Well hopefully there’s more to it than just “experience” because that leaves me stranded 
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I did some research and terminal form = dictionary form:
- Terminal form (終止形 shuushikei ) is used at the ends of clauses in predicate positions. This form is also variously known as plain form (基本形 kihonkei ) or dictionary form (辞書形 jishokei ).
Ok, I’m back. Sorry for leaving you hanging with so many questions: I needed to cook something. Anyway, so…
Yup, but I’m saying that R sounds can be turned into ん. They’re not the only ones, and you already know, for example, that のだ→んだ is common.
What I meant to say was that やっているのだ is made up of 「やっている」and「のだ」, and that each of them is transformed into something else. やっている becomes やってる, and のだ becomes んだ. Those abbreviations are then combined. I’m not claiming that this is exactly how the new sounds came about: I’m just trying to give you a way to think about the transformation process.
It’s very common in informal Japanese. My friend drops the い in ている all the time when we text each other. The reason it’s acceptable is that the long E sound in Japanese is written えい, so dropping the い gives you exactly the same sound, just a bit shorter.
I’m sorry about all the technical terms. Thanks for telling me that you’d prefer to do without them. I’ll try to make the explanation as simple as I can.
That’s how I understand it.
Hm… for a verb, yes. I was trying to give you something general that worked for all the types of words that can come before のだ. In that case, a ‘terminal form’ would be ‘a form that you can find at the end of a sentence’. I’ll be more illustrative by providing correct and incorrect examples (in that order):
Verb
するのだ、食べるのだ、しないのだ、食べないのだ
しのだ、してのだ、食べのだ、食べてのだ、食べなくてのだ
い-Adjective
いいのだ、古いのだ、よくないのだ、古くないのだ
よくのだ、古くのだ、よくなくてのだ、よくなくのだ、古くなくのだ
な-Adjective
好きなのだ、好きではないのだ (な and ではない are the ‘copula’ I was talking about. They respectively mean ‘to be’ and ‘not to be’.)
好きのだ、好きではなくのだ、好きではなくてのだ
Noun
犬なのだ、犬ではないのだ
犬のだ、犬ではなくのだ、犬ではなくてのだ
The noun section is basically the same as the な-adjective section. Note that 犬のだ is not grammatically wrong, but it would mean ‘it’s the dog’s (thing)’, which doesn’t mean the same thing as the のだ structure at all.
Finally,
I don’t know, honestly. It’s just a pattern I’ve picked up, but it may not apply to everything, and I’ve only seen it for ら and る so far. I find it hard to imagine for り、れ or ろ. I think it can only happen when similar vowels are present around the R syllable (e.g. in わからない, there’s a kA before the rA, and a nA after), and it probably also only happens near an N sound like な or ん. The exception to this ‘common vowel’ idea is る, because the U sound in Japanese is extremely small, so it’s easy for る to be reduced to ん. It’s like how the E in ‘the’ in English is almost inaudible in front of a consonant.
Hope that clears things up. 
Puh-leeze!! @sansarret, you can (and should!) absolutely join in and translate a sentence–no matter your level. I had no Japanese before last April, when I started on Duolingo! I just hand-write my entire sentence into Google translate (until the kanji is correct) and then pick everything apart from there! That’s where I am pulling the on-kun- readings from. The other guys prefer Jisho.
Shannon blah blah blah like she do
I’m jumping in with both feet, because I will be going to Japan to live for a while, and LIFE doesn’t come with furigana! It’ll just be me and my phone with a local (non-internet) copy of Google translate.
I do NOT take it personally when absolutely everything that I did with my sentence gets “corrected”. I don’t feel “raked-over” by Jonapedia/YanagiPablo today, I feel enlightened! And ever- so-grateful.
When I read on my own, I do “good enough” (with discomfort). I found this group to be responsive and informative. I was staring at those の’s and moving the related units around like building blocks for 20 minutes last night! I was looking at that “no more than” and going up and down the sentence looking for a target and trying to make it fit for AGES! When Jonapedia said that… Everything clicked!
