時をかける少女: Week 2 Discussion (Chapter 2)

If I were, I probably would have watched the dramas in 1972, 1985, 1994 and 2016, the movie in 1997, and the Morning Musume TV special in 2002 as well. :stuck_out_tongue:

I confess I enjoyed the anime version more. :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

I don’t know about the others, but I first heard about that anime thanks to the WK forum. I’m basically living under a rock.

7 Likes

I’ve just paused at the end of page 15 in the Kadokawa book because I want to clarify something about 一夫 and 吾朗. Apologies that this is long. On page 14, we have the sentence:

一夫は色の白い顔にとぼけたような表情を浮かべたまま、黒い瞳をくるくるまわし、開いたままの、理科実験室のドアをさしていった。

一夫 has a blank expression on his white face, he’s looking around the room where 和子 is with the door still open, and then he closes the door. Or at least, that’s what I think is happening. Is that what さしていった is doing there? I see that one meaning for 差す is to close or to shut, but I’m not sure here.

After that, 一夫 says「そうじ道具をしまってるんだ」referring to 和子 putting away the stuff they used to clean.

But then, we have 吾朗 doing this:

吾朗は一夫のことばには返事をせず … 実験室の中へはいっていった。

So 吾朗 doesn’t reply to 一夫 and goes into the lab, anyway.

This dynamic seems kinda weird to me. Did 一夫 see 和子 on the floor there, freak out, and try to deny the whole thing? Then 吾朗 doesn’t believe him?

Also, if you’ve read pages 14-15: 一夫 ends up being the more “brave” one here, taking initiative with helping 和子 and telling 吾朗 what to do. If what I said about his initial response to 和子 is true, then that also seems “off.” As if he was initially trying to deny things, but now is suddenly the one to jump in and help her.

Anyway, I could be misreading something or just reading into things way too much, but I’d appreciate if anyone has any thoughts on this.

It isn’t 差す, it’s 指す. He’s pointing at the door, because it’s open, implying she’s in there.
I think that kinda clears up all the rest of your confusion about their actions? But to be clear, he looks around the room they are in, not the experiment room/storage closet

4 Likes

That does make more sense. I also thought the description that was given made him sound frightened, as if he’d seen something terrifying (though I know he was described before as having certain tendencies in that regard). His actions sort of contributed to that line of thinking as well (黒い瞳をくるくるまわし sounded slightly panicked somehow?) but I suppose that’s not the case here.

Thanks for the explanation!

I think it’s just part of his characterisation as always having a stupid look on his face, but I dunno.

2 Likes

Never feel embarrassed to post questions, no matter how silly they may seem!!! We’re all here to learn and I can guarantee you won’t be the only one who finds the answer or discussion that follows from anything asked helpful!

So I get that the と clarifies; I guess now I’m just wondering whether that’s a standard role that と can play, or a standard issue/solution with the possessive の (I guess so)? It would seem easier just to write 両手に持った自分のと和子のカバン :joy:

You can see と working this way in simpler sentences, too.
AとBは学校へ行った。
AとBが学校へ行った。
AとBと、学校へ行った。
AとB、学校へ行った。
All of the above sentences work. There are slight differences in nuance, which I’ll get to in a bit, but essentially the meaning is the same.

The first thing to understand is that “and” in English is not the same as と in Japanese, because particles in Japanese work very differently from conjunctions in English. While “and” acts to add two things together, と acts more to add the noun it is connected to to the sentence, if that makes sense. (Disclaimer: I’m kind of making this up based on my intuition/understanding of it so I could be completely wrong but this is how it makes sense in my head.)

Think of the extra と as emphasizing both nouns in a way, so:
AとB、学校へ行った = A and B went to school.
AとBと、学校へ行った = Both A and B went to school.

As you can see, even in English the meaning is pretty much the same with only the slightest difference in nuance, and either sentence would be acceptable in any situation I can think of, even if there would be times you’d be inclined to say one over the other.

