It’s fun seeing kanji/vocab I’ve learnt through WK pop up, such as 見
Another set of pages done, with some notes/questions alongside them. I’m finding some bits are coming a little easier now that I’ve got a ways in (though it’s still tough and slow for me). There was even a sentence or two here I didn’t even really need to think about outside of checking the vocab. As usual, please feel free to let me know if I’m off, or expand on anything I’ve brought up
Chapter pages 12 and 13
「今のうちに高木さんの消しゴムに誰かの名前を書いといて・・・」
During this time(?), on Takagi-san’s eraser, I’ll write someone’s name.
I wasn’t sure what the うち here was, but seems like it might be 内 (which I’ve learnt in WK ^_^) which can mean during. So it then becomes “the duration of now” or something along those lines
Edit: reworded this a bit to make it slightly clearer what I meant
「トイレから戻ってきたらからかってやろう。」
I’ll tease her when she returns from the toilet.
「さーて誰の名前を・・・」
Now~, who’s name… (likely about to say “should I write”)
「な・・・」
Huh…
「すでに書いてる！？」
There’s already writing on it!?
「見たらムズイか・・・！？」
Would it be wrong to look…!?
Not too sure on this one. 見たら would be the conditional, and ムズイ means bad, while か can indicate that it’s a question, so putting that all together I feel like asking if it’s wrong to look makes sense.
「ひ・・・一文字くらいなら・・・」
If it’s only one letter…
「ろ！？」
「ろ！！！」
「てことは！？」
“ろ” is what’s written!?
「オレの名前じゃないなあ・・・」
That’s not my name…
「いや・・・別に全然ショックとかじゃねーよ。」
No… that especially shouldn’t shock me at all.
「くそっ！！見てやる！！」
Damn!! I have to look!!
「こうなりゃ全部！！」
I’ve got to see the whole thing!!
The こうなりゃ bit was confusing at first, but looks like it’s already been covered.
My vocabulary background and selection process for learning.
Back before I started with WaniKani, I spent two or three years doing the original “core 2K” vocabulary deck (from iKnow.jp). In all that time, I learned zero kanji along the way. I did learn readings, and I did learn some vague recognition tricks (this word has this radical in this corner, and no other words I’ve learned have it). And I wasn’t reading, so there was no reinforcement of what I was learning. In the end, it was very unproductive, and I likely forgot much of what I learned.
Since then, I’ve started learning grammar, and started WaniKani. But what about vocabulary? WaniKani teaches vocabulary, but it’s not meant to be a source to learn vocabulary from.
I’ve been slowly (very slowly) building up an Anki deck that I review daily.
Here’s sort of my checklist on whether to turn a word into a card or not:
I include the sentence containing the word on my Anki card. Thus, the sentence should have only one piece of information that I don’t know. If there’s two or more things I don’t know in the sentence, I skip it completely.
Does WaniKani also teach the word? Then I skip it. I’ll learn the word from WaniKani…eventually.
Does the word contain a kanji that WaniKani will teach me later, even if WaniKani doesn’t teach the word? Then I skip it. I want to focus on words that use kanji I already know.
Is it a word that uses kanji I’ve learned from WaniKani, but WaniKani doesn’t teach the word? Then I’ll add it (so long as I know everything else in the sentence), unless I can correctly guess the meaning of the word.
Is it a word that doesn’t have use kanji? I need to start making cards for these! I’m not yet, but I really need to. I want this to be where I start to focus on, until I learn more kanji from WaniKani.
By simply forcing yourself to start reading, and to be learning grammar already (even just tiny bits of advancement week by week), if you make it to the end of this book club you stand to make more progress in two months than I did in over a decade. (With the Internet and resources and tools being what they are these days, we’re certainly living in the Golden Age of language learning!)
The very first manga volume I read was one I’d seen the anime for. Once I got into reading more through the book clubs here, I then picked a beginner level manga series that I’d read in English and seen the anime for multiple times to read in Japanese. That was great because no matter how I floundered on understanding, I always knew what was going on.
This is me. I’ve routinely been getting 30% to 60% correct on reviews these past couple of weeks. =(
If you finish this volume, and then continue with the book club, in a few months you’ll look back and see that you’ve made an amazing amount of progress. But you’ll still understand very little. Keep at it, reading, being exposed to seeing the same grammar over and over, and you’ll start to see clear progress. Lack of vocabulary will become the biggest hurdle.
