I’m not sure why you answerd to my post but anyway I’ll pipe in again .
Essentially correct there is a passive missing though. So he is not the one having them do the bulling, but the one receiving the bullying normally. (Note やらす the verb you found is just another form of やらせる, the causative of やる)
You use causative (let someone do something) in combination with passive if you are made to do something and don’t like it. As an example 私は両親にゴミを捨てさせられた。I was made to throw out the trash by my parents. (didn’t like it because it’s mendokusai feeling). The に part who exactly made him do it in the manga is missing but we have the context and already know.
The progressive past is there to show that it is habitual or was ongoing over a period of time. So you can extrapolate that they habitually made Nunota do it but this time… (rest of sentence)
I haven’t finished these week’s pages yet (I’m around p.14), but I’m having a lot more fun than I expected. It seems to be a really interesting manga. Can’t wait to see what happens!
It’s also good to know that I need to review katakana (for the 43546434th time). It seems some just won’t stick for some reason. I struggled quite a bit with food and some furigana that it’s too small to see, but so far all of my questions were asked and answered here.
Just making a list of the people we have met so far
Girl sitting on a post. She doesn’t seem to bother brushing her hair. This makes her look cute. She doesn’t seem to wear trousers. Maybe it is a very hot evening. She is sitting on the lighting structure of the sports field. She looks young but kind of ancient.
Walking man. He turns out to be called 小林浩 Kobayashi kouju. . Early on, he also turns out soon to be quite dead
岡崎 Okazaki. He seems to be our main character. He is a high school student in the first year of high school. His given name is makato. We follow his story, and get to feel for him at first, because he is being picked on by classmates. I was pretty worried about him at first, because I thought maybe he didn’t realize they were picking on him. But its clear he does realise.
Five nasty kids in his class. One of these is a very confident, bossy boy. Another is a beautiful girl
A comrade who commiserates with him
A girl on the stairs. We only see her pants. I mean, her underpants. I suppose this is Okazaki’s crush? Presuming this girl is not the beautiful bad-girl. And also, presumably, not the girl-on-a-post? Its quite hard to guess at first, when we mainly seem to only get introduced to female characters with an upskirt shot. :-/
Alright. I’ve read this week’s part once so far and get the gist of it. Now I’m fighting through the text in greater detail because I like to grasp everything when I study a new language. Maybe I should drop that goal because I noticed that I pile up more (probably kinda stupid) questions than I’m comfortable to ask. Anyways, these are my questions and things I’m curious about up until page 13, so the most difficult part is yet to come. Maybe someone is willing to help!
Page 6, panel 2: Just something I’m curious about. Anyone knows what’s written on the street?
Page 9, panel 3: I’ve never seen that ん plus dakuten. I guess it’s just a muffled sound but I wonder how to write it myself with a Japanese keyboard. Could’t find anything about it.
Page 12, panel 4: It’s the 行けって. Is the stem 行く? Because that would make it 行って, no? I think something is going on I haven’t learned yet or I’m having the wrong stem.
Page 12, panel 5: I can’t make any sense of ダッシュな at all
Page 13, panel 3: What is the にしょ in オレこれにしょ?
Page 13, panel 3: I think the vocab list says it’s ぐりっ but I rather read ぐいっ which is a pushing sound? I’m unsure
I know I’m on a very very low level regarding my Japanese skill but I’m having a lot of fun so I’m super thanksful for every advice or help! ^u^
There are no stupid qestions.
Though being fine with not understanding everything, in finest detail always, might speed up your learning progress. As counterintuitive as that might sound.
Yes muffled sound. It depends on your IME method on how to type it. Apparently with windows IME in romaji mode it’s not really possible? But in google IME you can specify custom romaji to kana translations e.g n" to convert to it. Wouldn’t worry too much about inputting such rare stuff though ^^. You can write nndakuten to get something like this ん゛
It’s a qoute of the command he is giving. はやく行け → Go fast! って quote (same as と). He doesn’t say the verb after the って but you can interpret it as something like “I’m saying “move your ass”” or “I said “get moving”” or something along those lines. (I’m bad with natural sounding english )
ダッシュ is a dash. The な is the sentence final particle strengthening the (kinda) command. The parcticle can mean: (sentence end, mainly masc.) indicates emotion or emphasis. They hurry him on. A little bit of a continuation from the sentence before.
