老女的少女ひなたちゃん・Little Granny Girl Hinata-chan 👩‍👧 — Week 5 (Absolute Beginners Book Club)

Welcome to the fifth week of the Little Granny Girl Hinata Chan book club!

Week 5 6th April 2024
End page 40 (end of chapter 2)
End phrase 子供好きの子供だペ
Pages 9
Last Week Week 4
Next week Week 6
Home Thread 老女的少女ひなたちゃん
Last Panel

Vocabulary

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

  • For the Bookwalker version of this manga, the page numbers in the panels and the page number in the UI are always 2 apart. If you subtract 2 from the UI page number, this will give you the accurate page number!

Live Readings

Some users are currently in the progress of arranging a time for a live reading. Join the Japanese Book Club Discord to either read or listen!

Proper Nouns

Name Reading Image Notes
日向 ひなた image Main character
文夏 もか image Hinata’s classmate (Note, you’ll often see her name written as モカ)
千春 ちはる image Hinata’s classmate

Discussion Questions

  1. What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!
  2. What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
  3. Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?
  4. Did your family have any folk cures growing up? Any resemblance to Hinata’s?

Dialect Guide

Hinata speaks with a little bit of a Fukushima dialect at times. You’ll see this with ぺ or っぺ replacing the ends of sentences, so e.g. だっぺ instead of だよ or だった。Unfortunately it’s not always the same replacement.

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

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If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!

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I used to hate that we were forced to take an afternoon nap in preschool.

How foolish I was…

Top of page 35:

https://www.komoriuta.jp/archive/ar/A15110510.html

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Thanks for the link. That was not what I imagined at all, when reading that part. :smiley:

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Page 32

Struggling a bit with this sentence: ばーちゃんだった時は世話やけばいいだけだったけど自分も子供になって一緒に遊ぶのはなかなか難しかっぺ。

What I got from it so far is this: When I was a grandma [SOMETHING] was only good, but becoming a child and playing together was very difficult.

I’m guessing the 自分も is giving nuance of “I am also a child like these other children.” But I wasn’t sure how to add that bit to my clunky translation.

Page 39

This is one I tried to figure out myself but please can someone check because I’m not sure?

パリパリになってとれるくらいで丁度いーんです。あっというまに治りますけぇ。

When it becomes crispy and comes off, that is when it is just about right. Then (because of the previous sentence being explanation) it gets better just like that.

I like the lullaby. Want to keep it in my brain.

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Page 32

The “something” you’re missing is 世話が焼ける without the が.

Page 34

Sounds good to me.

Reading Yotsuba has gotten a number of Japanese children’s songs stuck in my head.

♫ 僕らはみんな、生きている… ♫

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Page 32

I don’t quite get how this fits the rest of the sentence? “When I was a grandma, if I needed to be looked after, that was only good” or “If when I was a grandma, I needed to be looked after, that was only good”?

I’m gonna ramble for a sec to try to make sense of this.

If things usually of the form IF X THEN Y
Here we have If [ばーちゃんだった時は世話やける] THEN [いいだけだったけど]
So, we are talking about the time when she was a grandma.
IF [someone] requires the care of others / needs to be looked after / is a handful, THEN [it] was only good.
Maybe いい here more of the alright meaning than good meaning.
So, “When I was a grandma, it was alright if I needed to be looked after”
combine that with the next bit, “but now we’re talking about the topic of me becoming a child and playing together, that is very difficult.”
The “that” in the second half is referring to the needing to be looked after! Not to the being a child and playing together.

Okay, what I have now is:

When I was a grandma, it was alright if I needed to be looked after, but now that I’ve become a child and play together with the other children, it is difficult (to accept that I need to be looked after)"

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Page 32

Wait, I messed up the conjugation. It’s 世話を焼く ('cos the ~ば form of 焼ける is 焼けば)

I read it as when she was a grandmother, it was fine that she needed look after kids, but now that she’s a child, she still needs to look after the other kids, but she also needs to play with them as well.

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That makes sense, thank you

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Page 32 re: use of いい

“Maybe いい here more of the alright meaning than good meaning.” – I think here this is more the #2 def on Jisho, meaning “enough” or “sufficient”.

Fwiw the English version has this as the translation:

But I’m not sure how “to require the aid of others” became “care for others” …

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Yeah, that was my fault - I put the wrong word on the lookup sheet. Read down a few posts. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Why do I feel like this week’s reading is kicking my butt?

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I guess it’s the big stretch of the kana-only lullably :slight_smile:

Don’t forget to ask here if you get stuck though!

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Thank you. ^^ I’m going to try again tomorrow morning. Felt like when I sat down to read, my eyes just immediately glazed over.

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So much vocabulary I don’t know. You’re 4 years old (most of you at least)! Speak simpler dammit! :joy:

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Ok, yeah it’s definitely long strings of kana-only stuff. Also, some particles feel extra confusing to me. For some reason… :thinking:

pg. 33

それにお昼寝の時間ったってちゃんと夜寝てるのに
そうそう寝れなかっぺよ...

  1. How can you read ったって here? Is it like だって?
  2. I don’t think I have a good grasp of ちゃんと. What does it mean here?
  3. Maybe my wires are getting crossed, but is 寝れなかっぺよ not be able to sleep (past tense)?

I was curious about the lyrics and I found this!
Omg I literally just linked the same video @Belthazar did…

Sidenote, is there a term for the type of scales / tonality used in more traditional Japanese music? (The Sakura song also comes to mind.)

Taking a break for now but will wrap up the reading later today.

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Great minds google alike. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Week 6 thread is up!

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I'm just thankful they didn't go the "kids don't speak kanji" route.

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True. But I still have to re-read the chapter these days because I had to look up so much.

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