魔女の宅急便 (Kiki's Delivery Service) Discussion Thread: Chapter 1

Thanks to the coronavirus I only got my book just now :roll_eyes: I will try to catch up asap! :muscle:t3:

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「台所からは、ちょうど居間の正面の壁が見えますが、どこの家でも見られるような絵や写真の代わりに、木の枝を束ねたほうきが、大きいのと小さいのと、二本ならべてかざってあるのが、ちょっと変わっているといえましょうか。」

This sentence broke my brain. Thanks to @LucasDesu’s explanation I get the meaning of it, but the がs still puzzle me a bit.

ちょうど居間の正面の壁がみえますが、
This is a ‘but’ が.

木の枝をたばねたほうきが、
Is this a subject が with an implied みえる?

二本ならべてかざってあるのが、
A subject が, where の nominalises the preceding bit? What is the implied verb? Or does it somehow function as the direct object of いえましょう?

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Wouldn’t necessarily translate it with but. Think of it more as a sentence connector.

Nope. No implied みえる. The sentence is 木の枝を束ねたほうきが […] 二本ならべてかざってある
with 大きいのと小さいのと embedded to describe it in more detail.

This が is just a connector to the next sentence and doesn’t mark any subject. The の has the explanatory function here.

Hope this helps to brake down the sentence.

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About this sentence, I was wondering why it is なりかけ (masu-stem) + でした? Is this a particular grammar point I am unfamiliar with?

The so-called “masu-stem” of a verb is actually a noun, see Polite Form and Verb Stems – Learn Japanese .

Therefore, this here is just the ordinary N + です grammar (in past tense).

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Omg this changes everything! How exciting :grin:

Why would one choose to use this instead of just past tense なりかけた?

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Disclaimer: My response here a “maybe this is it?”, and I’ll be quick to defer to anyone who says I’m wrong and explains it correctly.

I think it’s like the difference between:

  • Because I was thirsty, I drank water.
  • It’s because I was thirsty that I drank water.

Closer to the story’s line:

  • Because I was becoming a bit mature, I was distracted while flying.
  • It’s because I was becoming a bit more mature that I was distracted while flying.

I can’t really put an explanation into words, but it’s the difference in type of sentence (subject is noun VS subject does verb). Maybe it’s that it’s more explanatory? (Maybe it’s more explanatory?)

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@Radish8 It seems I can’t change my status in the poll. Is there a setting you could change to fix that?

Just finished chapter 1. Just a couple months late xD

Big shout out to the people who make the vocab sheet though. Makes reading through stuff so much more enjoyable. Feels good to finally finish a chapter and this thread helped a lot with some specific sentences.

Now let’s see if I can catch up :smiley:

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I just finished Ch.1 today aswell! I was really surprised by how much stuff is in that vocab sheet.

As for catching up, if you read 4 pages per day, it would be possible to finish in time with the others, which doesn’t seem like a huge amount. i say that now at the beginning haha

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I finally started reading this book and I’m so glad I did! I was not expecting to learn in the first chapter that Kiki’s really good at flying, but just very distractable, and one time crashed because she was thinking about the fact that she was wearing lacy underwear for the first time! I have a good feeling about this book. :blush:

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