Milk teeth are baby teeth. In other words, she hasn’t even lost her baby teeth yet and she thinks she’s “got herself together” (しっかりしている) moreso than her older sister.
This is right after her sister says something along the lines of “can’t you just make up with (them)?” (We don’t know who she’s talking about). To which her older sister sharply (ぴしゃり) replies “It’s an adult problem!”. In other words, stay out of it kid, you’re too young to understand.
I’ve neither read the English version nor seen the movie, but based on this little section, there appears to be some sort of issue with the mayoral election (or someone involved with it). Grandma angrily pulled the plug on the speaker as soon as it got brought up, and then Mitsuha derides the idea of the election again right after snapping at her sister in the passage you quoted. Or maybe I’m overthinking it.
Edit: Reading a little further tonight, the election stuff all makes sense.
Edit #2: Found some nice info on かんか
It’s a command form in Kansai-ben from what I can see. According to a post I found on hinative:
関西の言葉で、
◯◯んか（かい）（かいな）
というのは命令を表します。
In the Kansai dialect, ___んか (or かい) expresses an order,
Wow, not this 「。。。やよ！」in the next (?) weeks content makes absolute sense
Oh, it’s about the election! Now I get it. I think later grandma is talking bad about his useless son some more times. She must be really pissed. I wonder why exactly?! Maybe he did abandon his 神社 duties for the politics?! Not too sure what happened in their past, but possibly it will become clear later in the book.
Thanks everyone! Especially having an overview of their ド田舎 dialect is extremely useful in this book, I think.
I was wondering about Tessie and Saya on the bike. She says いいにん、ケチ！What is いいにん supposed to be? にん as in 人? That’d be a bit paradoxical, cause she calls him ケチ right after.
EDIT: starting to feel like it must be some sentence ender…? We see it again at the end of a sentence here:
I’m not completely certain, but based on the two usages, it seems to be acting as the sentence ending の / のだ / んだ.
I know that in Kansai-ben, this の often turns to ねん. So, seeing it as にん in this particular dialect, which is quite close to Kansai-ben, seems reasonable.
^ There’s some info on のだ / んだ in Kansai-ben if you’re interested.
So, back to your original question, if I assume that’s what にん is doing here, then Saya says:
いいにん → いいの or いいんだ (a very exclamatory, “I’m fine!” or “This is fine!”)
Yea, definitely! That’s one of the nice things about reading a longer work like a novel. You start to get a feel for the author’s writing quirks as you go - and then words/grammatical constructions that felt obscure or difficult get nicely reinforced and become completely familiar after a time.
I’m definitely feeling that way with -げ and つつ at this point!
That was quite a slog in terms of vocab I wasn’t familiar with!
I really like the part in this section where the teacher talks about the poem. I didn’t realise it was an actual ancient poem and not something they made up for the movie, but I googled it and found this.
This poem is number 2240 from the Manyōshū (万葉集), a poetry anthology compiled in the 8th century, and also Japan’s oldest poetry anthology.
万葉集 2240
誰彼 我莫問 九月 露沾乍 君待吾
誰（た）ぞかれと 我れをな問ひそ 九月（ながつき）の 露に濡れつつ 君待つ我れを
Manyōshū no. 2240
Oh, ask me not who I am——
Drenched in the September dew, I am the one awaiting you!
The old-fashioned language is a challenge to read and understand, but I think it also helps add to the magic of the story.
