Kitty Detectives! Week 5 Discussion 🐱

Okay, I’ve finished one pass through all the way to the end of this week, and I gotta say, I feel a bit like Sherlock Holmes right now :male_detective:

I still don’t think this plan works in reality though! My biggest beef remains how the hell you pull this off and drag an unconscious body all the way to a field and still manage to get back to your painting class within 6 or 7 minutes.

I love all the little details in the illustrations, like the completely random dinosaur skeleton under the hill.

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Agreed, on both your blurred bits!

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The rest of my notes for the week, a little late :flushed:

p51

p52

p53

p55

p56

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Even Sherlock Holmes has seen his share of cases that would never work in reality. Perhaps the most infamous one is The Adventure of the Speckled Band.

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Page 53

Looking at page 52 and 53, that looks like one very, very long sentence! No wonder I’m getting lost!

I can pick my way a bit through the earlier and latter parts (and will try to put it all together later when I have time), but for now I’m stuck in the middle (with you guys hopefully!) in a very long stretch of pure hiragana!

とびらとわたりるうかをはずしてすぐに ほんとの一階に おりて

とびら - door
とわたりるうか
を - object particle (the object is what the verb acts on, right?)
はずして - the て-form of 外す, ie, “remove and”
すぐに - immediately; right away; at once; instantly​
ほんと - 本当 = truth, reality
の - possessive particle
一階に - on the first floor
おりて - the て-form of 降りる, to descend, to step down

so…

the door - とわたりるうか - を - remove and - immediatley - truly the 1st floor - step down and

“[he]… immediately removed the xyz door and stepped down from what was in reality the first floor…”

Or something.

Any help with とわたりるうか much appreciated!

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Correction: わたりうか

Looking at a J-to-J dictionary, わたりろうか means 「二つの建物の間に渡した廊下。」 Essentially, a passageway to get across two buildings. In this case, it’s the piece of wood he’s lifting up.

Here’s my breakdown.

First clause:
「(とびら と わたりろうか) を はずす」

“Remove the door and passage.”

(I was stuck on “はず” until I read what you wrote, @marcusp!)

Second clause:
「すぐに (ほんと の 一階) に おりる」

“Immediately descend to the true first floor.”

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Page 53

Grrrrr! Typos! They really mess with your reading! I must remember to slow down and double-check! Thank you so much ChristopherFritz!

And yes, here’s わたり うか in Jisho: passage!

Thanks so much again, and thank you for the sentence breakdowns! Brilliant! Much appreciated!
:+1: :smiley: :+1:

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There’s some pretty fun-looking 渡り廊下 on Google image search. Like this one: :slightly_smiling_face:

%E6%97%A7%E5%A5%A5%E4%B8%8A%E6%9E%97%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A6%E6%A0%A1%E6%B8%A1%E3%82%8A%E5%BB%8A%E4%B8%8B

Or this one - imagine if the painter’s house was so far from the road that he had to build this:

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I wrote down a translation for that monster sentence on pages 52 and 53:

そして、[…] というわけか

Then the conclusion is that

秋田さんに ねむり薬をかがせ、

he made Mr. Akita smell a sleeping potion,

宝石をうばってから 近くのあき地に ほうりだし、

and after stealing the gems he dumped [them? Mr. Akita?] in a nearby empty lot,

とびらとわたりろうかをはずして

and he removed the door and the passage

すぐに ほんとの一階に おりて、

and immediately went down to the real first floor,

絵の レッスンを つづけた

and continued his painting lesson.

So my question is: what/who is the object of ほうりだし? The last direct object that was mentioned was 宝石を, but surely he didn’t dump those in the empty lot? He dumped Mr. Akita.

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It’s Akita-san, but I also have no idea how you’re supposed to know this other than from context.

I’m quite prepared for somebody to explain that something about the construction does indicate one or the other, but if not, I guess sometimes you just have to accept ambiguity. Ambiguous sentences come up all the time in English (though often tone of speaking or context render them unambiguous anyway).

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Page 55

しつこいなあ、まだ、なにか あるのかね。

This sentence seems to contain some things that might not translate well to English. I guess the general gist of it is ‘How obstinate, do you have something [to ask] again!?’. So なあ for emphasis and のかね for …? A rhetorical question?

