Phewf, it’s been somewhat of a weird month for me. I had surgery on my dominant arm so couldn’t use it much for a few weeks and before that I had been trying to write out and breakdown every non-trivial line on paper. Now I’m moving houses. I’ve been able to keep making progress each day, even if it was only 1 non-trivial panel at times.
A huge thanks to everyone for populating the vocab sheet, providing breakdowns, and asking and answering questions - these threads have been such a massive resource for when I got stuck.
This chapter had quite some difficulty hidden in there, particularly around the internal monologues. It was nice to see lots of repeated 〜ちゃう and ~しまう which was good practice as I was just getting the hang of those.
I read this quickly as “dormant arm”… haha… had to have surgery myself 6 months ago…re-learned how to walk again…got into a little fight with some stairs…stay strong and hopefully you’ll recover fast!!!
Vol 2 starts in a few weeks…so you have some time to get caught up.
Ouch, that sounds rough! I’ve previously been through recovery from an unrelated hand injury where I had to re-learn how fingers work, walking must have been so difficult!
Stairs can be deceptively tricksy, one moment they’re you’re friend, and the next…
I hope you’re doing okay now.
In my case it was finding and fixing the cause of some long-term chronic arm pain.
I’m hoping I can pick up my pace as my arm recovers to try make up some more ground, I suspect I’ll have to just skip some of the later chapters from volume 1 to make it.
Here we go with chapter 4
5 volumes and 5 chapters away from the lead, but I’ll get you guys
Page 3, panel 1
Small doubt
オレには今日、作戦があるのさ！！
I have some doubts on the には particle and the nominalizing の at the end.
I made some research about には , especially in the [person] + には + が + ある / いる construct, and apparently it’s also a fixed expression to say that “[person] has [certain class of elements such as ideas]” . I’m jump over the “why does who has an idea takes the に particle” question, but I’d say that には is giving a bit of contrast because ‘not someone else, but [ I ] had an idea’ …? Not even sure it’s useful to think about it, but this is the first time I encounter には and wanted to get more familiar with its implications.
About the の at the end, I don’t really see what it’s doing here and what’s the difference without it.
Here, I would say something similar to your idea of には. It’s emphasis while keeping the connotation of は. “As for me, today I have a plan!!” I don’t know where you’re getting “idea” from.
You can even see には in the dictionary, it says, “as for” and “regarding”, which is basically what I translate は as.
As for のさ、are you familiar with sentence ending particles? Such as わ、よ、さ、etc.?
さ is a mainly masculine sentence ending particle that indicates assertion.
While よ is like, you know! だってばよ and all that.
You see it a lot even “mid” sentence, like 俺さ…
“I…” (implies something is going to be said about おれ)
About の, the dictionary says it’s used at the sentence end to indicate a confident conclusion, but I think it’s basically のです that you would use to explain something, with the です removed to make it informal.
Oh, I didn’t see that you said it was nominalizing, it’s not.
Hey, thanks for passing by the book club! I got the part about には and the sentence ending particles for certain kinds of emphasis, but I’m not sure about the の at the end, are you saying that here it merely marks a confident conclusion?
About the のです part, I know the concept of explanatory の, is this what you’re talking about? I thought that the explanatory/ questioning の at the end of sentences was always nominalizing what came before to put is as an explanation/ request of informations (with the questioning purpose), as for “it is that… (the fact is that…)” or something similar
Could you provide a link to the grammar points you’re mentioning? I’m not sure what to search
Interesting way to put it, but I don’t think that’s how it works.
Nominalizing is making something a noun.
Like, すしが好き. I like sushi.
すしを食べるのが好き. I like eating sushi.
You can’t really nominalize 作戦がある。in this case to “having a plan”, nor any of the other uses of のです。
Like, 食べないの? You’re not going to eat?
いいの? Is it okay?
I just can’t compute that idea.
Afaik, のです or んです or の, are just ways to make your sentence feel more natural in the way that it’s not just a fact, but an explanation, that you’re either giving or asking for.
Instead of saying, are you not eating?
It becomes, (why) are you not eating?
Instead of, is it ok?
It becomes, (are you sure) it’s ok?
Instead of, 作戦がある。I have a plan. (Fact)
It becomes, 作戦があるの。(Because) I have a plan. Or something like that.
Thanks for the correction, I’m going to read the articles you provided me asap!
Apparently I had a wrong idea of this function of the の particle, have to work on that
それくらいじゃなきゃダメなんだ！
I can’t make sense of what それくらい means here. I know that それ means ‘that’, but I can’t understand the ‘to an extent’ english concept which is the prevalent way with which the くらい grammar point is explained…
きゃ is conditional and in this situation implies that something has to be done, otherwise ダメなんだ
Also I suppose that なんだ there is just making an explanatory function with な copula, ん (の) explaining function and だ - it is.
The の in のだ is, in fact, a nominalizer/abstract noun stand in. From a grammar standpoint, you have to have a noun to be able to use だ/です, and so to be able to use a verb with だ, you nominalize it with の.
I would also add that translating the ○○(な, if necessary)のだ/のです as “It is that (topic) is ○○” is the closest you’ll get to translating the construct into English so this is pretty close to accurate. We wouldn’t word it this way in actual English, ever, because we just use tone, instead of adding words, of course, but for learning purposes and understanding why the grammar is the way it is, it’s useful.