I agree with you. It’s definitely a ぐいっ. Note that the vocabulary sheet is made by other learners and “might” have some (minor) mistakes. I corrected some earlier already but this was added after my pass over the list. Will correct now Jisho.org: Japanese Dictionary
You could totaly have left your post up. I know the pain of compiling a detailed, thought out post and being sniped by someone else. Doubling up the information or giving a second opinion is really valuable. Otherwise everything might be tainted by my opinion!
Had a blast reading this manga, looking forward to what’s going to happen next.
For the people who posted who are frustrated, please, keep sharing your frustration (if you find it cathartic to realize you’re not alone) and don’t give up! This is only my second bookclub after Mitsuboshi colors where I first was each week feeling discouraged and overwhelmed but I also realized the progress that happens each week - you will get better, but it is hard work!
If it helps anyone is struggling I found the following approach works very well for me:
Install Yomichan (Chrome link). After installing it you will need to download and setup a dictionary for it in the extension’s settings.
I make a google doc where I copy each sentence into it.
In the google doc I’ll translate as much as I can, then I’ll use both the vocab sheet and Yomichan to quickly see any vocabulary I don’t know.
By this point I can usually understand about 70% of the sentences pretty well with about 30% that I’ll want to double check in either ichi.moe or DeepL. I’ll also like to use DeepL to just confirm my understanding.
Of course, this approach might be a bit heavy for some and I find it really helps to have a very big monitor or two screens.
I read this as 嫌 Jisho.org: Japanese Dictionary (see alternate readings) followed by copula だ and sentence ending elongated もう Jisho.org: Japanese Dictionary (meaning 4) which I feel is a pretty feminine thing to say. Shes complaining in a jokingly feminine not serious way about something she disagrees with slightly maybe. Female speech in japanese can be hard to understand correctly as in any language. Lots of subtext can be included ^^. We don’t know with what she disagrees exactly.
That is a continuation of the previous question. Just jokingly calling the listening party an idiot. That it is not meant seriously can be felt through the elongation here.
Sorry if I’m duping a question, can anybody add to the vocab sheet? I wanted to add the following:
“ズズ” from pg 11 - from the helpful comments, I know what it is now -
“The sound of the seat of his desk sliding on the floor as he gets up, I believe. ずー is usually the sound for something sliding smoothly; ずず instead would be two consecutives small slides, so it feels like a more clumsy slide.” (Thanks user 2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz!)
Go for it. It often varies between people what words go into the spreadsheet. If you see something that you think would be helpful to add then please feel free to add it in.
Because of the lack of text in the second half of the chapter, it feels like it could’ve been done in one week. Maybe I’m just actually getting better at reading though.
Agreed. Katakana is a weak skill of mine, and while I think what @Gorbit99 said was funny…
I think reliably being able to come up with what sound the kana makes is critical. That’s my weakness, and that’s one of the reasons I joined this book club. We’re in a similar boat, @duskblanc
For what it’s worth to others, I was feeling particularly nervous about trying my first native-language text and decided to ask someone to help me. I have been working with a tutor for Genki (textbook) and my pronunciation is miles ahead of where it was before then. I asked him if we could add lessons to review what I read in the manga, and he was excited to help me. Some of the cultural stuff (and the vagueness that others have commented on here) is much easier to parse with an expert/native helping me. It’s still tough, but I know this experience will give me confidence and help me to try my next manga on my own.
If anyone is looking for a tutor to do something similar, I’m using Italki. (Not trying to plug anyone or any website; just stating where I found my tutor in case it helps anyone else.)
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We’re in a similar boat, 