While trying to find any information from a source more trustworthy than me (lol), I came across this. It says that と is classified as a "parallel marker (particle used to join two or more words) and that originally, と would always come after each item in a given list but in Modern Japanese, the final と usually gets omitted. Okay, so the definition of a parallel marker kind of contradicts what I made up earlier but I still think it explains sticking the と on to both nouns better so I’m going to keep my interpretation there in case it helps anyone.

It then goes on to talk about other parallel markers and categorises them into 3 types:

  1. Type where the second marker is omitted: や・に・の
  2. Type where you can either omit or not omit the second marker: と・か・やら・とか
  3. Type where the second marker can not be omitted: なり・だの・も・だが

It expands on them a bit more after that but I’m too tired to read through it thoroughly and skimming over it, I couldn’t find much more that was useful (although if someone else does, please do add it here!).

There is also this link, where the first answer refers back to the last link I talked about, but the second answer says that 「AとBが」is simply connecting two things while 「AとBとが」implies a connection or reciprocal interactions between them (keep in mind this is with the particle が specifically while in the sentence from 時をかける少女, the two things that took と were constructions modifying カバン, which took the particle を).

Bringing it back to the sentence in the book, I think that in addition to what @QuackingShoe said about clarifying the situation in an otherwise potentially confusing construction, the second と implies that he (I read the chapter on Saturday so can’t remember who “he” is anymore lol) has his own bag in one hand and Kazuo’s bag in the other hand as opposed to using both hands to hold both bags because the two と give me a mental image of the two bags which were added into the sentence separately (his bag and Kazuo’s bag) as opposed to together (his and Kazuo’s bags).

I totally just made that up though so I could be wrong if anyone can add their input or get a native speaker to clarify I’d be so happy. I’m going to stop typing now because the more I think about this, the more my brain goes in circles or adds new points in out of the blue and the less sense I think I’m making but I hope this helped and if you have any more questions about anything, please ask! And feel free to disagree with me and tell me why; I’m here to learn, too!

7 Likes

Thanks! I pretty much guessed that, but I didn’t know about the underlying grammar points. Very helpful!

I can relate to that. It’s like, I know that it’s used in that way. But it just doesn’t click when I’m reading.

It took me longer than I’d like to admit before I realized that なんだ often wasn’t 何+だ.


One really tiny question of my own. On page 18 of the Tsubasa Bunko version, what is かいだ? Or perhaps I’m misparsing the sentence. Full sentence in spoiler tags since it’s at the very end of the chapter:

君のかいだそのにおいというのは、どんなにおいだったの?

6 Likes

Past tense 嗅ぐ.
I’ll be honest, it threw me off too.

4 Likes

Isn’t that past tense かぐ, to smell?

Too slow xD

4 Likes

Yeah, that, was just about to say this.

3 Likes

How did we all get here at the same time 20 minutes later, lol

5 Likes

Haha…we must all have kakeru’d in toki…:upside_down_face:

8 Likes

I miss kanji. :cry:

9 Likes

Lol I have no idea

2 Likes

Kazuo-kun isn’t looking around but rolling his eyes, because of what Gorou-kun said before that. And he hasn’t seen Kazuko yet, he’s only guessing where she is.

7 Likes

Yeah, I had to go through a whole reverse-engineering conjugation process to get this one :grin:

@nehahahaXD thanks for the explanation! I did wonder whether と could be used in a similar way to, for example AもBも, but I’d just never come across any examples before. I can see what you mean about the greater sense of separation it converys.

1 Like

Am I the only person using the vocab list for this book?

  • Yes, quite possibly, because I’m not using it
  • No, I’m adding to it as well
  • No, I’m using it (but haven’t added anything myself)
  • What, we have a vocab list?

0 voters

Hmm… :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

Radish%20Imposter%202

! :eyes: :eyes:

Radish%20Imposter%203

IMPOSTER?!


Also sorry no, I’m just using FloFlo.

12 Likes

I didn’t have to look up many words this chapter, so I just used jisho for those. And I was too lazy to add them to the spreadsheet. :stuck_out_tongue: