三ツ星カラーズ — Week 4 Discussion (ABBC)

Japanese Language Reading
#1

三ツ星カラーズ Week 4: Pages 23–28

Start Date: 4th of December

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Characters

The following characters appear this week.

Week 4 Yui  結衣(ゆい)

Week 4 Sacchan  さっちゃん

Week 4 Kotoha  琴葉(ことは)

Week 4 Oyaji  おやじ

Week 4 Saitou  斎藤(さいとう)

Week 4 Okaasan  かあちゃん／おばちゃん

Page Numbers Guide

Due to a general lack of page numbers, it can be difficult to know which page you’re asking a question on. You can use the thumbnails below to see at a glance which page number each is.

Thumbnails with page numbers for this week's reading. (Spoiler warning!)

Week 4
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三ツ星カラーズ Volume 1 (Absolute Beginner Book Club)
三ツ星カラーズ — Week 5 Discussion (ABBC)
三ツ星カラーズ — Week 3 Discussion (ABBC)
#2

Quick Links

The following links will take you to previously-asked questions. Because this list is manually put together, some questions may be missing from the list.

Page 23

Page 25

Page 26

Page 27

Page 27

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#3

Hi everyone! I’m back with another few questions I have regarding this week’s pages.

  1. Page 23, 5th panel. おやじ replies to ことは by saying まったくかなわねぇなぁ わっはっは.

まったく: completely
かなう(conjugated to inf. neg form) to come true. Is he granting ことは’s wish by saying that he will pay for their portion of the bananas?

  1. Page 25, first panel, they said 警察だ, but the furigana for my copy strangely says サイトウ…. Isn’t his name in kanji 斎藤?

  2. Page 25, first panel, there is another sentence called バナナだと. I’m guessing だ here is the informal equivalent to です but I have no idea what と means and is doing here. Overall, I translated this sentence to, do you want (a bunch of) bananas?

  3. Page 25, 2nd panel さっちゃん(?) replies by saying くたばってもいいから買えよ斎藤I translated this as “even if you die, still buy it, saitou!

  4. Page 25, 2nd panel, 斎藤 says それいいとこ無しじゃねぇか does this sentence mean That good thing is unacceptable, isn’t it??

  5. Page 25, 4th panel, 斎藤 says お前ら構ってる暇は無ぇ does this sentence mean You guys minding this type of things are useless

  6. Page 25, 6th panel, おばあさん referred to 斎藤 as お巡りさん but ことは referred to him as 警官(Page 26, panel 5), why is that so??

  7. Page 26, 6th panel, 斎藤 says お前もかボケェ does this mean you are also an idiot

  8. Page 27, 2nd panel ったくいい加減に does this mean good grief! So irresponsible??

  9. Page 27, 3rd panel, 斎藤says 騙されやすいお年頃ですか？does this mean is this the apparent age that people are easily tricked?

  10. Page 27, 4th panel. I couldn’t understand what the old lady was saying たたりじゃキツネ様のたたりじゃー does this mean that the old lady is saying that the fox cursed them

  11. Page 27, 4th panel, why is 買う to 買や??

  12. Page 27, 6th panel; what does 欲しがってた mean in ご褒美は皆が欲しがってた?? Does this mean the prize is what everyone showed sings of wanting

Thank you in advance for everyone who always help answer my questions. I’m going to try to participate in the conversation other than just asking questions. ( ・∇・)

By the way, on page 25, are they (ことは) allowed to stand in people’s car and sell them bananas and shoot people on the street with bananas :rofl:

5 Likes
#4

Nothing much to report on in terms of real-world locations. “Various spots on the street” basically.

Do you think mother dear knew what kinds of sales tactics she was inflicting upon the world?

She certainly didn’t realise the power of the チューチューカブリラ suits. Where did she even get those from?

Japanese is pulling a sneaky on you here - かなわない is also an adjective.

Yep. Clever double-meaning thing going on here. Instead of having to say “Saitou the policeman” like we would have to say in English, Japanese can do both at once. The policemanSaitou.

と is the quotation particle. 95% sure it’s Saitou quoting what they’ve just said to him - “Bananas, you say?”

