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

I think because I somehow read ば as が and decided it was a subject-marking particle, which left me with かり, which was getting things like “silky” and “borrowed” into the mix, which was, as one might expect, rather confusing

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Heh, I assumed you took it as 言葉

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So I’m actually only just now reading the chapters, and storywise, wow, Kazuo is just like Oh clearly you’re psychic! You can teleport through space and time. It’s obvious, really.

backs away from Kazuo slowly

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I like that kind a plot moving better than the opposite where characters just deny what is happening volumes after volumes. :rofl:
Although, I agree it could have involved a bit more, in this case.

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Also: At long last, the ultimate question of Week 3 is finally revealed!

The fire started in the bathhouse kitchen.

台所 topic… finished.

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This book seems to have a serious problem with pacing, giving the most expected answer so early in the story. Is the rest of the book just filler, then?

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Yeah I’m kinda bummed that I’ve committed myself to another five *eight weeks of this when I already got what I came for.

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New here but I am so proud of you guys for being able to read a book! I’m skipping this one but plan on trying to participate in a future book club once I am no longer a complete newbie. ^^

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By the way, there’s another group of people reading even lower level material. I think it might be a good first step.

Sadly, they are already a bit far into it, but you can always read past messages. People probably had the questions you may have :slight_smile:

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I can finally sleep easy!

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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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