時をかける少女: Week 5 Discussion (Chapters 6 and 7)

Kadokawa Page 35
話そうかどうしようかと、和子は少しまよった。
Am I correct in thinking that this is like “Should I say it? What do I do?”, and that と is marking the hesitation from 迷う?

Page 36
「だって、話だけ聞いたのじゃ、わたし自身にだって信じられないようなことなんですものね。」
I get the gist of the sentence being something along the lines of “Not even I believe it”, but what role is だけ playing here. Does it mean “the story you just heard”. If it does, I have no idea why :sweat_smile:

和子のでたらめと思うには、かの女の顔はあまりにも真剣そのものである。
I’m not too sure where to start on this one… I think what Gorou and Kazuo are thinking is being contrasted with the seriousness of Kazuko’s face… But I really can’t piece it together. I would expect だ after でたらめ too…

Thanks for all your help!~

Yes but, I wouldn’t treat it like she’s literally saying it to herself with quotation marks. But yes, she’s lost for a moment on whether to say anytning or not.

Actually she’s saying, If I only heard it (instead of living it), it’s something I wouldn’t even believe myself.”
話だけ聞いた “If I head only the story”

には after the dictionary form of a verb means something like “in order to.” It can be used with a “too much” expression to say that something is too X to be able to Y. Here Kazuko’s face is too (あまりにも) serious to (には) think that she’s just screwing around.

Edit: Oh, for completeness
真剣そのもの = seriousness itself = the very picture of seriousness

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@QuackingShoe Thank you!~

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Yeah, also he very casually stated that he had read about that in a book!
I totally expected him to mention that the book was called The X-Men :joy_cat:

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Alright, I have a few questions about chapter 7. All pages based on Kadokawa Tsubasa version.


Page 42:
「だって、ほんとうなのよ」
和子は、五郎をおどかして悪いとは思ったが、そうでも言わないことには、自分の言うことが嘘でないという証明をすることができないので、泣きそうになっていった。

First of all: :exploding_head:

While I love Japanese for being able to modify anything with verbs, when it ends up like this I get kind of annoyed. By the time I get to the いった at the end, I forgot that there was dialog before it. :sweat_smile:

Anyway, here’s my interpretation.
Main part:

“But it’s true”, said Kazuko, who was on the verge of tears.

Filler part:

  • 五郎をおどかして悪いとは思ったが = Though she felt bad for startling Gorou (if that’s the right meaning for 悪い here).
  • そうでも言わないことには = ???
  • 自分の言うことが嘘でないという証明をすることができないので = because she couldn’t prove that what she said wasn’t a lie

General thoughts on my translations? If my understanding is mostly correct, she was on the verge of tears and only said “だって、ほんとうなのよ” because she couldn’t think of a proper explanation. But I’m still not sure on some parts.

And is there even a way to coherently translate that into a single sentence in English? :laughing:


Page 44:
I don’t feel like typing up the whole Japanese this time, but when Kazuo is trying to convince Gorou to wait before calling the mental hospital, he’s basically saying to wait until they know for sure tonight, and that if they wait a night there’s really no harm. Right?


I’m tired of typing, so I guess I’ll ask my other question(s) tomorrow.

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The そうでも言わないことには means that “unless she said something like that” she wouldn’t be able to prove that what she was saying wasn’t a lie (even though she felt bad about saying it). I found a source about that very grammar point just now:

I think the parts you translated are fine :slightly_smiling_face:

Between me not being a native English speaker and translation just being way too hard in general, I don’t think I could produce anything great :sweat_smile:

Right. He’s like “Let’s just wait, if nothing happens tonight just call whoever you want, dude.”

Edit: Late, but Merry Christmas :christmas_tree: (at least here it’s not Christmas anymore)

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I’m just now getting caught up with the reading, after the holidays. :sweat_smile:

Page 35 in the Tsubasa Bunko version, we have the sentence:

もっとも、どの授業もいちど教わったことばかりだったのだが・・・

She previously mentioned that she didn’t put much effort into her classes that day, for obvious reasons. Then here, it sounds like she’s saying it’s because it was nothing but stuff she’d already learned. But I’m not sure how the pieces are working together, like why どの is used. And I expected もういちど but I’m just seeing the も here.

