I would say you’ve got the overall meaning, so well done! The only major correction I would make is to なんて. While it can be what you describe, it can also be used as a particle to mean “something like; such a thing as,” and I’m fairly certain that’s what’s happening here.
I also would read そもそも more like the “In the first place” meaning, but either interpretation works fine there.
“In the first place, Takagi-san (doing) such a thing as asking me for help is strange/suspicious.”
As for the adjective question, I’m not quite sure what you are asking. I’m afraid. It’s just being used to describe what he thinks about her action, namely that it’s strange/suspicious. It doesn’t have to do anything special to be connected to the rest of the sentence. You can just say それはおかしい, and that’s perfectly grammatical, as well. A lot of times in casual Japanese, the copula (だ) is optional.
In this case, adding the んだ just gives it a more “explanatory” feel, given that んだ is a contraction of のだ. (Side-note: it’s just んだ, not なんだ in this sentence; since it follows an い adjective, you don’t need that な. That would only be there for な-adjectives or nouns.)
There isn’t really a good way to translate the explanatory の into English without sounding a bit forced; we just don’t tend to put those kinds of things into actual words so much as we just take an explanatory tone of voice.
The closest you could do would be to preface the sentence with, “It is that; it is because,” but the resulting English often sounds a bit strange.
Thanks for the correction! I didn’t know of this use, when I look up on google things like this, many results come up and it’s difficult to differentiate case from case. Also, I made some research on it but couldn’t find anything, can you better explain this なんて? I suppose it’s not なのて contracted because it’s wrong to use な after a verb, so I expect it being something like 何て…? And what’s the て exactly doing there?
I got what you mean, now that I think of it, it sounds way better this way
Hmm I think I asked the wrong question, pardon, with english not being the first language I try my best to be comprehensible but sometimes I just write weird things
Your answer still helped me clarify the concept!
Also the rest was of your explanation was clear, thanks!!
Honestly, I always just took it at face value as a particle like は and didn’t look any more into it once I understood what it meant.
Looking more into it, however, Wiktionary suggests, for our use case (since there are other なんて uses that would be different etymology):
And just to clarify a bit, the なんて that you describe (with negative surprise emphasis) isn’t necessarily different than the particle. I could have worded that correction better in my original answer. It’s just that it doesn’t always carry the “negative surprise” emphasis. That emphasis depends on the sentence around it, which is why I personally find it more useful to view it as “something like; such a thing as” and allow context to inform whether that is positive, negative, or just general emphasis.
No worries! Your English is perfectly fine; I just wasn’t sure what detail exactly you were after. I am equally guilty of asking questions that I can’t phrase the way I would like, and I don’t have the excuse of English being my second language.
Oh I get it, in this case when something doesn’t necessarily carries a fixed positive or negative note, it probably just emphasizes what’s already there in some way… in this case so なんて emphasizes the concept it follows just as the thing it is, ‘such a thing as”…
Happy to hear that I’m mostly comprehensible grammar can be a labirinthic matter to talk about sometimes
Another analysis (page 5 is almost over, this box was slow!)
そこで→ そこ refers to a temporal place, not physical location.
This expression proposes an action that would’ve been / will be the solution (or an improvement) of a situation expressed previously. What follows そこで is that action
気づけ→Imperative of きずく
オレ→this is the subject of the sentence so I imagine there is a dropped が after it
Translation:
I should have noticed it! (not sure)
さすが高木さんた→edit: made some research on this, さすが is a term often used for complimenting someone/something for being up to the (high) expectations - or something among those lines. So in this case Nishikata is saying this with malice referring to the fact that Takagi-san has been good as always at fooling him… I guess?
Therefore I’d translate this sentence as “Takagi-san was once again up to the expectations”
I think you’ve got it, pretty much. If I were translating back into English, I might make some adjustments to the phrasing to make it sound more natural, but you’ve got the understanding, so that’s just quibbles for translation between two very different languages.
Early on, it definitely helps to translate to make sure you understand, but as time goes on, you’ll find that you need to do that less and less (and that sometimes you’ll come across something that just doesn’t translate neatly, no matter how much you try), and you’ll just understand it, only needing to come back to English (or Italian!) for words you don’t know at all.
I appreciate your comprehension, indeed, to give a perfect english translation is not my goal. It’s rather to truly understand Japanese logic, and the way I put my translation is just to show who’s helping me the actual thought process I’m make
• 次の手を考えなければ
→ “I have to think about my next move…”
→ (literally) “if I don’t think about my next move…” (sort of the なければいけない grammar point but with the second half dropped - a Cure Dolly video says this happens a lot)
• どうすればいい！？
→ “What should I do!?”
→ (literally) “How, if I do, will be good?”
