レンタルおにいちゃん Volume 2

[2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz]

@kousei22

あんなので転ぶ方が悪いんじゃない

I thus far have learned the 方が in comparative constructions (more than, etc.) and in “should-should not”, but this doesn´t make sense to me here. Also, how is that ので working here?

My interpretation is slightly different to @ChristopherFritz’s, though I feel we reach about the same conclusion. I won’t say that I’m 100% sure about it either though.

あんなの

あんな means “that sort of, that kind of”. As mentioned before, the の is being used as a pronoun, something that is replacing a noun that is usually determined by context. I’ll come back to what noun should be here in just a moment.

The tricky part is the で that we have here. My interpretation is that this is the で particle. One of the uses of this particle is to denote a slight causal relationship. The dictionary of basic japanese grammar give this example:

山口さんは 病気 で 学校 を 休んだ。
Yamaguchi san ha, byouki de gakkou wo yasunda
Yamaguchi was sick, and absented himself from school => because Yamaguchi was sick, he was absent from school.

Going back to our current sentence and our hypothesis of a causal relationship for で, we have:

あんなの で 転ぶ

Because of that thing, (Kanami) fell over.

Well, what exactly made Kanami fall? This guy here has something to say about it:

Kanami fell because Sae pushed her. の in あんなの refers to that fact. Now, from where I see it, while Sae does mean-spiritedly push Kanami, she was just trying to lightly mess with her, not actually make her fall. Part of the problem was that Kanami had her mind elsewhere:

Sae’s just lightly pushes her from one shoulder. It’s not a full-on two-handed push sure to make her fall.

Sae’s face after they all fall like dominoes makes it kind of clear she didn’t expect such a disaster:

So basically my understanding is that
あんなの で 転ぶ => Falling over from from such (a light push)

Now, we just need to see how this connects to 方が悪い. I agree that this is comparing two things. One of them is bad, and another is not.
あんなの で 転ぶ 方が悪い => Rather, falling from (such a light push) is wrong / abnormal.

Rather than what? Rather than what Sae did. Sae’s basically saying, that rather than her being wrong for pushing Kanami, Kanami is wrong from falling from such light pushing. In other words, Sae is just trying to shift blame.

[ChristopherFritz]

@2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz

My interpretation is slightly different

I was hoping you’d introduce an alternate interpretation =D I like what you made of あんなの here.

[kousei22]

Wow, this one was definitely tricky! Many thanks @ChristopherFritz and @2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz for your breakdowns!! (Also for the graphic examples!) It´s so interesting and useful to have different approaches that enrich the text so much. Also, I think this passage truly reflects how, within a correct grammar, the nuances of Japanese are eminently prismatic, contextual and subjective. That for me is definitely an example of linguistic beauty (and of headache when starting to read native material too )

[ChristopherFritz]

Week 4: Pages 60–80

Start Date: 2020-12-11T15:00:00Z

Vocabulary List

Page Numbers Guide (thumbnail spoilers)

Participation

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(You can change your answer later if you’d like.)

• I’m reading along.
• I have finished this part.

Progress

By the end of this week’s reading, we’ll have encountered nearly half of the vocabulary words used in this volume.

This week also marks the end of the “written specifically for commercial publication” content for volume 2. After this, we’ve back to material that was part of the original Pixiv release.

For those keeping an eye out for kanji, this week has 127 kanji, not including names. Excluding duplicates, there are 76 unique kanji. That should be enough for all readers to find something that’s fairly new to them:

• Starting out WaniKani on level 1? Look for 人, 上, and 大.
• When at level 5, 見 is a good one to watch for.
• Around level 9, you may spot 助 while reading.
• On level 13, 家族 is a word to be sure to see.
• Closer to level 14, you may want to keep an eye out for 謝.
• And at level 16, finding 帰 may be of interest.
• If you’re at level 18, you may recognize 結果.
• One level 13, hopefully you haven’t forgotten 忘, but it’s permitted so long as you find 許.
• For level 21, don’t miss out on seeing 難.
• Readers around level 27 may catch 独 a couple of times.
• By level 31, you may take notice of 怖.
  
  

If you want to quiz yourself on which kanji you recognize, here's a table of this week's kanji.

