🍀よつばと！・ Yotsuba&! - Week 6

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Yotsubato
Yotsubato759×616 142 KB

We’re reading this as part of the Absolute Beginner Book Club

Week 6 August 15
End Page 52
Chapter 1
Home Thread :four_leaf_clover:よつばと！・ Yotsuba&! (Absolute Beginners Book Club) // Home Thread
Final Page

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Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current section(s) and any content in future sections.
  • When asking for help, please mention the volume and page number.
  • Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if they initially seem embarrassing. All of us are here to learn.
  • For the lurkers out there: Join the conversation; it’s fun!

Participation

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2

Plenty I needed to look up in the vocab sheet this week. But, in terms of grammar I think I got everything. Certainly had no trouble understanding what was going on, once I knew the vocabulary. Another funny few pages.

I love how あさぎ jumped at the opportunity to just punch her sister in the head :rofl:

Funny start to the book all round. I can’t believe it took that long for よつば to figure out that they actually live there now, though I do remember her saying ‘we’re where?’ I think it was in week 1, so clearly she didn’t really understand.

Anyway, definitely a fun intro to the series. I’ll read chapter 1 again tomorrow in full. See how much of it I can read and understand now without referring to the vocab sheet.

3

Woohoo, obligatory first complete chapter read in japanese celebratory post :tada::partying_face:.

I hope you all are having a great time and I also hope to see most of you in the current ongoing reading thread should volume 17 be released. 1 1/2 years since the last one, any time now… (copium)

Even if not all characters are introduced after the first volume, I’d appreciate a favorite character ranking when y’all are finished with volume 1. So many great characters.

4

I plotted a graph of the release dates of the first sixteen volumes, and extrapolated a line of best fit from that, and based on the trend, the next volume should be coming out January 5th, 2030. Give or take a month. :slightly_smiling_face: Unfortunately, the line of best fit is a polynomial, so it’s gonna be about six years until the volume after, and eight more for the following one. Then it blows up a bit from there.

5

Got some more translations. Hopefully I’ll be able to read a good portion of it.

Page 43

Hm?
…What?
Wah! Big sister Asagi!
This kid
Grab her
Yes yes, what happened little girl?
Help me!

Page 44

She’s a bad person!
Eh!?!?
Oh..?
Alright bad person, big sister will defeat you
I’m strong after all
Really!?
Punch!
Yowch!

Page 45

A..Amazing!!
Well? Who’s the kid?
I’m taking along the kid who moved next door
Is that?
Yotsuba?
Ah! Dad!
Ahh, you’ve brought along my daughter
Thank you very much!
No no, it was no problem at all

Page 46

But…
Ah, we’re sisters
Eldest child Asagi
I’m the next kid, Fuuka
The final kid is Ena

Page 47

Ah, well, I just moved in, I’m Koiwai
This is Yotsuba
Welcome Yotsuba!
Huh?
These big sisters are our neighbors, greet them properly
Neighbors?
I live here
Neighbors
?
?

Page 48

That’s wrong, Yotsuba’s house is way way
waaay far away
Ah!?
She didn’t understand at all!!
?
Listen and take a look
From today onwards, Yotsuba will be living in this new house

Page 49

Ahh!?
Here from today!?
And this is our house
Aaaa
Dad! They’re our neighbors!!
Yes, they’re the neighbors (I’m assuming dad said this as kanji was used lol)

Page 50

Well, nice to meet you
Nice to meet you
Nice to meet you
Nice to met you!!
Does this mean that this big sister isn’t a bad person?
huh?
Don’t worry about it

Alright, hopefully I did well. Only had a page or two without help though.

6

This finally feels like a big achievement. Did not think I was going to last and its starting to get more easier.. I’m glad I joined this group..

7

Chapter 1 is finally complete! Feels to good to reach this point - I’ve been keeping up each week and noticing progress in my reading skills as my studies continue. :four_leaf_clover:

A couple of questions came up for me this week as I was reading and I’m hoping someone will be able to help me out!

Question on Page 45

I don’t understand どうも or how to use it. Dad is saying thank you (for bringing よつば back home). I tried to google a definition and I’m seeing “Thanks”, “Cheers”, “Hello”, “Sorry”, “Excuse me”, “Very” or “Somehow” as meanings. It seems like a common word that will come up more in other media too… If anyone has a better explanation, I would be so appreciative.

