OK, this is driving me nuts today. In English stories, the text describing who says something, and the quote of what they said, is generally in the same paragraph. The nonquoted text may come before or after the quote, or even in the middle — in no case is there any ambiguity, because of the paragraph grouping, and the use of a comma instead of a period at the end of the quote.
“You’re quite right, of course,” admitted Pooh.
…or…
Piglet jumped for joy. “Hooray!”
But in Japanese, it appears that a quote must always be a paragraph all by itself. And the text explaining who or what must be in a separate paragraph, which may come before or after it. All this leaves me very confused sometimes as to who’s saying what.
Today, I’m on page 78 (red book), and this exchange begins:
「あたし、悲しいわ。どうして魔女は悪いことをするって決めちゃうの?」
「知らないからだよ。しょうがないよ」
ジジが大人ぶっていいました。
「ほんとうなの、知らないのよね。•••
…and there follows seven more unidentified quotes, so if you screw up the part above, you misunderstand the whole conversation.
Now sure, there are clues: use of あたし in the first line suggests that it’s either Kiki or Sono (who in the line before had just sat down). The third line says that Jiji said something, and from what I’ve seen could refer to either the second or the 4th, but probably the second, which means the 4th is Kiki, and then we alternate between Kiki and Jiji after that (implying that the first line was Kiki rather than Sono).
But jeez — I’m used to Japanese being simpler than English. But this style of writing speech in text makes it all very much harder than it should be. Why can’t they just put the “so-and-so said” in the same paragraph as the quote, so there’s no ambiguity? Yes, I’m whining now. Thanks for listening.