Yep. I can never remember which one is Sacchan, though it turns out I can remember who Yui and Kotoha are, so I can work out Sacchan by process of elimination. :stuck_out_tongue:

Wonder if it’s more like “that’s not a good thing (to say)”.

I don’t have time for you guys.

They were raised in different eras, is the short answer. :stuck_out_tongue:

Kitsune-sama will curse him.

Slurring? Google’s not being too forthcoming.

Yeah, one of the things about Japanese is you can’t use ～たい or ほしい about someone else. You can only say ほしいと思う, I think they want, or ほしいって言った, they said they want, or ほしがってる, they show signs of wanting.

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#5

I’m almost certain she did. She wanted rid of the bananas and called in the nuclear option. :stuck_out_tongue:

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#6

As usual, the book club did its thing, and 断つ is a word I learned literally earlier today on WK.

This was a lot of fun! I think with this chapter I’ve gotten a lot more into the manga. Looking forward to next week!

A few scattered, basic thoughts on the events themselves

  • If that guy is going to show up with different glasses constantly, I’m totally down for that. It’s a great look.

  • Those costumes sure surprised me haha, love it.

  • The little girls’ chaos was just really out in full force this time, and it’s fun to see. The banana sales on the car and all that was great. When reading よつばと I thought that that manga, making children out to be that adorable, was the best chance at increasing Japan’s birth rate… and this manga serves the exact opposite function!

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#7

Not sure this one got answered. ったく I think is short for まったく - “completely”. いい加減に is short for いい加減にしろ - cut it out!

It looks like Saitou speaking. 騙されやすい is an adjective meaning “gullible”. 年頃 could perhaps be defined - “the approximate age, judging by appearances”. So I think he’s referring to the old lady and saying - “Does she look the sort of age to be gullible?”

6 Likes
#8

What’s with the small kana characters, it is drawing out a sound? (though isn’t that ー)
Has this already been explained, sorry memory like a sieve …

e.g.

Page 25, Panel 2

それいいとこ無しじゃねぇか

Page 25, Panel 4

お前らに構ってる暇は無ぇの

4 Likes
#9

In case they missed this, that’s definitely what it is, but I just want to make it explicit that these are also used as a sort of “good grief” style expression.

You’ve got it! I think of it as kind of slurred, drawn out sound. Technically the dash is just a katakana thing, though it wouldn’t surprise me if people mix them somewhere in manga, where rules mean nothing. You probably noticed, but they frequently pair this with the sort of vowel shift, writing the words how they’re said rather than how they’re actually spelled, here, ない becoming ねぇ and whatnot. It’s probably also represented this way to make it immediately clear that that’s what’s going on. You’ll see it used for trailing off sounds too, whether a scream or someone just dragging out the end of a thought.

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#10

I’m also relatively certain that if it’s written in kana and it is alone, it’s usually the “good grief” meaning. I’ve only personally seen it used as the adverb “completely” when written as 全く, or when in a phrase like まったくもって or まったくのところ.

9 Likes
#11

This week I finished the chapter pretty early! So proud of myself! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I still have a few questions though:

Page 25

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My first question is: what does っつか at the beginning of Saitou’s sentence mean? My second question is about sentence structure: I was wondering if 何だお前ら is actually a separate sentence? After all, だ is a verb (in non-past) and later we get another verb (in non-present) (じゃなかった). So I read his sentence as: What is with you? Weren’t you protecting the peace of the this city?. Is that correct?

Another question on page 25

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First of all: Who is talking? Saitou? Also: Why past tense? If Saitou is talking, I would expect him to say: Look, go home. But that would be present tense…

Page 27

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I was also wondering about 買や instead of 買う, and I was wondering about the いいんだろ part. So いいです means it’s good and I believe ろ to add emphasis. That’s why I read the sentence as: I’ll buy, it’s fine already, I’ll buy! But that translation does not take ー between 買や and いいんだろ into account. Is there a better translation?

Thanks in advance!