Question on Page 50

I know of よろしくお願いします and that よろしく can be translated as “nice to meet you” but I’m not sure what the differences here are - or when to use each:

  • よろしく
  • よろしくね
  • よろしくー
  • よろしくな
8
Page 45

どうもありがとう is a semi casual thanks. どうも is technically a “much / very / quite” kind of adverb. ありがとう is actually the word for thanks. どうも is used on its own as short casual thanks. There are a bunch of ways to say thanks, but with どうも it goes up to どうも ありがとう ございます as a more polite thank you very much.

From what I’ve seen ありがとう or ありがとう ございます are the more common casual / semi casual ways to say thank you. But ya, you’ll see どうも on its own at some point, too.

Page 50

I think these are all just variations of よろしく, which is a “nice to meet you” / “pleased to meet you” kind of greeting. The ね / な ones should be the sentence ending particles. The - is dragging out the vowel. They’re all just ways they are adding slight variation to the greeting.

9
Page 50

It’s interesting that the older girls use the softer ね while Yotsuba uses the rougher な, which (to me) is just another example of her in-your-face way of speaking. よろしく- with the extended final sound that Ena uses might possibly have a more childlike vibe, but doesn’t Dad use that too?

I guess it’s just more nuances that native speakers pick up unconsciously, but I can only speculate about.

10

どうも, どうぞ and すみません are the three words that will get you through almost any social situation known to man. :slightly_smiling_face:

11

i’m starting to understand why this is highly recommended for beginners. i’ve dipped into reading some other things, and–even though there are stretches in よつばと！ where i don’t understand a line here or there–it’s much easier to understand overall what’s going on than with other things i’ve dipped into.

12

Rushed through it because there just is not time otherwise this week - glad it’s so easy to understand! I think this pace is great for someone like me who is pressed for time constantly, at the very least I can squeeze in 5 to 10 minutes a week to read something funny.

I love how absent minded and quick to switch topics Yotsuba is, really captures what it’s like to watch children interact with the world. Some comments I saw in these threads also had some great insights that made me think “man, looking at the world through the eyes of a child really shows it in a new light”. Like yes, you’re right Yotsuba, that’s a stranger, running from them makes sense! Yes, that’s a strange contraption on the playground (which maybe a more rural place wouldn’t have had) and you’ve never seen anyone use it, so it’s a mystery!

As I’ve read the English version before I remember the hike she went on and how her enthusiasm made me look at going for a walk completely differently. I certainly went on way more walks since then…

13

Finally got around to reading this part. Again, it wasn’t too hard, and although I did have to read the vocab sheet a few times, I understood most of the words.

Although I know this happens every book club, I find it funny that we went from 123 people in the first week, to 97, then 68, and after a few weeks 40. I hope that maybe some people will join again, even if they thought the first couple of weeks were a bit hard, because it seems like the rest of the weeks (at least so far) are much easier.

14

This is normal in pretty much everything. By the end of it, there will be a small, but dedicated group that sticks around to the end. There’s nothing wrong with leaving early, though. If they’re anything like I was when I first tried to read Yotsuba, they quickly realize what else they need to learn before they can start reading manga. In my case, it was grammar. I found that I was looking up words I already knew, but didn’t recognize because they weren’t in their typical dictionary form.

I stopped for a few months and came back after learning some basic grammar, and it was much easier the next time around. At this point, my biggest problem is the fact that I don’t know very many kana-only words, since WaniKani doesn’t usually teach those, and it’s my main source of vocabulary. I need to read more casual manga or pick up Kaishi 1.5k again so I can learn the most common ones, but I haven’t got around to it yet.

15

This got me thinking, “I should put together a page with different ways of saying thanks, all with manga examples.”