I advise “doing a sentence” instead of lurking, because when you actually are forced to publicly state your rationale…you learn/absorb better (IMHO). (why we are doing this instead of merely going to the translated manga)
I joined another book club, too, since I own that manga and was reading it home alone. Most of the book clubs are running in a nice, legal way that supports the sale of books without getting close to offending copyrights, IMHO. As you can see, Zizka’s thread is different. Zizka selected this manga because the author put it on the internet and specifically invited people to read and share it online for free. So although we are putting up the pictures and discussing every sentence in what is clearly an academic discussion, we are not endangering the forum. We appreciate that booksellers want to earn money from selling books used in classes and book clubs also!
We don’t have an ongoing vocabulary sheet, because we haven’t already, and it’s helpful to not have to be flipping back and forth, anyway. One of us “takes the hit” for all and shares directly.
Here comes the pressure (ha ha): technically @sansarret, you are already a “posting member” now, so… WELCOME!! I look forward to your post on the May 1 thread. 
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You know how in English, people will rarely say “going to” because it’s awkward to say and substitute to “gonna”. The word is transformed when it gets to oral to facilitate communication and make it more comfortable to say. I assume it’s the same thing for ~てる/ている, it’s strictly speaking (no pun intended) a colloquial thing.
As a learner, I was asking how I can pick up on those colloquial things, to see them so I don’t misunderstand written text.
I’m sorry about all the technical terms. Thanks for telling me that you’d prefer to do without them.
No apologies are necessary, you’re just trying your best to use the right terminology, most precise term. I’d like to develop further about this as it relates to teaching languages and that happens to be my job. The following is just my opinion and personal beliefs, they are not facts.
I think that as language teachers (I prefer language facilitators since it’s closest to what a teacher is in my conception of things) the most challenging part is to vulgarisent i.e. abstain from using what is the most precise word for an alternative which, while not as precise, is easier to understand. If I ask you a question, I would just use what’s precise (non-vulgarised) because you know more than I do and that language is easily accessible for you.
But when it’s the other way around, I think vulgarisation gives the best result.
Here’s an example from Wikipedia:
Japanese is a synthetic language with a regular agglutinative subject-object-verb (SOV) morphology, with both productive and fixed elements
It’s a precise definition but it’s in no way vulgarised. As a learning device, I find a definition like that sterile. There’s so much jargon that in order to understand what it means, you’d need to read other wiki pages which stem to other pages, etc… Accuracy is sacrificed for accessibility.
This is something common to university cliques and texts. There’s a certain decorum and most importantly, a certain public targeted for the texts being written. It’s like reading Nietzsche, each sentence is so dense, you need to really, really focus to understand what he is trying to say. His goal wasn’t to be understood first, he wanted to translate his ideas as accurately as possible.
I don’t want to talk for others, but I’d say I’m an advanced beginner if I were to need to categorise myself. If I ask a question about something and the answer is:
Japanese is a synthetic language with a regular agglutinative subject-object-verb (SOV) morphology, with both productive and fixed elements
…there’s no point. Which is why I bring the necessity to change lexicon depending on what the goal is. Something can explained as a scholar or as a teacher. I find both are often mutually exclusive when it comes to dealing with beginners.
To vulgarise is the greatest challenge of teaching. You need to convey an idea in the most approachable fashion without sacrificing meaning or misleading. To explain something difficult is one thing, to simplify something complex is truly masterful and, for me, an astonishing feat. To simplify something to the point where you can’t go further without changing its nature. 5ats the beauty of teaching, when raw information has been processed to the point where it’s easily accessible to all and it leaves obscurity to become knowledge accessible to all. This is why a good scholar doesn’t make a good teacher, I’d go as far as saying that they’re unrelated.
Another disadvantage of using a very technical language is that it discourages questions being asked. People want to protect their language ego and would rather not say anything than come across as stupid or dumb. We have a problem with these threads with participation. Very few people participate. I’ve tried to constantly improve the methodology and @YanagiPablo’s edit have helped towards that to make the exercise more accessible. A member, @sansarret, just now said: “I don’t participate because I can’t read that level”… but they could with some help. I feel that at that moment we’re giving the impression that there’s a high level of entry here when anyone could learn something according to their level.
I’d be really interested and keen your vulgarisation. I think we can learn a lot from you, provided you communicate what you know in a way which makes it easy (easier) to approach it .
