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Yeah, go ahead and put “reading along”. I just didn’t add an option for being finished a chapter because I figured most people wouldn’t go back and update their status after finishing.
Is Akari left handed? I thought she might be from seeing her eat using the fork in her left hand. But I can’t figure out if you’d put your dominant hand at the top or bottom of the paddle for rowing… I feel like I’d want to put my dominant hand at the top, but would that decrease power or precision? Hmm…
searching for images of gondolas suggest that either gondoliers are predominantly left-handed, or you put your dominant hand lower down. As somebody who has punted before, I can confirm I put my dominant hand lower down the pole, and I feel like you would have less control if you tried to do it the other way round, though I’m not sure why.
The fork may be a cultural thing; I know people from the US tend to cut food and then transfer the fork to the right hand for eating, but in the UK you keep your fork in your left hand throughout. You’d only use the left if you were eating something that didn’t require a knife in the first place. It seems more likely the Japanese would follow the US custom, but I don’t know.
There’s two times (so far) in the chapter where it says (a variation of) 流される (passive of 流す). But in these contexts I’m not sure what nuance that would have over using 流れる. I often give the example 落ちる (“to fall”) and 落とされる (“to be dropped”) to demonstrate the difference between intransitive and passive transitive. But I don’t know enough about 流れる and 流す to really be able to differentiate in this case. My best guess is that 流れる simply means “to drift” whereas 流される means “to be set adrift”, perhaps implying that you are being set adrift by the current or something, instead of just drifting naturally.
The lines are on pages 61 and 66.
Page 61: 灯里ちゃーん流されているわよー
Page 66: アリア社長が流されてるー⁉
This chapter was cute and it was easier than the first one. I thought the last few pages were kind of funny, particularly reading Aika’s train of thought as she’s deciding whether or not to become friends with Akari. Also, on the next page, when Akari is thinking 友達もできたし, with the handwritten text underneath that says ちょっと変わってるけど. That got me to laugh out loud a bit.
This was just my quick read through, only looking up a few words. I’ll do a re-read later in the week where I’ll look up all the words I don’t know.
Could you also think of it as ‘to drift’ vs ‘to be drifted’? That sounds a little less forceful to me than ‘set adrift’, which makes me think of somebody pushing you off in the first instance, rather than the continuing action of drifting. “I drifted down the stream” vs “I was drifted out into the ocean by the current”, sort of thing.
I don’t think “to be drifted” or “I was drifted” is grammatically correct. I get what you’re saying though, and I’m not sure how I’d translate it in English to make clear that the (transitive) drifting is an ongoing action. I think in English I’d just use the the intransitive, even if it loses some of the nuance from the Japanese version.
I wonder if perhaps 流れる involves something which flows (like time or water) and 流される involves something which is taken along by the flow of something else (like a boat on the water)?
That is one meaning of 流れる according to jisho. You might be onto something with the distinction you’re making. Perhaps someone who has heard the words in context can confirm the difference.
Yes, I agree; I think the most natural thing to say in these circumstances in English would be the intransitive. My ‘to be drifted’ was an attempt to provide a direct English equivalent where one doesn’t really exist. You could alternatively think of the definition of the intransitive ‘to drift’, “to be carried along”, to provide the sense of passivity (and an implied agent). The president is being carried away!
I like @Kyasurin’s suggestion, but I wonder whether a boat could work with 流れる or 流される, or whether a boat could only ever work with 流される so, maybe a boat can drift or “be drifted”, but water can only drift? Where’s Nath when you need them…
I also seem to remember that the passive can be used to confer a greater sense of politeness, which might explain why the passive is being used if both are possible???
流れる = it’s just drifting, because noone tied it up.
流される = it’s being… uh… drifted away by the current. Floated away? Possibly part of the confusion here is that the possible translations for 流す in Japanese have subtly different meanings in English. Contrast 流す = the current is washing the boat away
