Now, Tae Kim made it less distinct in the examples. I have to look up how verb stems work, for every examples seen.
2 Likes
Hey, you actually explained it very clearly, I just expressed myself bad 
Reading your new explanation, it’s exactly what I had understood 
からかう goes into its い-stem to be able to attach the other verb やがる - I know this because Cure Dolly makes many examples about it. I will give a second look to the videos and the article.
Cure Dolly is the solution to everything 
anyway, didn’t know it was possible to attach three verbs in one like this
I still haven’t checked the material you guys sent me but reading your explanations, a question comes to my mind:
Would it be grammatical in this precise case to just use the からかう te-form and attach やがる there? And if yes, what would the difference be? What I mean is, what difference is there between attaching two verbs with the い-stem and just putting them one after the other with the て form
Edit: chapter 1 page 3
いやー、筆箱があかなくって。
I suppose that the last part it’s just あかなくて (so the て-form of あかない)
And the small tsu っ gets inserted inside 〜くて just as emphatic effect but doesn’t really mean anything else. Correct?
2 Likes
Yep. It’s there to show strain and indicate she is struggling with opening the pencil box. 
2 Likes
hmm… can’t really say it’s wrong because it feels like in any language you can make things grammatically correct, but it wouldn’t be natural to do so… in this case Te form is not usually used with this aux verb…(though you probably could do it a native speaker would probably tell you it sounds strange or is never used that way)
If you did a literal translation Te form tends to become “and” and for this aux verb it isn’t an “and” … it’s just expressing additional information…For what it’s worth…Jisho even specifically says the aux verb is used with the “masu” stem (the “i” stem)…not the Te form…
3 Likes
Good point haha maybe I did the wrong question, but I got what you mean.
Meanwhile I made it to the sequent page and I have another question,
Did I get it right?
Chapter 1, page 4, box 1
ゆがんじゃったのかなー、…”
I analyzed this sentence and to me it appears translatable in this way:
“ I wonder if it’s not bent/ warped (as in being damaged and not opening properly) “
Now, my analysis of the sentence was:
ゆがんでしまった → action done by accident, it bent by accident (we already talked about the helper しまう for complete/done by accident things)
のかなー → this is a combination of particles.
I found out that a sentence ending with かな (which can be elongated in かなぁ or かなー) expresses uncertainty and wondering about something, and のか alone does sort of the same thing, so it should give the feeling of doubt in a rhetoric question that Takagi-san asked to herself while nishikata was listening to fool him 
Is my interpretation correct? Did I miss anything grammar wise?
3 Likes
seems like you got it…
fyi…by accident can also mean unfortunately (unfortunately it’s bent)… though it’s more a subtle thing and you would be correct in your translation dropping the by accident/unfortunately part…when translating back to English…
The の could be combined but in this case it’s more a sentence ender that is equivalent to か stating a question… then with doubt かな as doubt/thought… There are so many ways to say this same thing but one natural English translation would be: “Is this warped?..I wonder” Since it’s more like speech this might be more accurate…if it was just a normal sentence… “I wonder if this is warped?”
You might be starting to find the joy in translating vs reading and understanding… Unfortunately, it takes a long time to be able to ‘think in Japanese’ as this is what really needs to happen… (most certainly a chicken/egg problem)… the only solution is to keep going… in time it will get easier
3 Likes
Oh I missed this detail, didn’t know it could be interpreted in such way… even tho - correct me if I’m wrong - in this sentence it’s not the case because Takagi was asking herself a question in doubt (she wasn’t sure it was broken)…?
Could you explain what you mean here? I’m not sure 
And - my interpretation of the function of かな was correct… right?
Well, for now I can just tell that I’m absolutely loving what I’m doing. It’s a passion. The last time I felt like this about something is after my first year of training, and another 11 years went by since then!
4 Likes
don’t worry you’re good…don’t over think this one… (accidents are unfortunate right? this is why that feeling tends to go together)
か is a particle to indicate a question … (while you can use a question mark…か is the particle for the sentence telling you it’s a question…
分かりますか。 分かりますの。
Both mean the same thing… の tends to be more used in feminine speech but doesn’t have to be…
Yes…かなぁぁぁぁ。。。。 
かな | Japanese Grammar SRS (bunpro.jp)
3 Likes
Awesome! Everything is clear, thanks for the help
2 Likes
A couple questions about chapter 1, page 4, box 1 (yep, I’m taking my time )
ちょっと西片あけてくんない？
ちょっと here simply means “excuse me a minute, Nishikata” …right?
About あけてくんない, I spent 5 minutes thinking about it and came up to the conclusion that it’s just あけてくれない with the れ that becomes ん. So its meaning is pretty simple. “Hey Nishikata, excuse me a minute. Would you open this for me?”
But this is the first time I find a question ending with ない Is there anything particular I should know? How would you guys explain the difference between this question, and asking the same thing, but without the ない?
2 Likes
It’s a matter of politeness. The negative form is more polite than the affirmative form. Maggie-sensei has an article on this.
Also, yes, you interpreted ちょっと correctly. 「ちょっといい?」can be used similarly.
3 Likes
Oh, I just remembered the genki 1 chapter about 〜ませんか for polite invitations! I guess this is sort of the same - asking for something with the negative for extra politeness otherwise it sounds like a too strong request or even be interpreted as “are you going to open it” or something like that… right?
