三ツ星カラーズ — Week 1 Discussion (ABBC)

三ツ星カラーズ Week 1: Pages 3–8

Start Date: 13th of November

Home Thread: Link
Next Week: Link

Characters

The following characters appear this week.

Week 1 Yui  結衣(ゆい)

Week 1 Sacchan  さっちゃん

Week 1 Kotoha  琴葉(ことは)

Week 1 Saitou  斎藤(さいとう)

Page Numbers Guide

Due to a general lack of page numbers, it can be difficult to know which page you’re asking a question on. You can use the thumbnails below to see at a glance which page number each is.

Thumbnails with page numbers for this week's reading.

Week 1

Read Online

If you don’t have a copy of the volume yet, you can read this week’s material online for free.

Vocabulary List

Please read the editing guidelines in the first sheet before adding any words!

Discussion Guidelines

  • Please blur / hide any major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur), like so: [spoiler]texthere[/spoiler]
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked
  • Join the conversation — it’s fun!

Participation

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll:

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m planning to catch up later

0 voters

If you’ve read it before but will join in the discussion (or have read ahead), please select “I’m reading along”!

Vital Information

Which best describes your Japanese reading experience?
  • This is my first time reading any kind of book in Japanese.
  • I’ve read a book in Japanese, but it’s my first time reading a manga in Japanese.
  • I’ve tried reading a book or manga in Japanese before, but wasn’t able to complete it.
  • I’ve completed reading one or more manga in Japanese before.

0 voters

How are you at reading カタカナ?
  • I can read it fast.
  • I can read it slowly.
  • I need to reference a chart to read it.

0 voters

Have you see the anime adaptation for this series?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

Which is better?
  • (ねこ) (:cat2:)
  • パンダ (:panda_face:)
  • Why not both?

0 voters

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Welcome to week one of Mitsuboshi Colors: 三ツ星カラーズ

If this is your first time joining a WaniKani Community book club, it’s really easy to get into the flow. Each week there’s a set number of pages to read, and an associated thread (what you’re on right now) for discussion.

1. Ask Questions!!

Remember, when you’re first reading native material, it’s more an act of deciphering and piecing it all together. You’re working through unknown vocabulary words with unknown nuances, unknown grammar that’s foreign, and difficulties in following context. It’s a slow and difficult process, but we’re here to help!

Questions are the livelihood of the book club. Don’t be afraid to ask about anything you’re unsure of. This is the Absolute Beginner Book Club, so we’re expecting absolute beginner questions. With the number of readers we’re likely starting out with, chances are good that if you’re wondering something, there are several others wondering the same thing.

When asking a question:

  • Please include the page number for every question you ask.
  • If you can, try to include the sentence you’re asking about.
  • Check whether your question has already been asked / answered before posting.
  • Remember to utilize the vocab spreadsheet.
  • Blur out any major events when posting, however early in the ‘week’ they occur (like so: [spoiler]text here[/spoiler])

2. Useful Resources

  • Jisho is a popular online Japanese-English dictionary, and the usual source for populating the spreadsheet.
  • ichi.moe is a popular tool for parsing out sentences. It’s not infallible but it can be really useful when you don’t recognize the conjugation of a word, or when a set of words form a set expression.
  • The JADED Network is a useful resource for looking up the little sound effect words in the pictures which are often not in Jisho.
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Quick Links

The following links will take you to previously-asked questions. Because this list is manually put together, some questions may be missing from the list.

Cover

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Page 7

Page 8

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This is my first time reading native material so I’m not really able to tell if something is considered a spoiler, please inform me if I need to blur anything. Thank you in advance.

  1. In the first panel of page 4 there is the sentence うんちなのさっちゃん。 I’m confused on why there is the な between a noun and the の particle.

  2. In the third panel of page 4, what is the purpose/meaning of いた at the end of the sentence パンダみたい猫がいたの. I’m currently reading this as “It’s a cat that looks like a panda!”

  3. In the first panel of page 5, what is the purpose/meaning of だって in the sentence だって全然大変じゃないじゃん. I’m currently reading this as “Not at all serious, right?”

  4. In the fourth panel of page 5, I’m confused about the use of だった in the sentence どんなのだったか描いてみそ. I’m used to always seeing this at the end of sentences as a casual past tense (was/were), so I’m reading this sentence as “what kind of (possessive) was go ahead and try to draw.”