Kanji	Count	WK Level
人	3	1
上	1	1
大	1	1
日	3	2
手	2	2
本	2	2
出	1	2
今	4	3
心	3	3
友	2	3
外	1	3
気	3	4
休	1	4
早	1	4
見	1	4
何	2	5
兄	2	5
当	2	5
会	1	5
声	1	5
学	1	5
言	1	5
思	3	6
全	2	6
知	2	6
安	1	6
明	1	6
時	4	7
以	1	7
家	1	7
教	1	7
校	1	7
話	2	8
間	2	8
助	1	8
道	1	8
部	2	9
持	1	9
苦	1	9
始	1	10
転	1	10
配	1	10
開	1	10
仲	2	11
良	2	11
族	1	12
皆	5	13
然	1	13
謝	1	13
頑	1	14
帰	6	15
変	2	15
信	1	15
勇	1	15
喜	3	17
果	1	17
無	1	17
結	1	17
達	2	18
忘	1	18
許	1	18
難	2	20
割	1	23
張	1	23
視	1	24
独	2	26
突	1	26
痛	1	27
寄	1	29
怖	1	29
喋	1	35
緒	5	38
誰	1	43
俺	3	44
辛	1	44
寂	2	56

[kousei22]

Week 3

Sorry guys! I don´t know how to post this on the margins of the week 3 thread! Last two questions on my part for this first reading.

Page 52

わたし達も一緒に帰りたいなって

I assume that なって comes from なる, but how come it is directly joined to the たい? I would have expected a たくなる. One way or another, the grammar (and thus the nuance of the なる with the たい) is putting me in a straitjacket.

Page 55

Are the two girls talking in the center right panel just two random students discussing on how Kanami´s skirt got dirty? I know it´s not a very significant part, but I don´t quite get the context.

Thanks!!

[shannon17]

@kousei22

Page 55

Are the two girls talking in the center right panel just two random students discussing on how Kanami´s skirt got dirty? I know it´s not a very significant part, but I don´t quite get the context.

わたしさああの時にスカート汚れちゃったんだよね
I understood this to be the girl talking about how her own skirt got dirty (with the implication that these mean girls have turned against Sae for reasons just as shallow as they were with her to begin with). But I could be wrong.

[ChristopherFritz]

@kousei22

I don´t know how to post this on the margins of the week 3 thread!

It’s all volume 2, so questions for any prior week are not only acceptable, but quite encouraged =D

(I actually did this week’s post on my lunch break since I didn’t know if I’d be working overtime. Otherwise I’d be getting it posted an hour after your post.)

Page 52

@kousei22

I assume that なって comes from なる

This is correct.

@kousei22

but how come it is directly joined to the たい? I would have expected a たくなる.

In trying to find out about this, I tried doing a web search for both たいなって and たくなって (in one search), and found many results where the two get used in the same written piece:

Thus, my conclusion is: I have no idea.

Page 55

@kousei22

I know it´s not a very significant part, but I don´t quite get the context.

Check out the bottom of page 45 for the necessary context:

[WalterMeiren]

Would greatly appreciate some help with page 62. The first two text boxes.
寂しさをわかってもらえる安心も
助けようとしてもらえる喜びも知ってる
I understand the first part where Kanami is saying she understands the sadness of being lonely, followed by a て “and” connector.
After that, the way she strings in all the other feelings she understands into the sentence, makes my head spin.

[Edit] After trying to decipher the thing with Deepl and Jisho I’m starting to think I even have the first part wrong. That she is talking about “The peace of mind that comes with knowing you’re lonely” (got this from Deepl)? So now I’m getting even more confused.

[BarelyFragile]

Ooh, I’m glad you asked about this because I spent some time thinking about this.

First thing to notice is that these two textboxes constitute a sentence (including the それに) from the previous page. So, the entire sentence is 「それに寂しさをわかってもらえる安心も助けようとしてもらえる喜びも知ってる。」

The final verb here is 知っている, so she’s saying she understands, knows, or is aware of [whatever comes before]. Thankfully, we have the も particle here to separate out the things that she understands.

First, there’s「寂しさをわかってもらえる安心」. 寂しさ is the noun form of the adjective 寂しい, which describes feeling lonely. This is followed by を which is used to marked a direct object (in this case, 寂しさ). I’ll come back to this a bit later.

わかって is the て-connective form of the verb わかる, but it’s attached to the verb もらえる (the potential form of the verb もらう). Now there’s a couple things to notice here.

1. もらう means to receive, but when connected to a preceding verb by the て-form, it means to get someone to do something, or to have someone do something (for the subject). So, わかってもらう would mean something along the lines of “to have someone understand/know”.
2. もらえる is the potential form of the verb もらう, which carries the additional meaning of being able to do something, or can do something. Thus, わかってもらえる would mean something along the lines of “to be able to have someone understand”.

Combining this with the direct object above, we can know that わかってもらえる is acting on 寂しさ - specifically, being able to have someone understand the feeling of loneliness.

