Also Spitz, PLEASE accept some money at some point?? Stuff and publicity is nice but you still need, like, dog food
I’ve also never read a chapter early enough that the vocab sheet wasn’t already done. Can/should I literally just add in some lines, or is there a specific way that the sheet gets filled out?
EDIT Ignore this I just found the Editing Guide!
I just caught up to this section this week so I’ll finally be reading a section at the same time as everyone else. Last week’s pages were really action packed and I feel the mystery is pretty thoroughly resolved. I’m expecting this week to not be quite as exciting!
I thought you were just a big dog who couldn’t do anything, but no, you are even great!
Page 103
せめて見かけだけでもかわいくして、もらい手をさがさなきゃ。
せめて - at least; at most; even just
見かけ - outward appearance
だけ - only
でも - even if
かわいくして - being cutely
もらい手を - recipient + を
さがさなきゃ - have to look for
Even if at most Alps just has a cute appearance (and no talents such as being able to give humans rides), I have to find a (new) owner (for her). Not entirely confident about that!
I’ll copy @Micki with a couple other sentences that threw me when I was reading.
pg. 96
落書きはどれも、お酒が大好きなペンキ屋がお金に困って、夜中に書いたものだった。
breakdown
落書きはどれも、All the graffiti
お酒が大好きなペンキ屋が a sake loving painter
お金に困って、that has money problems and
夜中に書いた drawn in the middle of the night
ものだった。 thing was done.
All the graffiti was done in the middle of the night by a sake loving painter that has money problems.
This sentence wasn’t even that tricky but cracked me up a little when I was reading. I thought the motive of wanting the graffiti cleaning jobs seemed a bit flimsy. With alcohol factoring into the decision making though, it all starts to make sense.
福岡さんは Mr. Fukuoka
お金はくれないが、to not give money
そのかわり、instead
「わんわん探偵団」のことを BOW-WOW Detective Team
新聞にかいてくれる would write in the newspaper
という。 to say
Mr. Fukuoka did say that he would not give us money, but instead would write about the BOW-WOW Detective Team in the newspaper.
This one I’m still unsure about という being used. I’m used to なぜ？どうして？ where it would always be to define a term. I’ve seen people get tripped up when a sentence has multiple は-markers too, but I think I understood them correctly. Still not entirely sure why there would be two はs and not a が for お金.
Your sentences look good. I think お酒 would translate as “alcohol” rather than “sake”. I’m sure I’ve read that in Japanese, sake is referred to as 日本酒 usually, although sake is listed as an alternative definition for お酒 in Jisho.
Yes this is simply indirect speech with という meaning “he says”.
Thanks for the feedback. I did think about whether to use “sake” or just “alcohol”. I also thought of that vocab but since it specifically seemed written more as a clause with お酒が大好き (and being a kid’s book) I went with my translation instead of alcoholic.
Hopefully I can finish reading the rest of the solution tomorrow. I still have a few pages left.
I hadn’t thought much about it, just a kind of verb to noun converter like how こと will just be dropped in a sentence but I could definitely be wrong. I haven’t seen it used as “because” before but checking that page on bunpro I don’t think that’s the way it’s being used here.
There were pages for ものだ and verb[た]ものだ but neither of those feel quite right either.
I think it’s the “reason” meaning of もの. So the sub-clause is “reason for painting in the middle of the night”.
I agree about the use of て here - that clause indicates the reason / cause. It’s not usually translated as explicitly as “because”, but as you say it has a different nuance than a simple “and”.
I took it to be this grammar point and I broke up the sentence in three parts:
せめて見かけだけでも
Even if he has only his appearance (i.e. has no tricks to offer)
かわいくして、
by making him cute,
もらい手をさがさなきゃ。
I have to find an owner for him.
Page 100
Not quite sure what’s going on here… I get the impression Hanae is surprised that Spitz has such a pricey bunch of flowers and she’s assuming he got them somewhere, rather than buying them somewhere.
ほんとうにもらいものだから、
Because it was truly a gift,
なにもいえないけど、
I couldn’t say anything,
そう、きめつけなくてもいいのにな。
it’s alright if I don’t fix upon it…?
thanks for helping out!
