On the first page, when Saki-chan says that Tina looks like the actress “Mushima Kaori”, Tina responds by saying 「あの人、スキャンダルばっかりじゃない。あんな人に似てるなんて、最低よ。」. I don’t exactly understand what she means by “scandal” here. Can anyone explain?
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I think it’s just the usual celebrity stuff. Some celebrities are notorious for getting wrapped up in various scandals, whatever they may be (extramarital affairs, politically incorrect comments, drugs, etc., etc.). So Tina-chan is saying that this actress is known for getting into scandals all the time, I think.
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Ah alright, I thought it might be referencing something we should already know. Thanks!
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「用心深くしてないと、なにされるかわからないもん」
Could someone help with breaking down this sentence?
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Can you be a little more specific or take a shot yourself to let us see where exactly you need help?
Generally the してないと is していない with the と conditional. なに is 何 and される is the passive of する. もん at the end is a strong emphathetic reason given (similar to から but with more heart ^^) which is the more casual form of もの.
Throughout it all the speaker (tina-chan) is the subject.
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It’s more that I’m not sure how the parts tie in together and what it all means (and why) but from what I could understand the sentence says that “If you don’t be wary/cautious, anything could happen”
But yes you did help clear up some of the confusion I had about the sentence, thank you
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I think the parts are:
- 用心深く + して + (い)ないと、- in the case you “don’t do it” carefully
- なにされる - what is done to me/you
- か - [marking the previous fragment as an embedded question]
- わからない - I/you don’t know
- もん - …is the reason
So, with a little bit of reordering, either “Because, if I am not careful, I don’t know what could be done to me.” or “Because, if you aren’t careful, you don’t know what could be done to you.” (depending on whether you read it as Tina speaking about herself or Tina giving general advice).
Note that I’m still very much a beginner, so I might be wrong here!
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Much appreciated, thanks!
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「おやじのほうは最低です。おれが帰ってこなくなって、奥さんと、その息子とうまくいってるって。だから、愛子さんにはほんとうに感謝しているそうだ。」
I’m a bit confused about this sentence. Is Yamato the one who doesn’t want to go back, or does his father not want him back? Also, I’m not sure what the part about his father’s wife and her son means (Does he not like them either?)
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Might help to split that second sentence a bit and look at the two parts individually.
おれが帰ってこなくなって = “Since (って, casual と, acting as conditional) I stopped coming home,”
奥さんと、その息子とうまくいってるって = "with the wife and that son, has been getting along well with, (he) said (って, casual と, this time acting as quotation marker)
So:
“He said that since I stopped coming home, he has been getting along well with his wife and that son.”
I definitely get the impression that Yamato-kun is not fond of the new wife and son. Likely, it’s not even them specifically that have done something wrong, but moreso, the appearance that after Yamato-kun’s mother passed away, his dad seems to have gone looking for a new family, and that doesn’t sit well with Yamato-kun.
One of the hints that all this refers to the father and not Yamato-kun, is the final sentence with the 感謝しているそうだ. If it were Yamato-kun’s feelings being discussed, he wouldn’t have to have the そう, because he would be saying how he actually felt. The そう makes it like, “seems to～”, and is what you would use when talking about somebody else’s feelings, because you don’t want to say with a fact how they feel, just how they seem to feel to you.
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Ahh, so that last part, it means that his father seems to be grateful to Aiko-san, rather than Yamato-kun being grateful to her for letting him stay at her place.
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Exactly, yep!
(Though the two are not mutually exclusive, and I’m sure Yamato-kun is grateful as well, it’s just not explicitly stated as such here because this whole thing is a gripe about Yamato-kun’s father)
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Right, understood. That ties the whole sentence in. Thanks for the explanation!
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I’ve already finished this chapter but I have one final question about the title of the chapter. Isn’t 小さい an い adjective? Why does it say 「小さなお客様」rather than 「小さいお客様」?
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小さなis also a word. It’s the 連体詞 form of the word (adnominal adjective/pre-noun adjectival, there are a few different English terms). Meaning-wise, it is the same as 小さい, but you are more likely to see 小さな when you are modifying a noun, at least in literature. Spoken language, 小さい is more common.
Also note that you can only use 小さな before a noun.
小さな本 = Correct, you could also use 小さい here and it would be fine. Though it’s maybe not as “literary” to do so.
本は小さな = Incorrect, you need to use 小さい here.
Some other words also take this form, like 大きな, but I’m not sure how widespread it is off the top of my head.
Edit: JLPTSensei has a list of some of the most common 連体詞 words. It says “complete,” but other sources say there are about 170+ words in use, and this only shows 21 or so, so take that complete with a grain of salt.
TIL: この, あの, and その are this type of word. It makes intuitive sense, but I just hadn’t thought about it!
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Ah I see, I’ll keep an eye out for that then
Now that you mention it I do recall seeing examples like 大きな before but I never noticed that these were い adjectives with な. Well, good to know then.
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Actually, one more question (sorry for keeping you back on old chapters lol) but we have the sentence 「リサちゃんはうなずき、案内ように先を歩く」, I’d like to know what this うなずき form is, where the く becomes き. I’d like to know what it does and what its name is, if any.
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Oh, really? How so, if you don’t mind explaining?
Edit:
Ah wait, you’re referring to あんな、そんな、and どんな right? In that case yes, that does make sense. For a minute I thought you meant that どの、その、あの are themselves in this “pre-noun な” form.
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They mean あの, この, その in their usual form, how you would do その子は…
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This is the 連用形 (continuative form).
It acts as the base form for a lot of conjugations (うなずきます, for example), but it can also just serve as a conjunction on its own, like it is in this case. This could have been written as うなずいて, for example, and been perfectly correct also.
I mean, those too, but the form isn’t really “pre-noun な” form. (小さな and 大きな were just the two examples I kmew off the top of my head, so that pattern may be misleading).
It is the pre-noun adjectival, which この, その, and あの would also fall into.
The basics:
連体詞 are words which must precede a noun in order to be used. Without a noun to modify, they are gramatically incorrect.
この, その, and あの meet that description.
このはわるい = Incorrect, you would have to use これ, or have a noun after この.
If you check the JLPT link, there are quite a few words on there, with varying endings. The only link between any of them is that all the words must precede a noun to be used. 
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