Reading ブラックジャックによろしく manga exercises (p14-and up)

[YanagiPablo]

Episode 3 is now done, you can see its home page for details

This is a reading comprehension exercise which aims to put the community in charge of the activity.

How can I participate?

• Take a letter and develop the interpretation of the text (you can edit your post to update/enrich your interpretation).
• If all the letters have been done, you can post a new message with the next page of the manga to follow the exercise

Click on the ︎ to reveal the text.

More detailed↓

①Choose one of the letters from the list below. Claim your letter by posting a reply in the thread here, and put it as the first line in big font (eg: ❝ ## C. ❞ if you took C, that way it is easier for other people to see it, so two people don’t end up doing the same letter).
②Edit your ‘claim reply’ with a vocabulary section where you list the vocabulary words and explain what they they mean.
③ Develop your interpretation . This will help people understand and learn from your explanation.

Places and names↓

• 斉藤 英二郎 (さいとう えいじろう): the main character. He is an idealist who wants to be a doctor to help people as opposed to become rich.
• 永禄大学: the Eiroku (or Eternal Fortune) university, where Saitou graduated. Abbreviation: 永大.
• 誠同病院: Seidou hospital, a private hospital where Saitou did part-time job at night (on Episode 1). It paid well but was in conflict with Saitou’s values and beliefs.
• 服部 脩（はっとり おさむ）: director of Seidou hospital.
• 牛田 克雄（うしだ かつお）: doctor that worked at night at Seidou hospital. He told (on Ep.1) Saitou about how that hospital prefers traffic accidentees as their treatment is not regulated and can be billed four times more. And tries to get back in contact with Saitou, by phone (Ep.2) then by letter (Ep.3).
• 出久根 邦弥（でくね くにや）: fellow intern that (Ep.2 & 3) trains with Saitou.
• 第一外科 : 1st surgery department. Eiroku U. follows the “super rotate” method, in which interns train on various different services in rotation; at Ep. 2 & 3 Saitou trains here.
• 春日部 一郎（かすかべ いちろう）: nicknamed “God’s hands”, is a professor at the Eiroku University hospital that just do initial incisions, and otherwise is interested only in study of eels.
• 白鳥 貴久（しらとり たかひさ）: doctor at the 1st surgery department that did the actual operation (Ep.2) at which “God’s hands” appeared. He is the instructor of Saitou and Dekune.
• 金子 敏夫（かねこ としお）: the 75 year old person that got the surgery (Ep.2). Pr. Shiratori assigns Saitou to take care of him, and he takes it seriously. However Pr. Shiratori constantly say to Saitou that it is useless to do “too much”; later he reveals him that nobody expects Mr. Kaneko to come back to life; the operation was a mock operation so that the hospital can get money from the family.

---

p. 14-15

Direct link to the pages so you can zoom in

Miscellaneous

★(Links to the manga online, previous reading exercises) ↓

• 第1話 研修医の夜 : Episode 1, the nights of an intern
• 第2話 ウナギとゴッドハンド : Ep.2, Eels and God hands
• 第3話 ７５歳の値段 : Ep.3, the cost of 75 years (of age)

The Manga Available Online for Free
Episode 3 : 第3話 ７５歳の値段
Episode 2 : 第2話 ウナギとゴッドハンド
Episode 1 : 第1話 研修医の夜
Jisho: dictionary

★Formatting Guidelines and ideas↓

Color Coding

Finally asked and found out how to color code:

\color{red} \text{This is Red}

put a “$” before and after that, with a space in between.

[/details].
③In a reply to your ‘claim reply’, develop your interpretation. This will help people understand and learn from your explanation.
④When discussing the content of the manga, please begin your message with the letter you are addressing. This allows people to know right away about which strip you are talking about.

[YanagiPablo]

A.

Transcription:

斉藤 : だ… だけど… 結局手術はしたじゃないですか

Bu... But... In the end we did the operation, didn't we?

• 結局 (けっきょく) : in the end, after all (note how a kanji ending in ~つ doing a compong with one starting with a “k” sound ends doing a redoublement: けつ + きょく → けっきょく )

While the idea in the sentence is quite simple (he asks confirmation than the operation has been done actually), the grammar is a bit complex, I don’t fully understand it myself…

There is する in past form; that’s easy.
Then followed by ではない (which surprises me a bit, that should follow a noun);
then again ですか

“operation [topic] do-past is-not is-polite [question]”

I wonder if the ending です is not there for politeness only; so making じゃないです an equivalent of じゃありません.

Shouldn’t a “proper” grammatical sentence be したのじゃないですか

[Zizka]

Currently available: 5-13;

Episode 4:

Episode 3:

Pictures

Translatable pictures repository

@YanagiPablo:
Could you tag one of the mods to wiki the first message? I could do it but wasn’t sure if it was ok for me to do it befor asking you first.

