夜市: Week 2 Discussion

Japanese Language Reading
#1

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Week 2

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Start Date: May 16th
Previous week: Week 1
Next week: Week 3

Reading:

End Page End Percentage End Phrase Page Count
26 10% 家に帰りたければ取引をするんだ 12

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle:

Participants

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夜市 (Night Market)
夜市: Week 3 Discussion
#2

Well, this week things are getting real!
Seems like last week’s break point was perfect, and this week’s isn’t bad either.

Anyway, I wonder if it would make sense to compile a list of the various shop owners. I thought they would all be 妖怪 at first, but it seems not. I’m not sure we’ll see them again, though, considering the ”size” of the place :upside_down_face:

2 Likes
#3

You replied in the wrong thread :stuck_out_tongue:

I loved that the sword was cheap but the stone holding it was crazy expensive. :stuck_out_tongue:

Personally, I expected only 妖怪, so the tanuki was fine, but the “cigar cowboy”? What?

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#4

Oh shoot, I thought I was still in the first week’s block of pages :anguished: I’ll go edit in some spoiler blur.

Edit: ok yeah I guess something went awry with the ebook conversion I guess. A side effect of all the trouble I had to go through to get vertical text working perhaps?

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#5

The start of this part had some funky vocab but once that was over it was quite smooth sailing :smile: Sometimes it’s a bit harder to rely on context since we are seeing such wacky things, though. I don’t know why I thought the old gentleman was referring to the one-eyed gorilla at first so I was a bit confused, but once that cleared up the dialogue made more sense :stuck_out_tongue:

Enjoying the abundance of dialogue since Kitchen can be quite inner monologue -heavy at times; and that’s usually a bit harder to follow.

5 Likes
#6

Wow I somehow finished this week’s portion already! Compared to 氷菓 it’s been much easier and I’ve barely had to look up any words at all. Pretty interesting premise and the cast of shopkeepers has been quite entertaining so far. The revelation that they need to buy something (or maybe make some other kind of deal…) before they’ll be able to leave is a bit sobering; I should have expected that Izumi not having any money was an important detail.

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#7

Also 裕司 should have known better, right? Plus, he asked specifically about that before coming…

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#8

So did anyone read Goosebumps back in the day?

Whereas the first week had some nice introspection into いずみ’s mind, I found it totally lacking here… like almost a little too straight forward and matter of fact. Like Napthalene said, the shop descriptions were nice but I wonder if we’ll see any of the owners again. I tend to subscribe to Chekhov’s principle, where if you introduce a sword that can kill anything in the first act, then it should be used in the third act, but I sort of get the feeling that that’s not how it’s going to go… It felt rushed to spend so much time at that first shop (though I, too, really liked the joke about the price going up when you have to buy the rock, too), then just sort of gloss over the hours of walking around the market trying to find a way out–like it was a missed opportunity to get some more character development, but maybe that’s what’s in store for week 3.

7 Likes
#9

Agreed. This week felt kind of disjointed? To me it seemed like random scenes and basically just observations of people we’ve never heard about before (that’s fine obviously), but also no interactions between the main characters really, no inner thoughts on anything, which probably seemed even more jarring considering everything on this market is so surreal.
Let’s see how it continues and whether their “guide” is gonna come back at some point :smiley:

6 Likes
#10

Just finished this chapter, really enjoyed the short 店 stories! So far I’ve been able to fully understand almost all of the sentences. I’ll put here the ones that left me guessing the meaning of some parts so that any of you can share your thoughts as well if you want. I’m reading the ebook so I don’t have the exact page numbers, sorry! But I put them in order of appearance, starting from the 6% mark of the book (around the final part of the 一つ目ゴリラと老紳士の話):

  1. 安すぎたかな。人間の貨幣の価値を今一つ知らないんでね。

What is the real meaning of 今一つ here? “I don’t (quite) know the value of human currency” or something?

  1. 別の世界なんてものがあるなんて。

This is more an observation than a question, but why so many なんて xD . The first one means"like" and the last one is just an exclamation, right? “Things like other worlds do exist!”

  1. ちょいと用事が済んだら、さきほどの、その詫びといってはなんだが、案内してあげようかと思ったのだが、かまわないかな。

I’m not quite sure if I got the overall meaning of what the 老紳士 is saying (the bold parts are terms that I’m having trouble). My loose translation: “If I can finish some errands, about that apology I said just a while, I thought about offering you some guidance, if thats alright/no problem?.”

