Of course, but, keep also in mind that as it happened to me, the first volume you’ll read will be more a learning experience than a reading experience, so if you’re doing it just for the sake of improving your japanese knowledge while still reading something you like, all good, otherwise if you want to enjoy the series as the first thing, consider it twice because it will be inevitably slow at first (if you’re not in the upper beginner end or intermediate).. I’m at volume 5 now and still have a slow reading pace, I’d go for the anime first instead, I just loved it!
Just my advice
(Ofc reading the manga first has its good things too, like you get a more complete experience than the anime which is inevitably “Diluted” etc.)
Hey there guys, I’m finally back on reading Takagi-san and consistently studying japanese! It feels awesome, I missed it a lot honestly
I have a first question on Chapter 二択クイズ , page 2, box 3, speech bubble 1, on the word 売り切れ which means “sold-out”… I noticed that this word is also the imperative form of the verb 売り切る (to sell out), is there any logic reason for it to be?
Also random thought, 売り切れる means to be sold out, but I was expecting the receptive form (売り切られる) to have that meaning. Instead, it’s potential. But this way what looks like the potential and the actual receptive form, have the same meaning, that is “to be sold out”, how is this explained (if possible)?
Also apologies in advance for any confusion in asking questions on here or any big mistakes. After so long not studying japanese I realized how difficult is to even just ask the proper questions…
Since i have so much confusion on the key concepts of the language and easy grammar logic, I decided I’ll watch the Cure Dolly yt series once again
Hope everyone is having a good time with japanese learning
I had difficulties translating this sentence but aiding with DeepL I think it makes sense:
Literally (kinda)
“What the hell 何てこった… despite のにsomething cold 冷たいもの I want to drink 飲みたい, as for what there is あるのは, oshiruko and おしること, weird thing 変なやつ only だけ (there are)”
Or
“Damn… I want to drink something cold but there is only Oshiruko and this other weird thing (drink)”
It’s a case of two forms of a word looking the same; it’s not the imperative form in this case, but the noun form of the word. If she weren’t speaking casually, it would have been easier to spot:
ほとんど売り切れです。
But yeah, it looks the same, and there might be a relation I’m not aware of (sort of like with 嘘つけ), but it’s just a noun in this instance.
For the other part of the question regarding the grammar inflections, I’ll leave that to somebody else, or might circle back and answer after pondering it some more and coming up with an answer myself. I realize now why I didn’t notice anything odd after waking up some more.
What I’m believing the answer to be, using just the tail end of the verb as an example for ease of examples:
You are mixing up transitive and intransitive vs passive/receptive and active verbs.
切る “to cut” – is transitive. It can take a direct object. 切られる would receive the action from a specific agent/outside force acting on it.
切れる “to be cut” is intransitive. It cannot take a direct object, it’s just describing the state of something, essentially. There’s no agent causing the cut to happen, per se, it just “is”.
In a similar way, 売り切る is transitive. The merchant is actively selling off goods.
But after the fact, when describing the state, there is no agent causing the goods to be sold out anymore. They just are sold out, so it becomes intransitive instead: 売りきれる.
売り切られる doesn’t make sense to me as a passive/receptive verb; maybe it’s my lack of imagination, but when “selling” something, it’s always going to be going away from an agent. Someone can’t receive selling out; that would be buying, which would be a different word.
You have the sentence broken up across 3 panels correct.
Hey MrGeneric, I missed your smart explanations!
Thanks for the answer, it was perfectly clear but I was surprised in finding out that 売り切れ is the noun form, I thought that a verb could only become a noun when put in its い~stem, so can you tell me more of this other way? Is it normal for verbs to be transformed into nouns when put into the え~stem? Maybe I used to know something about it but currently I can’t recall nothing
Oh right, I remember our conversation about this word!
Awesome, this explains everything, apparently I confused 切る with 切れる but it still remains suspicious to me (maybe stupidly too) that the intransitive version of a verb is identical to it’s potential version, since what if I want to use that verb in its potential form? And for what I can recall, this happens for many different verbs but in the end I guess context clarifies all doubts?
It just made sense, it’s an ichidan verb so it’s not the え~stem of the godan verb 売り切る but the い~stem of 売り切れる !
Oh yes, apologies, I kept calling it that way because I remember cure dolly’s explanation, if I remember good she divides everything like: あ~stem (e.g. 売ら for the negative etc…), い~stem (売り for the masu form…), う~stem (売る which is the simple dictionary form…) and the rest え/お~stems with their uses…
If I’m not wrong, I remember reading your stem of the verb explanation (the ~ます verb without the ます) on genki…? But I found myself better with the CD version so I use it intuitively
Without checking the chapter for context, yes, that’s how I would translate the sentence also. (My tablet is currently charging so I can read Spice and Wolf tonight, and is not with me at the moment, or I would check the page to be extra sure, but the sentence on its own looks right!)
Awesome, I got it right again! Looks like I haven’t lost too much progress, very happy to notice it
What is this new series you’re reading? Also I remember you were also reading The way of the house husband, how are reading progresses on that? I’m watching the netflix show, very simple but I love it! I remember from what you shared that the manga was a hell difficulty to read, with all the handwritings and boxes to freely interpret with complex meanings etc…
Yep! Looks like you’re settling right back in! Congratulations!
My Reading Adventures
Oh, that was one that I read the first volume along with the club and then shelved for the time being because all of my questions with it were dialect-related, and it didn’t feel like I was learning much standard Japanese from it (as fun as it was)!