Either way, as a result of the fact that explanations are a tone and not additional words in English, and so it doesn’t translate well, grammar sources in English don’t broach the etymology much, so most sources just call it explanatory/searching for explanation. Which works well for getting intended meaning, but doesn’t explain why the grammar works the way it does.
The couple of places in English that do mention it that I’m aware of:
Two answers to separate questions on StackExchange say
Answer to Question 1, regarding なんだ as a whole: (quoting the immediately pertinent bit and bolding the specific part about の, but I actually recommend reading the full answer when you have time. It is quite insightful):
We actually talked about it in passing in the previous chapter, as well, though with のか as opposed to のだ. (which is why I did all this reading on it in the first place, because I became more curious about it):
Sorry, I know that’s a lot of reading, but it all comes down to: the の in のだ/のです is, in fact, a nominalizer/highly abstract noun.
To put this logic into action on our sentence:
オレには今日、作戦があるのさ!!
Literal translation, following this logic:
“As for me today, it is that a strategy is (in) existence!!”
It sounds weird, because in English, that’s not how we would word it, at all, but it’s fine to do so in Japanese.
The reason it’s explanatory, is it kinda links to his speech thought in the previous bubble; he once again had his usual 見ていろ thought in regards to Takagi-san, so he is now introducing some new information as to why that should be taken seriously.
Regardless, in English, this would be naturally phrased closer to:
“As for me, today, I have a strategy!!”
And tone is what would convey the feeling of explanatory tone introduced by の, and the emphasis introduced by さ.
always like the literal translations…realize that it’s not proper eng but much prefer it to making it natural when learning and working to understand the meanings… makes it easier for me to map jp <> eng in my brain.
Hey MrGeneric先輩, can’t thank you enough for the comment, I took the time to read it carefully and a lot of doubts got clarified.
Everything was so clear that I don’t really have any doubt except from one thing: the more I learn about the の particle used for nominalization, the more I get the impression that basically it’s always a possessive の, even when it’s being used just as a nominalizing particle. Isn’t it enough to add a construct such as こと after it, and everything thru possessive gets nominalized into こと? Is ○○○のだ different from ○○○のことだ on it’s grammar aspect? (Apart from a heavier nuance in the こと example). To get what I mean, imagine のこと englobing the essence of what it follows as for what it’s done in [person]のこと.
Maybe this is delirium of a beginner, I don’t know
I don’t have the lexicon to bring examples but I hope you get what I mean… is this a fallacious logic? Am I being tricked by something?
I only have to thank you for the awesome reading material you provided!
Happy to read this, it’s the very first translation that came to my mind but in english was sounding so weird and not having familiarity in Japanese, I just kept rearranging things
Yes, again thank you for providing literal translations, to me it’s very useful to comprehend!
I honestly don’t know the answer to this. Gut instinct, and seeing how consistent Japanese grammar tends to be, says the の possessive and の nominalizer may be related in some way, but how that is (besides sharing a sound), I wouldn’t be able to explain. I’m sure there is some etymology for it, but it didn’t come up in my (admittedly targeted to のだ) reading.
What I can say: the possessive の and nominalizing の certainly share some similarities, especially when you have a noun modifying another noun with の. It takes that “of” vibe in that case, so I can see the relation; I just wouldn’t be very confident in drawing a straight line and saying “Yes, that’s it,” until I found something that tells me this is the case. Might be something I check more into at some point.
For now, I would just say, they seem to rhyme, but maybe aren’t the same thing, but I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility by any stretch. It just might be easier to think of them as separate things for now, and come back to the more complex reasoning of their similarity later.
Just went thru page 5, it was quite tough but with a bit of help from past comments, google and some intuition I believe I founs some sense in it.
I’ll translate everything in the most literal translation possible
Page 5
これは普段からかわれすぎているじぶんへの…罰なのだ。
“As for this, for myself being teased too much everyday, it is a punishment”
この苦しみを噛みしめながら…
“While I reflect upon this suffering…”
次こそはという意識を高めるのだ…
“It is said that, as for next, awareness boosts…”
note: I can’t make sense in any way of という after the は particle, and also 次こそ is the weirdest topic, at least in english, but I could make sense of “as for what follows/ as for next” if there wasn’t that という mixing everything in a weird way.
この罰の目的はそこにあるのたから…
Because, as for the purpose of this punishment, it is that it exists there (in what I’m doing) (?)
Here’s a full english rearrangement of what I think it’s a natural translation
“The purpose of this punishment is to increase my awareness, as it’s said to happen, upon reflecting on this suffering”
Totally unsure of this
がんばれオレ！こんな苦しみをあじわいたくなければ…
“C’mon, Nishikata! If to experience this suffering is not wanted…”
I suppose here we have あじわう→あじわいたい→あじわいたくない→あじわいたくなければ
明日からはもっとからかわれないように気をつけるんだ！
“As for from tomorrow on, it’s that I’ll be careful to being teased no more!”
This wasn’t too tough, just some problems at finding the right grammar point for ように →
今、歩けた！ 腕を気を付けて。。。頑張ってね