I studied ちょっといい on genki too and luckily I remember that it’s just that recognizing a grammar point inside the manga context is quite harder
3 Likes
Yep, that’s essentially the gist of it. You can use the positive form, but only with people you are close to, where it’s obvious you aren’t trying to be pushy or rude. We kinda do the same in English. “Won’t you open this for me?” sounds a bit more polite (though maybe a bit more pretentious as well, coming from an American/Canadian perspective ) than “Will you open this for me?”, in my opinion.
And the closer you are to someone, the more you tend to speak more casually as well, to the point that you might even just hand something to someone and say, “Open this, please.” My SO does that, sometimes, and I know she isn’t being rude or anything; we are just familiar and can make direct requests like that. With others, however, she would phrase it as a question to be more polite and not come across abrasive or rude.
3 Likes
I see your point, in Italian it goes the same, I will ask my brother “open it” (followed by some insult, because we’re from the south 
)
Clear as always!
3 Likes
Question on chapter 1, page 5, box 3 (making some progresses, managed to go thru some boxes all by my myself )
From now on I’m going to include the photo of the box in the spoilers
About this, I’m seeing some things I’ve never seen before
-
西片って what is this って here? I have no clue at all. A sort of て form of a proper name?
-
ホント = real ; いい = good ; ホントいい = really good… which… is describing the 反応する verb (or whatever it is…? The dictionary conjugates it by adding する)
-
わー Edit: solved, apparently it’s a feminine exclamation particle (followed by an elongation ー because she was really pleased) that can express different things such as surprise or even assertion
Edit: if ホント is modifying いい shouldn’t ホント be followed by に or something as it happens with adverbs that get the に before a verb?
2 Likes
って can act as a casual topic marker. Functionally, it is similar to は. The difference in nuance is essentially that は is a bit more matter of fact, I think. This article talks about って as a topic marker in-depth.
ホント would usually be followed by に, but the fun part of casual Japanese is that they often decide to totally drop particles. ホント is one word where this happens a lot. Especially since ホント itself is already casual (the full spelling is actually ほんとう, or 本当 in kanji), it’s pretty common to see it without the に. I think that, similar to うまい being shortened to うまっ, it shows a bit more excitement behind the phrase.
And 反応 is a noun, but a lot of nouns can also be する verbs. 勉強 is another example of one that most people will know. We also do this in English sometimes. Google is a noun, but it’s also a verb. Japanese just does it a lot more.
Yep, you got it! It’s also pretty well limited to media. While there are some people who still use it, my understanding is that it’s considered a little old-fashioned/pretentious nowadays, and not widely used in Standard Japanese, day-to-day. You’ll see it a lot in anime and manga, especially with ojou-sama character tropes, though, and I think there is a different わ used by both genders in Kansai-ben that’s more akin to よ in Standard Japanese (but that’s something you needn’t worry about here).
3 Likes
Just checked the article, it cleared everything!
I’ll try to keep it in mind. Your explanation was great, but I guess that to get used to something similar I’ll have to encounter it 4-5 times. Meanwhile, I hope that people will be patient with me if I drop twice the same question how long did it take you during your first read to begin getting used to some grammar points/ contractions? I hope I can speed up just a tiny bit as soon as possible, not because I don’t enjoy this research process (I do) but because if I read 1 page everyday it will take me 5 months to end a volume
Everything else was perfectly clear too!
3 Likes
Another couple questions
Chapter 1, page 5
-
うるさいなっ → what is this なっ ending here? How should I interpret the adjective うるさい? The dictionary says it can mean ‘annoying‘ and ‘noisy‘ but also a verb such as “shut up”.
-
まんまとやられた → I’d translate the sentence as “Damn! …I’ve successfully been deceived again”. Also, am I wrong or there’s a dropped に here after まんまと?
2 Likes
That’s such a wide-ranging question, I don’t know if I can really give a proper answer. って as a topic marker came fairly quickly because it’s quite common. A similar case with some contractions, especially the れ/る to ん and the ている to てる types. Other grammar took much longer, and some grammar, I’m still looking up here and again because it hasn’t stuck. @ChristopherFritz talks a lot about the brain being a pattern recognition machine. The more you see something, the more it will start to stick, and you’ll recognize it faster and faster. It varies heavily from person to person, as well, and some grammar points that some find easy, I might struggle with and vice versa.
Sorry, that’s not the most helpful answer. 
He is definitely telling her to shut up, here. な is a sentence ender that can have a couple of different uses (it can be used similar to ね, but is more masculine and rude), but the one that is pertinent here is that it’s an affirmation of the preceding statement. Basically, it’s emphasising it. Shut up as opposed to just “Shut up.”
The small っ sentence ending is a glottal stop. If spoken, it would cut short the preceding sound a bit, and is basically an additional level of emphasis/strengthening. It turns our Shut up. into a Shut up!
We talked a bit about the っ yesterday with that っっ conversation.
まんまと is actually a と adverb, so no missing に this time. You have the right translation, though, so well done!
4 Likes
I didn’t ask to get a precise advice, don’t worry, I asked because I like to hear the experiences of people that have done what I want to do thanks for sharing!
This whole part is totally new, I didn’t know about both な as sentence ending particle and even about the gluttal stop. Interesting concept, especially since I didn’t expect emphasizing words this way.
I’ll check your yesterday convo for more details!
This is totally new, I didn’t know anything about と adverbs 
Thanks for your detailed answer as always, you’re helping a lot
3 Likes