Claiming B

Vocabulary

Japanese	Part of Speech	Meaning
教授【きょうし】	noun	professor
指示【しじ】	noun	instructions
の	particle	linking particle, English 's
だ	copula	dictionary form

At first glance, I think it means:
It is the teacher’s instructions.

Regarding 指示, it has two broad definitions:

• a. indication
• b. direction

I looked up the sample sentences to give me a better idea:

彼は私にその仕事をするための明確な指示を与えた。
He gave me instructions to do the job.

So it seems like it really is directives.

[YanagiPablo]

@Zizka

to wiki the first message?

Well, the idea is that only the “episode” thread (which hasn’t been created yet) will have a wiki; so we don’t upset the moderators with too much requests…

So my idea is do a try with this one; after the two pages are done, add a new post (still in this thread) with the two next ones, etc.
And if everybody likes this idea/format, then I will open the “episode” format, ask for it to be a wiki, and put there all the links

[YanagiPablo]

C.

白鳥先生 : 教授が患者の家族から100万円を受けとったというのは言ったはずだ

我々はその100万のためだけに無意味に老人の体を切り刻んだ

about the transcription

There were only two kanji I needed to search on a dictionary in order to type them; that’s a so good feeling…

• 受 : it turned to be past form of verb うけとる (can also be writen 受け取る in addition to 受けとる)
• 刻 : it turned to be past form of verb きざむ (in compound verb きりきざむ (切り刻む))

Interpretations:

I'm sure to have said you that the professor receives 1 million yen from the patient's family

教授が患者の家族から100万円を受けとったというのは言ったはずだ
professor [subject] patient [の] family [from] 100-man-yen [object] receive+past - means - say+past - expected to

万（まん) is a unit with 4 zeroes, so 百万 is 100,0000 = 1,000,000
受け取る : to receive, to get, to accept (compound made of 受ける, to receive to get; and 取る, to take)
というのは : yes, that difficult bit again… it is a topic or emphasis (は) about the fact of saying something; and the whole expression is used to mark what precedes, and that an explanation or definition of that will will follow
言ったはずだ : はず+だ/です is used to express something like “is supposed to”, “ought to”. However, in this context, “It’s supposed to being said that…”, I think the meaning is “I’m sure I told you” (which, indeed is the case, as we can see some pages earlier)

It’s still a complex grammar construction, some more input would be welcome

We chopped the body of the old man for no reason other than that million.

我々はその100万のためだけに無意味に老人の体を切り刻んだ
we [topic] that 100-man [の] purpose - only [purpose] non-sense [adverbial] old-people [の] body [object] cut-chop+past

I think there are not grammatical difficulties here;
just some vocabulary:

• 我々 (われわれ) : We (repetition of われ which is (yet another) pronoun for “I”)
• ため : purpose, goal
• だけ : only; and the に particle of purpose (for only the purpose of…)
• 無意味 : you may already be familiar with 意味 (いみ, meaning); adding the prefix 無 (む) negates it: un-meaning, meaningless; and then the に particle to make it an adverb: meaninglessly; that adverb qualifies the next verb
• 切り刻んだ : to cut/chop; it is a compound of 切る, to cut; and 刻む, to mince, to cut in fine parts; and the verb is in the past (being a -mu godan verb, it changes -mu => -nda). I have the feeling that this verb carries, in the context of medical things, a much lower opinion than just 切る

Note also how " 100万" here isn’t followed by a counter/unit; which isn’t “proper” grammar.

[Zizka]

But in that case we don’t keep track of what’s been claimed and done? Am I understanding right?

Claiming D.

"つまり…これ以上の治療は無駄だ

The panel is split into two bubbles. Bubble (1) on the right and
bubble (2) on the left.

①つまり…

It’s an adverb or 副詞【ふくし】. It means “that is to say”. It doesn’t really play an important role in the conversation,
it’s more of a filler leading to what the character wants to say.

②これ以上『の』治療『は』無駄［だ］

これ is a pronoun, “this” and 以上【いじょ】means “no less than” and is
linked (の) to 治療【ちりょう】. So “no less than the cure” or “this is no
less than the cure” in awkward English. All of this is wrapped
with the は topical particle so its what the rest of the sentence
talks about.

無駄【むだ】means waste, it describes what I talked about in the
previous paragraph.

So all in all, I think it means:
This is no less than the cure is a waste …which doesn’t translate well in English. Something is a “waste” for sure, it’s 以上 which is throwing me off.

So I did a bit of research and found that I should approach これ以上
as a unit instead of tackling them individually:

これ by itself means “this” and これ以上, then means “beyond this” or “more than this”. これ以上+neg. means, then, “no more than this”.

So to sum up: more than this (the cure) is a waste.

[YanagiPablo]

@Zizka

we don’t keep track of what’s been claimed and done?

