魔女の宅急便 (Kiki’s Delivery Service) Discussion Thread: Chapter 3

Japanese Language Reading
#228

ゆがんだ顔をかくすようにジジを抱き上げました。

Yes, but I would say “to hide her face”, directly, without the “as if”. One example of “as if” that’s similar to this is かのように.

すこしはなれてからでないと、自分もコキリさんも泣き出してしまうと思ったからでした。

This is 少し離れて. And yes, she’s saying something like “I should get away a bit before going any further”?

一気にぼっていきました - How does ぼっていきました break down here?

You have a typo here, it’s 一気にのぼっていきました. So it’s just のぼって + いきました = started going up. started ascending.

(I was thinking why the threads got silent all of a sudden. Turns out I forgot to watch this one :man_facepalming:)

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#229

旅立つ is a verb meaning ‘to leave on a trip’, so its volitional (i.e. someone shall/wants to do something) form is 旅立とう. 旅立 on its own doesn’t mean anything, it seems. (I can’t find it in the dictionary anyhow.) Thus, the sentence as a whole says ‘The day on which Kiki had decided she would leave arrived’, with のです adding emphasis. ‘Would’ here expresses a bit of a desire to do something, and isn’t just a ‘future tense in the past’ form.

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#230

I am sorry, but I still don’t get it. I don’t understand the meaning of から and でないと in this sentence. Would you be so kind to explain it again for the very slow ones?

#231

Maybe this helps?
https://japanesetest4you.com/flashcard/learn-jlpt-n2-grammar-てからでないと-tekara-denai-to/

To break it down:
でないと=じゃないと=じゃなければ=conditional
if not… then

てから=after doing…, following …

少し離れてから=after distancing (oneself) a bit

Combined with conditional:
„If I don’t leave for a bit first, then…“

I haven’t read this week‘s part yet so I can’t provide further context…

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#232

That’s the part I was missing. Thanks a lot!

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#233

Repeat Club Discussion (Week 4) Starts Here!

Chapter 3 Part 2

V1: Pages 44 - 59
V2: Pages 37 - 51
BookWalker: 31 - 42

Last line:
キキはだまってちょっと肩をすくめました。
(Followed by a natural break in the text)

18 July 2020

Please briefly check whether questions have already been answered above before posting them, but otherwise don’t hesitate.

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading but haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m dropping this book
  • I’m a superhero who’s read it before but is here for chatting :books:

0 voters

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魔女の宅急便・Kiki's Delivery Service :red_gift_envelope: Repeat Club
#234

Obviously don’t worry if you still have questions about the previous ‘part’ :slight_smile: you’re still allowed to ask them :wink:

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#235

Page 31-42 :v:

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#236

All right, looks like I’m down to only about 60 sentences left…to finish up last week’s reading. Time to get to it… All caught up on last week’s reading!

Here’s the artwork from the second half of chapter 3:

Flight

12
12800×950 112 KB

Descent

13
131000×1400 718 KB

Osono

14
141062×1000 462 KB

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#237

Great!, I didn’t have time to put together my last questions until just now.

v1 pg 32, first sentence
ほら、あたしのわきの下に手を入れて、よくぽーんぽーんともちあげてくれたでしょ。
I’m fine with the first part: Oh, I put my hand(s) under my armpit(s)
However, I have no idea what the last part means… Closest I can get is: Often, sounds of beating (ぽーんぽーん = Onomatopoeia for beating?) i am giving… and have recieved. Maybe it means: comes and goes… but what comes and goes?

I spent longer at that one sentence than I did two pages of reading x_X.

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#238

ききが旅立とうと決めた日がきたのです。とうとis shown as meaning “precisely” or “firmly” so, I’d translate as “the day Kiki had firmly chosen as her day to leave had arrived”, ie. she selected “the next full moon” even tho mama wanted to push it off

#239

By context, it’s Okino’s hands.

When a sound-effect doesn’t seem right, I look for a secondary meaning, which I found here to be:

「威勢よく、無造作に、立て続けに事を行うさま。」

I could be wrong, but I get the impression that when Kiki was younger, Okino would lift her up and down (maybe in a bit of a carefree manner?). That is, keeping in mind that it is modifying もちあげる.

