キッチン: Week 8 Discussion

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Week 8

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Start Date: Nov 23rd
Previous Part: Week 7
Next Part: Week 9

Reading:

End Page End % End Phrase Page Count
115* 55% きしめんを食べながら私は切り出した。 14.5

Word lists - Learn the vocabulary for キッチン

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle:

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Come and read from the previous week’s section, join in the chat about this book (also the previous book, possible future books, WK reviews, all things Japan-related, what else you did on the weekend, etc) or just lurk and listen. Readers of all speeds and abilities welcome - we are here to help each other out. Reading sessions will be held every Sunday at 9:30pm JST.

Week 8 session (in your timezone): Sunday, December 1, 2019 12:30 PM TZ

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There’s nothing like being stuck on a plane for 4 hours to help you catch up on book club :stuck_out_tongue:

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May I ask some questions please meow~ ?

At 51%

「みかげも、おばあちゃんが亡くなった頃、疲れてたもんな。今になると、よく思い出せるんだ。ＴＶとか観てて、今のってどういう意味かな、とか言ってソファの上の君を見上げると、なにも考えてない……って顔をしてぼんやりしてることがよくあったろ。今は、よく理解できる。」

This is part of the conversation Mikage and Yuuichi have in the cafe. I think I understand the general idea of what Yuuichi is saying (that he has started to understand why Mikage was behaving the way she was when her grandmother died and she was living with him and his mother), but I’m not sure what exactly the 今のってどういう意味かな means.

If I had to try to translate that phrase in isolation I’d think that it says something like “I wonder what’s the meaning of that just now”, but I have no idea how that fits with the rest of the sentence, or how “watching TV or something” just before that is related.

At 51%

「雄一が私に対して落ち着いてきちんと話ができるくらいに、しっかりしていることを、とても嬉しく思っているわ。誇っているというのに近いかもしれないくらいよ。」「なんだ、その英文和訳のようなしゃべりは。」

Here Mikage is telling Yuuichi how she feels that he’s way more calm compared to how she was in the same situation.

My first question is about the 誇っているというのに近いかもしれない. I am not about the meaning of this. というのに means “despite, even though”, so it seems to be contrasting 誇っている (to be boasting) and 近い (close?) but that doesn’t seem to make any sense.

My second question is… why does Yuuichi says that what Mikage says fees like a English-to-Japanese translation?

At 53%

日曜は雄一も一緒に行ったけど、わけわかんないくらい小さかったのよね。……あの頃あった希望を、どんなに小さいものも絶望と呼べる自信があるわ。

This is during the scene where Mikage remembers her conversation with Eriko-san about the time her wife died. I am having trouble figuring out how that part about 絶望 fits with the rest of the sentence. My best guess is that this is some sort of philosophical sentence saying that “the hope that (I) had at that time, no matter how small, was (in reality?) despair, I am sure of that now”. Not sure if it is supposed to be connected to how Yuuichi was too small back then to understand what was going on.

At 55%

世界は別に私のためにあるわけじゃない。だから、いやなことがめぐってくる率は決して、変わんない。

Not sure what 率は決して means here… “the proportion in which unpleasant things surround me, doesn’t change in the slightest”? Is it something along those lines?

At 56%

「ひゃーあ、お久しぶり！ すっかり女っぽくなっちゃって、近よりがたいったらないわ。」

I am stumped on how to parse 近よりがたいったらない …
近よりがたい seems to be “to be hard to approach” but then I have some floating ったら I have no idea what’s doing there…

As usual, any help is appreciated!

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Looking only at the first one for now, here’s how I see it. I think you’re right, he’s starting to understand how she behaved. He remembers how they’d be watching TV and he’d wonder aloud, as you put it, “I wonder what’s the meaning of that just now,” and he’d look up at her as she sat on the couch, and her face would be like a (not thinking of aaaanything) sort of face as she spaced out, and that sort of thing happened a lot. So the phrase you were wondering about is what he said, and the watching TV or something is the setting for those moments when he’d say something like that, during which she often made those spaced-out expressions.

That is my interpretation, at least!

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51%

I’d interpreted that she was glad he could talk to her in such a calm clear fashion and was being so mature about it. I might be wrong about it though.

Maybe I can help with the bold part though. The のに近い is not のに+近い but の+に近い. The の nominalizes the previous part and then に近い means ‘is close to’. ‘This feeling might even be close to being proud (that you still talk to me normally’.

As for the 英文和訳… no clue. I suspect maybe you wouldn’t usually say what みかげ said? :smile:

I parsed the part at 53% the same as you. It’s not a part I was particularly confident about though. :sweat_smile: I don’t think the two 小さい are supposed to tie in together? But who knows! Maybe I’m just not thinking deep enough.

Same for 55%. Though it’s theoretically the same tense in Japanese, in English I think it’s more that ‘it won’t change’. I think if it was supposed to be present tense and referring to how things aren’t changing now, it’s have to be 変わってない?

Thanks for asking about 56% especially - I looked it up and realized I’d parsed this one wrong while reading! :smiley: It’s it’s own thing!

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That makes a lot of sense! I got too fixated on thinking he was describing only her actions >.<

Oh, very nice! I think it is the first time I’ve run into that one.

Thank you both for the help! It is a lot clearer now.

3 Likes