I had ChatGPT get me an initial list and verbiage, then I made changes and updates and added words (the AI-parts are recognizable for those familiar with how it writes), and put in example after example. Not enough to have an example on everything, but after putting maybe eight hours of work into the page across Sunday and Monday, I was ready to upload the result:

16

I’ve read all of Yotsuba& in English, and reading it for this club was actually the first time I realized her name means four-leaf clover, and her hair is a four-leaf clover lol

17

Ya, I’d agree with those usages and views on them. I’d say the long sounds are kind of just another way to soften things, though. Like people drawing out “hey” when they meet a friend or something.. “heey, been a while..” etc in a bit more of an exaggerated way. Fuuka’s な may be doubling as a bit of a prompting type end to that greeting, too.. given how Yotsuba thinks she is evil, lol.

I think about that nuance type stuff every so often and how changing words, tone, politeness, etc can change the perception. So many little things in a first language that go into how things are worded that I’ll be missing in studied languages. I imagine at some point language learners get to that fluent level of understanding nuance, but I expect that will be one of the later things that clicks

Ya, all really common. When I was making my post I stopped and was like “どうも may actually be more popular..” but with just general speech outside of friends or media type stuff I think semi casual ありがとう is still used more. I could be wrong, of course, and politeness is fuzzy in any language anyway.

18

Yeah I noticed that too. Made me a little sad actually.

19

Woohoo, first chapter done!! The dad really is a bit of a mess, isn’t he?! The question I have is whether it’s Yotsuba not being the type to listen, him not telling her about the move, or both…

Here are my translations for the week. Something I’ve been thinking about through doing these full translations is all the little nuances I don’t capture when translating, like the subtly different よろしく endings, some of the ambiguities, and their use (or lack thereof) of kanji in the dialog bubbles. It makes me more motivated to learn the language so I can reread all the manga I’ve only read in English to see what nuances are lost in translation!

Page 43

Yotsuba: Help meee!
Asagi: Hm?
Asagi: …What?
Fuuka: Ah! Big sister Asagi!
Fuuka: That kid!
Fuuka: Get her!
Asagi: Sure.
Asagi: What’s the matter, little girl?
Yotsuba: H-help me!

Page 44

Yotsuba: I got caught by a bad person!!
Fuuka: What?!
Asagi: Hmmm…
Asagi: Right then, big sis will beat up the bad person for you.
Asagi: Because big sis is strong, right?
Yotsuba: Really?!
Asagi: Bam!
Fuuka: Ow?!

Page 45

Yotsuba: A… Amazing!! You’re strong!!
Asagi: Now then, what is it? Who’s this kid?
Fuuka: I’m taking the kid who is moving in next door.
Dad: Huh? Yotsuba?
Yotsuba: Ah! It’s Daddy!!
Dad: Ah, you brought her back for me, didn’t you?
Dad: Thank you so much.
Asagi: No, no, I didn’t do anything important at all.
Ena: Hi everyone, I’m home…

Page 46

Dad: Well…
Fuuka: Ah, this is my younger and older sister.
Fuuka: This is Asagi, the eldest daughter.
Fuuka: I’m Fuuka, the second daughter.
Fuuka: And this is Ena, the youngest.
Ena: Nice to meet you…

Page 47

Dad: Ah, um, we’re the Koiwai family, we’re moving in.
Dad: Nice to meet you.
Dad: This is Yotsuba.
Fuuka: Nice to meet you, Yotsuba!
Yotsuba: Huh?
Dad: These girls are our neighours. Please greet them properly.
Yotsuba: Neighbours?
Fuuka: That’s right. Our house is there. We’re your neighbours.
Yotsuba: ?
Dad: ?

Page 48

Yotsuba: That’s wrong, right? My house is really really faaaar far away, right?
Dad: Ah!! She didn’t understand anything!!
Yotsuba: ?
Dad: …Listen! Look here. This, from today, is the new house you will live in!

Page 49

Yotsuba: Ohhhh?!
Yotsuba: From today, here?!
Yuuka: And, this place is our house.
Yotsuba: Oh!
Yotsuba: Daddy! They’re our neighbours!!
Dad: That’s right. They’re our neighbours.

Page 50

Fuuka: Well then, it’s nice to meet you, Yotsuba.
Asagi: Nice to meet you.
Ena: Nice to meet you!
Yotsuba: Nice to meet you!!
Yotsuba: Then, that girl isn’t a bad person?
Dad: Huh?
Fuuka: No, not at all!