Same page, we have the sentence:

するとこのわたしだけ、時間が一日だけ逆もどりしたところにいるというのかしら?

She’s pondering about time being set back by a day, and how she seems to be the only one who noticed it. This sentence sounds like, “Then, is it just me that time went back for by a day?” (literally, does the situation exist such that…) Does that make sense? The このわたし sounds odd to me too since I don’t think I’ve seen it before.

どの~も is like “every~”
So どの授業も means “every class/lesson”
どの~もの英訳|英辞郎 on the WEB

Otherwise, this was already discussed above
P.S. Searching the forums for Japanese works much better now, so it’s useful to search for a few words in the sentence you’re asking about.


Regarding the second question, I think your understanding is correct. I’ve heard things like この私 a bunch in anime, but the construct definitely comes off as odd in English. I guess it’s just one of those things. :man_shrugging:

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Thanks, that makes more sense now. And sorry I missed that, I actually scrolled past your post because I saw it said “chapter 6” and I was thinking I was reading chapter 5 since we’re on week 5. My mistake.

It’s a shame the book doesn’t actually say the chapter numbers. I’m gonna edit the thread titles to include the chapters.

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Wow, thanks for pointing that out, it took me a minute to realize that wasn’t past tense いる. facepalm

That is a large separation between the quote and いう… is it possible that it’s actually いく?

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I don’t think so. I saw this type of sentence several times in 魔女の宅急便. I guess it could be ていく, but いう still works too.

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Thanks for pointing out that this is phrase is a specific grammar point. In case anyone else is still struggling with this part I also found this resource helpful to understand, particularly the literal breakdown as “if (not A), then B won’t happen (either)”

Takoboto | Japanese Grammar naikotoniha ないことには

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I finished reading chapter 7 yesterday, but I didn’t post anything about it, so here are some random thoughts:

It feels like both of her friends reacted kind of weirdly to what she told them… I like it! But still, one of them suddenly going “Oh, you must have powers” and the other going “you need to be put in a mental hospital” both seem like kind of extreme reactions. Like, if someone told me something like that, I’d probably just assume they were joking(and if they seemed really serious, that they were very committed to the joke) rather than thinking they’re insane. I actually liked it quite a bit, but I still find it amusing that both of their reactions were so extreme.

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Yes hehe, the author is like “it’s a short novel so i’m not wasing any time beating around the bush too much, so here is opinion A and here is B, see ya!”

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Leftover question from the other day. Page 44 in Tsubasa version.

その日、一夫の家から帰ってきたものの、和子は何も手につかず、夕食ものどに通らなかった。

Honestly, I’m completely lost on this one.

  • ものの - jisho says this can mean “but; however”. Is that correct here or is it something else? (I feel like I can’t guess this part because I don’t understand the rest of the sentence either.)
  • 手につかず - no clue
  • ものどに - not even sure how to split this one. もの followed by whatever ど and に are? も followed by のど and then に?

That’s the correct interpretation of ものの I think.

何も手につかず couldn’t do anything (for being restless). It’s a set expression

夕食も 喉に 通らなかった couldn’t eat dinner (I.e. dinner also couldn’t pass her throat)

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You know, now that you mention it, I think I found that one two days ago and forgot.

Ha, that’s a weird phrasing… I usually think of 喉 as drinking because of 喉が渇く.

Thanks!

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Dictionary of Advanced Japanese Grammar says this about ものの:

Summary

When “X mono no” does not modify a noun, mono no functions as a conjunction meaning “although.”
S1 mono no S2” is used when the following conditions are met:
(i) S2 represents a fact. That fact is generally the speaker’s/writer’s focus.
(ii) Given the information in S1, the fact presented in S2 is generally unexpected.

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Yes, that’s the source of uncertainty for me, because here S2 isn’t unexpected, which feels strange.