霧のむこうのふしぎな町 | Week 3 Discussion 🌬 🏘

Japanese Language Reading
#1

Pages 19 - 28

Chapter 1: リナ、霧の谷へ

Start Date: 28th December
Last Week: Chapter 1.2
Next Week: Chapter 2.1

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We’re reading to the end of Chapter 1 this week!

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霧のむこうのふしぎな町 ・ Mysterious Town Beyond the Mist (BBC) :wind_face: :houses:
霧のむこうのふしぎな町 ・ Mysterious Town Beyond the Mist (BBC) :wind_face: :houses:
霧のむこうのふしぎな町 | Week 4 Discussion :wind_face: :houses:
#2

Hang in there everyone! You’re almost done with the dialect! (For now at least. I’m only on page 36, so no promises beyond that.)

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#3

Can someone please give me a paw with the following in page 19 / 8% (pretty much at the start of this week’s reading)

リヤカーつきこううん機は、青々としたいねのあいだを、

青々と seems to refer to lush and greenery, but I have no idea how to parse したいねのあいだ in a way that makes sense =._.=

Any help is appreciated!

2 Likes
#4

I haven’t read yet, but it’s probably 稲 (rice plants)
So they are going through (間) the lush green (青々とした) rice plants(稲). If you have ever seen rice paddy, you know what it looks like. (If not, google image I guess).

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#5

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you!

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#6

Another question please meow~

At 10%

まわりに木があるのだからすずしいはずなのに、風はちっともふかないで、木々が暑くるしくさえ思える。

So, さえ usually means even, but from what I’ve learnt about this (particle?), I’ve only seen it used with nouns and verbs (bunpro and Tae-Kim only seem to use it for those, unless I am missing something).

Here however it seems to be used with an i-Adjective (暑苦しい) (or I guess it could be the adverb 暑苦しく？) I am guessing (from context) that the sentence means something along the line of “all the trees even made it appear oppressively hot”, but I’m not really confident.

Any help is appreciated!

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#7

I would translate this as “even the trees seemed to be sweltering”

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#8

Thank you. I spent 20 minutes earlier trying to say this, but I couldn’t figure out how to phrase the English in a way that made sense.

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#9

Speaking of troublesome dialect, I’ve just learned 方言. I wonder it would be appropriate translation. Helpful jisho lists only 92 matches.

#10

yikes…these long sentences are as bad as the dialect haha…This whole thing took me a long time to decipher… @Naphthalene thanks for posting up part of the solution that whole rice plant thing I couldn’t find on my own.

I really found this part difficult so thought I’d post up what I came up with (maybe it will help someone else)…seems right but not sure if this is all completely correct or not:

Page 19/p19

リアカーつきこううん機は 青々としたいねのあいだを、かみなりのような音と、もうもうとたつ土ぼこりをおともに、のろのろとすすんでいく

becomes (with kanji):
リアカーつき耕運機は 青々とした稲の間を、雷のような音と、もうもうとたつ土ぼこりをお供に、のろのろと進んでいく。

with these large sentences, I’m not always sure about which particles are ending/suffix, direct object, emphasis…turns into sort of a mess for me…but …

リアカーつき耕運機は (As for the cultivator)

青々とした稲の間を、
青々とした (vibrant / green + suru to become/to turn into = became vibrant green)
稲の間を、(between the rice plants)
whole thing: between the rice plants that had turned vibrant green

雷のような音と、
雷 = (thunder - Nice one word for thunder and lightning!)
のような = grammar for noun like/similar to (https://www.bunpro.jp/grammar_points/373
音 = sound
と、= read as with
with what sounded like thunder (or lightning if you can hear the colors… :rofl:)

もうもうとたつ土ぼこりをお供に、
もうもう = dense (fog of dust)
と = particle
たつ = to stand
土ぼこり = clouds of dust
を (particle)
お (honorific ?)
供に = together/along with
whole thing: along with dense standing clouds of dust

のろのろと進んでいく
のろのろ = slowly (seen this word before at the beginning of the book)
と (particle)
進んでいく = to advance + continuing
slowly advancing

My translation was (after what seemed like forever):
The cultivator continuing to slowly advance between the rice plants that had turned a vibrant bright green, along with sounds of thunder along with dense standing clouds of dust. (it’s not a sentence an English teacher would love but it’s good enough for me)

The English version of the book was much better than mine (hidden just in case you really don’t wanna cheat) :

The cultivator proceeded leisurely through the green rice plants accompanied by a thunderous noise and billows of dust.

