霧のむこうのふしぎな町 | Week 13 Discussion 🌬 🏘

Pages 146 - 154

Chapter 6: 王子さまというものは

Start Date: 14th March
Last Week: Chapter 6.1
Next Week: Chapter 7.1

霧のむこうのふしぎな町 Home Thread

We’re reading to the end of Chapter 6 this week!


Vocabulary List

Please read the editing guidelines in the first sheet before adding any words!


Discussion Guidelines

  • Please blur out major events in the current week’s pages, and any content from later in the book/series, like this: [spoiler]texthere[/spoiler]

  • When asking for help, please mention the page number (or % for eBooks).

  • To you lurkers out there: join the conversation, it’s fun!


Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll:

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading but haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m dropping this book

0 voters

If you’ve read it before but will join in the discussion (or have read ahead), please select “I’m reading along”!


1 Like

I may have read ahead a bit whilst on holiday, so there may already be a couple of pages of vocab up :eyes:

And never fear, I do have some questions and I’m sure will find more, but as an initial comment, I wonder whether this chapter is kind of shorter than the others because it’s sort of resolving (or building on) the previous chapter’s main drama :thinking:

5 Likes

Okay! First questions before I do the rest of this week’s reading.


Page 146

一人ですわっているのにもあきたらしい。

I’m lost after すわっている - anyone happy to parse it out for me / tell me what あきたらしい is?


Page 147

テーブルの中央に、ナイフはナイフ、フォークはフォークと、一列にならべてある。

What does this ナイフはナイフ structure mean?

Also, when Rina says 一人ではなにもできないんだから, is she commenting on his inability to do anything right on his own, or is she making some comment on the rationale behind place settings? I was a bit unsure because of the から at the end.


Page 148

「はじめてのわりには、とてもじょうずでしたよ。」

Does わり mean “assignment”, here?


Discourse is grumpy at me cos I’m the only one who’s commented :pensive:

3 Likes

あきる means something like ‘get tired of’, and らしい is just ‘seems’. ^^ に marks what you get tired of (it’s a noun phrase before that), も is the usual ‘also’.

I’m not sure about the ナイフはナイフ stucture, it’s proven difficult to look up too. D: I could imagine maybe the knives are lined up with the knives, the forks with the forks?

If that’s how he set the table, it would make sense why she’d then go ahead and tell herself, ‘well, that’s since he can’t do anything,’ too I think.

わりには means sth like ‘considering [what comes before the わりには], an unexpected result’. So ‘unexpectedly, considering how you started out, you did really well’ or ‘compared to how you did at first, you did really well’.

5 Likes

Yeah, you gotta be super careful not to confuse のに (despite) and の (nominalization) + に.

2 Likes

Awesome, thank you :+1:

I thought she said that to his face :grin:

Aaaah, cool. I guess it could also lean towards “considering it was your first go” at chopping wood.

Yeah, that’s why I said I wasn’t sure from that point. Wasn’t even certain whether it was のに or nominalisation + に. I always give のに the side eye whenever I see those two characters together :joy:


I just got up to the page 152 break and :see_no_evil: !!!

3 Likes

Oh yeah, definitely. I’m all out of context at this point, so you’re probably right.

She might have! :joy: You didn’t put it in quotes/brackets/ whatever those are called, so I just assumed. ^^

1 Like

:+1:

Yeah, I can never quite decide whether to include them if the sentence is one of several inside the brackets, if that makes sense… it looks kind of weird just to have one floating bracket at the beginning or the end…

And I have no idea what they’re called either :sweat_smile:

1 Like

For me, I usually answer questions without looking up the passage in the book, so quotes are a very important bit of information :slight_smile: But I can’t say I‘m sure I always include them myself :joy_cat: Now that I realized this, I will take better care of it when asking.

2 Likes

A couple of questions please, if I may~

At 72%

少年は、 もっともだという顔でリナを見た。
This is in the scene after Shikka suggests the boy might have a more fitting job to do after Rina scolds him for the way he set up the tableware.

もっとも can mean “most; extreme” (最も) or maybe “reasonable, natural”,or even “but then, although” (尤も). My best guess is that this means “with a face that said ‘naturally (I have a different job more fitting for me)’”, but I’m not confident at all.

At 74%

「マンデーのところはいやだとでもおいいかい。
This is in the scene where Picotto-baasan tells Rina about her new assignment. I am not sure how to parse the part in bold.

My best guess is that いや comes from 嫌, だ is simply the copula, と is a quotation marker. I’m not sure about what follows. でも as in “even if”, maybe? おいいかい has me completely baffled though…

Any help is appreciated. Meow~!

1 Like

This is exactly what I thought it meant too. Perhaps also a nuance of “of course this kind of job is unsuitable for me” - in general, a face that agrees with what シッカ is saying.

This is all exactly what I came up with as well, including でも meaning “even if”. I’m pretty sure then that おいいかい is like… 言う with a question marker, and then some exciting fluff / dialect sandwiching it - based on how she normally talks and her favourite turn of phrase.