This underscores the importance of getting a lot of input.
When I first learned 命 from WaniKani, within days I encountered it in the video game Breath of Fire, and heard it in the anime A Lull in the Sea (凪のあすから). The latter I was watching with English subtitles, which is the perfect setup to not catch what’s being said, and I still caught it. That doesn’t always happen, but whenever it does, it reinforces the word even just a little bit.
WaniKani gets a lot of criticism over the order is teaches certain kanji, but by the end of level 5, you should be seeing kanji you know on just about every page of a manga =D
Looks good to me!
You’ll find this “if (verb), then (good or bad)” pattern comes up a lot.
Specifically, this is taking what was said (て), which as you figure refers to the 「ろ」, and it’s setting the it was the topic. In the topic-comment structure of Japanese, we then expect the next sentence to be a comment on that topic. So it’s like saying, “Regarding (that ろ), [comment about it in next panel].”
The topic-comment structure of Japanese can take a bit of time to get used to it. Having a clause ending in こと as the topic makes is more difficult early on, so I won’t worry too much about the details for this particular sentence. There will be plenty of better instances of は for getting used to the topic-comment structure from.
ふーん子供ねー。
Hmm…a child, huh.
へぇー
Really…
………なんだよ…
……what the…
何も…書いてないだろ。
There’s nothing…written [on it], right?
オレ…そんな子供っぽいことしないよ。
I…don’t do that kind of childish thing.
ほほー、そーなんだー
Ho, ho… is that so~
ウソだ、またからかってんだろ。
No way, you’re teasing me again, right?
(Takagi grins evilly lol)
書いてるのか⁉︎
There’s writing?!
書いたのかオレ⁉︎ 忘れてるだけで。
Did I write [on it]?! [And] I’m just forgetting?
か…か…返してくれるよお‼︎
G-g-give it back!
ほい。
Here.
Spent some time possibly overthinking のか in the sentence 書いたのかオレ⁉︎ It has it’s own Jisho entry that seems to make sense, but could it just be a nominalizer の followed by question marker か? オレ appearing at the end of the sentence is also weird, but I realize that that can be fairly common in casual speech.
Also, I’m more used to seeing だけ used with amounts. Would using it with a verb work the same as with English, like translating 忘れてるだけで as “I’m just forgetting”?
Lastly, ほい is just a cutesy mispronunciation of はい right?
ふくく、あわてちゃって怒られちゃって。
(laugher), you’re so confused and angry. (Q/Answered: Not sure who’s the subject here between the teacher and Nishikata. My guess is on the latter)
もーいいかげんにしてよ。
Though, quit it, will you. (Q/Answered: Really not sure what to put here. Maybe “That’s enough”? Seems I’m not the only one stuck on this line.)
こっちのセリフだ！
Talk for yourself! (Q/Answered: Couldn’t figure out a literal translation here either. I feel this is idiomatic?)
先生－トイレ行ってきていいですかー？ (A nice little softball)
Teacher, is it okay if I go to the toilet?
おう。
Okay.
くそっ。。。高木さんめ。
Shit… that Takagi-san. (Q: What does the め add to the sentence?)
今に見てろよ。
Now you’ll see. (Alt: “I’ll make you see”)
そうだ!!
That’s right!
p12
今のうちに高木さんに消しゴムに誰かの名前を書いといて。。。
While I’m at it, I should write someone’s name on Takagi-san’s eraser.
トイレから戻ってきたらからかってやろう。
I’ll tease her when she comes back from the toilet.
さーてだれの名前を。。。
Then, whose name should I…
な。。。すでにかいてる！？
There’s… already one?
見たらマズイか。。。？ (lit: マズイ → “bad”, so “Is it a bad idea to look?”)
Should I look?
ひ。。。一文字くらいなら。。。
There’s a character… (Q: Not too sure here. Most translations of くらいなら → “I’d rather do”, with a connation of hating something. Doesn’t seem to apply here.)
These pages gave me a bit more trouble
Leaving the questions inside, though in bold. Thank you in advance for all the clarifications!