But it can easily be seen on the replies…
(and, the time the first message be made a wiki, a lot of cliamed won’t be “listed” anyway)

[Zizka]

Hmm I prefer when letters done and claimed are in the first message personally but we’ll give this a shot and see how it goes…

…also the sentence summaries are missing in the first message.

[Zizka]

Claiming E:

Close-up

Again, the dialogue spoken by 白鳥 is broken down is two dialogue bubbles, ① & ②, starting from the right.

Starting with ①.

① 保険制度『の』おかげ『で』患者『の』支払う医療費『は』月数万程度［だ]『が』

---

There’s a lot of vocabulary here so I’ll make a table for easy reference.

Japanese	Meaning
保険制度【ほけんせいど】	insurance regime
おかげ	assistance, benevolence
支払う【しはらう】	godan v. to pay, dict. form
月【つき】	moon, month
数万【すうまん】	tens of thousands
程度【ていど】	degree, standard
だん	copula, dict. form
が	particle, maybe the が used to soften request or what is being said

I analyse the sentence as follows:
A. is what precedes the は, it introduces the topic of the sentence
B. is what follows the は which gives us information about said topic

A.

保険制度『の』おかげ『で』患者『の』支払う医療費[…]
保険制度 is the insurance regime which is linked to おかげ. I had mild apprehension regarding おかげ as I figured it would requires some research to understand properly.

So, as usual, I googled it:

おかげ can have a positive or negative meaning. You can tell by the context.

Hmm… that doesn’t help me much. Further research provided insightful information. Actually, I should approach it as おかげで.

thanks to; owing to; because of~

…and it’s used as a set construction which is exactly what I have right now!

Click to see

So, owing to the insurance regime… or, Thanks to the insurance regime.

Then comes 患者 which is the patient and then 支払う (to pay) + 医療費【いりょうひ】(doctor’s bill).

How do you call an expression where a verb is attributive to a noun next to it as one unit as in 支払う医療費?

Interpretation fir the first part of the first bubble
“Thanks to the insurance regime of the patient to pay the doctor bill…”
It’s worded a bit strange but that’s the essence of it.

---

Now for the second part of the first bubble.

月数万程度←だ so is. This is a descriptive sentence. Here, 月 can only mean month I think. 数万 means tens of thousands while 程度 means “degree”. “Degree” is too vague to be interpreted in this context, so I need to look at some sentences.

あなたはどの程度野球に興味があるのですか。
To what degree are you interested in baseball.

Hmm… that doesn’t help me.

So I’m a bit stuck at the last part. If you want to help please don’t give me the answer but give me a hint.

[YanagiPablo]

@Zizka

also the sentence summaries are missing in the first message.

They would be in the “episode” (or even manga) thread, like this (look at the story so far and pages)

[Zizka]

You mean the analysis threads and the “home” threads are different? If I understand correctly, we do the back and forth between the analysis thread and the home thread to congregate the sentence claims and the sentence interpretation summmaries.

[YanagiPablo]

Yes, an “index/archive” thread, with links to the actual analysis.

On the “home” thread there is enough information about the history so far, and the done sentences, so that a newcomer can understand the whole history;
and people interested in the details can click on any sentence to go where the detailed analysis has been done.

I updated the mock “home” first message; with my idea on how the “home” message will link to the current ongoing analysis

[Zizka]

Oh ok. I appreciate your initiative to host and implement changes to improve the thread. I personally prefer to deal with scrolling than using multiple threads. The votes were also in that direction at 66% vs 33% but it’s not that much of a big deal. It’s just personal preferences after all. I’ll do my best to get used to it.

[Zizka]

This is the answer I got from Japanese Stack Exchange

Click to read

Working on E part 2.

Transcription

close-up

《現実『には』その末期医療『に』一千万もの金『が』かかる》

Sentence analysed

Japanese	English
現実【げんじつ】	reality, actuality;
末期【まっき】	closing years;
医療【いりょう】	medical treatment;
かかる	to take (a resource) in the sense of “to require” maybe?

In reality, those final years of medical treatment require 1000x10,000 of money

[YanagiPablo]

F.

その金を国民全員が出し合ってストックした医療費の中から出すんだぞ…

君は回復の見込みがほとんどない老人を数々月延命するためだけに何千万円もの国民の金を使うのか？

about the transcription

It’s strange, I’m reaching the point where I can type words I don’t know/understand…

Of the two sentences above, I could type everything with the exception of:

• いりょうひ （医療費） (it had already hapened in the story, but I forgot)
• かずかず （数々） （but I know 数 has also an ON-yomi of スウ)
• えんめい （延命） （but I know 命 has also a kun-yomi of いのち)

Then, I would have expected that 何千万円 be なんせんまんえん ; however, the input method on Windows didn’t show 何;
I tried again with なにせんまんえん and it provided the expected kanji…

Why is it なに here, but なん in 何円、何時、何歳、何月、何ヶ月 … ?

