In the end it is not a negative implication, but it gives off a vibe of 油汗 so to say. I mean there is certainly a connotation that Kimura- san is emotionally shook by this situation and not keeping his cool. Could be my misinterpretation though.
I think you are mapping your countryside experience, which is very different from an urban context on all of Japan here which is a bit misleading.
Personally I find that dangerous. It gives a wrong impression of Japanese society (which is mainly urban) which is something I encounter in the forum sometimes. Tokyo is one of the most anonymous place on this planet and it is misleading to make people think the teacher will visit their house (!) and take care of the kids like parents (or better!). It sounds a bit cynical if you know the reality of Tokyo, really Japanese people know about this problem in their culture and probably their way of criticizing it is more indirect but nonetheless very much a reality.
Also your thoughts about the 受験 culture is quite a bit detached from reality. = Elementary school kids going to expensive Juku’s late into the night every day, often straight from the school and do nothing but studying for years in order to pass the exam for the school (their parents choose) and have no single free time. And I don’t talk about weekdays, I talk about not having one day off for three years. Sorry to be negative about this aspect of Japanese culture but it is something I am struggling currently with as my kid is in that age group.
I think, a novel like this one could only come into existence (and be so popular) in an alienating society like urban Japan. As the story unfolds I recommend to keep in mind, that the plot is actually a counter vision to reality, so every time kids are happy about having a warm meal and an adult caring about their problems it would be appropriate to think about the kids who neither have one or the other.
I couldn’t write longer before sorry, but basically でてこない is a combination of 出る and 来る = 出て来ない.
Sometimes it is really easier to read things in Kanji, at least for me. But I think in this case even in Kanji こない would be written in Hiragana, like いく（行く）is also written in Hiragana often when attached to another verb.
No need to apologise, any and all help is appreciated. I did realise through Jisho that it was 出て来ない but not understanding how the meaning would fit confused me. But as you pointed out, “she was too frustrated and sad to cry” explains it.
I Japan you “do” not cry, but tears “come out” all of a sudden
As an update: In my impression 涙 is one of the poetic words in Japanese, and in this context it is more common to use any construction with 涙 rather than 泣く.
Ah, interesting. I can’t say I can grasp the nunances of what a “final transformation” is supposed to be from the link, but I can accept that it’s a more serious/formal way of saying になる.
Huh. I assumed so far that it was a conjugation like たべる／食べない. Interesting!
And it’s a pity that the HiNative post doesn’t explain how it works grammatically, but it certainly makes the meaning clear.
And thanks for helping with そのせい, @MrGeneric, @downtimes and @Yuru! If it is really 「 …あって、か(どうかわからないが)」, the か is doing a lot of heavy lifting
I think it’s missing at least a る after the て for that? Or is it even more casual to fully omit every part of いる?
It’s my impression that in Japanese things are more likely to be phrased indirectly because it’s more polite/respectful, i.e. “tears come out” rather than “cry,” or using passive verbs, or using そう or がる for other people (“I am happy” but “they seem happy,” or “I want x” but “they are showing signs of wanting x”)
So something being phrased indirectly in Japanese won’t necessarily have the same implications as something being phrased indirectly in English; often it’s just that that’s how the language is used
This explanation from japanese stackexchange was the one that finally made me feel “Ok, I can accept this.” when I was searching around for ～となる vs ～になる back then. The examples convinced me. I found it less ambiguous as compared to say what is considered a “final transformation”. I always check back to this explanation whenever I encounter this grammar just to see if it still stands true.
In this case,
このたびは、残念ながら不合格となり……
If it’s really ～となる, then we can say that it’s because an enrollment status is either a pass or a fail; the status cannot gradually become a failure, or gradually progress into something else once it is determined to be a failure. The change to failure is also discrete where it happens the instant the checking of the exam results finishes. I guess it’s almost like measurable/no longer changing once it became the new state (～となる) vs immeasurable because it is still continuously changing in the new state it has become (～になる).
Ah, that certainly seems much less ambiguous, if a little too convenient (considering that a lot of other explanations that seem very different seem to exist). I’ll keep it in mind and do the same as you! Thanks!
Agreed. I read it very similarly as “Now that too… this year seems cursed, doesn’t it?”
I wasn’t expecting this to start so sadly! I hope it’s safe to assume that things start getting better soon.
I enjoyed the bit where Hanabi was talking about how much her mother seemed to enjoy her job, even though she has to work a lot - and hoping that she can get a job doing something that she enjoys one day too.
It was nice to see that she still looks into the future positively, even though her present life is so difficult.
This is something I struggle with too, especially when trying to read vertically. I find it hard to keep my place, my eyes wander and I find so much text really intimidating!
A friend recommended I try using a reading ruler, which I tried for the first time today with this book and it really helped!
Still took me a long time to read since there was a lot of text, but being able to focus on a single line at a time made me read so much more smoothly!
Yeah, after the proper reading, I agree with that entirely. It was just the initial skim in which it stood out as a bit odd. I’ve updated the sheet accordingly.
I thought I’d comment on the following sentence from ?p13 or 14 (I’m using Bookwalker so not sure if page break).
そのあとで、カエルとぺこりと頭を下げるスタンプが送られてきた.
At first I was completely lost here, particularly with the katakana, but am I correct in translating this that her mum sent her an emoji of a sad looking frog??
I’ve updated the sheet accordingly.
