On page 50 the book actually has quotes ″ごかってに″ instead of 「ごかってに」(as it does earlier in the same sentence). Does anyone know what the literary purpose behind this is? It almost has a feel of air quotes to me.
Can someone explain what Jiji said to try to cheer Kiki up?
「ちぇっ、魔女も弱くなったもんだよ。むかしだったらさ、こんな町なんて、ただじゃおかないんだけど。あの塔を持って、この町ごと、どこかの山のてっぺんにでも乗せちゃうんだけどなあ」
I’m pretty sure I understand the first sentence, but the entire middle is lost on me. The very end about the peak of the mountain I kind of get, but I’m probably not fully understanding that either without the context of the rest of the sentence.
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I had the pretty much the same question here (though my trouble was mostly with the last sentence).
For the middle part, the main thing to know is that ただじゃおかない means basically “you/they will pay for that!” So it’s saying if it were the old days, this kind of town would pay (for their rudeness). And then goes on to suggest that a witch would pick up the whole town by its tower, and place it on top of a mountain or some such.
I found that definition but couldn’t figure out how it was being used in context or how that would cheer Kiki up. And I was particularly confused by how Jiji saying witches have become weak (the only part I understood) would cheer her up. Now I get it though, thanks.
Side note: I’ve basically given up on searching the thread before asking questions because the search doesn’t work well for Japanese and we have different pages numbers. It’s a shame, but at a certain point the thread gets too big to just scroll through looking for the question I want to ask.
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According to Wikipedia (I know, not always 100% reliable). double quotation marks are used sometimes, in fiction, to denote text that is heard through a telephone or other device. In this case, Kiki is replaying the words she heard in her head, probably with an incredulous overtone if she’s anything like me.
Well that’s my theory!
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In my case, the book has furigana but the words that are most frequently furigana-ed are most of the time not words that I have trouble with or need to look up (then I mostly just ignore the furigana, because it’s faster to read without looking at the tiny print). And yet, there are plenty of furigana-less words to trip over.
¯_(ツ)_/¯ Oh well.
Regardless of how helpful they actually are to me, I am glad of the furigana, if only for the psychological reassurance that I have help. A puzzle with a few problems filled in can still be baffling.
My post (#83) upthread a bit went into some of this:
ただじゃおかない is “wouldn’t let that slide”–you won’t let it go by for ただ (without cost). Someone’s going to pay for that. (Metaphorically.)
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I think they’re using 「」to quote things that someone said, and ″″ to quote words qua words. Air quotes is actually pretty close in this case, except that they’re the real quotes that air quotes are referencing. 
I’m not sure if this is usual usage for ″″ or just the style adopted in this book.
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Red book p60
A little bit random, but what exactly is バタパン? I googled it and it looks a bit like a small bread roll? 
I was kind of hoping it was going to be a croissant, but apparently not…
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Since google didn’t yield any specific results I assume it just means buttered bread. When I googled I did find a blogpost about someone recreating おソノさんのバタパン but who knows if it’s accurate!
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OK, on p. 67 (red book), Son-san asks (I think) how Kiki knew she wasn’t a witch. Kiki says:
「なんとなくなんです」
なんとなく by itself means “somehow or other.” Is this just the verbal equivalent of a shrug, or what?
Then Son-san replies:
「まっ、つまらないこと。
I know つまらない as “boring,” but I’m missing the meaning here.
Finally, Son-san follows the above with a long one which has me confused. I’ll try to break it into sensible parts:
でもむりでしょうね、 – but it’s probably impossible, huh
うちのおばあちゃん、 – my grandmother,
そのずっと前のおばあちゃんだって、 – and all grandmothers before that
魔女だったって – were witches
話は聞いたことない – …is a story I never heard
んですものね。 – (explaining, plus usual pile of sentence-ending particles)
So… she’s saying that she’d never heard a story about her grandmother or any female ancestor being a witch? It makes sense, but seems like an odd thing to say. Makes me wonder if I’ve missed it completely.
Pretty much. I’d translate this exchange as:
“How do you know I’m not a witch?”
“I just do.” (なんとなく)
「まっ、つまらないこと。
“Well, that’s boring.” As in, Kiki’s explanation is boring. Mrs. Sono was hoping for a more exciting reason than “I just know.”
