Week 2 ゆびさきと恋々・A Sign of Affection 💕 (Absolute Beginner Book Club)

Welcome to Week 2 of ゆびさきと恋々・A Sign of Affection :two_hearts:

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Week 2 June 14 2025
Start page 15
End page 21
End phrase バイト先の店長
Last week Week 1
Next week Week 3
Home Thread ゆびさきと恋々

Page numbers may differ between digital and physical copies.

Last panel

Vocabulary

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.
  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Proper Nouns

Name Reading Image Notes
糸瀬 雪 いとせ ゆき Main character
波岐 逸臣 なぎ いつおみ The other main character
藤白 りん ふじしろ りん Yuki’s friend from university

Discussion Questions

How are you liking the reading so far?

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?
  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m reading this book after the club has finished
  • I’m no longer reading the book
0 voters
7 Likes
spoilers for this week

I want to keep reading! how will she contact him again (or he her)? will he learn 手話 ? will he take her backpacking somewhere (or her him)?

9 Likes

A very ドキドキ chapter!

I like how the speech bubbles are formatted to show spoken communication vs. typed, signed, lip-read, etc.

vocab I liked:

こういう - this kind of, this sort of

口元 - mouth/lips (just never seen it with 元)

初対面 - first meeting

生まれつき - by birth/from birth

たしか - normally “certain” but here it seems to be “If I’m not mistaken” (adverb form?) https://jisho.org/search/たしか

憧れ - longing, yearning, crush - ?

On the last page, Rin says 私もいる憧れの人, I assume this means “I have someone I have a crush on too” but I just haven’t seen いる in that spot before, if it does mean “There also exists someone that I yearn for”

Tips?

I wanted to suggest the app Shirabe Jisho https://ricoapps.com too, if anyone is having trouble with looking up kanji - you can “draw” the kanji and find the correct character.

Something else I like to do is, if I’m unfamiliar with a kanji and I had already learned it in WaniKani and just forgotten about it, I unburn it. This just happened with 国際

9 Likes

Take note of the よ in the sentence. It’s a sentence-ending よ, so the portion after it is a separate sentence (although clarifying the first).

5 Likes

aha, it is 私もいるよ憧れの人, whoops! So more like, There’s someone like that for me too (that I have a crush on). Thanks!

6 Likes

I managed to leave the book at my son’s house, so I got behind :slightly_frowning_face:. I do get it back Monday, so I’m super excited to get back fully into it. Appreciate the posts from week one-- I avoided spoilers and still got a lot out of the usage stuff folks posted.

I got excited when I found an eBook from local library, but it turned out to be English :roll_eyes:. I’m managing to avoid peeking ahead on it until I do the work on the Japanese. :slightly_smiling_face:

6 Likes

The free preview on bookwalker covers all of week 1 and 2:

Click on the 試し読み button under the cover to access it.

6 Likes

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! :smiley:

4 Likes

I think it could also be like admiring or aspiration. I think that’s how the English translation was? She doesn’t know if it’s love or if she just admires him and thinks he’s cool. I think there could be some sense of “longing” in there as well, but maybe a very light meaning of longing/yearning, cause those sound kind of heavy in English haha

5 Likes

I’ve encountered 憧れ(る) a bunch of times in the stuff that I read so far, I think it’s probably a bit more commonly and casually used in Japanese than “yearning” is used in English. It can be used to mean something like “attraction”. The Japanese definition is:

あこがれること。理想とする物事に強く心が引かれること。憧憬 (どうけい・しょうけい) 。「—をいだく」「未知への—」「—のまと」

The key here is 強く心が引かれる, “to be strongly drawn to something”.