My understanding is that this is a normal wordくらい that means “degree” or “extent”, and なら is simply the conditional. So, 一文字くらいなら in this case is linked to the previous sentence; he wonders if looking (at what’s written) would be a bad thing; then he manages to convince himself that if he goes to the extent of seeing just one character (… it would be okay) “Would it be bad if I see (what’s written)? … if it is only one letter (it would okay, right?)”.
The “it would be fine / okay” is implicit from context, and also hinted at by the “…” after なら.
This め original comes from the kanji 奴 (it’s usually written in kana nowadays, though). It’s a derogatory suffix to express disdain or exasperation at someone. I don’t quite agree with jisho’s translation, but it kind of gives you the idea:
In Japanese, you will find there are three sentence types:
Subject is defined as a Noun
Subject has the quality of an Adjective
Subject is going the action of a Verb
Nouns end in だ (although this may be left off, or may appear differently, such as な, で, だった). That means what’s we’re seeing here is the first sentence type.
The subject is left unspoken, meaning we need to figure it out from context.
「なんだよ」 ⇨ “Subject is なん よ”
This なん is short for 何, meaning “what” (as you’ve already figured).
「何だよ」 ⇨ “Subject is what よ”
Since the subject is unspoken, let’s do the same for our English translation by using the pronoun “it”:
“It is what よ”
This is typically spoken as a question, with rising intonation at the end. We can’t hear intonation in a manga, but it’s common enough that native readers know this.
For this reason, we’ll make this into a question in our English version:
“What is it よ?”
The よ gives some emphasis. I wish I had a better explanation, but watch a enough native Japanese audio/visual material, and you start to develop a feel for it.
“What is it?!”
That’s a lot to take in. The minimal takeaway from this is that a sentence ending in だ is a “subject is defined as noun” sentence type. There’s a lot more I could write about this, but maybe that’ll come up later.
It happens in English too, this putting the subject at the end. Yes, that’s an example of it in English =D
The difference is that in English, we have the word “it” up front, then we’re clarifying what “it” is as an afterthought.
In Japanese, the subject and/or topic is left unspoken up front, then it’s clarified what the subject or topic is as an afterthought.
Rather than simply nominalization, this is our good friend the explanatory の.
Considering that オレ is an afterthought that is clarifying the topic and/or subject, we can rewrite this sentence. I’ll go ahead and mark オレ as the topic:
「オレは書いてるのか！？」
This のか is the same as in the line immediately before it:
「書いてるのか！？」
I’ve mentioned before, this の represents that someone is providing or seeking the unknown cause for an observed result. In this case, the result is that Takagi is grinning after looking at the side of the eraser.
What is the cause of her grinning?! This is what Nishikata doesn’t know. Thus, he’s left to speculate:
“Is something written on thereの?!” “Did I write somethingの?!”
Here, the “seeking to discover the unknown cause of the effect”, or simply “seeking explanation” is specifically represented in grammar by this use of の.
Jisho says that のか is “endorsing and questioning the preceding statement”. In this case, the “preceding statement” is Takagi’s behaviors, spanning from looking at the side of his eraser all the way to grinning at him over it.
The か after that makes it clear it’s a question. There’s more meaning/nuance one can add about using か, but at the core just know that it’s making a question.
For particles, you’ll find that you should never rely on a Japanese to English dictionary to tell you what’s going on. The reason that there’s no way to explain mean meaning in a few words.
I don’t recall if I saw this one answered yet. I’m not good at explaining だけ, but let’s see if I can cover the gist of it.
だけ essentially means “limit”, which can have a wide range of different words in English. Here, 「忘れてる」 modifies だけ, telling us what kind of limit it is. In English, this might be result in something like “I’ve forgotten, that’s all” (if a statement rather than a question), or “I’ve gone to the point of having forgotten”.
Note that I’m not really satisfied with these translations I’ve provided as examples. And I think your “I’m just forgetting” is fairly serviceable.
It’s worth noting that this だけ isn’t being modified by a verb, but rather by a whole clause. This clause is the sentence 「忘れてる」 with its topic and subject left unspoken.
Thus, rather than “(forgetting)だけ”, it’s really “(I’m forgetting)だけ”.
Another consideration is that rather then ending in だ, this ends in で. I don’t know what the nuance of this is.