So… she’s saying that she’d never heard a story about her grandmother or any female ancestor being a witch? It makes sense, but seems like an odd thing to say. Makes me wonder if I’ve missed it completely.
She’s saying that if she had a family legend about an ancestress who was a witch, then maybe she’d have a chance of being one too. But there’s no such legend, so she’s out of luck. She’s going to have to stick to baking.
So I just read the part with Kiki meeting Osono-san. I found it particularly funny when Kiki forgot her manners and said 「わー、やったあっ」as if talking to a friend.
It was mostly an easy dialog, except for one short part on page 55 of the blue book that I’m not entirely sure of.
「魔女だろうが、かかしだろうが、飛ぼうが、泳ごうが、あたしはかまいませんよ。」
So I gather from the previous sentence (Osono-san shaking her head) and this sentence that Osono-san is flustered and confused by Kiki’s explanation that she’s going to fly on her broom. So with this in mind, I think this sentence not quite making sense is probably the point.
The only meaning I can find for かかし is “scarecrow”. So I would translate the whole sentence as:
“It seems there’s witches… it seems there’s scarecrows… flying… swimming… I don’t mind.”
So here are my questions:
- Is my statement about the sentence being intentionally confusing correct?
- Is “scarecrow” for かかし right or does someone else have a better idea? It seems reasonable in this context, but it can’t hurt to double check.
- Does anyone have an alternate translation, specifically with the だろうs and the がs?
There is another meaning for かかし which my dictionary gave as “figurehead” — which I think really means “person who says they’re something but they’re really just posing/pretending” (maybe “poser” would be better in modern slang).
And I read だろうが in this context as “maybe…”
So she’s saying: “Maybe you’re a witch, maybe you’re a poser, maybe you’ll fly, maybe you’ll swim, I don’t care.” (And then goes on to say that the important thing is that the pacifier gets delivered.)
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Basically shes saying, “i dont care if your a witch or a scarecrow, if you can fly or you can swim”
another sentence would be like
わにかに勉強してるだろうが日本人だろうが俺は構いませんよ （日本語話せてたら話してあげる）。
It doesn’t matter to me if you are studying wanikani or if you are a Japanese person.
If you can speak Japanese I’ll talk with you.
I think “scarecrow” is right in this sense, its supposed to be absurd, like “i don’t care if you are the Queen of England as long as the dummy gets delivered.”
Is basically what shes saying.
In that sense I don’t think you need to get particularity hung up on what かかし means.
Also, in this case, “Figure head” is incredibly vague.
Google image search only brings up scarecrows.
Also for completeness Wikipedia.
I looked かかし up on a Japanese only dictionary and both “scarecrow” and “figurehead” seem like reasonable English translations. A figurehead is like a person in a position of power who doesn’t actually have any power, which isn’t exactly an easy meaning to show on Google images.
Anyway, I agree that the specific meaning doesn’t matter much since it’s supposed to be ridiculous, I was just curious. Thanks for your help!
Yea, I checked this.
It seems like you are right, its essentially a poser.
A person who is only concerned with their position or appearance.
I’m not sure figure head is necessarily the closest meaning.
The Queen has quite a lot of power (there was even a case in the 80s where she dissolved Australian parliament over a budget gridlock, and that’s a different country).
Anyway, the だろが is basically “even if”
トラムプ大統領だろうがお辞儀はしますよね
Even if you are president Trump, you will still bow wont you?
The
なになに・だろうが・なになに・だろうが~
Is a popular grammar point which is basically just
“I don’t care if you are the Queen of England ~”
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Thanks, that’s exactly what I wanted to know. I’ll look it up later.
やった！ It was a very long chapter, but I finally finished it. It was a very exciting one, too. I hope someday I can curl up with this book and just enjoy it, reading a chapter like this in one sitting, without having to look up words all the time. 
Anyway, I do have one last question. On the last page of the chapter (p. 70 red book), Kiki says to Jiji:
あたしね、もうすこしこの町にいようかと思ってるの。
I don’t understand that いようか part int he middle. “Tomorrow, I’m thinking we will ?!? in this town a little more”?