"That money, is taken from the medical expenses contributed and stocked by all the citizens"

その 金 を 国民 全員 が 出し合って ストックした 医療費 の 中 から 出す んだぞ…
that money [object] nation-people all-members [subject] contribute+TE stock-do+past medical-care-bills [の] middle [from] pull out / んだぞ

その金 refers to the cost of an operation told in previous bubble.

I think the sentence can be cut like this:
その金を (国民全員が出し合ってストックした)医療費の中から 出すんだぞ…

that money, is taken off from the medical bills (contributed and stocked by all the citizens)

国民 (こくみん) : people (民) of the country (国)
全員 (ぜんいん) : all members (全=whole, 員=member)
出し合う (だしあう) : to contribute (compound made of 出す, to pull out, and 合う to meet, to unite)
医療費 : medical costs (医=medical, 療=cure, 費=cost)

"You, would like to use the money of the people in the tens of millions of yens for the only purpose of keeping alive for months old people who are hardly at all expected to recover"

君は 回復 の 見込み が ほとんどない 老人 を 数々月 延命する ため だけ に 何千万円も の 国民 の 金 を 使う のか？
you [topic] recovery [の] expectation [subject] hardly.at.all old-people [object] many-months keep.alive purpose only [purpose] how.many.tens.of.millions.yens [even] [の] people の money [object] use のか

• 見込み (みこみ) : hope, expectation.
• ほとんど : mostly; +ない => hardly at all
• 数々月 : several months (I think it is かずかずつき)
• 延命する : to keep alive
• 何+number : how many + number
• 使う (つかう) : to use
• のか : ending particle, defined as: 1. endorsing and questioning the preceding statement​, 2. lamenting reflections on the preceding statement​

So, the sentence does a sort of rhetorical question, about “using the money of the people of even how many tens of millions of yens”
(何千万円もの国民の金を使う)
and doing it “for the only purpose” (ためだけに) “of keep alive for many months” (数々月延命する),
keepng alive who? old people (老人を) whose expectations of recovery (回復の見込み) are hardly at all existent (ほとんどない)

=> “You, would like to use the money of the people in the tens of millions of yens for the only purpose of keeping alive for months old people who are hardly at all expected to recover”

Note: at first I had written … 国民の全を使うのか？
which didn’t make any sense; so I looked the manga again… and it actually is …国民の金を使うのか？
That changes a lot!

[Jonapedia]

Hi, I see you guys have been doing a good job! お疲れ様でした！(I wanted to say 皆、よくやった！, but I don’t know the formal version. I’m not sure よくやりました is acceptable. It might be. Hahaha.) The translations seem accurate from what I saw. I’ll just respond to @YanagiPablo’s question. I’ll be online for just the next 15 mins though, so do tag me before I leave if you want an immediate response. I unintentionally spent a long time online today responding to a discussion on the ‘input hypothesis’, which I think is a bit too extreme (and not that helpful, in my opinion).

@YanagiPablo

Then, I would have expected that 何千万円 be なん せんまんえん ; however, the input method on Windows didn’t show 何;
I tried again with なに せんまんえん and it provided the expected kanji…

Why is it なに here, but なん in 何円、何時、何歳、何月、何ヶ月 … ?

I sincerely think this is just a mistake on the part of the input software, because it’s not able to parse the meaning of your phrase. Whenever I type a long sentence without selecting characters, my input suggestions go wild. It should be なん, I’m fairly sure. Don’t worry about it. You can try checking online for pronunciations (like on Forvo) if you want to be extra certain, but I’m quite sure 何千 on its own is なんせん.

[YanagiPablo]

I tried on Linux (with “anthy”); and while it didn’t know of “なんせんまんえん” either; I could select “なんせん” and “まんえん” separately. So it seems that “なんせん” is valid for 何千.

(The default behaviour of the Microsoft input on Windows is a nightmare for learners, as it tries to guess ahead too much (proposing text that hasn’t been typed at all).
Does anyone know how to disable that, so propositions are based strictly only on what is typed and not on what “could be typed in the future” ?)

[Zizka]

Where is the input analysis? I’d like to read your comment.

@Jonapedia, I checked the thread, I know which one now. I didn’t realise it was a debate. People rarely change ideas about those, don’t get your hopes up .

[YanagiPablo]

Search about “input hypothesis” in the recent threads; I think it should be that one (I just lurked at it, and abandoned as it seemed too terse for me)

You can also click on user name, and see his recent contributions.

(as for the length of the text; I think I should have made one letter per bubble indeed; they were long and complex sentences…
I’ll know for next time)

[Zizka]

I’ll do the right half of G.

I hope you guys don’t. I don’t mind but I’d rather commit to shorter assignments than longer ones.