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Hi everyone! I have a few questions regarding the book that I hope someone can clarify for me.

  1. In the first panel of page 4, there is a sentence called それよりアジトにこんなの落ちてたぞ。I translate this as
    I don’t think I’m correct here. I would love to hear how other people translated this sentence :slight_smile:

  2. In the first panel of page 5, what does もおマジメに聞いてよ mean?

  3. In the second panel of page 5, there is a sentence called もっと大きな事件はないのかよ リーダー!I’m guessing this means There would be no bigger incidents! Leader! In this sentence, does that mean さっちゃん is the leader?

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I’m not very sure myself but maybe others can clarify for you. This is how I approach your questions

  1. I think の is used here as the explanatory particle that kinds of have the feeling of “tell me, I’m curious!” For nouns, な must be put before の as the basic construction. Here is a link for more details : https://nihongonosensei.net/?p=21990

  2. I translated the sentence roughly like yours. Mine was: There is a panda that looks like a cat, right?

3 and 4, I’m sorry to say I have no idea how to answer these as I have the same questions

I hope this helps you in one way or another :slight_smile:

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I’d say the primary thing to mark as spoiler would be any English translations.

I’m starting with mention of what the の is doing, then at the end I’ll address the な. The following is going to be a bit to take in, but don’t worry about it! This grammar will come up a lot, so I’m sure it will be asked about again.

The heart of this sentence is:

「なんで うんち だ」

“Noun sentences”, that is sentences that say “[noun] is a [noun]” end in だ. (There are exceptions, but we’ll see some of those later.)

Consider if you are saying the English sentence, “The paint is wet.” That’s a simple “[noun] is [noun]” sentence.

But consider if instead someone asked you why there is a “don’t touch” sign on your fence. You might replace “It’s because the paint is wet.” Basically, it’s taking the sentence and adding “It’s because” in front of it.

In Japanese, this same concept is done by taking the sentence, and adding “のだ” to the end of it. (This is the usage @foxabell mentioned.)

Now, for the answer to the specific question: Why is there a な before the の?

When adding のだ to the end of a sentence that ends in だ already, you don’t say 「…だ のだ」. Instead, the first だ changes into な, and it reads as 「…な のだ」

This is a “[noun] is doing [verb]” sentence, with the verb being いる. The verb いる is used to state that the sentence’s subject “exists”. (The subject is the noun marked with the particle が.)

Japanese verbs don’t have tense like in English (past, present, future). Instead, they are either an incomplete action or a completed action. Completed actions have た added to them (in this case いる, changing it to いた).

If いる means “exists”, then いた means “existed”.

But that sounds a bit weird in English, doesn’t it? “A panda-like cat existed.” However, we can word it a little differently for something that sounds more reasonable to an English speaker: “There was a panda-like cat.” Same thing, worded differently.

だ is used at the end of “[noun] is [noun]” sentences.

When used at the start of a sentence, as I understand it, it’s essentially referring to what came it. (Really bad explanation on my part, I know.)

The って is used for (indirectly) quoting someone.

Put these together, and you have だ (referring back to what was said) and って as an informal quote, and it’s kind of like in English if we say, “You say that, but…”

In various contexts, this だって may translate as “but” or “because”. (This is due to an imbalance in precise meanings of words between English and Japanese.)

どんな requires a noun, and were we have の filling in for the noun.

Consider in English if someone asked you to hand them a box of cereal. You can say “Which box of cereal?” but you’d probably just ask “Which one?” This “one” is standing in for the actual noun.

Likewise, this の is standing in for an actual noun. What noun is it standing in for? This is where context comes into play, which can take some time to build up. In this case, it’s referring to the panda-like cat.

Something like: “What kind (of panda-like cat) was it? Try drawing it.”

Your translation didn’t quite make it through, so I can’t quite comment on that. But, I can break the sentence down a little, and if you have a question on any specific part, just let me know!

Break-down

それ+より = that + more than. This wording is common, with the meaning of “more than that” or “rather than that”.

アジト = This refers to their secret hideout, the little clubhouse they’re in.

に = A particle that identified a noun as a destination. This is marking アジト as the destination of an action.

こんな = Like the word “this” in English as in “This cereal is mine.” It requires a noun follow after it.

の = Fills in for a noun. Like in “This one is mine.” It’s substituting in place of the actual noun.