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@marcusp, @nienque and @curiousjp thanks! :slight_smile:
@Radish8, thanks as well! Yeah, I do have to keep up with reading (and reviews/lessons for that matter) else I’d probably just stop altogether and that’s definitely not what I want.

Aw, I always forget about the non-mentioned subjects that sentences are often about. It’s just so easy to not have this in mind when figuring out sentences.

Ah! I wasn’t really aware of this. I got to keep this in mind.

Thanks for your helpful notes! I didn’t know that かのように means as if! Was about to ask about that sentence but then I saw your notes. :>

Jisho says interrogative sentence-ending particle expressing doubt for the かね ending. I guess he’s just emphasizing that it’s a question and not particularly a rhetorical?


Also I finished this weeks pages! It’s really such a cute book. Like somebody said previously, there really is a lot of neat stuff in the drawings to explore, like the skeleton, the mole or the guy with the curly hair drawing himself (I suppose) as a 猫.

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Pages 52 and 53

Thank you so much nienque for tackling that monster sentence!

A bit nitpicky I know, but with the か at the end, shouldn’t this be in the form of a question?

How about:

“thus, is it not the case that…?”

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Indeed! I know as a fact that if I were reading this book as a kid, page 54 would be my favourite by far! (Same now, but for a different reason… now any page with no text is a favourite page! lol!)

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Page 55

私はアリバイがあるって何回いわせるんだ

私は - I + topic particle
アリバイが - alibi + subject particle
ある - there is / I have
って - quotation particle
何回 - how many times
いわせる - see question (1)
ん - explanation particle
だ - copula - see question (2)

  1. the いわせる must be 言わせる, which Jisho tells me is the causative form of “to say”, ie to make s/one say. I was just wondering… the 私 is marked by は, the アリバイ is marked by が, if Hanae and the Inspector were in the sentence (they are after all the ones making him say it) what would they be marked by?

  2. I’m guessing this is a question - “I have an albili, how many times are you going to make me say this?” - but it ends in だ, not か. I just wonder, is that because it is rhetorical?

Not vitally important questions, just curious, but thanks for any ideas anyone might have!

I could be wrong, but…

言わせる is indeed the causative form of 言う, just to confirm that. Sentences which use the causative form, if they have all their bits, consist of:

  • the puppetmaster, forcing some poor soul to do their bidding, marked by は
  • the victim, usually marked by に (sometimes を if it’s available or に is taken)
  • the action the victim is forced to do, which could itself consist of subjects, objects, etc.

What’s slightly confusing about this sentence is that it starts 私は. Clearly he isn’t making himself say anything, so that’s a bit weird. I believe that this whole clause at the beginning is the quote:

私はアリバイがあるって
“I have an alibi”

In other words, he is being made to say “I have an alibi”, not just “have an alibi”. Neither the puppetmaster nor the victim are explicitly named in this scenario. If you wrote it out in full, you might have (I’m gonna assume he’s rude):

おまえは 私に 「私はアリバイがある」って 何回いわせるんだ

Maybe I’m totally wrong! But that seems right to me…

Note: you might use を instead of に in this case, in fact, because を isn’t needed for a direct object

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That is brilliant! Thank you so much @Radish8!

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Just coming back to this, yes, I agree - this is Kuroboshi replying to Hanae laying out the idea of the fake entrance, so taking the ends of his massive speech he’s going “I see! So then, is it the case that…?”

I feel like it’s said in more of a wondering / working through the idea way than a genuine question though, because he’s got the whole thing laid out and he’s not looking for a response. He moves on to his next statement. Perhaps a good loose English translation would be “I see! So then he… [ ]…, did he?”


And my own question!

Page 55

黒星けいぶとあたしは、すぐに下の道におりて、玄関にまわった。

What does まわる mean here? I can’t see that any of the possible definitions make sense.

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Nice! Thank you @Radish8!

玄関にまわった - turned into [his] entrance…?
ie, they went down the road and into his (real) entrance.

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It has ‘to turn, to revolve’ listed, so I went with ‘they turned towards the entrance’. I don’t think they actually went in, because I envisage the painter running out towards them while shouting angrily.

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