玉藻の恋 ・ Tamamo no Koi 🦊 Week 5

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Page 45

I’m a little confused by the use of the particle 「の」in the sentence 「都合のいい夢を見ていたんだー」
My understanding is that he is saying something along the lines of “I saw (an opportunity for?) a dream circumstance” (i.e. Tamamo would stay and do chores for him). I understand「都合のいい」is being used to describe 「夢」but this translation felt more natural in English (if it’s even correct!)
I was wondering why a particle like 「が」wasn’t used instead (都合がいい夢) to describe the dream. Has anyone come across something like this before?
The only time I’ve come across the term 「都合」 is when it’s used to talk about plans, e.g.
A: 火曜日はどうですか？
B: 火曜日は都合がいいです！
(Not entirely natural but it’s the only context I’ve heard it be used so far). In this case, the particle 「が」 is used so I’m struggling to know when the particle 「の」 would be more appropriate!

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Thought I would post the handwritten parts for anyone interested (excluding onomatopoeia). If I missed any, please let me know!

Page 46

Second Panel:
ふわふわはんぺん団子（だんご）ランチ

Page 49

First Panel:
にんじんはいいよーっ
食べる（たべる）とねーっ
えーっ

Page 53

Panel 3：
栄養（えいよう）たっぷり…

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Page 45 都合のいい

You’re very correct! This is a classic case of “の replacing が in a relative clause,” which is exactly what it sounds like. The meaning is exactly the same as if が had been used there instead, but replacing it with の feels a bit more natural, and makes it clear that this isn’t the main clause of the sentence.

(Btw, by relative clause, I mean a verb adjective or verb clause followed immediately by a noun.)

Some more examples of this replacement:
天気のいい日
君の知らない物語
取り返しのつかない過ち
かけがえのない日々

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Thank you! That makes it more clear :blush:

Page 45
  1. So is it ultimately putting less emphasis on the adjective and more emphasis on the noun?
  2. Also which part would be the verb clause in this case? The part that seems to be a verb followed by a noun is in the previous sentence
    「なぁって思ってたから・・・都合のいい夢を見ていたんだ」is this what you were referring to?

Thank you again! :pray:

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Page 45 都合のいい
  1. Also which part would be the verb clause in this case?

Whoops, I misspoke slightly, the relative clause is actually an adjective clause not a verb clause here. The noun 夢 is being described by the clause 都合がいい. (What kind of 夢 is it? It’s a 都合のいい 夢.) In context he’s basically trying to tell himself that she was just a convenient hallucination/dream brought on by how much he’d been stressing about housework.

  1. So is it ultimately putting less emphasis on the adjective and more emphasis on the noun?

I wouldn’t say that. It’s just that the whole clause （都合のいい） is acting as a single adjective describing 夢.

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Hi! I am somewhat behind, but continuing the reading, I just was curious with this.

Page 43

I wanted to share my interpretation of

to see what you guys think:

Before Tamamo ask the boy for a broom and he answer her: I don’t have that, I have this (like in replacement)
So I interpretated this as:
"If you were a broom (ほうきなら) I would not have lost to / or in front of おめし (I took it like this word was rephering to the boy, not the robot, since she has rephered to him as 主様, maybe she is not saying sama now because he is somewhere else?)
I specially took it like this because she is feeling so down after he has told her to leave for doing so many things “wrong”, like she disappointed him (my way of interpretate 負けなかった)

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Page 43

おぬし means “you” when refering to one’s equals or inferiors. She’s currently talking to the robot, so that’s who she’s refering to. (She even uses 主様 right afterwards while talking to the robot about Haru.)

Since she’s just saying “if broom” and leaving out what exactly is up with the broom, language-wise it could mean “If you were a broom, I wouldn’t have lost to you” too. After all, if the robot didn’t even exist she couldn’t have lost against it.

Considering that she seems pretty proud of her house-related abilities I think it’s more likely that she wants to highlight that she’s so good with a broom that even the robot wouldn’t have had a chance against her if only a broom would’ve been available. For that reason (and because it’s a bit simpler) I prefer: “If there had been a broom, I wouldn’t have lost to you.”

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I see! Thanks for the feedback, actually I didn’t realize she used 主様 with the robot speaking about Haru. Japanese has this thing that a lot of what they say is open to interpretation, I am having fun with that. I like to read insights of others.

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