Sorry, to clarify, 子供 isn’t repeated; Nishikata uses the exact word 子供っぽい in a subsequent panel. Which is why I mention being surprised that he would drop the っぽい in one case, but then leave it in immediately after.
There is a chance he misinterpreted, but I don’t like to disagree with native speakers unless I’m positive that there is a mistake. What I can say, is I haven’t encountered a situation (unless this is one), where the っぽい is dropped, but the -ish meaning remains. Or, if I have, it’s been a similar situation to this one, with multiple ways to interpret it.
So, yes, there is a chance, but I still would err in favor of believing him. I’ll shoot a message to my tutor about it, though. Maybe she can shed some light on this.
Yes, this does start to come naturally. For now, it will be a lot of work, and sometimes it will be really difficult, but it does get easier as you do more reading and get more experience. There are still some things where the Japanese grammar is so different that it takes a lot of twisting around to make it translate cleanly, but you’ll get to where you can figure out meaning, even if maybe a translation isn’t particularly forthcoming.
That’s awesome, I also managed to contact the guy that helped me on hellotalk asking for clarifications on this point, let’s see what he says. If you know anything from your tutor, please let me know!
This is the only thing that matters I have no problems at keep going this rhythm. But let me say that the help I’m getting on this forum from you and other people is essential
When I first started reading (deciphering), it didn’t feel like I’d ever be able to intuit from reading. It felt like I would always be translating everything into English in my head to understand it.
I didn’t even notice when I (mostly) stopped translating.
It’s all about your brain’s pattern recognition kicking in.
Have you ever walked somewhere, or drove a car somewhere, and you managed to get to your destination while inadvertently daydreaming most of the time? This is possible because your subconscious brain gets used to where to go and what to do to get there.
(Side-note: I don’t drive, but I remember walking to a friend’s house that was over an hour away but it felt like I was daydreaming for only five minutes and I was there.)
Reading will become the same. Once you see the same patterns enough time, you’ll recognize their meaning without thinking. This will be common words. This will be common grammar. This will be common phrases and expressions, words that often appear together (such as 気をつける or 腹減った).
It might take a while, so don’t expect it to happen right away. You need to read a lot for those patterns to build up in your brain. If you keep reading then eventually it will happen.
Thank you a lot for your message, I’m very happy to hear this.
It’s exactly as you said - at times I feel like I’ll have to translate for the rest of my life (not that I’ve been doing it for a long time, but it being so disorienting at times, I come to think that) and I’m just a bit worried on wether I’m doing the right things. For some people maybe it’s easy to just keep going but I often worry about efficiency and long term strategy.
I’m putting in a lot of dedication and I’m happy to know that I’m on the right path. I will keep doing what I’m doing
I have another doubt here.
Takagi-san:
ふーん子供ねー hmm, childish, huh…?
へぇーー really? (/do you think so?)
Nishikata:
………
なんだよ… what…? (←this is him in that box)
My doubt is on this expression
I had a hard time trying to find some material that would explain the differences between なのだよ and 何だよ and I’m still not sure which of the two is, but to me it looks like a slightly more formal and polite version of ‘wtf’
Thought?
This is definitely 何だよ. There’s nothing preceding it that could make it なのだよ, which remember, is specifically a sentence ending (well, technically a combination of sentence endings) that gives a sentence an explanatory feel. In this case, he is literally just asking, “What the heck?”
I also wouldn’t say that this is formal. It’s very casual.
Regarding the 子供 vs 子供っぽい:
It’s not so much that the っぽい is being dropped in this case, according to my tutor. She says that they often just use 子供 on its own to mean childish specifically when referring to a person.
あの人子供だね means “That person is childish.” (even if it would be more literally translated as “That person is a child.”)
She follows up with:
So that seems to be the difference, and it makes sense here. “That person is a child” really is no functionally different than “That person is childish.”
Which, I think we all basically agreed on anyway, we were just confused about っぽい and dropping it. Either way, the overall takeaway seems to be: 子供っぽい is fine for a person, but you can also just use 子供, but if you want to describe an object or a verb, that’s when you would need to change it to 子供っぽい, which makes sense as to why he changed to 子供っぽい for the second use. It’s modifying an object, in that case.
