Here I´m still struggling to grasp what´s going on (last two panels of page 85). Sorry!! I think it´s because I´m getting confused with who is talking (since up to this point Kanami has referred to herself sometimes with her own name). I thought it was Kanami speaking in both panels saying Kazutaka that they can do their best together (trying to cope up with their new situation) because she will try, but I´m assuming (according to what @ChristopherFritz said) that it´s Kazutaka speaking?
My confusion with who is talking also applies to page 88. The central thought bubble that starts with どうしてなのか is Kazutaka´s thinking?
This general confusion I think is hindering me from getting the から grammar @ChristopherFritz and @rafascar were talking about.
Many thanks for your patience with absolute beginners!!
Ah, yes. That was my original translation but I changed it half-way. I believe I did not grasp the concept of “quoting” in Japanese yet, gotta have more exposure to that to become comfortable I guess.
Makes it easier when you put it this way! Thanks!
That’s exactly it, the word “volition” doesn’t mean anything for me – not naturally at least. Even if I translate it to my native language, I guess I never put some thought to how I express “volition” anyways.
So for the meanwhile why I’m trying to do is to try to stick “let’s” in some way or another, and work my way to a meaningful sentence from there. But I do like how you broke the sentence down, I’ll try to be more mindful about it the next time I encounter this.
You can expect a call from my lawyer soon.
Damn you から, you tricked me again! I think the trickiest thing about this particle so far is in the context of a manga, where you don’t exactly know where sentences end, so it makes it harder to find out if から is ending or connecting two sentences together. I’ll get you next time!
I too share this difficulty more often than I would like to. Especially with bubbles without the little thinghy (or with really small ones) pointing to who is talking.
Another think that makes it harder for me is that people are often referred to on the third-person, even when they are being talked directly to – or one is talking to herself like 叶実 often does. I wonder if this is this a general Japanese thing or is it because of the childish nature of this Manga’s main character. (?)
Thank you both. You’ve answered both my questions and I think I understand these a lot better now.
Isn’t this where learners are always being told not to refer to the person you are speaking to with あなた because it’s considered rude (after all the text books told you to learn it)? If you know their name you use that, and if you don’t I guess you ask!
I’m under the impression that this is common in Japanese, as @Belerith also says.
I know in a lot of English fiction media, characters say names more commonly than names are used in real life. (In books, it helps identify who’s talking.) Thus, I often wonder if Japanese fiction media is similar in over-using names.
That said, here's an example from a high school manga.
In this chapter, Yamato is excited that she was finally able to introduce her boyfriend, Takeo, to her friends. However, the two later overhear a couple of Yamato’s friends say bad things about Takeo.
Here, Yamato is covering her tears as she apologizes to Takeo for the hurtful things her friends said. She refers to him by name twice:
Thanks everyone for the discussion! It really helped! First I was really confused as why Japanese people didn´t use the famous あなた textbooks teach, but as I´m getting more and more involved with the Japanese language and culture, it definitely makes sense that あなた isn´t used. In fact, thinking about it slowly and from a non-Western perspective, addressing your hearer with the word “You” can perfectly create a sense of harshness and impoliteness. The thing is in English, Spanish (my native language), French and so on it´s so common that we have completely eliminated the sense of directness it creates in fact (which for Japanese people would be a sense of rudeness). It´s interesting because yesterday I was watching an anime and one of the girl characters addressed her also girl hearer with あなた, but it was just because in that particular situation she was confronting her, and wanted to show a cold approach. Once they got to know a bit better and started talking more, the speaker changed to her name when addressing her. All of this reminded me our discussion in the thread!
My impression on first reading it was the same as yours @kousei22. I pretty sure it’s Kanami speaking in the bottom panels of page 85. I agree with your translation: “I’m going to do my best [to get through this situation] so let’s try to do it together…?”
There’s the ピっ sound effect next to Kazutaka which I take to be him exhaling with disdain as she’s talking. I think her sentence appearing to trail off shows she’s suddenly unsure about his demeanour, like she’s never seen him like this. And then he snaps.
That’s where there was a failure on my part. It’s Kanami talking, but I didn’t notice that, so I may have written stating (or suggesting) it was her brother. We see Kazutaka and a word balloon, but there’s no tail on the balloon. I’ll be re-reading that scene later today to properly take it in knowing it’s Kanami talking through the scene.
Am I getting this right that in one instance he’s telling his little sister to persevere together and then slaps her?? I perfectly understand how his circumstances are emotionally breaking him, but I do think that “sudden change of attitude” was stretching it a bit.
Also, I can’t seem to find the literal translation for 出なくなった. I think it’s components are 出る → 出ない and なる and I get it has to mean something along the lines of “Oniichan didn’t leave the house anymore/it became so that he didn’t leave the house anymore”. I am asking for help regarding the く-part. Why can verbs take on this adverbial form? It’s been a long time since I last read and I kinda forgot some of the basic grammar. And all online search appears to be futile as I can’t specify my problem. All help is appreciated, thank you!
The く is actually a modification of 出ない which actually behaves like an い-adjective. That’s why it can be turned into an adverb in the same way as い-adjectives. Now the question is, why does it become an adverb? Because it is modifying a verb (なる in this case).
(Hope that helped already; if you need more explanations then please keep asking )
This scene can be a little difficult for us learners to follow. Here, it’s Kanami speaking in the two bottom panels (continuing from starting in the middle panel).
On the lower-right panel, there’s a 「ピク…」 “twitch” sound effect of the brother as Kanami’s talking.
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