I am not confident I get this part… My best attempt so far is:
マンションや飲食店が立ち並んでいる場所から => “From the place where the apartment building and the restaurant are lined up”
店の方へ歩いていくにしたがって => is that したがう from 従う? As in, to follow? Something like “If you go walking following the direction of the store?”
オフィスビルしかなくなっていく => “everything except the office building has disappeared” Not sure if she means disappeared when compared to before (as in, new building have been built, but the previous ones are gone)? Or everything else has been demolished or something (probably not… I guess)
That choice, that way of dealing with the matter (by making assumptions about her)
I think it’s still talking about the way Keiko’s friends are making claims about her love life (or lack thereof) on the basis of their own assumptions. I don’t think it’s referencing a particular part, just the overall conversation.
If you read it as “I felt I was being told” would that make more sense?
I think she’s saying that she has a lot of friends who are gay and so forth, because she’s a sympathetic/understanding person. I.e. comparatively speaking (方), she’s the type of person who has sympathy (for their situation)
To add to what @Kyasurin said, note that そのほうが自分たちにとってわかりやすい…と言われている echoes 皆が言うようなわかりやすい形 pretty much directly. So, if we take a step back from the grammar and look at the structure of the argument, it goes something like this IMHO:
Suppose the circumstances were true (たとえ本当にそうだとしても), introducing the argument: let’s now look at the explanations offered for said circumstances.
Everyone says it must be X (皆が言うような).
X is easy to understand (わかりやすい形) but reductive (限らない).
But (のに) nobody makes the effort to think further (誰もそこまで考えようとはしない). そこまで考えよう (=> thinking hard[er]) is in contrast with わかりやすい in the previous clause.
X is easier (そのほうが) to understand (自分たちにとってわかりやすい). This calls back to わかりやすい形 in 3.
Therefore (から) they want to treat it as such (そういうことにしたい), i.e., they want to assume X.
I feel that’s what they are saying (と言われている気がした). This closes the argument by matching with 皆が言うような in 2.
So we can see that the structure is: 1; 2 [3 4; 5 6] 7. 1 is an intro; 2 matches 7 and both serve to frame the argument. The actual argument is the quadruplet 3 4 5 6: 3 parallels 5, and within the quadruplet, it goes like [3 but 4, 5(=3) thus 6], so that 4 and 6 are put in opposition: nobody wants to think, they all want to assume.
Anyhow, that’s how I would read it, if that helps!
The piece I was missing here was that she was talking of buildings in general. I thought she referred to a specific office building for some reason. This distinction between specific and general always trips when reading japanese =._.=
I should have suspected it could be a separate grammar! =._.=
I was wondering about the use of furigana in this book. It makes sense most of the time (for some uncommon words and/or rare kanji), but some other times I find it strange. Like no names had furigana before, but suddenly…
I am not familiar with japanese names, so I was wondering if this reading for the name was that rare? The other names seemed ambiguous enough, so I’m not sure why this one merits furigana.
Then some weeks back there was this:
jisho, at least, doesn’t say that 布団 is usually written in kanji; none of its component kanjis are particularly obscure either, and it is ultra common as a word. I can’t think of any literary reason to add furigana to it either…
There was also this one:
Jisho mentions that 幾何学 is a common word, and I’d expect that everyone that went to school ran into it, so I find this one a bit strange too.
Since I am using the digital version of the book, can anybody with a physical copy confirm that it’s the same in that version?
Can confirm for 幾何学 at least, since that just came up. Don’t remember exactly, but I think that ふとん also was the same in the physical book.
I figured the names had furigana if that character is of major importance to the plot… If I remember correctly, only the protag had some for her last name before?
Or maybe there’s another common reading for 白羽…しろは maybe?
Edit: oh, but I remember another furigana that tripped me up this week! I think the shop’s name had furigana in this week’s reading, for the first time. So maybe it’s just inconsistent.
身に付けている洋服も、発する言葉のリズムも変わってしまった私が笑っている。友達は、誰と話しているのだろう。 それでも「懐かしい」という言葉を連発しながら、ユカリは私に笑いかけ続ける。
I’m pretty sure I’m not getting the meaning of the sentence in the middle because I don’t see how it contrasts with the following one (それでも…).
このセミの抜け殼の中を歩いているような世界のどこかで、私の「お客様」が眠っているのだとぼんやり思う。
Couldn’t find 抜け殼 or similar in the dictionary so I can only guess it’s something like “fallen shell”. Not sure how it’s formed and even then…weird thing to say I guess. I’m not even sure I get what she is trying to say.
I’ll comment on the contents when I’m actually done. Promise.
Just wanted to double check that the 全員 here is referring to all the different 店長. Since up to now that’s been referring to the regular employees I wanted to be sure.
Also, the いた is referring to a 店長 always being there, not her always being there during that time, right? From my understanding, the subjects of the two parts with ながら have to be the case, so I assume it has to still be referring to the 店長.
I’m also picturing the 一匹の生き物 of a 店長 as being Godzilla. That’s fair, right?
Way I understood it, this is talking about her friends perception of her. Like, what does she see when she looks at me, who is she talking to (from her point of view)
Before they talked about how much our protag has changed. Previous sentence says she’s laughing with changed clothes and speech patterns. Throughout the book so far, she has always described whose speech she’s integrating into her whole which has led to that change. Judging by how she’s made up of the Konbini through osmosis and foof in her perception, she probably feels she is a wholly different person, with little to nothing remaining from her past self.
So, basically, who is her friend even talking to, since she’s changed so much she’s basically a different person. (how she presents herself)
And yet, they’re going ‘ah, so nostalgic’ repeatedly.
I think this is showing protag confusion at how this can be 懐かしい, when she’s so different from the past.
The 週5 I referring to how she comes in 5 times a week. B) specifically for the day shift, and this is saving him. Or the shop, which he represents as 店長. Since they’re short on people and all. Usually you have like 週に5回 or something.