()ちてた = The verb ()ちる (to drop) in the joining form ()ちて, which joins to いる. This gives the meaning “dropping”. And then add た to mark the action as completed, “having been dropped”. The い is often dropped in such casual speech as we have here.

All together: “Rather than that, such a thing as this had been dropped in our hideout.”

This is Yui (the girl who run into the hideout) speaking to Sacchan (the one with the sproingy glasses). She’s saying:

もう, but exaggerated a bit that it comes out as もお = “geez” or “come on”.

マジメ+に = serious + the destination particle = do (verb) toward serious = do (verb) seriously.

()いて = short for ()いてください. ()く means “to listen”. In the joining form ()いて, joining ください “please (do for me)” results in a meaning of “please listen (to me)”.

よ = give emphasis

Together: “Geez, listen to me seriously!”

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I’m so sorry for asking a few other questions on the same day but please bear with me. Any help would be appreciated :slight_smile:

  1. On page 7 panel 2, there is a sentence called 「つか いくら 情報が欲しくても ヒーローごっこで 警察に 頼るのは ズリィだろ お前は」I’m not quite sure what いくら and ズリィ mean here but I translated it as “How should I put it… no matter how much the news is wanted, we should rely on the police and not people playacting as superheroes. It’s unfair, you guys”

  2. On page 7 panel 4, 斎藤 thought 「こいつだけはマトモで逆に やりづらい」Could someone help me break down this sentence, especially マトモ ans やりづらい

Thank you very much

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Page 5

I think no one addressed this question so I’ll try to.

もっと大きな事件はないのかよ リーダー

If I understood correctly, this is something that Saki (aka Sacchan) is telling Yui. Yui is the leader.

もっと => more
大きな => big in adjective form (that’s why it has a な there)
事件 => incident, case or happening
は => Topic-marker particle
ない => not exist; the negative of ある
の => explication-tone の
か => question particle
よ => emphasis sentence-ender particle
リーダー => leader

So this literally says “Not exists bigger incident, leader!?”
In more natural English this would be “Don’t you have a more bigger incident, leader?”. This builds on what she said in the previous panel “だって全然大変じゃないじゃん” (“That’s not a serious incident!”); she’s implying that some panda-cat is not interesting enough - that she wants to work on something more important or interesting.

The explication-tone の was already explained by @ChristopherFritz in a previous post, but I’ll add that it’s being used here because Sacchan is implicitly asking for an explanation with her question. So this の can be used both in questions and affirmations.

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For anyone already overwhelmed by all the grammar discussion, it’s okay to read over it, only partially understand it, and move on. The most important grammar will come up again and again, and it doesn’t hurt to ask about previously-covered grammar when it comes up later!

(I know I sure didn’t catch on to a lot of this grammar stuff the first time around…)

Condensed for length

(Typo catch: His line ends with お(まえ)ら, which is effectively the plural of お(まえ).)

Your translation is very close. As you may have figured (based on your translation), ズリィ is ズルイ. Saitou is a bit crude in his wording when talking with the kids, so sometimes you’ll see a word turn out different from you’d expect.

「いくら情報が欲しくても」 is along the lines of “No matter how much (the) information is desirable…” The いくら provides the “how much” portion of these.

The second half of the sentence is a clause containing a topic, and a comment on the topic. This is the core of the Japanese sentence structure.

In the topic-comment structure, you state a topic, and you make a comment on that topic.

Topic: ヒーローごっこで警察に頼るのは

Comment: ズリィだろ

The topic is comprised of:

ヒーローごっこ+で = “playing hero” + particle which in this context we can think of as “with”

警察(けいさつ)+に = “police” + destination particle = “do (verb) toward/at police”

(たよ)る = “to rely on”

=> “to rely on the police with your playing hero”

A topic has to be a noun, so の is added to turn 「ヒーローごっこで警察に頼る」 into a noun. Then は marks it as the topic.

The comment portion is:

ズリィ = ずるい = “unfair”, “dishonest”

だろ = short for だろう = has a meaning like “don’t you agree?” or “you know?”

=> “It’s unfair, you know.”

Keeping the topic-comment structure when translated to English, it wound be something like, “Regarding relying on the police with your playing hero, it is unfair, you know.”

Bringing all of it together (and making it sound smoother in English:

“No matter how much you want information, it’s unfair to rely on the police for your hero play-acting.”

Note that it may be better to translate this as “it’s cheating to rely on the police”.

