In page 17 I am having a problem with the construction of a phrase.
「男でありながら女の子より可愛く」を目指して日々努力重ねるべし - You should work hard every day with the aim of being “a man but more cute than a girl” (Using Google Translator here)
男 - man
で - to indicate a state? あり - (Verb Stem) to be / to exist ながら - while
女の子 - girl
より - more 可愛く - cute
を - object particle 目指して - to aim / to go toward 日々 - daily 努力 - great effort 重ねる - to pile up / to repeat many times over べし - must / should
Even though I think the translation is a bit off, I am having a hard time translating and constructing the phrase myself, so a help is appreciated.
One aspect that might help is the sentence is building off of the previous word balloon - 男の娘メイドたるもの
It’s a little confusing because the exclamation mark would break it up as a separate sentence more in English than it does in Japanese!
The way it’s written here, I think you could reasonably read the exclamation like, a really gung-ho は particle. The same way a comma can serve that purpose in conversation.
So I interpret that part as the topic for the next part - to make it something like:
“(us) people who are 男の娘メイド!”
As for breaking up the rest,
である is a particular more formal version of だ, so 男でありながら would be something like “while being a man”
女の子より可愛く would be like, “cuter than girls” with the pieces you list correctly.
Also - with the quotes around that section, I’m not positive, but I could see that as being like, a quote from a hypothetical customer review that they’re hoping to inspire.
Xを目指して is to aim for (with the て form because there’s more verbs to follow)
日々努力重ねる over-literally would be to every day pile up toils, but just means they’re working hard every day.
and べし here I don’t feel like is too critical for the meaning, it’s probably just used because the work is their job, so naturally they’re expected to work hard.
So I’d translate it something like:
As cross-dressing maids, we’ve gotta work every day with the goal of being even being even cuter than girls!
or
We’re boy maids! We work hard every day with the aim of achieving “they’re guys, but they’re even cuter than girls!”
I interpreted that sentence pretty much the same way as @rodan did, although I wouldn’t have been able to explain it nearly as well…
I have a question too, concerning a line on page 22 that I just can’t wrap my head around. The sentence is: そういうキャラ付けアリだと思うけどねー
そういうキャラ - A character like that
付け - to be honest I’m not really sure what this could mean here… Searching on Jisho gives me bill or tab, which doesn’t seem to make much sense and some conjugation of 付ける I don’t know doesn’t seem to make sense either.
アリ - according to Jisho this means ant?
だ - is
と思うけどねー - expresses that the stuff before this is what the speaker thinks, if I’m not mistaken
I feel like I’m missing something and would be glad if someone could help me.
(Also this is my first post in this forum and I spent the last 10 minutes or so worrying I might be doing something wrong… So I hope I’m not? And if I am, please let me know)
Dont worry about doing anything wrong - you’re fine.
You got most of that sentence already! I’ll try to get the missing parts. ^^
Summary
It indeed comes from 付ける, and means attach. In this case, figuratively ‘attach’ a character, that is act a certain way as a maid.
Grammatically it is a noun and used as a sort of suffix for what comes before it, making it ‘affecting such a character (type)’ or maybe 'becoming such a character’s works…?
アリ can mean ant as a noun - but here it is a conjugation of ある, to be. In this sentence it is short for あり得る (read ありえる or ありうる) meaning ‘to be possible’ (literally to be able to exist/be), or in this case maybe something like ‘that works’.
So altogether we get something like, ‘acting as such a character also works, I think.’
Thank you I’m always super nervous about interacting with other people, so I worry a lot about this…
And thank you for the explanation, now the sentence makes a lot more sense to me But is there a particular reason why アリ is written in Katakana? Or is that just a style choice?
In this case I think it’s simply emphasis - the character is softening the previous character’s (I don’t remember the story details well enough to remember names or pronouns sorry! ) negation in a “well there ARE some people who…” kind of way, I think!
You’ve just gotten a little mixed up on some similar looking kanji!
ちがうよ！ it’s not the 達 in 友達, it’s 違う!
(har har get it? 違う/ちがう means wrong/incorrect/mistaken! You’ll learn it in level 24!)
Here’s how I’d break it up:
それって - here って is working like a は particle for a quote. So “that” as in “that means…”
心が
女の子とかそういうのとも - I’m honestly not positive exactly how to break up the のとも here - I could believe の+とも or の＋と＋も, but either way this is something like “like a girl, or that kind of thing?”
違うの？ - “… is wrong?”
making my (kind of awkward) translation something like:
So you mean… their heart isn’t a girl or… anything like that?