8 Likes

Hello, everyone :smiling_face:
Totally unrelated, but I started reading this without any previous knowledge of the plot, and just now I realized the double meaning in the title, I’m so slow🤣

12 Likes

This type of material is completely new to me, and it’s had some interesting(?) little side effects. I’m kind of feeling this pink, romantic, girlie thing (SO not my usual stuff) and I’ve since bought some sakura scented spray that I’ve been using before study, Japanese candy (don’t normally buy any candy) & grabbed the LEGO cherry blossom stems that went on sale. I have been wanting to get back more in touch with my feminine side, and had no idea that studying Japanese would be part of that!

Which, ironically, I’m also getting hit with more incredibly terrible edgelord and salacious content, because combining consuming both Japanese content and video game tips on things like Souls games, the algorithm makes some ‘fun’ assumptions on what I would be into.

6 Likes
pg.18

音が音じゃない世界

The vocab and grammar of this sentence is very basic but I’m having trouble translating the authors intent in my head. Is it something like “Sound isn’t sound in this world.” It’s probably meant to be a bit poetic so i’m not sure if there is a good literal translation.

4 Likes

I have these, they’re really cute! :cherry_blossom: The lego plum blossoms are pretty too.

3 Likes
pg 18

Maybe it’s like “私の世界[は]、うまれつき、[a] sound-is-not-sound world [だ]”? Describing her world of no sound which is actually sound?

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen implied は in poetry; it seems to be a thing, maybe just to save a syllable?

6 Likes
page 18

I think it’s something like this, yeah. It sounds weird in English but I think it’s just poetic writing. “The sound of my world from birth is a soundless world”

8 Likes

Oh big same, you are NOT alone on this!

3 Likes

Ok here goes… I was slow to start with Week 1 as I was still waiting for the book to arrive, but I’m more on it with Week 2! Here’s what I think I’m reading based on the vocab spreadsheet and what grammar I know.

Please feel free to correct me or explain stuff because I’ll be honest I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not even quite N5 yet, I’m only just learning the -te form of verbs! I’m sure there’s a ton of nuance I’m missing, and am only really getting the surface level of what’s happening.

Page 16

ゆき types "In another stop, you’ll get off (the train), because on Page 15 it appeared that いつおみ wasn’t sure which stop to get off on.

So he says “Well then/alrighty” and tousles her hair as he gets off the train. (GASP touching someone like that, I’m clutching my pearls…)

Page 17

He says, “Later”

Page 18

It feels like ゆき is basically saying “I’m perplexed by this first meeting… how? My world since birth has been soundless.” (I will admit I read the posts upthread for help on this one!)

Page 19

She goes on to say something to the effect of “This vibration that’s arising from inside me…” and then “Getting off this train I realized…”

Then we cut to later, in a class at university, where りん is holding up her phone while asking “This person?”

Page 20

りん says “I see!”

“いつおみーさん helped you, right?” This one was confusing so I put it into ichi.moe, and it explained that 助けてくれたんだね is a compound word, so I think there’s more nuance to this sentence than I’m getting. Is it actually saying “you asked him for help, right” ? I’m not sure how the くれて part is working here.

ゆき is busy thinking to herself “いつおみーさん” in a “Ah his name is Itsuomi” kinda way, I think.

I have no idea what the teeny tiny handwritten sentence by りん’s head is!

“If I’m not mistaken, he just returned home from Canada.”

“He often backpacks overseas.” I understood this sentence immediately and fully and was SO excited! That’s why we’re doing this! Or at least, it’s why I’m doing this. This was a fun moment for me.

ゆき is thinking “Ah that explains the luggage”

Then りん is smirking and goes, “Your face is so cute right now. Is it love?”

Page 21

ゆき is of course embarrassed and says, “It’s too soon for love, りんーちゃん!”

りん says “Well then, is it admiration?” (I sort of interpret this to be a crush and/or general interest?)

これってあこがれってことなのかな - This sentence absolutely baffles me and even with the ichi.moe breakdown I don’t understand what’s happening here. To be honest the whole panel has me puzzled.

The last panel seems to have ゆき reflecting, “So this is a crush/affection/attraction.”