  1. それらの店で売られている品物の数々は、どれも裕司やいずみには全く手の出ない金額か、買って手元においてもほとんど意味のないようなものばかりだった。

This was the sentence I was most troubled with (the bold part ). I found about the 手が出ない expression later, which helped a little bit. I still get thrown off with the amount of expressions/adverbs like において、ほとんど、ような, ばかり all together like that. Loose translation: “As for those stores numerous selling goods, all were completly out of (paying amount) reach for Yuji and Yuzimi, and in terms of (having) money at hand to buy, (those) things just looked mostly without meaning”

  1. じゃあ、あっちにいっきな。それからそこの死体ども、あんたらも無一文だろうが。

Last one! Is the shopkeeper saying that Yuji and Izumi seem as broke as the dead corpses? :laughing:

In any case, this is the first japanese novel that I’m reading and it has been a experience far better than I thought it would! I’m really glad with how much I can understand so far. Looking foward for more!

5 Likes
#11
  1. 今一つ is its own thing. https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/今一つ/ (definition 2) -> “I don’t know a thing about the value of human currency”
  2. Yes
  3. I think your problem is that the sentence isn’t fluid. He is interrupting himself. Also it’s when I finish some errands, not if. -> When I finish my errand, for (the thing; referring to preventing 裕司from picking up the sword in a harsh way) from just before, as, let’s say, an apology, I’m thinking of giving you a tour, how about it?

  4. As for the numerous goods being sold by those shops, they were all either out of paying reach or buying and acquiring them seemed basically meaningless.

  5. Kinda. The shopkeeper is saying the corpses seem also broke (so the comparison is the other way around :stuck_out_tongue:)
4 Likes
#12

The number 4 is so insightful! So that’s what どれも was doing in that sentence :sweat_smile: Thank you as always!

3 Likes
#13

I also struggled the most with sentence 4.

それらの店で売られている品物の数々は、どれも裕司やいずみには 全く手の出ない金額か 、 買って手元においてもほとんど意味のないようなものばかりだった 。

Just to be sure, If I understand correctly the core of the sentence is どれも[…]ものばかりだった。“All of the choices/things (どれも) are nothing but things that […]”. And […] is a big relative clause qualifying もの ?

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#14

Yes, that’s how I parse it!

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#15

Gonna try and finish up the reading tonight/tomorrow so I can jump in on the convo! I started reading through this week’s discussion but quickly stopped when I spoiled some minor stuff for myself :sweat_smile: which I don’t like to do. I’d rather go in without knowing anything to try and test my comprehension more!

It’s been a fast and engaging read when I have time to do it. Fun setting / characters / plot!

Edit: Done, woo! I’ll try to find time to figure out and post my questions tomorrow (although I am supposed to play D&D so who knows :upside_down_face:)

5 Likes
#16

I reread week 2 part before starting part 3 and noticed a few little things I didn’t understand fully.

6％
「あの剣が欲しいのかい」
「いや、別に欲しいってわけじゃ」
「じゃあ、やめてとくといい」
What is the nuance ておくといい here? Based on the context it look like “It would be good to stop”, but why choosing ておくといい instead of やめるといい or やめたらいい or many other way (やめてほしい etc)

7%
夜市では、どの世界の貨幣でも、きちんと流通しているものなら問題なく使える。
I’m not sure if the sentence say that “there is no problem to use currency from any world if they are widely in circulation” (もの = 世界の貨幣) or if it say that “there is no problem to use currency from any world, or any things if they are widely in circulation” (like doing barter)

今も箱の中でぶつぶつ言っている。怖いんで誰もあけちゃいない。
あけちゃいない = あけてはいない ? No one opened it because they are afraid ?

8%
「じゃああっちに行きな」
いきな is a contraction of いきなさい, right ? How rude it it ? Sounds quite rude to me, like “go away!”, but I’m not sure.

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#17

This means “may not open”. Other than that, I cannot answer your questions, sorry!

(Just a remark: you have a little typo in your first question: 「じゃあ、やめてとくといい」)

1 Like
#18

I understood this part as “It would be good to stop (before you’re in too deep)”.

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#19

This section was harder than the last for me, just from an unknown vocabulary standpoint, but when I reread it after looking up all the unknowns, it was pretty straight forward.

The 箱磔 part creeped me out the most, I think. It’ll be interesting to see how they get out of the market, though. Maybe the 紳士 will help them? But I don’t really trust him, either.

2 Likes
#20

As @hgbearawesome said, it’s just やめておく (to stop (before it’s too late, …)) plus といい (it would be good).

It’s the explanatory もの here. He is giving a reason.

Edit: properly replying this time:

“there is no problem to use currency from any world if they are widely in circulation”

There’s no problem if it’s properly (きちんと) in circulation, but yes.

Well, it’s a soft imperative, so it’s not that rude, but yes, they are being told to go away.

1 Like