Made it to the end of the page… and I’m blocked again
何も…書いてないだろ
何も nothing
書いていない gets contracted into 書いてない not writing
だろ only thing I could come up to with this is the だ copula plus the imperative ろ that gets attached to the ichidan verbs. That said, wth is it doing here dictionary says ‘probably’ or ‘don’t you agree?
I don’t have idea of how to interpret this, but I suppose it means something like “I didn’t write anything”
↑EDIT: thinking again, could Nishikata be referring to Takagi san there? “You… aren’t writing anything, i hope…?” (だろ = I hope) but present continuous sounds weird here. Maybe I’m just wrong trying to make it sound good in english
Now, the next was surprisingly easy
オレ…そんな子供っぽいことしないよ
I… I don’t do such childish things
Or literally
I…like this childish thing, don’t do
Since it’s short, I’m doing the last box here too
Takagi-san
ほほー Hoho? Is this a laugh? It remembers me santa’s laugh
そーなんだーー I suppose it’s そうなんだーー
So it’s like paraphrasing what nishikata said by repeating “hmm… things like thaat……”
だろう is the conjectural form of だ (the formal form is でしょう, btw), and it can mean what you write. The more common way to translate it generally is, “right?” It’s basically seeking affirmation. He is pretty sure he didn’t write anything on the eraser, but is starting to have doubts because Takagi-san is teasing him, acting like she sees something, so he is looking for her to confirm nothing is there.
“Nothing…is written (on the eraser), right?”
Kind of a laugh, yes.
It is そうなんだー. In this particular case, I think it’s kind of a question. Like “Really?” Or “Is that so?” like そうですか or そうか? Maybe a better comparison is そうかな, actually… But I could be mistaken.
Didn’t know this conjectural form, checking the tofugu article now!
Also, can’t believe I didn’t think of that. It’s so funny, poor nishikata being teased this way haha😂
Makes much more sense than mine.
I think I missed a crucial detail earlier, that stopped me from noticing this detail.
When, a couple boxes before, Takagi san looks at the eraser and says へぇーー while Nishikata watches paniking. Is へぇーー usually said with with a raising tone of voice? Because I remembering in the anime her often making that sound like hmm what? And if this is right, it explains why nishikata panicked and asked “there’s nothing written on the erasor… right!?”
But exceptions aside, it’s otherwise true that you won’t see it by itself =D
Edit: Actually, I wonder if this is Akari saying なのだ because Woody keeps saying it, in which case she’s continuing from her prior word balloon. So this might not be an exception either!
This was easy but I’m not sure about a contraction
ウソだ、またからかってんだろ。
It’s a lie, you’re teasing me again… right?
I hazard a supposition - the ん after からかって is いる→る→ん right?
If this is correct, I’d also hazard to say that this further abbreviation was made because Nishikata was loosing his shit for the fear
That is the correct contraction; he always does those kinds of contractions even when he is not panicking, though. It’s just a part of casual Japanese.
Tonight is travel night, I got 7 hours of train and being slightly claustrophobic there’s no chance I’m going to fall asleep, so…
Chapter 1, page 9, box 3
This is a case of Japanese and English expressing something differently, I think. 書いている is “writing”, and English also has that present continuous form, but we can only use it one way: currently writing. It feels like Japanese also turns around sometimes and uses that form in a way that doesn’t make sense in English, despite 書かれている being the form I might expect.
The unfortunate thing is that I can’t really defend the translation except to say that I literally can’t express it in English in any other way than “written,” and that it fits the context to a T. Maybe somebody else sees something I’m missing and can connect the pieces for you a little better, but even back then, I kinda shrugged and just decided it was one of those quirks where Japanese expresses something differently than English. @ChristopherFritz, what are your thoughts? You’ve probably got a better explanation than I have.
I have no problems at keep going this rhythm. But let me say that the help I’m getting on this forum from you and other people is essential 
(←this is him in that box)
dictionary says ‘probably’ or ‘don’t you agree?