• どうすれば高木さんをはずかしめられる！？
→ What should I do to humiliate Takagi-san!?
→ (literally) How, if I do, will be able to humiliate Takagi-san!?
In this last sentence there is a potential form of the ichidan はずかしめる verb, which for what I understand, can be translated both as ‘can’ and ‘be able to’
Edit: I’m often seeing things such as
な、何 - or な…何？ said from Nishikata while a bit panicked and was wondering, is this a sort of wa-what? Or is that ‘な’ something by itself?
消しゴム貸して、忘れちゃったの。
→ Lend me the eraser, I forgot mine
→ (literally) Lend me the eraser, it is that ( I ) forgot (it)
Here we have a dropped を particle if I’m not wrong (消しゴム), then it’s just かす in its て form (just for conjunction purposes). In the end there is わすれてしまったの in its contracted form, and the explanatory の at the end
No particular questions - I’m just posting it to see if there are corrections needed
You’ve got the meaning in your translation. Do keep in mind this 貸して is not just conjunctive, though, it’s the request form. (Which you did translate properly, just want to make sure you know where that request is coming from grammatically). It is 貸してください, without the ください.
The, I was right just by accident because I totally forgot about the request form!
This request form, is it made just by putting a verb in its て-form so that it can attach to ください? Or there’s more behind the て?
I don’t think there is anything more behind the て than that, but I could be mistaken. It’s another thing I’ve taken at face value. て form is used for so many different things, it’s easy to forget about them sometimes. You’ll definitely see this request form a lot though. If you watch anime, you have probably heard 「見て、見て!」or 「見せて!」a countless number of times.
Ok, I’m happy to hear that there isn’t anything else for once even if there is, I trust your knowledge and the fact that if I’m ever going to need to know that, it will come out, because it’s probably superfluous to know at the moment
What the hell am I watching? is that the conditional of 言う?
Edit: forgot to check on the dictionary sheets, dumb me, it’s written the word そういえば as ‘speaking of witch’ - which btw I interpret as “if you mention it, it comes to my mind that…”
So problem solved. I guess what happened is just the う in そう being changed with the ー and elongating a simple sentence ending particle さ with double ーー for effect
You are starting to see the joys of some Japanese words and starting to become familiar with grammar points. そういえば is a set phrase/word meaning, “Speaking of which,” but it’s quite easy (as you intuited out) to see this as そう + (conditional) 言う. “If you say thus” (forgive the slightly archaic English, easiest way to express そう as a concept here), which means the same thing, if a bit less natural, which is why そういえば gets the “speaking of which; that reminds me; now that you mention it” meaning, since that would be how we would actually express it in English
It’s been my experience as I’ve gotten more familiar with grammar, that a lot of higher level grammar points are really just taking lower grammar points and combining them, and quite a few lower level grammar points are just combinations of words and their conjugations, that have just been baked into particular uses: そういえば being one such example, though technically this is listed as N2 grammar, despite being relatively simple!
I think that’s one of the things I find really fun about Japanese. It really is just building blocks being stacked on top of one another, and once you get a decent base in the language, it gets easier and easier to intuit even things you’re seeing for the first time, since often, it’s just a combination of multiple things you have seen already.
It’s ok, I have some grasp on archaic english too
Your explanation once again was very clear, I have no doubts left on this particular expression
I’m very happy to hear that. I imagined something like this because I’m not really working with grammar points in order, and thought about it when I casually encountered some N1/N2 points that were looking just like the combination of other simple stuff
As Cure Dolly says, japanese is like Legos, and indeed it’s true.
This also means that all this research and effort to better grasp the fundamentals in an intuitive way will hopefully pay back one day
The first half of the sentence was relatively easy (or at least I think so)
消しゴムに on the eraser
好きな人の名前 the name of the liked person
かいて just かく in the て form - write
使い切ったら just つかいきる in the conditional たら - so, I’m not sure how to properly translate it in english but I got what it means. Use it till it’s over (supposedly the eraser)
→ if you write on the eraser the name of the person you like and use it till consuming it all, …
Now it comes the unclear
両想いに mutual love, target of the following transformation verb なる because of the に particle
なれるって i think it’s the potential form of なる with the addition of the topic marking function of って …? But なる can be translated in different ways and I don’t really know what’s best here. Also can’t sense how this って is working here and how all the sentence links together
やつ ?? Fellow?
あった ?? l suppose it’s the past of the verb ある but apart from this I have no clue
よね not concerned by this because I think it’s just an easily comprehendible combination of sentence ending particles
The only major correction I would make is to なんて. While it can be what you describe, it can also be used as a particle to mean “something like; such a thing as,” and I’m fairly certain that’s what’s happening here.