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Yes, I would say it’s more that your club appeared somewhat out of nowhere for us, and you were already partway through ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ you’re much less likely to get people jumping in halfway than you are to get them interested from the start, particularly in a community where there are plenty of opportunities to choose from. Nobody here turns their noses up at a good book club 
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You bring a good point and I was suspecting as such. I suppose you were talking in rhetorics when you said we were halfway through (as in not literally halfway through) but still:
There are 127 episodes in the story and we’re at volume 3. So we’re about at 2% as opposed to 50%. So we’re really just beginning.
I mean, I solicited some tutors so I’m still learning daily. I’d like to help others to learn too I guess. I think a lot of people are passing a good opportunity to learn with knowledgeable tutors. It’s also free with no need to spend a dime.
@YanagiPablo has also organised and written a summary for everything that’s happened so far to make it easier for anyone to drop in.
Maybe there’s also the barrier of the time it takes. Transcribing does take time and analysing each transcription is time consuming too.
But hey, I’m much better at understanding languages than I am at understanding people so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
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I’m humbled by the fact that you took so much effort to explain the importance of vulgarisation to me. I have to admit that I do have a tendency to learn knowledge from the ‘scholarly’ end of the spectrum, perhaps because I find that the terminology, as you said, helps me to organise my thoughts. In addition, in primary school, I was taught the basics of formal grammar pretty early, and I learnt even more terms when I learnt French (because everyone I know teaches French with tons of technical terms), so I suppose I’m rather used to them.
As a language student, I quite frequently spent time explaining grammatical ideas to classmates, and they often told me they found it useful, but it’s always easier to adapt your explanations to someone you’re talking to in real time, and I’m aware that my explanations tend to be very detailed, and potentially quite technical. I admittedly prefer using technical terms where possible, but I’m prepared to simplify/vulgarise, especially if someone is unfamiliar with the terms I’m using or doesn’t understand them, so I appreciate your feedback. I’ll try to explain things in plain language then, even if that doesn’t always come naturally to me, and I will probably use some technical terms when I can’t find plain words that make sense (I’ll try to explain them though).
I have a friend who, like you, is probably going to start living in Japan some time within the next two years, and she’s going to start learning Japanese soon. I’ll be sure to share your experiences with her, since she might find that ‘jumping in with both feet’ helps her learn more! Either way though, well done for all the effort you’ve put in up to now. You’ve come really far.
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It isn’t very clear, but I think the furigana is くわざわ.
That is indeed how I would have read it instinctively; but I see that くわさわ exists also… is this some regional variation ?
EDIT: argh, maybe that “instinctive” reading is actually influenced by French pronunciation… I thought that 黒沢 was くろざわ … but that is just the French pronunciation of “Kurosawa”…
The Japanese dictionary I have on my computer says 沢 is pronounced さわ in both cases (the dictionary has surnames in it as well), so it’s 黒沢=Kurosawa and 桑沢=Kuwasawa. I agree that it looks like くわ ざ わ because there seems to be a little knob on the さ, but apparently that’s not how it’s pronounced.
I’ll handle H/チ so we can all move on to the May 1st page:
H/チ
ええ……お まじない の よう な もの です
yes [respectful particle] spell/charm ['s] manner/appearance [na-adjective particle] thing be-polite
Yes... it's something like a spell.
ええ is a slightly less formal equivalent of はい. It can also express surprise, joy, happiness, anger or other strong emotions.
I think まじない is the only difficult word here. It means ‘spell’ or ‘charm’. The お in front just makes the word slightly more polite.
AのようなB means ‘a B that is like A’, with よう marking a similarity that is usually more than just visual. In this case, the similarity is probably a common association with mysterious feelings of well-being or with the idea of an instant cure for something.
もの is used because the IV drip is a physical object, and not an abstract action or concept.
I think that’s a wrap.
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Well, I don’t think it matters, sadly. I’ve been part of many of the book clubs on the forum in the past couple of years, and I’ve never really seen people join after the start. I does happen, but those occurrences are few and far between. You’ll probably get a few people dropping by once in a while, but that’s it. Don’t worry about it! You all are doing great, as far as I can see.
There’s that too. Also formatting and so on. Also, people not being confident in their skills. There’s nothing you can do about it, though, so there’s no need to worry 
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