マトモ means “decency” (among other closely-related English words). Essentially, Saitou is saying that Yui is the only decent kid in the group.

For verbs, you can add づらい to the end to make them into an adjective meaning "(verb) is difficult to do). With a “godan” verb like やる, the う sound becomes い (resulting in やり), then づらい is appended.

The で here I believe is だ (which we see at the end of “a [noun] is a [noun]” sentences). However, it’s in the joining form, で. This allows another sentence to attach on to this one, similar to “and” in English.

I don’t have a good translation for his line here, but I’d say along the lines of, “Just this kid’s decent, and conversely that makes this difficult to do.” Essentially, it’s easy for him to tell off さっちゃん and 琴葉(ことは) because they’re bad kids, but his technique doesn’t work the same on Yui.

Thanks for catching that one; I went on a bit long answering that I missed it =(

There’s no limit on how many questions you can ask =D Especially when you’ve put in the effort to glean what you can from the material before asking.

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does this look like the face of mercy to you?


she’s my favourite already.

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Just to add to what others have said, the sentence is in full: えっ なんでうんちなのさっちゃん? It has a question word at the start, and a question mark at the end. If it was spoken aloud it would have a rising intonation indicating a question.

So rather than this being an explanatory sentence, this is a question sentence seeking an explanation. Eh, why poop Sacchan?


Page 5 - どんなのだったか描いてみそ

I don’t remember seeing this みそ before. I wondered at first if it was a contraction of some sort but it actually has a dictionary entry of its own. Interestingly it’s described in the dictionary as being a “pun” on 見ろ (みろ). I presume the pun is that みそ sounds like miso as in miso soup.

Screen Shot 2021-11-13 at 09.22.16

Verb ending in て plus みる means “to try doing something”

みろ (with ろ rather than る) is an imperative or command form; so Verb ending in て plus みろ means - “try doing something” (command)

Verb ending in て plus みそ apparently also means “try doing something”
So our sentence means Try drawing what kind of thing it was.

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Is it a rule that we don’t refer to textbook grammar when explaining grammar points? Because to me as a textbook student, saying X is casual form of Y is more helpful than having X explained with a completely different descriptors and trying to click what it’s supposed to be in a sentence pattern that I already know.

ex.
"Japanese verbs don’t have tense like in English (past, present, future). Instead, they are either an incomplete action or a completed action. Completed actions have た added to them (in this case いる, changing it to いた).

If いる means “exists”, then いた means “existed”." - it’s also short/causal form of well known います → いました

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I don’t think there are rules about how to explain grammar. So far, it looks to me like people explain grammar points the way they personally find them most understandable. That will differ from individual to individual, but since you can find several variations of explanations to most grammar points throughout the forum, chances are you’ll find one that will click for you.

The way @ChristopherFritz explained that particular point does seem different than most books do it, but it works perfectly with the wiring of my brain, so I was very happy to see it expressed that way :blush:

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Oh I agree that the explanation is good, I just think in basic tense forms relating them to the textbook forms may help not cause unnecessary confusion. I asked because I thought maybe we don’t like the “polite” forms here :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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If いる means “exists”, then いた means “existed”." - it’s also short/causal form of well known います → いました

it’s a matter of perspective, many who learned from different sources will see いる as the base form or dictionary form, and います as a modification of it, the polite form, so it might not even cross their mind to explain it relative to the polite form.

i guess it’s personal preference, but it seems to be easier to derive every other form from the dictionary form, so it makes sense to explain using it.

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Oh, now I see what you mean (or I believe I do …)
Well, that assumes that people are more familiar with います/いました, and I don’t know if that is true as not everyone starts out with Genki or such.

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Yeah, but the whole point is afaik that dictionary form is used in spoken language as simple form of “present” tense.

I think you’d be hard pressed to find a resource that does not start a student with MASU form? Nativeshark maybe?

edit: So, I checked and TK grammar doesn’t, though I always considered TK as more of a reference book, than teaching thing. I also never really studied with TK so that’s on me.

Nice to see there are a lot of people reading. So I have to put a few words. My first impressions of this book are that I am pretty terrified and it seems a bit harder than Soreayu. There was a number of grammar points I had to look up which showed JLPT3 next to them, namely どころじゃない、 いくら~ても albeit the thing they express is not hard to understand. Nevertheless, I’m absolutely charmed by characters so far, the book is goofy and has うんこ right at the start teehee.

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