What helps me is to Google the expression and add grammar after it. If the top three results aren’t an explanation I look and see if something in the results looks like it would be or if there’s a different way to parse the text and try varying the search expression. It can take a couple tries if I’m not already vaguely familiar with the phrase, or if it’s one of those with a billion possible uses (looking at you に and という).
For example for your two questions “のように grammar” and “Verb + こと grammar”.
It can take a bit of guess work but it def gets easier over time!
You’re absolutely welcome, that’s what we’re doing this together for anyway.
I second @Voi as well. Just google it. Eventually you’ll find a few websites that suit you for grammar explanations and that you understand well and like, so you’ll be able to add that in your google search as well and it’ll show up if that website covers it.
Again, it’s all up to what you’re most comfortable with and what you understand best, but I always find it helpful to have a couple default sites to fall back on if I struggle with something, particularly grammar related.
Hope it helps anyway.
Thank you, that’s great advice and I’m mortified that I didn’t think of it myself lol! I used to google the japanese expression by itself or with “translation”, and of course got only lousy results lol. I just googled Verb + こと grammar and found exactly what I was looking for… Thank you for this, looking forward to doing it a thousand times a day now
@Kyayna Wow, thank you for all these resources! I know a few of these but have mainly been using Tae Kim and Bunpro. I’ll check those out asap! Really grateful for the awesome support and suggestions
Ok last questions before I leave on vacation tomorrow and become a lurker for the next week or so
Page 18
結界の余波で低級なやつは近づけんさ
I think it means something like The after effect of the barrier (breaking) is letting vulgar things (youkai) draw near. But I’m not clear about the use of やつ, or the んさ form of 近づける. Is it a dialect thing again?
Page 19 second to last panel:
話が通じるからと油断した
Here’s my breakdown but I’m not super confident, so feel free to add/correct
話が : his story (subject)
通じるから: because well informed
と: ??
油断した: made (me) careless
Last panel:
関わるとろくなことがない
I’m at a loss for parsing lol Something about never getting involved with???
Ok folks, that’s it for a while, I’ll try to keep reading and hopefully contribute I’m at least adding words into the Google doc for the low levelers like me
I don’t have enough time to type a proper reply; might edit later but:
ん is probably ない (I don’t have the book so I cannot check the context). さ is an ending particule used when you are informing people of something (it’s familiar though)
話が通じる to be able to understand each other.
関わる to get involved
と and/then
ろく な こと が ない good things won’t come out of it.
From previous bookclub spreadsheets, I’ve never noticed any indication of who has posted in there except for one time when someone left a note (not just commenting in a cell of the spreadsheet). So just go for it.
I just pencil in the meaning to words I don’t already know. Very occasionally a phrase.
The idea of me writing in the book horrifies some people (not mentioning any names at all @seanblue)
But if I’m flipping back through the book I like to know the meaning will be waiting for me, as I can’t guarantee I’ll remember it from one page to the next.
Just don’t add the spreadsheet to your drive and you should be fine. If you want to be extra cautious you can log out or use the spreadsheet in anonymous browsing, but that shouldn’t be necessary.
Aaaand I finally got to the end of the chapter… and now I can see we actually had 2 weeks to finish it and maybe I needn’t have rushed so much.
Maybe I will go back next week and read the two columns of text from the author.
My thoughts on the chapter generally:
Summary
I am enjoying it more than I expected, as I’m not a big fan of random ghosts/monsters. I do feel for Natsume, having no parents (do we find out what happened to them later? It sounds a bit Harry Potter-ish at this point). His grandmother was obviously a bit of a character though.
And the last page of the chapter made me laugh out loud.
Not only is this an anime (which I have not seen) it is also a movie, as I discovered when I walked past a poster for it last week.
It’s been a while since I watched the first series, but from what I can remember it’s pretty close to what I’ve read so far in the manga (and I am so glad we have two weeks for this one…it’s been a bad week for sleeping so I need the extra time!!). Fortunately, my memory is pretty bad so I can’t use it to ‘cheat’ as such, but I keep seeing things/reading things in this chapter and being like ‘OH YEAH, I remember that part!’
I’ve seen up to season 4 I think, though I didn’t know it was also a movie!
I’m up to page 19 at the moment, so a long way behind where I wanted to be. Oh well. Interested in how everyone else is doing!
I started watching it for hopefully better reading comprehension, and it’s pretty similar so far, even word for word at times.
So far it’s been pretty helpful to watch it. There were a few sentences that I had trouble figuring out exactly what they meant, but after watching the anime I had a much better understanding during the next read through.
As someone who’s been dying for season 7 to come out, I was a bit disappointed that we only got a movie instead of a new season announcement but THEN THE MOVIE WAS SO GOOD. . . Still eagerly waiting for season 7 though…
I haven’t read the manga until book club, but from what I hear it’s extremely spot on and so far it looks like it’s following along.
I am going to get back into page diving this week so I can hopefully finish chapter 1 by Friday and not fall behind. I got super lazy this weekend with Mario Party ;;;
I accidentally bought volume 23 instead of volume 1 from ebook japan, hopefully i will enjoy it enough to keep reading it until at least that volume!
I’ve never seen the anime so it will be fun to read this
I’ll read chapter one and reread the thread and put my 2¢ in
Hey everyone, I’m back with my questions I’m on page 24 (no way I’ll be done with this chapter by Thursday) and still chugging along… There are a lot of things I don’t understand in details, but I’m trying to pick my battles so as not to be obnoxious here lol! Are you all breezing along? I feel like I’m the only one who needs help on that one lol
So…
Page 22 middle panel
おのれ小僧つ大人しくわた…
I’m guessing he’s calling him a brat or something, but wondering about parsing and the つ大人しくわた part… Is the sentence being cut short?
Last panel
面倒はご免だからこれ食ったら帰れよ
So I don’t think I understand the meaning, especially the relation between the different clauses…
Is he saying “You can eat this and go home since you’ve stopped causing trouble”?
I got most of page 23 without too much trouble thanks in part to the vocab spreadsheet! Thanks everyone for this
Naw, I got about 5-6 questions written down, I’ve just had family visiting and haven’t had time to do much. Then Saturday I cracked my phone screen and that was pretty much it for the day…
I read this as “I don’t want any trouble, so eat this and you can go home”. 食べる is in the conditional form.
Edit: actually I think 帰る is in the imperitive form go “I don’t want any trouble, so eat this and go home” is better.
/edit
I think I’m on page 33. I’m hoping to blow through the end by Wednesday and then go back to the sentences I need to work on Thursday and Friday so I’m ready for next week.
Something about never getting involved with???
waves I’ve been lurking so far haha