霧のむこうのふしぎな町 | Week 12 Discussion 🌬 🏘

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Pages 137 - 145+

Chapter 6: 王子さまというものは

Start Date: 7th March
Last Week: Chapter 5.2
Next Week: Chapter 6.2

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霧のむこうのふしぎな町 Home Thread

Last sentence of page 145-146 for eBook readers:
「ありがとう」
と、ぼそっといい、にくらしそうにリナをにらんだ。

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Alright, continuing today’s theme…

First off, this poor tiger baby. He is not having a good day :tiger: :purple_heart:

Secondly, Rina is developing some serious slapdown prowess.

And now, to my favourite part!

Pages 138 - 139

とらのタマは、ひどいですよとでもいいたげな目でリナを見た。

Okay, I get that he’s looking at Rina with eyes that seem to want to say ひどいですよ, but what is the でも doing between the quotation marker and the adjective. Is it the “or something” meaning - “like he wants to say X or something”?

I think I answered my own question, but oh well, I’ll leave it there I guess… :thinking:

「そんなにでっかい重そうなしりがふってきたんじゃ、こりゃびっくりするはずだ。」

Is this the boy speaking, and does he just say "with such a huge, heavy-looking tail waving around, hey, it’s expected that it will be surprising"? Or is he just expressing surprise himself?

story confusion?

So… Shikka and Rina both take an instant dislike to him, after he makes this comment about the tail, laughs, and says he was cramped and now is hungry. Of course, he does turn out to be a grade-A poop-head, but it doesn’t seem that unreasonable to me that, on being freed from life as a pot, one might express some discomfort and a desire to eat?

Their reaction just seems so extreme in the circumstances, to the extent of completely ignoring his existence, that I feel like I’m missing something? He does talk generally quite rudely, but still…?

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If I remember from reading it, it was largely his tone. He came off as entitled, like an “I’m a prince and therefore you must do what I say” kind of tone.

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My understanding is that this is definitely him speaking. He’s actually talking about Rina’s butt, and how she accidentally sat on poor Tama. “With such a huge, heavy looking butt coming down on it, no wonder it is frightened.”.

I believe it is using the come down meaning of ふる (降る).
Since he’s making fun of Rina because of her weight, it is not that surprising she’s really annoyed with him.

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OH. I SEE.

Well that explains my story confusion as well. I was sure I must be misunderstanding that sentence, because it clearly offended them in some way!

Seanblue - that’s very much how he comes across later on, but at that point it seemed to me like they were having quite an extreme reaction to a pretty mild comment.

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More questions :see_no_evil: in general this was much easier than the previous week though.

Page 140

なんていうずうずうしいたいど。

I found ずうずうしい on Jisho ( :tada: ), but I’m not sure what’s going on with the たいど at the end of this sentence?

Page 141

店の中にシッカはおらず、少年がいすにふんぞりかえっていた。

I’m a little unsure whether おらず is the ず form of 居る or 折る here, if I’m even right that it’s ず form!

If the former, I assume it’s saying that シッカ “isn’t there”, but it seems odd to emphasise “without being there”. Perhaps “without シッカ there, the boy was lounging” emphasises that シッカ isn’t even there and yet this kid has just gone into the shop area and is lounging around like he owns the place?

If it’s 折る, I assume it’s the meaning “to interrupt”. But then I’m a little unsure who is (not) interrupting whom. Well, I’d say from the は that シッカ is not disturbing the boy - has left him to his own devices…?? I just can’t make that work grammatically…

I got too tired to finish page 145 yesterday, but there are words for every page in the spreadsheet now :+1:

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This should indeed be 居らず - and I’d agree with your thoughts on that.^^

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duhhhhh… I think this may be the most egregious use of kana over kanji yet :sweat_smile: thought it was some exciting kind of conjugation I’d not encountered before…

Cooool, thank you!

Page 143

I have quite a number of questions for this page.

