ルリドラゴン ・ Ruri Dragon 🐲 Week 1

I like the idea of it being in the first post, if that’s not too much work!

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I’m confused over the verb 生える, “to grow”. I’m new to the concept of ‘continuous action’ verbs. In Japanese, certain verbs get described as being in a continuous state. So, rather than “the horns grew”, in jp the concept is “the horns grew (and continue to be grown)”. Is this correct?

Following this, if someone could explain and contrast the uses of 生える、生えてる、生えた、and 生えてた, that would be incredibly beneficial to me. Everything else that I didn’t quite get from re-reading the reading and the explanations I’m happy to move on from, but this is one issue I’d really like resolved. Thank you! :heart:

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I’m not sure what you mean about continuous action … I think of growing as a continuous action in English too, but maybe that’s not what you meant.

But hopefully I can clear up the other question.
生える = dictionary form of grow (also known as non-past)
生えてる = contraction of 生えている, meaning “is growing”
生えた = past form
生えてた = contraction of 生えていた, the past continuous, so “was growing”

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This right here is a great way to to about it, imo. Embracing some level of ambiguity until you see it enough that you understand it well. It’s worked quite well for me, though I know some folks don’t like any type of ambiguity, and it’s not the way for everyone.

They are about the same amount of work, to be honest. I’ll go back and make that comment a wiki and add a Grammar section again. :joy:

That post has been a small glimpse inside my mind – constantly at odds with myself. :rofl:

You worded it exactly as I would have. I would just add that ていた can also be the results of actions (completed in the past, but remains relevant). I.e., “had grown”

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This comment is now a wiki for the purposes of the compiled grammar Q&As in the thread.

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Going to start tonight! So excited.

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Pretty much. What I’m aiming for is 95% clarity. I’m gonna try each week to translate every single page to the absolute best of my ability, and then hope that those who are checking through what I’ve written will pick up on the most prevalent/egregious errors, and of course through my own re-reading I’ll highlight the most concerning remaining issues. After that, I’m moving on. There’s only so many hours in a day between using WaniKani itself and I’m a full-time worker.

More to the point, it’s diminishing returns. Given that this is N5/N4 level material, I’ll either:

A: See it so often that I’ll pick it up naturally/remember to ask you guys for help if it’s a continuous issue.

Or

B: See it so seldom that I won’t have to worry about it at all until much further down the line, when I approach N3+ material.

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Thank you, MaraVos. Your help was MarVellous (see what I did there?)

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Yep, I agree with that thinking wholeheartedly, that’s why I couldn’t provide in depth explanations on grammar, since they are all points that I’ve never even searched up. It’s just something I have a good enough idea on that lets me understand and that’s fine by me. I’m not trying to master every in and out, I just want to be able to consume content in an enjoyable manner.

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Verbs in Japanese are either instantaenous or continuous. Instantaneous verbs happen at once and then they’re done - the ~ている form refers to the state of having happened continuing over time. For example 生まれる or 結婚する. Continuous verbs happen over time, and when you stop doing them, the action stops - the ~ている form refers to the continuation of the action over time. For example 走る or 勉強する.

Some verbs can be instantaneous in Japanese but continuous in English, or vice versa. For example, “to know” is continuous in English - I know this, and I will continue knowing it until I forget. In Japanese, 知る is istantaneous - it refers to the specific moment of learning something new for the first time, so to say that I still know it, I need to use 知っている.

I can’t seem to determine if 生える is instantaneous or continuous, though. The translations that Jisho gives seem to imply it can be either. If it’s instantaneous, though, then 生えてた means “have grown” rather than “was growing”.

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Read this weeks pages and I´m satisfied with how much easier it was compared to the last times.
The last tries either the material was too hard, or I didn´t know nearly enough grammar to progress at a reasonable pace, even with something easier.

Since I finished my first manga I finally figured out whats the best way to read for me. It´s a nice little confidence boost to not have to struggle through every speech bubble and to not despair when seeing a long sentence. This finally feels like actual reading :smiley:

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If there are any videos/articles on this topic I’d be interested, as instantaneous/continuous is a brand new concept for me

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Could you briefly elaborate on a ‘stative form’?

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It indicates that one is in that state of doing something.

The most memed example is probably お前はもう死んでいる “You’re already dead.” In Japanese you wouldn’t say someone is deaded, but rather that they are in the state of being dead. So 死ぬ->死んでいる. The form is sometimes called ている form.

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Ooop, this may have been where I was confused, and I may have confused others.

All those times I said ‘continuous’, I meant ‘stative’. So:

Continuous = is dying/was dying
Stative = is dead/was dead (lit. is deaded/was deaded)

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Hello! I’ve been kinda surprised by how much of this I was able to understand. I need to go back through and write out vocab that are new to me, and perhaps pick apart at the grammar that I don’t know (almost all my Japanese knowledge is from far too much anime over the past 20 years) to see if I can somehow get my brain to Learn It. XD

I am excited to continue this book, and hopefully in the future the artist will be well enough to continue onwards - the art is really nice.

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Just finished! It was actually easier to get through than I expected - I guess reading someよつばと previously paid off. Now that I know to expect some of the contractions and casual talk, it’s a lot easier to figure out.

SAME. The 言おう言おう one in particular had me so confused. Thank you everyone here who explained these sentences, as well as all the other explanations.

Also, big thank you to whoever first recommended ichi.moe for sentence lookups. It fits really nicely as a halfway point between looking up individual words, and looking up a sentence in something like DeepL.

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I also had the impression that 生える is stative in this context - 起きたら生えてた would make more sense as “they had grown when I woke up” vs “they were growing when I woke up,” given that they seem to have appeared all at once.

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My first book club, first week, first everyting…

First of all, I am glad to be sharing this experience with all of you, it is great to see how many people are ready to help out and how many people are brave enough to stand up and ask their questions. I read thorugh it all and it was very helpful.

On this weeks pages I had an “AHAA moment”, two “DOH!” moments and a “HÄÄÄ” moment.

AHAA

all the “って” consturctions, I read/heard those before, but now I feel I have much more clarity on how they are used in a natural way (I am far away from being able to use them actively, but I do feel I understand them better now)

DOH!

「ハーフ」… thougth first it was a name and the Haafu people are half dragon half human… :face_exhaling:「マジ」 … again, I went on a hypothetical appearance of magic and… I guess I need to work on my Katakana word recognition better.

HÄÄÄ

「言おう言おうとは思ってたんだけどね。無理に教えることでもないかなって。」There still some parts that are foggy around this, but thanks to the comments here I got the idea of what mom is saying…

Thanks again and hope everybody keep having fun as I do!

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Hey everyone,

This is my first book club and although I do feel very overwhelmed, I am loving it so very much! I just finished this week’s pages and I’ve come to realize that my grammar skills are…non-existent. I’m trying to read all the comments and just take in the ones that make sense to me because I don’t want to pressure myself into learning everything in just a day. Also, I love Ruri’s mom, she’s amazing lol.

That being said, the comments and answers were all SO helpful and I’m really glad I joined this book club on time :smiley:

Thank you to everyone for making this very accessible and resourceful!

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