Edit: After posting this, I went back to my manga reading for today, and on the very page I resumed reading on, this came up.
Pretty much. Depending on context, it can also sound a bit lazy or a bit disinterested, but clearly those aren’t the case here.
Ending a verb in て is used to string multiple actions together. While at its core it’s like using “and” between two verbs in English, there’s typically an implication that the verbs happen in order (as opposed to at the same time).
Here, あわてちゃって (being flustered) took place, and then 怒られちゃって (receiving a scolding) took place.
The verb 怒られちゃって is built on top of 怒られる. This is 怒る (to scold) in the receptive form (called うけみ in Japanese, for “receiving body”). The receptive form means that you are receiving the action from someone else. (Textbooks often associate this with the passive voice.)
Because this 怒られる is receptive, it means the subject is not the one scolding. Instead, the subject is receiving being scolded.
Since the final verb ends in て, we don’t actually see how Takagi’s thought ends, meaning we don’t know if she’d be ending it with a verb that is “complete” or not. Since the actions of being flustered and receiving a scolding have already completed, we can assume her sentence would be in the “past tense” if she didn’t end it on て.
And done! Thank you so much to everyone who’s been helping me with this, I never expected a week ago that I would have been able to make it through something like this in Japanese. I’m definitely feeling the limitations of digital manga for reading the furigana, but I kind of joined on a whim so needed to get it quickly haha
Still, a couple of questions on these last few pages (and, of course, please let me know if anything is off), but besides that I’ll be ready for the next chapter now
Chapter pages 14, 15, and 16
「ろうかみろ」
Look at the corridor
「や・・・やられた！！！」
Tr…Tricked!!!
「ホントいい顔するね。」
That’s a really great expression, you know.
「しかも思い通りの行動するし、これだから西方からかうのやめらんないね。」
Furthermore, you act as I expect, besides, you know (I) won’t stop teasing you.
This one is giving me some trouble. Having trouble making sense of the second half specifically これだから is throwing me off.
「見てるよ、いつか絶対にからかって恥ずかしがらせてやる・・・・・・・・・！！」
Just watch, someday I’ll absolutely tease and make you act embarrassed…!!
「期待してるね。」
I’ll be looking forward to it.
「あ！ムリだと思ってるだろ！！」
Ah! It’s impossible if you expect it, you know!!
so one thing I want to point out is that the “prepared” here is continuous, as Nishikata is indicating that her state of preparedness is continuous (if I understand correctly)
「ムリだと思うよー」
Impossible, you think~
「大チャンスで二分の一を外すようじゃね。」
You missed your big chance, seems like you didn’t notice the other side.
I’m partly guessing off of context here, think で is signifying that the chance is over, 二分の一 is apparently half, but side also works I’d guess
「二分の一？何？」
Other side? What?
「教えなーい。」
(I’m) not telling~.
The eraser has Nishikata’s name on the other side it seems. Really sweet ending
I think these differences kind of flow together (since interpreting the first differently changes the context in which the second is read) so I’ll explain my interpretations
Here I went with 思うってる being expecting, and inferred that it would be Takagi being the one expecting
So here I interpreted the よ as being there for emphasis, rather than a command as he’s explaining why it is that it would be impossible. してる on its own would just indicate that it’s continuous.
And then when Takagi says 「ムリだと思うよ」 that would then make sense as being her quoting Nishikata’s thoughts that it would be impossible
I am pretty new to Wanikani and to reading Japanese material, but I decided to try to join the beginner’s book club with you guys.
I feel like I understood most of the chapter, leaning on the vocabulary spreadsheet when needed (I completely missed the ろうかみろ joke, for one ). By the way, thank you so much for putting this spreadsheet together, to anyone who participated! It really is well done, and comprehensive too
I have a question on one of the sentences:
大チャンスで二分の一を外すようじゃね.
I think I get the meaning of the sentence, but I don’t understand its grammatical structure. Ok, so 二分の一を外す would be something like “there is a 0.5 chance to miss”, but do you understand the purpose of the ようじゃね part? Would it mean “it’s not like”, making the whole sentence something along the line of “it’s not like there’s a 0.5 chance of missing”? Is Takagi-san saying this sarcastically? (given the scene)
Here, this と is marking ムリだ as an indirect quote. And 思ってる gives us “thinking”.