(1) わたしより大きいこの人にできないはずはあるまいと思ったのだ。

I’m a bit lost with this sentence. I found that まい as an auxiliary can mean “probably won’t” or “doesn’t intend to”, but I can’t quite fit it in.

Without the まい, I might think it was something like “this person, who is bigger than me, has the expectation that it’s not possible for him, Rina thought” (it being making a cup of tea or whatever they were arguing about).

(2) なにもしたくないんなら、なにも食べないでいなさいよ。

いなさい? “If you don’t want to do anything, you won’t / can’t eat anything”, but I just don’t understand that ending. Oh, perhaps it’s いる, and she’s (somewhat sarcastically) like “please do exist without eating”? More naturally perhaps “If you don’t want to do anything, do go on not eating anything”.

(3) 「なにをうっ」

I get that this is just rough / rude speech, but does it particularly relate to anything I would recognise as ‘proper’ Japanese? 言う, perhaps?

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Also, まい = probably isn’t (from an English perspective, since the Japanese meaning is probably bundled with “probably won’t”). Anyway, the あるまい is more or less flipping the meaning you wrote without the まい. It’s unlikely that he can’t do whatever it is she’s talking about. I think it’s probably very similar to はずがない, just with a slight difference in nuance.

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Thank you for populating the spreadsheet so early in the week. It really makes a difference. :blush:

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Aaaaah, I see, thank you. What a convoluted way of expressing that :joy:

Anyone have insight into 2 or 3? Final questions for this week…

Page 144

やかんはけたたましい音をたて、お湯をはねちらかして、ゆかへころがった。

What’s はなちらかして? I’m betting there’s a 散る in there somehow because I assume it’s saying the water flies everywhere, but otherwise I’m stumped. Actually, I bet the latter part is 散らかす, so it’s just a question of what the はね bit adds?

Page 145

いくらシッカがせともの屋でも、あとがつづきゃしないと思ったの。

I get the first clause, but what does あとがつづきゃしない mean, and what does the sentence as a whole end up meaning?

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I think it’s this 跳ね(る) - to splash and 散らかす, so the water is splashing and being scattered haha.
You got はな the second time you wrote it, might be why you didn’t find anything?

I feel like I want to have a look at the book for your other question, so that’s a pass for now. :sweat_smile:

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Aaah, thank you! Possible it was a typo, but I think also I just searched for *ちらかす and はねち* and things like that :sweat_smile:

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Newbie here. Sorry, I didn’t want to “reply” to this post, but I can’t seem to figure out how to post a new topic. I have a question about the read aloud session. Can I ask what section of the book will be read aloud? And will random members of this community be reading aloud or is there a sign up sheet of some sort for who reads what lines? Thanks! :slight_smile:

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Hello and welcome!
It is random members reading aloud, but if you want to read a specific part then I’m sure that would be fine. The read aloud sessions always read the previous week’s section.
Because of the current time for this book being quite late for those of us in Japan/Australia, I think recently it has been mainly @sansarret and @kawazoe

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Agreed it feels a bit awkward, but this is the way to do it :slight_smile: If you want to reply to a specific post, use the “Reply” button directly underneath the post, otherwise use the big blue “Reply” button at the bottom.

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We did not have a session for last two weeks. When it happens, we just take turns until we are tired.
I just finished chapter 5, so we can do this one. It’s is very relaxed, no sign ups, just show up on discord.

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@Kyasurin @NicoleIsEnough @sansarret Thank you all very much for the clarification! OK got it. Cheers~ :slight_smile:

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Happy I’ve been able to keep up! It’s working really well to read quickly, then re-read the section trying to understand everything. Here’s a couple questions I had:

６５％

リナは、少年を見ると、身体中の力がぬけて、いすにどったりとこしをおしろした。

don’t understand どったり.
66%

*私もシッカも、どれだけ心配したことか。。。

Does this mean something like Both Shika and I, how worried we were…

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I’m not sure about the first one, but at 66% (page 140), I think that’s basically right.

Just as an aside in case it helps anyone, どれだけ means “how much; to what extent”.

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