Finally, we have the noun 安心, which means relief or peace of mind. When we have a verb phrase as before followed by a noun, that phrase is directly modifying the noun. In this case, Kanami is talking about the relief/peace of mind of being able to have someone understand (her) feelings of loneliness (for her).

The following も implies that what preceded it also applies to the final verb.

The next portion of the sentence follows the same structure with some minor differences.「助けようとしてもらえる喜び」- the first thing to notice here is 助けよう, which is the (plain) volitional form of the verb 助ける (which means to save, rescue, help, etc.). The volitional form is frequently used to make propositions or invitations, and is the same as the polite ましょう you may have encountered in your studies.

Following this we have the particle と and して, the て-form of the verb する. The volitional form of a verb + とする is a structure that means to try to or attempt to do the verb. In this case, this would mean something like “to try to save” (+ て-connective form).

This is connected to the potential もらえる via the て form. Following the previous explanation, we’d get something along the lines of “to be able to have someone try to save (her)”. Then, the 喜び is the noun modified by the preceding verb phrase - “the joy of being able to have someone to try to save (her)”.

Putting this together, we can see that Kanami is saying that she knows both the relief of being able to have someone understand (her) feelings of loneliness and the joy of being able to have some try to save (her).

[ChristopherFritz]

@BarelyFragile did an amazing job on breaking down the dialogue, so I’ll turn my attention toward use of DeepL. It’s a great tool, but it also has limitations.

Strengths of DeepL:

• Being much better than Google Translate.
• Translating dictionary entries.

Weaknesses of DeepL:

• Figuring things out without context.

When I say “context”, I mean “missing words”, such as topic (は/も) or subject (が).

For general understanding of longer sentences, you’ll find one of the biggest areas of improvement in reading comprehension comes when you can recognize modifiers within a sentence. By recognizing modifier+noun pairs, you can:

• Remove all modifiers, and try to understand the most basic sentence.
• View each modifier+noun pair on its own, to better understand each noun.

Here’s what the sentence looks like with the modifiers separated from the words they modify:

Here’s how DeepL handles the dialogue without the modifiers:

And here’s what DeepL shows when giving it modifier+noun pairs:

DeepL doesn’t realize I gave it modifier+noun pairs (which are not complete sentences), and it translates them if they are complete sentences. (Note also that these translations miss a lot of the details that BarelyFragile outlined above.)

Those two methods help to get an idea of what’s going on in a sentence, but for this page’s dialogue, since the two dialogue boxes in the first panel are one sentence, you can place them on one line and DeepL does a much better job of it:

It’s still not perfect (due to lack of context), but it’s a lot closer to what’s being said!

[kousei22]

Thanks for the feeback! I too had understood it like that at first because of that わたしさあ, but then thinking about the page 45 context which @ChristopherFritz posted, it´s kind of weird since the only skirt which apparently got dirty was Kanami´s. I´m not sure if that わたしさあ is acting here like: “As for me…” like introducing one´s opinion.

[kousei22]

@ChristopherFritz

It’s all volume 2, so questions for any prior week are not only acceptable, but quite encouraged =D

Great!

@ChristopherFritz

Thus, my conclusion is: I have no idea.

What mysterious and arcane grammar rule dares to hide from us like that? I think I´ll try asking a Japanese acquaintance of mine to see if he can explain, and I´ll let you know with what he says!

@ChristopherFritz

Check out the bottom of page 45 for the necessary context:

I was telling @shannon17 that since the only skirt which apparently got dirty was Kanami´s, maybe that わたしさあ is acting like a 私は in the sense of “As for me…” (in my opinion…)? That page 45 scene came to mind at first naturally, but then the わたしさあ appeared and my mind blocked

[2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz]

@kousei22

Page 52

わたし達も一緒に帰りたいなって

I assume that なって comes from なる, but how come it is directly joined to the たい? I would have expected a たくなる. One way or another, the grammar (and thus the nuance of the なる with the たい) is putting me in a straitjacket.

I believe this isn’t なって from なる. This is って, the casual quotation particle.
The context of this phrase is that Kanami’s classmates are explaining to Kanami what they thought and what they talked about between themselves before approaching her.

って is being used to quote those things that were said. So basically “わたし達も一緒に帰りたいな” is what they talked about. They all talked and thought it would be nice to walk home with Kanami.

In this case な is just the sentence-ending particle (it’s similar to ね, just more informal).

[kousei22]

Ohh, I see!! I would never have reached that conclusion by myself! I´ll have to watch out for those って then from now on. Many thanks for the info!

[ChristopherFritz]

@kousei22

I think I´ll try asking a Japanese acquaintance of mine to see if he can explain, and I´ll let you know with what he says!