Then I’m not 100% sure, I think りん is saying “I also have a person I have a crush on.” At first I thought she meant she also had a crush on いつおみ but from the context she’s seemed very mischievous and invested in ゆき maybe having a crush…

Then we see on her computer that she’s apparently loaded up the location of where いつおみ works as a store manager as a part time job. Earlier it was said that they are all in the same friend circle so did りん just know this information or is she internet stalking the dude?

That’s all for now! Can’t wait to keep reading this thread all week and see what others coming up with!

7 Likes
p15/16

No they both know where they need to stop, the dialogue goes like this:

いつおみ:俺 次でおりる

“I get off on the next [stop]”

いつあみ:そっちは?降りる?
降りない?

“How about you? You’ll get off [at the next stop]? Or not?” (そっち is a very common casual form of そちら, in this case addressing her. Much like こういう人 last week, that does strike me as pretty direct and somewhat rude, but I could be wrong).

I also feel like he speaks in short sentences and repeats the 降りる?降りない? to make sure she manages to understand what he says.

Then on the next page:

ゆき:もう一つ先でおります

“I’ll get off one [stop] ahead/after”

I know, right?

p19

I think this is one sentence, the と at the end of the first fragment is the quotation と:

「自分の中かrか起きているものだ」と⋯気づいた

“After getting off of the train I realized that a vibration was emanating from within me”

p20

A very common grammatical construction that’s well worth looking into:

てくれる (日本語能力試験 N4) | Bunpro

くれる is literally “to give” but it’s very commonly used figuratively in these types of constructions to mean “do something for someone”. The closest translation I can thing of would be “he gave you the favour of helping you”. It’s a polite way to express that somebody did something for your benefit (or for someone close to you in this case).

Yes.

Ah yes, handwritten stuff in manga, always fun!

お礼言っとかなきゃ

This is actually a bit tricky too because it’s said in a slangy way, in more “proper” textbook Japanese it would be:

お礼を言っておかなければならない。

I’ll let you ponder on this one, this is actually also very important grammar.

Well done, I remember that it was always super motivating for me too when I started reading!

これって is just a slangy way to say これは (technically this って is a contraction of と言うのは, it can also be used to quote like と which can be confusing, but in this case she’s not quoting anyone so it’s pretty much just like は).

憧れって: well, guess what, here って is a quotation! Japanese is fun. It’s basically her saying “what you call 憧れ”.

Ok then you have ことなの which you can break down if you want but it may be better to take it as a set expression:

ことなの (日本語能力試験 N3) | Bunpro

So it’s basically giving what’s before it an “explanatory meaning”.

Then かな is “I wonder”.

So putting it all together, trying to maintain the structure of the Japanese:

This thing, “yearning” as you call it, is what this is? I wonder…

Or more naturally in English:

I wonder if this is truly a “yearning” as you say…

These types of sentences were the bane of my existence when I started reading. I think it’s very tricky because there’s no good way to translate them without adding a lot of context and glue that’s just missing from the Japanese.

Word for word it would be “This is “yearning”-called thing I wonder?” which is just nonsensical in English.

These types of constructions are super common in manga, videogames, anime and the like though, so eventually you learn to “vibe them out” so to speak.

Yeah she’s messing up the sentence order which is common in spoken Japanese but is broken in “proper” Japanese.

私もいるよ
憧れのひと

Which should be:

私も憧れの人いるよ

Basically she’s saying “I also have one! A person I’m attracted to, I mean.”

逸臣さんのバイト先の店長

“Itsuomi’s part-time job’s manager” (i.e. it’s not ituomi’s job). A bit tricky to know what exactly it implies without reading ahead, but I’m betting on stalking…

12 Likes

Ah goodness thank you so much! You’re so knowledgeable, this really helped me a lot. This one set of pages alone has given me so much to think about and study.

I appreciate the time you put into this! I’ll let “お礼を言っておかなければならない” simmer, and see what I can come up with…

6 Likes