We’re reading to the end of the ‘case’ section this week!
Story 1 Schedule
Week
Start Date
Part
Page Numbers
Week 4
November 11th
Case Part 4
32 - 42
Week 5
November 18th
Solution Part 1
44 - 56
Week 6
November 25th
Solution Part 2
58 - 67
-
December 2nd
Break
-
Vocabulary List
Please read the editing guidelines in the first sheet before adding any words!
Discussion Guidelines
Please blur/hide major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur) and any later content, like so: [spoiler]texthere[/spoiler]
Err on the side of caution!
When asking for help, please mention the page number (or % for eBooks).
Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn and someone else will probably be grateful you asked!
People usually find that they engage with and enjoy the discussion much more if they don’t read ahead, though of course it’s up to you
To you lurkers out there: join the conversation, it’s fun!
Participants
Mark your participation status by voting in this poll:
I’m reading along
I’m still reading but haven’t reached this part yet
I’m dropping this book
0voters
If you’ve read it before but will join in the discussion (or have read ahead), please select “I’m reading along”!
This is the final week of the ‘case’ part of story one, so once you’ve finished reading please share any theories you have before we move onto the solution next week
Please put them under a collapsible section like so:
[details=“MY WILD THEORY”]
insert crazy speculation here
[/details]
Then people can avoid looking at others’ until they’ve finished the week’s reading / had a chance to come up with their own ideas, if they want. It’s also totally cool to expand on somebody else’s theory, of course
If you haven’t commented yet this is the perfect time to start
Here is a recap of the case thus far. This only includes prior weeks’ reading, and anything observed by readers but not stated in Hanae’s narration is spoilered.
Hidden for anyone going on their own observations.
A jewel owner went with someone to a house for a jewel sale.
The culprit knocked out the jeweler.
The jeweler woke up out in a field, his jewels gone.
The jeweler recalled the house’s door was red, but the police found no red doors in the neighborhood.
The jeweler recalled the smell of oil paint, and there is one painter living in the neighborhood.
The jeweler recognized the painter as the culprit.
The painter had an alibi: he was teaching a painting class that night.
The painter had gone upstairs for six or seven minutes to retrieve an unfinished painting.
In the scene of the painter’s house, there is a large canvas painted red.
Hanae found the painter burning leaves in his front yard.
Hanae found an interesting item hidden within the leaves.
Heh. When I flipped over to page 38, my immediate first thought was “what’s with that weird wiggle between the third and fourth cross streets?” Started reading the text - 「Even though the road is straight up to the third corner, between there and the fourth corner, there’s a weird wiggle.」
MY WILD THEORY
The butler did it.
EVEN WILDER THEORY
The fourth cross street is up a hill, and the artist’s house has a back door on the second storey that connects to the fourth street. There’s a genkan inside. He has a red painting the size of a door, and a doorknob with glue on it. One moment, let me just work the leetle grey cells a bit…
Also, a grammatical throwback to week 2 and the “going to / coming from somewhere in order to do X” grammar point.
あの画家が 宝石を どこかに かくしに いく かもしれないしな。
どこか is quite literally “somewhere” in this case, and the movement verb is いく. So we have “going somewhere”.
The verb stem + に before the movement verb (in the middle of our grammatical sandwich) is かくし, which comes from かくす, “to hide” (transitive). So we have “going somewhere in order to hide (something)”.
The object is 宝石, so it’s “going somewhere in order to hide the jewels”.
I’ve been following this thread because I was curious about what the second にゃんにゃん book was like after having fun reading the first book. It’s great to see such lively participation from so many.
Just wanted to mention something here because I didn’t want anyone to get into trouble and maybe it’s my overreaction but I think maybe it’s not a good idea to copy and post so many of the actual pages from the book. Maybe one page here and there is OK (?) but posting one page after another might not be so good. Those who read なぜ どうして were aware and cautious from the beginning about this being a potential problem and therefore exercised some discretion.
Anyway, I just didn’t want anyone to get into any trouble and like I said before maybe it’s just my overreaction.
To my eternal shame, I was part of that discussion mentioned and I was adamant that copyright not be breached - where oh where did my head go in the meantime (crawls under desk to die of mortification )
Another week starts! Great stuff! Thank you everyone!
あごをおさえて, ひっくりかえったのは 黒星けいぶだった!
あごを - jaw + object marker
おさえて, - to clutch, in て-form
ひっくりかえった - fell down
のは - nominalisation? After years of seeing this, I’m still confused. More details below…
黒星けいぶ - Inspector Kuroboshi
だった! - was
So here we have:
chin - clutched and - fell down thing - Kuroboshi - was
But why?
Why not:
Kuroboshi - chin - clutched and - fell down
黒星けいぶは, あごを おさえて, ひっくりかえった! (Or something like that?)
What does the のは nominalisation actually do? (Or am I just too confused to be making any sense at all? - as usual!) (Don’t be confused by the new profile pic, it’s still me, just thought it was time for a change!)
A nominaliser turns a verb phrase into a noun phrase (i.e. nominalises it - “nominalise” being the verb form of “make into a noun”, just to be difficult) which you can then treat like any other noun.
Just the の is the nominaliser, by the way - the は is the regular old topic particle.
I’m definitely confused by the new profile pic. “Oh hey, it’s a new member in the group” I keep thinking.
Ah ha! I see! Brilliant! Now you point it out, it’s clear as day… but I needed it pointing out! Thank you so much!
I see! I’ve seen のは so many times I thought it was one thing. It’s actually の, and then the topic particle… which fits perfectly with Rowena’s translation! Thank you so much Belthazar!
And yes, sorry about the change of pic, but I needed a change (and am coming to the end of Gundam Seed and just had to put up my favourite character!) Thanks again so much!
I find it helps to read a “nominalised” phrase by adding (for example) “the one who” before it:
「あごを押さえてひっくりかえったの」 “the one who (was) clutching jaw and fell over”
Then, as @Belthazar mentioned, you have you normal topic-marking は. This can sometimes be translated as “as for”.
「あごを押さえてひっくりかえったのは」 “As for the one who (was) clutching jaw and fell over”
Then add in the rest, 「黒星けいぶだった」 “it was Officer Kuroboshi”.
“As for the one who (was) clutching jaw and fell over, it was Officer Kuroboshi!”
You can’t really say “Officer Kuroboshiは grabbed his chin and fell over” because we don’t yet know that it’s Kuroboshi. The は cannot introduce something new.
You can see the same in English. A sentence where an unknown suspect was hit likely wouldn’t start with the name of the person who was hit. Rather, it might go, “The one who fell to the ground was Mr. So-and-so!” or “Who did I find lying on the ground in agony but Mr. So-and-so!”
Edit: Regarding @marcusp’s avatar, I already learned with Kumirei’s avatar change that I really don’t know people by screen name =P
