I did my daily two pages of よつばと！
——— 20 ———
あっした からー なっつ やっす みー
(Singsong) the summer holiday starts tomorrow.
——— 21 ———
誰かな？
Who is that?
この辺じゃ見ない子だ
I haven’t seen this kid in the area before.
なんかかわつた… 外国の子…？
She’s a little strange… is she a foreign kid…?
それに… なにしてんだろう…
Besides… what is she doing…?
——— end ———
There wasn’t much text and (with the exception of なんかかわつた) I could read it without aid (well, if I didn’t make any mistakes) 
That feels nice 
I’m sure you did great! I will be starting in a little while I hope 
Some manga make this really difficult to distinguish but this a small っ.
The word is from 変わる, which when written as 変わった or 変わっている, it has a meaning of 「ちょっと違う」 (a little different) or 「変な」 (odd, strange). (It sounds like you made it to the correct meaning, though!)
I wish I read yours before I finished mine… I think I mistakenly thought the bubbles in box 4 on page 21 were Yotsuba’s thoughts, but I guess they were a continuation of the older girl?? Makes sense! I still get confused by that since I am so new to Manga…
If the bubbles don’t “point” to anyone in the panel then it usually means they should be attributed to someone outside of the panel (or someone in the panel that it would be impractical to “point” to).
Okay! This will undoubtedly get me further along at least in terms of context and how I’m ultimately able to interpret what is happening Thank you!
I read three pages of と！ today. I struggled a bit with the instructions for using a swing by yourself, so if anyone could comment on my attempt at understanding it I’d be grateful
——— 22 ———
わっきた
Ugh, she’s coming
なーあれなんだー？
What’s that?
え？
Eh?
あれって…
“That” you say…
ブランコのこと？
Are you asking about the swing?
(That the word for swing seems to be plank had me puzzled for a while)
——— 23 ———
こう、こうやってあそぶの
Like this, this is how you play on it
おおーっ、やる！やる！よつばもやる‼︎
Ooooh!! Me too! Me too! Yotsuba also wants to do it!!
はい
Yes
おして おして‼︎
Push push!!
はいはい
Yes yes 
——— 24 ———
自分で反動っけたら動くから
(Maybe:) It will move in reaction to you kicking your feet/You can make it move by kicking
(I’m not sure if I parsed this correctly, or even if it’s つ or っ)
それじゃあね
Well, see you~
——— end ———
Further plans for today:
Great job!
Eek 3 pages, I hope I have the mental energy to keep up with you!!
Ah, I did three again because one of the pages had very little text/grammar. I think all three pages together have less text than some of the pages we have read previously, so hopefully you should be fine😊
But if I’m going too fast just say so and I’ll slow down👍
Okay good to know! I don’t think it would be the end of the world if you got a little ahead of me either, but I’d like to stay on pace with you if I can! My understanding of grammar is so minimal at this point it is definitely a struggle for me. I’m going to try to not use ichi.moe as much and “pick out” vocab as best I can, Jisho kanji, and see if that helps at all. Also reading the bubbles correctly
Tell you what, if I feel like reading more manga I’ll start reading からかい上手の高木さん in parallel🙃 But if I have that kind of energy/motivation I think I should probably channel it into listening somehow.
Or university… but
That’s also why we’re attempting this at our level, right? To encounter, learn, and reinforce vocab and grammar in context while having fun. So please don’t be discouraged, the grammar probably stays at the same level throughout the series, so we’ll hopefully notice it getting easier and easier chapter by chapter, or at least volume by volume as we improve 
Yeah, it’s great practice! I think our brains are more likely to remember information when it has a go at interpreting things first, rather than getting the answers handed to it (to some degree) to begin with.
Yes, correct! I just always get frustrated with my trial and error approach until I actually feel like I get some sort of “method” down that works for me. I hope the grammar stays at the same level. I should probably start looking in to inputting my own grammar into Torii.
And when I don’t feel like a slug! Yesterday was better but today I’m down again + snow storm. Blech! 
I found the series started getting “easier” around volume three, but I had been reading some other manga before I seriously jumped into reading Yotsuba.
Ah, I hope you’ll feel better soon. Don’t push yourself.
Personally I find snowstorms cozy (I’m from Northern Norway so maybe it’s just a mental defense mechanism:p). Sitting inside with a hot drink is at least five times better when there’s a snowstorm 
I usually find them cozy too! It’s just my not feeling so great + my apartment being dark. I like the feeling that “most people” are at home right now like I always am 
Wohoo! Thank you for the token!!! I’ve been slackin’ with my likes lately, I still have 86 and it’s early in the day! Perhaps I will raid the poll thread before bed 
I suspect given my low low level that I’ll be seeing some improvements in compression before the end of this volume🙃
Not sure if you started 
yet! I actually remembered to look ahead to see the amount of text, and I’m wondering: perhaps 25, 26, 27 (no text) and 28 today? Just seems fairly doable to me 
I’ll look at it in a bit, have to catch a bus now:)
I went ahead and read 25-28, and it went by fairly quickly! Even though 29 seems short, all the “weird font” text intimidates me 
すくぱんぱん “suku pan pan” is just the sound of brushing down and patting sand off ’s shorts. びゃん “byan” is a sound that indicates fast acceleration:)
I haven’t started translating yet, but I did read through the rest of the chapter and felt I was able to understand about 80% of the remaining text without looking anything up, so it’s definitely easier than the start of the chapter 
I’m also already encountering vocab from the Anki deck so this has me feeling super motivated 