Without context, we don’t know if this is “I’m thinking it’s impossible” or “You’re thinking it’s impossible”.
The context includes:
Takagi saying she’ll be expecting it.
Nishikata respond with 「あ！」
This gets, as @omk3 figured, that Nishikata is stating that Takagi thinks that.
With the だろ at the end, I’d probably with with: “Ah! You think it’s impossible, don’t you!!”
I can’t say for certain whether this can be considered Takagi quoting Nishikata, but I read it as her simply confirming that that’s what she thinks. “I do think it’s impossible.”
There are a few things that I think are going on here, that I’m not completely certain of. Here’s what I’m thinking:
Takagi first says 「ムリだと思うよー」 In the Japanese topic-comment structure, this is a comment by itself. The topic portion would end in は (or も) if it were spoken.
In the second word balloon, she ends with ようじゃ, which is ようでは.
The ようだ portion (remember, this で is a form of だ) has the meaning of “appearance” or “appearing to be”. This is modified by the clause 「大チャンスで二分の一を外す」, so she’s talking about the appearance of “it was your big chance, and you missed the other half”.
I don’t know much about using a sentence ending in だ as the topic (は), but I think だ becomes で when being set as the topic. If that’s true, it explains why this is ようでは. And では often is spoken as じゃ.
When using ようでは as the end of a sentence, that’s setting “something like [sentence]” as the topic. But what’s the comment about the topic? I believe in this panel, Takagi is making a comment, and then clarifying by stating the topic. In the “correct order”, it might read as:
「大チャンスで二分の一を外すようでは ムリだと思うよー」
“Regarding it being your big chance and you missing the other half, I think it’s impossible.”
There’s still a lot in there that I’m a bit hazy on. I’m still learning!
Just to give confirmation, this is indeed in the command form.
Wow, there really seems to be a lot to unpack with this bit. Thanks for your explanation. I guess it makes sense for Takagi to be completing the first bubble with this sentence. So in terms of interpretation, do you think it plausible that Takagi wants to convey some disappointment at her possible crush not being discovered? She’s saying, “well, there was a 0.5 chance, but let’s face it, it was never going to happen (my crush being discovered)” to herself?
If you don’t mind me asking, why would this be command form? Doing some reading on it, it seems like if it was commanding it would end with ろ and not る, right?
Edit: Ah, going back and looking at it, it seems like I misread it - it is actually ろ
ち…違うんだよ、誰かが書いたんだよきっと‼︎
T-that’s wrong! [That I] wrote someone’s name, surely!
何も書いてないじゃん‼︎
There’s nothing written on it!
てか高木さん消しゴム持ってるじゃん‼︎
More importantly, you brought an eraser didn’t you!!
でっ
Eh-
うるせえよ。
Shut up.
ス…スイマセン。
E-excuse me.
ぷくく、あわてちゃっておこられちゃって。
Heh, heh, you got flustered and then angry.
もーいいかげんにしてよ。
Cut it out already.
こっちのセリフだ‼︎
You say that to me?! (This does seem idiomatic, but the thread gave good pointers!)
先生ートイレ行ってきていいですかー？
Teacher, is it ok if I go to the bathroom?
おう。
Sure.
くそっ…高木さんめ。
Damn…that Takagi.
今に見てろよ。
Now you watch.
そうだ‼︎
That’s it!
@2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz gave good advice about てか and @ChristopherFritz about the idiomatic line. Much thanks you two and to everyone else for your questions!
The repeated ちゃって at the top of pg. 11 makes it seem like Takagi didn’t mean to get him so angry, but she’s certainly amused by that result! I didn’t really put that nuance into my translation tho…
Rather than “brought”, I’d go with “have” for 持つ. For an English translation, however, you can go either way depending on what feels better for the scene in English.
Be sure to check for おこられちゃって talked about earlier in this thread when you get the chance. This is おこる in its receptive form, meaning Nishikata didn’t おこる himself, but rather he received おこる from someone else (in this case, the teacher).
More specially, he’s saying that the line Takagi said should be from his direction, meaning he should be saying it to her, not her to him.
). By the way, thank you so much for putting this spreadsheet together, to anyone who participated! It really is well done, and comprehensive too