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#240

I’d translate it as “you used to put your hands in my armpits and lift me up” the ポンポン being the “sound” of her going up and down

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#241

I’m sure someone else will come around and explain it better than I can, but she’s not talking about her own hands. She’s telling her father to put his hands under her armpits and lift her up.

Or, multiple people could comment while I’m in the middle of writing mine. You can’t pay for that kind of promptness.

I should probably get to my thoughts/questions on the last page and a half of this passing week so I can move on to reading this week’s passage. Looks like I have about 13 pages of reading this week in my book. Let’s keep up the two-page-a-night pace! (Assuming I don’t take Saturday off again :P)

  • いつかは海に出るってきいたことあるの - This structure is Kiki saying she has heard the part before the って, right? What does she mean by “いつかは海に出る”?

  • いけないっていても、いいんですかね - I parsed this as “Even if I say it’s no good, it’s fine, right?” which would localize more naturally to something like “Even if I say no, we’re still going, right?”

  • 「どうして女の子って、こうむだな質問するんだろう。でもね、まちがいなくたのみますよ。さがすのは海じゃなくて、町ですからね」- This is a weird one, because I’m pretty sure I understand it all at a surface level, but I can’t quite tell what Jiji is getting at. He’s saying something like "Why do girls ask these kinds of pointless questions? That said, I’ve got no doubt about it. What we’re searching for isn’t the sea, it’s a town. Is he trying to tell her to focus on finding a town?

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#242

This is a tricky one, but I believe 旅立 and とうと cannot be separated. The reason is because 旅立 is not a word (as far as I know). The closest word to it is 旅立つ, which in its volitional form is 旅立とう. The と after it is a particle which links it with 決めた.

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#243

Correct. (It took me reading over the line in the book a few times to come to that conclusion as well.) However, there’s a bit more in front of it than you have here. The full quote (before the って) includes:

「南へ行くとね、かならずいつかは海に出る。」

“If you go south, without fail sooner or later you’ll come out at the sea.”

If I were to adjust your translation, I’d go with, “Even if I say no, it’s yes, right?” which matches up your “Even if I say no, we’re still going, right?”

I would loosely translate 「まちがいなくたのみますよ。」 as “Let me be clear about this.” This is due to まちがいなく being listed as meaning “clearly; unmistakably; certainly; without a doubt”, and it’s modifying the verb たのむ “to request; to beg; to ask”. In other words, Jiji’s making a clear request. (At least until someone says I’m mistaken.)

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#244

I thought this as well and as you wrote it, sound effects are normally written in Katakana. However, I may have read too much manga… possible that novels have sound effects in hiragana also?

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#245

Just finished Chapter 3 Pt. 1 after stockpiling ~4 pages for Friday (thanks Ghost of Tsushima…).

Fairly easy last few pages all things considered! Only stumbled a bit in the conversation between Kiki and Jiji about where to go, but Kiki talking to her parents and her farewell were all pretty easy to get through. Relatively simple conversation that wasn’t about worldbuilding haha.

I quite like that Jiji is a bit snarkier in the books (going hand in hand with Kiki being a bit brattier). I love the movie adaptation with all my heart, and the book has been a nice way to revisit the story.

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#246

I already read this weeks by mistake - I was just a bit too adsorb and didn’t noticed until it was too late. :sweat_smile:

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#247
This is where I have a love/hate relationship with Disney's dub of the movie.

I’d seen the dub many times before I saw the movie in Japanese, so it was a bit of a shock to learn that Disney gave Jiji a ton of brand new dialogue practically any time his mouth wasn’t showing. Because it’s what I’m used to, it’s hard to not expect all the extra dialogue when watching in Japanese.

Disney did later do an English release that cuts out all his extra dialogue, but the audio on that (at least on my copy) is really choppy (like everyone’s talking into a fan).

I don’t remember much from when I read the original English release of the book, so if it turns out Jiji’s more snarky in the book than in the film, I’ll consider accepting that maybe Disney adding additional snarky lines for Jiji maybe isn’t the end of the world.

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