(I’d be curious to hear someone break up the そういうのとも part more convincingly than me, but that’s the gist!)
P.S. don’t worry, that kind of misreading happens! But here’s a tip that might help when puzzling through a sentence like this:
if it were ともだち, the word likely wouldn’t have spanned two columns like that. If you look at that whole page for example, pretty much every column ends in either a particle, or sentence ending, since those are the natural spaces for breaths and small pauses to happen.
In translated manga there’s a lot of words split up and hyphenated, but that’s because they gotta cram English into word balloons made for Japanese! In the original they have the freedom to shape the baloons in the first place, so an awkward line cutting into a word is unusual.
Also in that case the mix of kanji/not kanji would have been unusual too.
EDIT: P.P.S - 違う also means “different” (not necessarily incorrect as in wrong), and that’s the sense used in the actual line. Just wanted to be sure to clarify they aren’t judging, just asking for clarification
Ah, I couldnt really make out the kanji, as I am still using the Pixiv free chapter it was a bit blurred. I thought I was wrong on that when I didnt find any writing where the とも was in kana and だち in kanji.
Ok I noticed this at Jisho
5. isn’t it?; wasn’t it?Kansai dialect, at sentence-end; oft. as 〜のと違うか
For the exemple there it is only missing the も and か is replaced by “?”. Also 心 can mean nature.
So maybe I can translate it as: That means her nature is also not such like of a girl isn`t it?
I think probably in this case, the Kansai phrase aspect Jisho is highlighting isn’t the grammar pattern itself (which is regular grammar) but the habit of using it as a common “isn’t it?” like じゃないか, which wouldn’t fit here (since in “isn’t it” the negative becomes a positive, and there’s only one negative here, so then they’d be saying the heart IS a girl or something like that, which doesn’t fit the context).
The example is useful though! Since it’s helped me parse that part maybe a bit better than my first attempt:
そういうの - that kind of thing
と as in と違う, the particle that connects with the verb at the end of the sentence
も as in like, even/further.
And you’re right 心 here would mean like… internal nature, their personal core (not like a literal heart)!
At first Tetsu thought Mogumo was a boy, so he thought being a boy was her nature, but Mogumo said it was not the case and later said it wasn’t the nature of a girl either, so Ten? asks Satori if her nature was also not of a girl, as they were expecting one of either.
And that’s why I think the Kansai dialect option there fits as the “isn’t” in the end is just asking for confirmation of his theory.
You’re totally right on the general situation and the grammar!
I think we’re just splitting hairs on “isn’t it?” vs. “it isn’t?”
To me the options are either (basically):
“you mean Mogumo isn’t a girl or a boy?”
“Mogumo’s a girl or a boy, isn’t she?”
and the それって, general tone, and the response of おそらくね (roughly “yes, you’re most likely right”) from someone who knows the situation (that Mogumo is non-binary) point me towards option 1.
It’s subtle, but this option (which it sounds like you’re describing):
“they’re not a girl or a boy, isn’t that right?”
I don’t think quite works, because the trailing のちがうか would have to be the “isn’t that right” at the end, but what comes before isn’t itself negated, so there’s no option for the “not”.
Does that make sense?
We might not be disagreeing at all, sorry if so! (and if we are, that’s okay too of course!)
Either way the meaning is the same, so it doesn’t matter very much! It’s just a slight difference on how the 違う is used!
My grammar sucks, so can’t do a breakdown or anything, but, the line with the heart is basically saying (To my understanding and in completely different words!)
He isn’t a girl who who feels like he is born in the wrong body.
So I assume that means he is intersex, born with both/neither genders physically. So not quite the same as being gender fluid (though can be that as well, just, you can be gender fluid without being born intersex). In first half I assumed, like the others, that he was born physically female, and either trans or gender fluid (well, from the cover I assumed gender fluid)
This is also intriguing for me. As I mentioned during voting, I already have read this volume, and I still can’t tell what exactly is Mogumo biologically. I even wonder if the author will ever dig deeper into this or is it supposed to be left vague.
But the dramatic scene the scene when もぐも when the rest of the staff introduced themselves ぼく俺… and then realizing that that is what was expected of もぐも… I did notice that the use of ぼく was used from that point on(possibly done out of expectation from the rest of the staff).
I know that ぼく is not exclusively male, regardless of what jisho might have you believe. it is just a more masculine pronoun.
Also, I didn’t realize there was an english version.
I’d personally say they would probably be what I would use when referring to Mogumo(as does the synopsis of the English version) based on the last few pages of this week
) negation in a “well there ARE some people who…” kind of way, I think!
)