This is gonna be hard going for me (more like a puzzle, as mentioned above), but I’m gonna see it through. However, the vocabulary list is fanTASTIC. Thanks for putting that together!
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In addition to vocabulary, are there any grammar notes?
I feel like, as I’ve been studying for 4 years and have completed both Genki books (though rushed through the final chapters of each to push on to a new book), I’m sure most of the grammar will be at least familiar to me. However, sometimes it’s hard to break down longer sentences and track the subject and object and even verb tenses can get confusing when ran together like in the sentence above. Japanese does not always clarify these things as most speakers are very good at contextualizing the sentence themselves.
I think it’d be useful even as someone who took (and maybe passed) the N3 to have some kind of grammar guides in addition to vocabulary. I’d be willing to help out in making it, but I’m not a super high level or an authority so I’d only be able to contribute to more basic grammar patterns myself.
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It really is an amazing tool and a great idea. I hope this club and maybe future clubs can pool their knowledge to make grammar notebooks, too.
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In general this happens with every book club, everyone wants a list of all the vocab and all the grammar. Generally, there is no grammar list created and the forums are used to post/answer any grammar related (or any for that matter)…questions…Post them up!
Don’t be shy… I only know of one book club that created a grammar list and I don’t know how that went…ultimately it is up to the 社長 who is in charge of this club if they choose to create something like this…
In the meantime…post up any questions you have, you’ll likely get an answer within an hour if not within a few minutes. The upside awesome part is then the next person that comes along this week or 6 months from now can find it later. 
plus it makes the forums more lively and engaging…no matter how silly a question it is…you won’t be the only one that has that question…don’t be shy and post… just don’t go searching my old book club posts cuz I’ve absolutely never asked dumb questions in a book club before… stupid internet saving everything… 
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I think all grammar discussions can simply happen in the discussion threads. it’s simply better. The thing with vocab sheets is that it’s a collective effort, but it’s not supervised in any way as to what gets put in there.
There are instructions to not put wrong stuff in there, but things can still get a bit confusing at times.
I think this goes double for grammar! I’m honestly wondering if a grammar sheet would even work!
In any case, it makes more sense to me to just discuss grammar and reading interpretations in the threads, when you happen upon something you have trouble reading. That’s what this club is for after all.
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Probably a dumb question but does な after a verb denote some sort of negative or that something doesn’t happen?
I was confused with the following sentence:
デスノートを使った人間が天国や地獄に行けると思うな
Pretty sure this is talking about what Ryuk thinks happens to humans who use the death note and where they end up. But based on the other stuff on the page, it sounds like this would be a bad thing and he would be saying he doesn’t think they can go to either place. So I’m guessing the な at the end is what indicates that?
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な after the plain form of a verb is the informal negative imperative. So 思うな means “don’t think!”
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Some of the very first ones I have problem translating…
- つーか おめー 死神大王騙くらかして二冊持ってたじゃねーか二冊共落としたのかよ？
- How many death notes does Ryuk have?
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2, of which 1 he wrote rules in and dropped into the human realm.
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OMG I can’t believe I can understand like 90% of Deathnote!!!
I’ve read Deathnote in Thai before when I was a teenager so it certainly helps me understand the manga. But it still an impressive achivement in my Japanese learning.
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Actually, that ねんね is very problematic to me. It’s just not よこ and Furigana is too small to read.
Luckily, someone picked that up in Google Sheets.
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Just to avoid confusion (or add to it 
): that’s not always the case, right? な at the end of a sentence can express all kinds of things (Jisho link) and you have to determine from context which it is, I thought. (The strong negative command is a good one to know, though.)
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When you have the plain form of the verb it always means what omk3 described. The other na’s don’t come after the plain form of the verb. So you shouldn’t require any context for this grammar.
Is that really so? I don’t see why Jisho meanings 4 and 6 couldn’t be used after the plain form of a verb, for example.
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Hmm maybe. I feel like it is mostly elongated (at least when spoken) in these cases to make the distinction more clear. In the “don’t do” case the na is always short and abrupt. But maybe you are right and I just didn’t register it consciously in the rare cases when it actually is used in the short form after a verb while meaning something different.
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Yes, I agree, in the spoken form you can hear it in the way it is pronounced.
Looking at this week’s text, the places where it isn’t a command seem to be mostly after だ or the past tense, so I guess those don’t really count as plain forms. There is also the ったく病んでるな sentence which also isn’t a command, right? (But it’s also not strictly a plain form verb.)
I just don’t think it is a 100% guarantee that な after a plain form verb is always the ‘don’t do’ form.
な as a sentence ender seems to be used a lot in this manga, so we might see more examples in the coming weeks.
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Good point. I meant dictionary form actually, in case that is a clearer term, but even that is not 100%. Maggiesensei has a good analysis of the various uses of な. One stood out to me:
When you tell someone what you are going to do.
Ex. 家に帰ったらメールするな。(male speech)
= Ie ni kaettara meiru suru na.
= I will text you when I get home, OK?
So even dictionary form +na depends on context.
Even more confusingly, there’s also verb stem+na, which is the positive imperative instead of the negative. 
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I’ve come across this several times in manga but somehow never noticed that it was verb stem+na and not dictionnary form+na, so I was always super confused as to how to tell the difference between the negative and positive imperative na. Thanks for pointing it out, I’ll look out for the verb stem form in the futur !
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The Verb+な is generally don’t _______ however, it is also used like ね in male speech or when talking to oneself…you’ll get used to it more…a very common one you’ll here is 心配するな (don’t worry)
When used as a command it tends to be harsh and can be rude if used with a stranger (fighting words) 触るな (don’t touch)… A parent might use this with their child but if you said this to an adult (even in English)…it’s not going to go well.
Takes a little bit of exposure but you’ll be able to feel the difference if you can hear the speech ‘outloud’ in your head. If that makes any sense… here’s a grammar link if it helps any…
な | Japanese Grammar SRS (bunpro.jp)
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