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#11

I feel the standard English is just to say “lush green/vibrant green”. The とした part is just a way to connect 青々, which is not an adjective by itself, to a noun it qualifies.

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#12

Another question please~

At 13% (somewhat close to the end of chapter 1)

リナは、赤茶けた土の上によりかたまってたっている、黒ずんだ小さな家々を想像していたのだ。

I am having lots of trouble with this part.

  • I’m not sure what により means here. It doesn’t seem to be a comparison より, nor does it seem to be the により that means based on / according to.
  • My best guess is that かたまって comes from the verb 固まる that means “to gather; to huddle together” and that it is referring to the 家々 (many houses)? Unless it means “to harden” and somehow refers to the 土, but that doesn’t seem to make much sense given the sentence structure.
  • 黒ずんだ seems to mean “to blacken / to darken” but I have no idea what it refers too, since later the 家々 are described as having red / cream colors.
  • 想像 (imagination?) now I am even more lost…

Any help is appreciated! Meow~

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#13

I think it’s most likely に the particle attached to 土の上, and より the adverb (not the particle).

かたまってたっている, 黒ずんだ, and 小さな are all modifying 家々. And those descriptions of the 家々 are how Rina imagined (想像) the houses, not how they actually look.

At least that’s my understanding without going back to reread the context.

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#14

As @seanblue says, it’s basically describing how リナ expected the houses in a tiny mountain village to look, as contrasted with how they actually look.

My explanation attempt

The main noun she’s thinking about is 家々. The 家々 have a few different properties attached to them:

  • They are 小さな.
  • They are 黒ずんだ. (Probably just meaning darkened with dirt and age, or possibly just made with dark-colored building materials.)
  • They are かまってたっている. I’m guessing this is a compound of 固まる and 建つ. That compound does come up in my IME, but it doesn’t seem to be a standard enough compound to merit a dictionary entry anywhere I see immediately. I think it’s probably conveying the image of something being built out of hardened dirt or clay.
  • I’m not terribly confident in how により or the stuff it’s attached to is working, but I [think] what it works out to mean is an explanation of by what means the building materials are hardened. In this case, they’re hardened or dried because of the dirt’s surface being reddened and dried out by the sun.
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#15

That’s because it’s not a compound word. It’s just two verbs connected with て-form.

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#16

This sentence is annoying me… I know what it’s supposed to say but I’m lame and can’t figure out how to parse it to get it to say the right thing…

Page 21 / p21

a picture of the stupid umbrella is on the cover… of both the Japanese and English books (mocking me) hahaha … I feel lame at the moment hehe

それは、白地に赤い水玉もようのかさで、えのさきには、ピエロのにいっとわらった顔がついている。

それは、(that)

白地に (on white background)
赤い水玉 (red polka dot)
もようのかさで、(also + like + umbrella)

so far so good… then I don’t know what to do with this:
えのさきには、???

ピエロ (clown)
のにいっと ???
わらった顔が (smiling face)
ついている。(attached)

I know the English is this: “Her umbrella was made of white cloth with red polka dots, an the handle was shaped like a grinning clowns head.”

Not sure what word is handle with all these particles floating around and such… 助けてください

#17

模様 pattern, で is the connective form of だ

Edit: wanted to cancel my post when I saw @seanblue posting (and I should be social right now rather than on my phone, so I’m unlikely to post anything of quality) but posted by mistake.
I’m leaving the message for the で comment.

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#18

もよう = 模様. It’s a red polka dot pattern. 水玉 is apparently just an abbreviation for 水玉模様. Lack of kanji strikes again!

の + にいっ + と (for lack of a better split). I’m pretty sure にいっと is just an onomatopoeia for laughing/smiling, because it sounds like ニコニコ. Found this as supporting evidence.

The の is modifying the laughing face. ピエロの（にいっとわらった顔）

柄. Thanks for the hint by mentioning “handle”, because I couldn’t parse that.

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#19

YUP!!! it’s was especially annoying looking at the picture and knowing what the sentence was supposed to be !

Thanks both of you @seanblue and @Naphthalene

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#20

Interestingly, the I believe the author also expected this to be hard to parse. Not sure about the physical version, but the digital version has a very suspicious " 、" mark next to え, where normally furigana would be:

image

After I saw it I suspected there might be a reason, so I eventually reached the 柄 entry in jisho.

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