood it right, Kero explaining that he speaks in Kansai-ben because the Clow book is from Osaka is hilarious. Also Sakura’s little kid examples of “bad things” the Clow cards could be doing.

The big つ and little っ are tough to distinguish in text, and when ー is written in vertical text.

And yes I hope you feel better araigoshi! Thanks for doing this thread!

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Perspective Note For Page 28

As per simboubou’s translation, the text on this page is from Sakura’s perspective. Some context clues:

  • the square textboxes are the same as the one’s used for Sakura’s narration elsewhere, for example page 27, where わたし is used several times
  • use of って, らしい (conjugated as らしくて) and みたい . って marks a quotation, らしい and みたい mean something like “seems like”. kero would be unlikely to use らしい and みたい about himself, he acts very certain about everything.
  • no kansai-ben, which Kero uses frequently
Page 29: First Line

I haven’t finished this page yet, just wanted to help you break down the first word:
こにゃにゃちわ
take out ゃにゃ →
こにちわ
add ん →
こんにちわ
So yeah, looks like にゃにゃ + こんにちわ! And Kero-chan wonders why Sakura won’t call him by his full name lol.

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I thought I’d give the handwritten note a go, it’s below if you’d like to take a look!

Attempted transcription + translation of handwritten note, page 30

いれいに冷静やな
もっとおどろくとか
たおれるとか
ないんかいな

なんか
あんまり
わたしとかんけーなさそな
はなしなんだもん

Rough translation:
Kero:
"You’re unusually calm, huh…
“Wouldn’t it be good if you were more surprised, or if you fell over or something?”

Sakura:
"Umm…
“It seems like what you’re talking about doesn’t have much to do with me…”
(I think this essentially means “Um… I don’t think that’s my problem…”)

Bolded れ because I’m especially uncertain about it. After all “れ” wouldn’t normally have dakuten (it could be a “dakuten as emphasis” kind of thing…).

At the very least, I think it’s hiragana of some sort since there’s no furigana and there’s no katakana in the passage. Certainly “いれいに” would make sense in the context of the sentence.

I’m also guessing a little bit on the grammar points. In the second part I’m guessing that かんけー is an alternative spelling of “かんけい”.

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Enter ケロちゃん… Good god…

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So much kansai.
Can anyone explain what the repeated use of ちゅう means? I’m a bit stumped about that.

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Thanks ! I’m not sure about all the grammar, but I agree with the gist of it. The second kana is weird indeed.

I think this is just short for という.

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This is super helpful. Perspective has been a huge struggle for me in Japanese for some reason. An unexpected hurdle haha. Thanks!

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I don’t blame you! Japanese loves to skip pronouns. Also, sometimes in fiction people refer to themselves in the third-person – though I wouldn’t expect that from a character unless they introduce themselves that way.

Other than looking at the speech bubbles and seeing if they point at a particular character, or if they’re next to a particular character or such, I find it helps to think about how each character tends to talk!

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Interesting! Thank you - where exactly did you find this explanation? (ちゅう being short for という). When using a translator, the translation said that ちゅう means “named” but I was not able to find an explanation for this use :') my friend and I spent like an hour trying to decipher all the kansai-ben.

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Your answers are so helpful, thank you so much.
Could you tell me which discord did you join? I’m interested :grimacing: I’ve been stucked on the page 30 Kero’s phrase for a long time, it was so frustrating I dropped the manga for a couple of days :smiling_face_with_tear: having a place to ask japanese people for help would be nice

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I only guessed that. It sounded like a reasonable thing and it made sense in context.

It’s actually a french speaking discord with people learning Japanese. There’s one active native speaker and a few very fluent ones answering questions. Not a japanese discord, a discord about japanese.

I’m struggling a bit with the last pages. I understand what’s happening but the grammar is not clear in a couple sentences, I’ll share those here so we can discuss tomorrow (it’s getting late here)

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Oh please, that would be nice! Thank you :purple_heart:

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So ! What the hell is Kero saying in those bubbles ? I get the general meaning, but the grammar is eluding me.

Page 32

クロウが作った カードには
もの凄い力が 宿っとって
それぞれ好き勝手に 行動したがりよる上に 並のもんでは歯が立たん

The first part is easy enough. “A great power resides in the cards created by Claw”.

The “masu stem + よる” is apparently Kansai ben for ている. So “each one is doing the action it wants, at it own volition, [and on top of that…]”

But I just can’t parse “並のもんでは歯が立たん”. 歯が立たん means “to not be within one’s capacity”, but I just don’t get the first part.

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I also struggled (am still struggling) with this section.

Page 32

I broke that section down like this, though I am not at all confident in it being correct.

「それぞれ好き勝手に」
To do whatever they like (each card respectively)
「行動したがりよる」
がり follows adjectives and verbs are not adjectives so I’m lost. Something about actions that have been done.
「上に並のもんでは」
Things that are above average
「歯が立たん。」
not within one’s capabilities.

Altogether, I think we have along the lines of “They (the Clow cards) do whatever they like and their actions are an above average problem to deal with, which is not within [someone]'s capabilities.”

Based on the rest of the page, I think that [someone] refers to humanity in general.

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Here’s a source for 「という」->「ちゅう」 abbreviation on HiNative questions. It seems some people there think it’s Kansai-ben, others think it’s just very casual.

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I recommend you to try ChatGPT. It usually nails it.