I honestly probably could return to it by now, though, tbh. My progress in standard Japanese has reached a point that dialects are super fun instead of “Oh great, now I have to remember this and the standard way of saying it…”
I definitely will wait until I have fewer things on my plate to return to it though.
I’m currently reading (or will be picking up again in the next week or so, when work slows down again):
Rascal does not dream Series (Currently on the 3rd volume: Rascal does not dream of a Logical Witch)
Kitchen (though this one has been on a decent hiatus because the story was a little heavy and sad, so I’m working back to finishing it because I’m close and it would be good to get off the list)
Spice and Wolf is really good so far, but it is definitely the toughest thing I’ve read to date. The Rascal series has some tough moments, but overall, it’s easy to follow, and I’m not looking up too much as I progress in the series. Spice and Wolf’s difficulty comes with unfamiliar topics to me in Japanese: economics and religion. So there is a lot of vocabulary I’m learning from it on those two. Holo also speaks with a heavy dialect, but so far, it’s not too hard to puzzle that out!
I loved the Netflix series of Househusband. So much fun! I definitely want to revisit the series and continue with the manga sometime!
I was thinking of giving it a try in the future because it looks like a very funny (and difficult) read but I didn’t consider the dialect… so I guess it’ll wait a long time… let me ask you, at what point of your study did you start noticing what was standard japanese and what was merely a dialect form?
Out of curiosity - what makes something “difficult” to read at your point of studies? I ask because atm for me difficult means being too complex grammatically, or the absence of furigana… not knowing vocabulary is normal to me, it’s the average read, and it’s easily solved by just looking everything up
Not 100% sure on the second and third speech bubble (first one is easy, from Takagi-san, second and third are from Nishi)
“Do we look for a different vending machine?”
I suppose のど is “throat” and 渇いた is past of 渇く (to be/ feel thirsty) + the し particle which if I remember good lists one of several reasons - a bit like the english “because…” (or “since”?)
So I’d literally translate this as
“Since/because throat feel thirsty…”
And I’d translate とりあえず as “… for now… (let’s get a drink at this vending machine instead of looking for another one)”
Less literal:
“Do you want to look for another vending machine?”
“Uhm, nay… since I’m thirsty, for now…”
Honestly, once you get a decent grasp on a solid amount of kanji, the dialect is fairly easy to get used to, and the club has a link to a page that has a conversion for Kansai dialect to standard Japanese, so there are good resources for that. It just didn’t suit my needs at the time, because my focus for reading was to get comfortable with standard Japanese, not necessarily that it was overly difficult (though it was also the first thing I read without actual furigana, so that’s why I mention knowing a decent amount of kanji). So I wouldn’t put it off for just the dialect thing if you really want to give it a try!
Now my focus for reading is just to get comfortable with reading a wide variety of topics, expand my vocabulary, and purely for enjoyment, so books with dialects and such are no longer a distraction, but something else for me to get exposure to.
As far as recognizing a dialect vs standard Japanese, it was honestly easy to tell with Househusband. He just spoke differently than any character I had come across. Knowing the setting of a book can give hints about whether a character might have a dialect or not, but it’s usually pretty obvious from the moment they say anything.
Kansai dialect has some common word choices: や instead of だ for the copula, へん or ん instead of ない for negation, ちゃう instead of 違う, etc. There are a lot of tells (and some slightly different grammar conjugations) for that.
In the case of Holo in Spice and Wolf, her dialect is older, and it is immediately obvious with anything she says. As an example: 「ぬしとわっちじゃ、生きてきた世界が違うんじゃ。」
Obvious standouts for dialect:
ぬし = old, familiar word for “you”
わっち = わたし
じゃ = では particle contraction in the first use (I think), だ copula in the second
The Rascal series also has a character who has occasional phrases that are Hakata dialect when she gets annoyed or confused: 「いっちょんわからん！」 and 「ばりむかー！」 are the two that I remember best, but the characters in the story reacted to the dialect, so I didn’t have to figure that out myself.
To more directly answer the question, I first noticed dialects while watching the Pet Girl of Sakurasou anime, because a point was made to point out when a character slipped from standard Japanese to Kansai, and that was fairly early in my journey, so I was kinda primed for listening and watching for differences from the start. Once you know it’s a thing, it doesn’t become hard to spot dialects when they crop up.
Primarily complexity of topics (economics and religion for Spice and Wolf, quantum physics for Rascal series), and an author’s writing style; both Spice and Wolf and Rascal remain fairly accessible despite complexity of topics by being written in a manner that tries to explain the topics fairly simply (to varying degrees of success; Rascal does a great job of it. Spice and Wolf still has some things that leave me with questions with the economics. Could also be that I just have a more natural penchant for understanding physics than economics even in English, though, to be fair).
Kitchen on the other hand, uses very simple vocabulary but the writing style makes it a bit tougher to follow because it’s a sort of “stream of conciousness” type of writing – we always see what’s happening in the main character’s head, and occasionally that makes it hard to follow exactly what happened in a scene vs what was just in the character’s thoughts. It’s still pretty easy, but I imagine if that style of writing was used with a more complex subject matter, I would start to get lost fast.
Well, how many kanji is a solid amount? as far as I remember, you’ve been lv60 all the time so you’ve been knowing lots of kanji for a long time already, right?
Wow, I didn’t expect such drastic changes in the basics
Sounds like very useful, is this a thing for dialects in some mangas?
Also your point on difficulty was very interesting
Holo also speaks with a heavy dialect, but so far, it’s not too hard to puzzle that out!
as far as I remember, you’ve been lv60 all the time so you’ve been knowing lots of kanji for a long time already, right?