Hopefully he’s able to provide some insight!

@kousei22

That page 45 scene came to mind at first naturally

With as slow as we’re going through the series, my first expectation is always “it’s easy to forget earlier scenes”. Well, okay, that scene was in the same week’s reading as the line being questioned. Since I’ve read through the volume multiple times and re-read parts for replying, I have a bit of a disjointed view of events =P

@kousei22

maybe that わたしさあ is acting like a 私は in the sense of “As for me…” (in my opinion…)?

I can’t find anything concrete to back this up, but it’s the general feel I get for it as well. I wonder if this さぁ is like in 「あのさあ」 and the ね in 「あのね」.

@2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz

I believe this isn’t なって from なる. This is って, the casual quotation particle.

Have you ever had a situation where you look at a watch or clock, and you’re confident of what time it is. And then you look at different clock, and it’s several minutes different from the first one? And now you have zero confidence on the actual time?

While the grammar parser I put the sentence through states なって as being なる, I think you’re on to something here. (And it underscores the importance of taking context into account.)

From Kodansha’s “A Dictionary of Japanese Particles” on な:

@Sue A. Kawashima

「な」

Expresses a casual remark of wishful thinking.

「毎日忙しすぎる。少しのんびりしたいな」
“I am too busy every day. I wish I could relax a little bit.”

(Emphasis mine.)

The author just so happens to use an example sentence that also ends in たい＋な.

[WalterMeiren]

Thank you so much @BarelyFragile and @ChristopherFritz . As always, you are the true heroes of these reading clubs, by providing such incredibly detailed and useful explanations.

I had gotten better at breaking down Japanese sentences since Vol.1 and usually could figure out even these longer strings. But in this instance yet again you guys taught me something new.

[kousei22]

@ChristopherFritz

Hopefully he’s able to provide some insight!

Regarding the discussion we had on the たいなって in the sentence:

わたし達も一緒に帰りたいなって (Page 52)

This Japanese acquaintance-friend of mine has confirmed that it´s as @2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz said, that this って is the quotation particle and the な is just an emotive particle. He added some information which, although many of you for sure already know, might be of interest in any case. He said that whenever this って quotation mark is at the end of a clause, sentence or whatever, it means there is an omitted 思う, 感じる, etc. In fact, he said we should also expect sentences to end in the form なって思って. This last 思って (which can be omitted, as in our sentence) is used to convey the flow of thoughts, whose “incompleteness” is marked by the connective て, which seems to be a very cultural thing (pretty much like the sentence-ending だけど). I hope this info is useful for some of you!!

[ChristopherFritz]

@kousei22

This Japanese acquaintance-friend of mine has confirmed that it´s as @2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz said, that this って is the quotation particle and the な is just an emotive particle.

Thanks for getting the info!

The area I went wrong on it was 1) thinking it was なる, and then 2) having a tokenizer software (Juman++) “agree” with this.

This is sort of like what I was saying about using DeepL, there are going to be limitations to any software solution.

So what’s the solution to figuring out things like whether a なって is 「な+って」 or 「なる＋て」? There are two methods:

1. Pattern recognition. The more one encounters patterns, the more readily they’ll be recognized.

2. Sense vs nonsense. If you have two possible interpretations in mind, go with the one that makes more sense.

Since I got caught up on thinking it was なる, I didn’t make it far enough to think it of って on my own. But after this, the next time I see a なって, I’ll think twice about it and work out which makes sense in context. (That is, unless I forget, like I do half of my guru kanji when they come up for review.)

[kousei22]

@ChristopherFritz

having a tokenizer software (Juman++)

Didn´t know about that one! I´ll keep it in mind, but as you say, no software can replace those two methods you quoted!

[ChristopherFritz]

@kousei22

Didn´t know about that one!

Some words about Juman++

Juman is a tokenizer (or morphological analyzer), which means it takes a sentences and breaks it up into the individual words and their parts of speech. Juman++ is a newer version. I find I get better results with Juman++ than I did when I used MeCab (another tokenizer).

You can download and install Juman++ to use locally, or you can use it online.

I’ve previously (elsewhere) provided links to a tool called KNP:

• Try KNP
• Try KNP

(Both links are the same tool, but on occasion where one may be down, the other may be up.)

KNP takes the output of Juman and adds a layer of analysis onto it, as one can see by entering a sentence into it. Clicking on the checkbox where it says 「解析結果の詳細を表示」 also gives you the Juman output.

Tools can help confirm if one understands the structure of a sentence. But, like with DeepL, it’s not always going to be right. One must be careful for this.

Side-note: This site uses the older Juman, not the newer Juman++.