2 Likes

Thank you for the help @Radish8! Good to hear I wasn’t that far off :sweat_smile:

1 Like

Some more of my own questions :slightly_smiling_face:


Page 148

口につめこんだと思うと、飲みこみ、かんでいるひまなどありそうもない。

I know all the words and bits and understand the overall meaning of this sentence, but am quite confused by the grammar in several places. To me it just feels very disjointed, like three phrases have just been strung together?

Could somebody parse it out in detail for me?


Page 149

「ああ。でも、国へ帰れば、むずかしい講義を、あくびをかみころしてきくか、しゃちほこばったやつらと天気の話をするかだからな。

Can we all just take a moment to appreciate how awful Japanese commas are?

Anyway, is this the same as Nenad’s question for Week 10 in terms of those かs? (which I actually answered, so shows how confident I am)

Second question: this page uses the phrase 役に立つ several times, in the form 人役に立つ. In particular, Rina says もっと多くの人々の役にたつでしょう. What does 人の役に立つ actually mean? In this case, is Rina saying he will be helpful to many more people, or that he will be helpful to such an extent it will be equivalent to the ‘helpfulness’ of many ordinary people, or what? I feel like I don’t understand because I don’t quite understand how the phrase 役に立つ itself works.

He also says 人の役にたったって、はだで感じるからなあ - eh? (I know it’s はだ and can see what the last phrase sort of means, but overall?)

:bowing_man:

2 Likes

I feel like you post more questions for sentences in this book that I also don’t understand than I encounter when reading 獣の奏者.

5 Likes

I hate when I come across interesting questions on the phone. :sweat_smile: Beware of weird typos and stuff.

detailss

Aと思うとB is basically, ‘just when (you thought) A, B’. In other words, ‘as soon as A, B’. In this case, as soon as he’d stuffed his mouth he swallowed (飲みこみ). This is the verb stem functioning as a connective, same as てform would, only with more of a… ‘break’ feel to it. I believe @NicoleIsEnough posted an interesting fb link on that topic? Or someone else, in any case, phone. Sorry. :upside_down_face:
Anyway, since there’s the break, the rest of the sentence might as well be read as a separate part. 'He didn’t even seem to have the time to chew or anything.:

I can’t remember what that question about か was and I don’t feel like challenging myself and looking for it on my phone, sorry. :stuck_out_tongue:

more details

(誰か) の役に立つ means to be of help to (someone). I should really use different brackets for this but.

My dictionary says 肌で感じる means ‘learn from experience’. I’m sort of out of the loop on this book by now (read it in January, a bit lost on the details after this much time), but I’m guessing he’s referencing how the prince got to experience helping others himself - or that he learned form that experience.

3 Likes

Ah, I see! Thank you, that’s very helpful. I think part of the reason I found the sentence confusing was because I couldn’t quite work out who was doing the 思う verb…

Don’t worry, I’m totally happy with this as I’ve seen it many times :+1: just without understanding how the first bit connected it all felt quite disjointed.

Ah, so もっと多くの人々の役に立つ does mean that you’ll be helpful to more people then?

2 Likes

Yeah, exactly. :slight_smile:

1 Like

If you don’t mind, what would the translation of the whole sentence be then?
Edit: I’m talking about: 「マンデーのところいやだとでもおいいかい」

Okay, final set of questions before moving on to next week (well, I’ve already moved on, but you know).


Page 151

(1)

「あなただけがわるいわけじゃないのよね。あなたのいる世界が、そういうところなんだわ。。。」

It’s Rina replying to what’s-his-face saying there’s nobody in his country like Rina who will stand up to him or chastise him or whatever.

I’m just not quite sure what she’s saying?! The second bit I think is something like “that’s just the way the world you live in is”, but is the first bit saying something like it’s not his fault alone?

(2)

「いいや、いいんだ。ちょっと頭にはきたけど、えんりょなしにしかってもらって、うれしかったんだ。。。」

Just not sure what 頭にはきた means.

(3)

リナは、自分のえらんだものの中に、問題のつぼがはいっていてほんとによかったと、ひしひしと感じた。

I worked this out as I typed it up, so I’ll just post a translation here in case it helps anyone.

Rina felt keenly that she was truly glad the pot in question was amongst the items she’d chosen.


Page 153

「。。。ピコットばあさんと話したって気がしなくなってしまったわ。」

This is ピコットばあさんと話した with the quotation marker, right? And then (clunkily) “I became completely unbothered by it”?


I had five questions written down and I feel like I only really need to ask about two of them now :sweat_smile: shows how much difference it makes if I read when I’m tired.

Also, does anyone else encounter this bug where Discourse replicates paragraphs while you’re typing up long posts?

I’m not sure I can make a nice English sentence, but I thought it was something like (said with a questioning tone) “Even if you’re saying that マンデー’s place is disagreeable (to you)?” Or perhaps you’re reluctant about マンデー’s.

2 Likes

Thank you very much for your answer! It makes more sense now!

1 Like