7 Likes
#12
Pg. 25

I believe it’s a (very) lazy っていうか, which when at the beginning of a sentence, is used when you kinda want to rephrase something you just said. Sorta like an english, “Or rather; or perhaps I should say”

I also read it as two separate sentences, because of the bubble split, so I agree with your interpretation.

I think Saitou is the one speaking, yes. I don’t believe it’s past tense, though. I think it’s 帰ったなさい, the command to go home, but with the なさい dropped. Ehhhh. I’m actually doubting my read of this. So strike that, and let somebody else answer, because that’s not how that would usually be formed… I still read it as a command, but not sure why it’s 帰った

I’ll leave 27 to somebody who is more knowledgeable; I’m still not confident enough in my reading of it to feel comfortable giving an answer.

7 Likes
#13

It’s short for って言うか.

Strictly speaking, だ isn’t a verb, just the copula. The copula happens to be a verb in English, but it’s not so in Japanese.

That said, 何だ. Like “what the heck, you guys?” Alternately, it could also be 何で in more masculine terms.

Yep.

This page suggests that it’s not past tense, but rather an extreme contraction of 帰ってしまえ, which is the imperative form of ～しまう.

～てしまえ ＞ ～ちゃえ ＞ ～た

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#14

Huh. And here I was thinking that it was 帰ったほうがいい with the ほうがいい omitted…

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#15

買や is possibly some contracted form of 買えば (and ー is just lengthening the sound to imitate speech). だろ I believe to be だろう, so “I guess I’d better buy them”

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#16

That’s a good suggestion. We saw an いや in Dragon Ball recently that we decided was probably a contraction of 言えば.

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#18

After finishing this chapter…
I hate the dumb girls and I’m entirely team Saitou. Sorry if this is bursting anyone’s bubble. :rofl:

Some questions:

Summary

I get the meaning of “Sacchan, this fruit is an amazing product”, but と doesn’t make sense to me in this context. “With Sacchan [being here], this fruit is amazing” or something maybe?

Is that at the end just こう? “Let’s rapidly go that way” or something?

Not entirely sure about this one. I interpret it as “about that last [bunch of bananas], [o] righteous allies, Colours, that enemy [is]…”, implying that they’re reinterpreting their quest to sell bananas as some sort of RPG where they have to slay monsters?

I don’t think this question was actually answered and I also had some trouble with it. I remember てもいい from Genki as meaning “it’s allowed to…”, but somehow “because you can die, buy this, Saitou” doesn’t strike me as particularly meaningful.

(about: それいいとこ無しじゃねぇか).
Can you explain how you arrive at that meaning? I can’t piece the individual words together here.

Another one that wasn’t answered. I can’t make sense of the か in there, although I would assume assume that it means “you’re also an idiot”.

I’m not sure what this should mean, literally it reads like “we’ll cut off the bones and flesh” or “the bones and flesh are cutting off [something]”, but that doesn’t make any sense.

Are the kids saying that? It’s really so hard to make out who is saying what in this manga sometimes, first I thought the mom was saying this.
Assuming that that thing at the end is another non-standard way of writing 行こう, does this mean something like “let’s go destroy Saitou again”?

The last character is just a small tsu for effect or something, right? It seems almost like a regular tsu.
Is it the mother who’s having the bad feeling (because of what the kids just said)?

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#19

You already got a translation, but: 1. you left off a に, 2. structurally, the お前らに構ってる part is modifying 暇, so he’s talking about “the free time [to be caring about you guys]”.

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#20

I’ll try to help you!

For your first question, ところ is shortened to とこ in casual speech (based on what I read). So I read this sentence as The fruits from さっちゃん’s place (aka the store the mother is running) are amazing

いってこーっ is the shortened and volitional version of 行ってきた which means “to go and come back” “Let’s go and come back quickly” is how I translated this sentence

I’ve reached the same translation as you and sadly, can’t help you with that

You should be correct. いこーっ is a much casual version than いこう. I think children tend to omit う sounds because they want to sound exaggerated

Sadly, I have no idea how to organise everything like many people here who answer the questions do and this is the limit of my knowledge. :frowning:

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#21

ugh I thought that would be 行ってこよう
but it seems this manga changes ending all the time in unpredictable ways :rofl:

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