Kitty Detectives! Week 5 Discussion 🐱

Pages 44 - 56

Story 1: 赤いとびらの家事件

Start Date: 18th November
Last Week: Case Part 4
Next Week: Solution Part 2

Kitty%20Detectives

にゃんにゃん探偵団 Home Thread

Last sentence of page 56 for eBook readers:
黒星けいぶは応援をよんだ。

Upcoming Schedule
Week Start Date Part Page Numbers
Week 5 November 18th Solution Part 1 44 - 56
Week 6 November 25th Solution Part 2 58 - 67
- December 2nd Break :snowman: -
Week 7 December 9th Story 2 Case 70 - 82
Week 8 December 16th Story 2 Solution 84 - 89


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6 Likes

My notes:

p44

p47

p48

p50

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Page 44

Good morning everyone! No time to do much reading reading today… but I do have one quick question to get the ball rolling…

カポネもとうぜんのような顔でついてきた

カポネも - Capone as well
とうぜん - 当然 - natural; as a matter of course; justified; deserved; reasonable
の - possessive particle
ような - like, similar to
顔 - face
で - with
ついてきた - came along

Something about the cat’s face as he joined them. but I can’t figure this one out! Any pointers?!

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Page 44

I found this a bit confusing as well - I was guessing it meant his usual (‘natural’) grumpy face:

“Capone too, wearing his usual expression, came along.” (poetic license included!) ???

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Ah, yes, I like it! Thank you Rowena!

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Page 46: Called it. However, while it may not have been clear from the map for Hanae, surely she should have noticed when she was standing right there on page 25. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Page 44

I just put this sentence in ichi.moe to see if it could further enlighten the matter, and the second meaning given for 顔 is:

[n] look; expression; countenance

One can only hope that means I guessed correctly (that and the fact that Belthazar liked my comment!)

3 Likes

Page 44

As for 解けたった, how does that work? 解ける means ‘to be solved’ on its own, so what does the たった add?

edit: たって, my recurrent copying issues strike again!

3 Likes

Page 47

I’m pretty sure I’ve got the general gist of the sentences correct, but they just don’t seem to make much sense to me. The whole description of the road confuses me :sweat_smile:

地図ではわからなかったが、道は のぼり坂になった。

But with the map I didn’t understand, the road started sloping upward.

道が ぐにゃっと まがっているのは、直線では、のぼるのがきゅうすぎるからなのだ。

As for the road curving sharply, in a straight line, it is because the ascent is too abrupt!

What is she trying to say here?

1 Like

It’s とけたって, so I’m pretty sure it’s just とける in the past tense, with a quotation marker. I think he’s saying something like “you said the mystery’s been solved?”

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On the map, I hadn’t understood [it’s past tense], but (in the real world), the road slopes upwards.

The reason the road curves is because the direct path (up the hill) is too steep.

6 Likes

:exploding_head:

I was also going to ask about the second half of that sentence, so thank you nienque for asking and Belthazar for answering.

Can I ask for more breakdown to check I understand? In the very last clause, it’s のぼる being nominalised, right? And then it’s just きゅう meaning ‘steep’ and the ‘too much’ meaning of すぎる?

I don’t think I’ve actually seen すぎる used with な-adjectives very often before.

2 Likes

Page 44

It’s actually たって, not たった, which is the simple past form 解けた with the added って that is a condensed form of いて。

Sorry, I’ve just seen Radish’s response - there isn’t a ‘1 Reply’ indicator so I didn’t see at first.

3 Likes

Page 47

Thank you for all the discussion that has already happened around this sentence, but it’s still far from clear to me… I’ll type it up here in the hope I’ll finally be able to get my head around it…

道が ぐにゃっと まがっているのは、直線では、のぼるのがきゅうすぎるからなのだ

道 - the road

が - identifier, or subject, particle.
I’ve been identifying the identifier particle for a long time now, one of these days I’ll finally get to understand what it means!

ぐにゃっと - to become limp.
Someone, last week I think, gave a brilliant translation of this word which matches the context of our story, but it was a rare case of me forgetting to make a note and now I can’t find it. Can anyone remember what it was?

まがっている - 曲がる, to bend, in the ~ている form… bending

の - nominalising particle
So, this turns まがっている from a verb into a noun, again, still not sure what that exactly means, but something like saying “the bend in the road” I guess.

は、- topic particle
Because everything before this has been nominalised, it can all be the topic of the sentence. I am, in fact, a kind of parrot. I’ve been in these bookclubs for so long and have seen so many cases of this that I can make a sentence about nominalisation and topics and whatnot very easily. But I have pretty much the same level of understanding as a parrot too.

直線 - straight line
で - another particle
in a straight line?

は、- another topic particle
のぼる - to climb
の - another nominalisation
が - another subject particle
きゅう - steep
すぎる - too
ie. too steep

から - because
なの - ???
だ - copula

ie…

The road + subject particle
limp and bending + topic particle
in a straight line + topic particle
climbing + subject particle
too steep / because
なの
is

I can see how this can be re-arranged…

The road - is - limp and bending - because - too steep - [for] climbing - in a straight line

Phew, that gets me to @Belthazar’s wonderful translation…

“The reason the road curves is because the direct path [up the hill] is too steep”

What I’m left with is this なの at the end of the sentence which I can’t identify at all.

Sorry for the long and rambling post. It was either this or more forehead dents in my keyboard!

4 Likes

It’s the thing that does the verb.

It’s のだ with a な before it, because you need to have a な when のだ follows… whatever part of speech から is in at the moment.

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Thank you @Belthazar!

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I believe the translation was ‘to curve sharply’ for both ぐにゃっと and まがっている together.

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Nice one! Thank you @nienque!

Page 48

いいえ, あそこの大きな窓のところにドアがついていたとしたら, どうですか?

いいえ, - well
あそこ - over there
の - possessive particle
大きな窓 - big wondow
の - possessive particle
ところ - place
に - particle
ドア - door
が - subject particle
ついていた - was attached (past of 付いている…?)
としたら, - what if…
どうですか? - how about?

“Well, how about if a door was attached to that big window over there?”

Am I right about ついていた?

2 Likes

That’s how I interpreted it!

I actually wanted to make yet another comment on this, because I’ve identified what confused me so much about it.

It uses the topic marker は twice, in succession, before making any comment on the first topic. I think this left me confused over what the sentence was simply about. Having identified that though I realised that it’s being used as a contrastive. I still find it kind of confusing how you’re supposed to know whether のぼるのがきゅうすぎる applies to the first or second, outside of context / logic, but eh.

1 Like