This is a very common way of saying “I” / “me”. It’s a bit softer and more indirect than just saying 僕.
Here is some more explanation with examples from Maggie Sensei:
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That’s why I want to start as soon as I could and that was how I raised my proficiency in English, at least for reading, but I was really surprised by the time it took me to read those pages.
My first impression with the Book club was really good and it is awesome how people give their time to help us, so I will certainly keep up.
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So to today’s question
At Page 12 さつさん says 哲のクラスメイトにこんな人材がねえ！
Which I understand as “Such a talent between Tetsu’s classmates”. From what I can see the particle に (Wasabi- に particle) works as to represent where the source of such talent came from.
The ねえ at the end seems to me is just to reinforce the affirmation. So is my Understand on this correct?
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Replying to the last message, but also @Aislin
Some additional toilet chat
I just wanted to say that the policy at my workplace is to explicitly consider that transgender people can use universal toilets if it feels more comfortable, and, as a way to not have them outing themselves by doing so, encourage other (i.e. cis) people to do so randomly once in a while.
I understand the argument of minimizing the waiting time, but for me the solution is to build more toilets rather than blocking access to certain people.
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Pretty much, yeah!
I would maybe translate it like “I can’t believe there’s such a perfect recruit in Tetsu’s class!”
since 人材 seems to mean “capable person (particularly for a job),”
and クラスメイトに here seems like “in/among (his) classmates.”
がねえ like that seems like it could be another another one of those “negative that’s really a positive” since がない would be “there isn’t one,” but casual and shocked like this I get a sense of like, “no way!” or “wow, really?”
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Page 8 panel 2 is giving me trouble. For reference, the bubble says:
でも俺が声かけるべき人間なんだよなあ
I’m unsure about the meaning of 人間 as used here. In anime, I have heard 人間 many times. Every time I heard 人間, it meant either:
a.The human race; all the humans on Earth. Ex: “We must use our super powers to save [人間](the human race).”
b. The nature of being human. Ex: “This is what it means to be 人間.”
c. The human species, which is very similar to (a).
Here, does 人間 have a different meaning?
d. A specific human. That is, the white-haired “girl”.
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I would say
But you’ve just gotten a little tripped up on exactly which specific human!
I’d parse it like:
俺が - the speaker (thinker in this case) is the subject
声かけるべき人間 - person who is supposed/expected to talk to people (as in introduce oneself and get to know them a bit)
なんだよなあ - heavily casually inflected version of だ
So he’s lamenting to himself that he ought to be more outgoing, more or less (exact translation might depend on why exactly he feels that way - if it’s specifically pressure because of the cafe, or just wanting to be a nice person I’m not sure).
You’re right 人間 is also used for more weighty contexts of humanity as a whole, but I don’t believe this usage is too unusual either.
Hope that helps!
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One little thing to avoid potential confusion:
Her name is さとり and so the shortened version is さっちゃん with a small つ (it’s like you canceled out the rest of the name).
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Oh wow, I love that!
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Ah, thank you!
I was incorrectly parsing this as [声かけるべき](being able to start conversations) [は](dropped particle) [人間…だ](is to be human), as in “being able to start conversations is what humans do, and I should strive to do that essential human thing”. But I knew it was incorrect because, in my bad translation, the 俺が is dangling and unused. My brain was parsing the sentence in a hybrid English/Japanese order.
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Thanks for introducing me to Maggie Sensei’s site.
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In this case べき does not mean „being able to“ but rather „supposed to“: see べき - Jisho.org definition #1
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Thanks, I’ve clarified the row in the vocab sheet as below. Please add any corrections if needed.
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Hello everyone~
I was also really confused when Tetsu said he was Mogumo’s classmate, he looks so much older than them!
Quick question about the grammar being used here:
Summary
(Page 13)
ディスってんじゃないわよ！
はずいだけだっての！
I get that she’s saying “Don’t you disrespect this place!” (or so I think) but I don’t get the ってんじゃない part, is it ディスっているんじゃないわよ?
And then he answers with (removing contractions) はずいだけだっているの！-> “I was only embarrassed!” (???)
Contractions will be the end of me, I swear.
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Honestly, this is the kind of colloquial word salad I kind of just let myself get away without parsing fully while hoping that I absorb the hard-to-put-into-words connotations over time and context, so trying to pick it apart is as much for my own benefit as yours, but let’s see if I can help a little:
I believe you’re right with “ディスっているんじゃないわよ?” something like “you’re disrespecting (us/me/the store), ain’tchya?!”
ディスる is a (silly) mix of the English loan word “diss” with Japanese verb grammar as a godan verb, so ディスって is a normal te form. and then the rest is contracted and colloquial like you say.
In this case I think the だって is datte - Jisho.org so it’s not really a te-iru form contraction.
The ん above and the の here are both doing the explanatory/inferencey type of thing I think, emphasizing she’s drawing a conclusion and demanding an answer and he’s giving a reason.
So something like “I just meant I was embarrassed!!”
I could also believe the って is the version where it’s a contracted version of like, and implied e.g. と言った emphasizing that he’s clarifying what he said. But I’m not positive whether or not the appended の like that would work in that case… And I’m not 100% sure the difference matters anyway! I think they’re related expressions.
edit: more だって detail: How to use だって ( = datte) – Maggie Sensei
Not exactly sure which if any sense of those this would be - emphasis seems like the most plausible via word order, but he’s definitely giving an excuse and word order can break down in conversation… and it could also just be だけだ… って(言った)! But anyway, it’s somewhere in that ballpark, surely!
… so maybe that’s helpful? But yeah, it sounds like you got the meaning in any case!
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Let me throw another interpretation in the ring:
はずい - embarrassing 恥ずい - Jisho.org
だけだ - simply / only
って - quotation (“I said”)
の - explanation
“I only said that it’s embarrassing!”
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Did you mean っていう? ^^
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Haha, now that was a nice trap! I copied the quote from solecismo who introduced this いる business to test me 
Will fix asap.
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Thank you both! It makes a lot more sense that the って is the contracted form of という and だって instead of what I came up with 
I have to read that Maggie sensei’s lesson thoroughly.
If only contractions weren’t as confusing as they are!
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I kept wanting to post this here but always forgot. Thanks for reminding me
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