Week 3 - 気になってる人が男じゃなかった

Welcome to Week 3 of 気になってる人が男じゃなかった

Learn more about the Beginner Book Club here
Visit the home page for this manga here

Week 3 February 17th 2024
Start Page 31
End Page 46
Chapters Continuing Chapter 1
Pages 16
Last week Week 2
Next week Week 4
Home Thread Here
Last panel for this week’s reading

Page numbers are the ones printed on the bottom of the pages. These may differ from the numbering in digital versions.

Vocabulary

Vocab Spreadsheet

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!

Participation

Will you be reading along with us this week?

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m still reading but haven’t reached this point yet
  • I’ve already read previously but I’m here for the discussion
  • I’m reading this after the bookclub has finished
  • I’ve stopped reading this book
0 voters
9 Likes

This girl is just accidentally smooth as hell and I love it :rofl:

image

14 Likes

I still have 6 pages to go but oooooh myyyyy gooooood, they are so cute!

Spoilers up to pg 36

I hope Aya wasn’t ACTUALLY screaming into the phone. Mitsuki’s poor ears. :rofl: These girls are such disasters. I love them so much. I want to reread this once I’m more proficient at Japanese so that I can fully appreciate it.

Also Mitsuki’s uncle lamenting about how she’s going to get married :joy: Because a cute girl gave Mitsuki her number. I love him so much.

14 Likes

Love the use of colour on this page (page 44)

Summary

Page 44

Summary

IMG_2583

I kind of had the same question! I guess the incident on the previous page which all the other pupils saw was felt to resemble the sort of dashing move a prince would make?

10 Likes
p. 44

Yeah, it’s a bit of a trope really, where a girl will make sort of a “boyish” move charming a popular girl (or just does that regularly to girls in general) and gets called a prince because of it. Sure, Mitsuki getting all close to Aya was an accident, but from the outside it may well have looked incredibly smooth.

11 Likes

I appreciate that everyone forgot / moved on after only a week.

11 Likes

Yeah, that was a nice touch, both because it’s absolutely how rumours work and because having this stick around would distract from her actual character

12 Likes
I need this shirt

12 Likes

So do I. Aya has good taste in clothes so far

9 Likes

Oh man, I love this. I love how disaster-y and accidentally smooth Mitsuki is and how flirty and awkward Aya is and Mitsuki’s uncle… :joy:

13 Likes

I’m liking the book so far. The pretense still seems a bit preposterous, but I really dig the art style and the two main characters seem to have nice chemistry. I’m curious how long the current status quo keeps up.

I’m half-way this week and didn’t stumble on many problems with the language. However, this one seemed pretty tough to get to the bottom of. Could someone check my understanding?

p.38

名前を呼ばれただけで - passive form
ダメダメでも - even if
いいかって - good + phrase as question + quotation marker
思えちゃう - potential form + てしまう

How is this for translation? “Just from [you] being called by your name, even though it’s totally wrong, I can totally think how it would be right.”

7 Likes

Yeah, that one stumped me too. I think I figured it out with the help of DeepL/ChatGPT.

(Although now that I’m checking ichi.moe that might’ve been enough… poor neglected old-timey tools.)

p. 38

In your breakdown you have one misleading grouping. I think the groups in the middle are:

Literal translation: “Just from being called by my name, I’m suddenly able to think ‘Is it okay being entirely useless?’.

Better phrased, she has been completely messing up this conversation so far, but just from being called by her name she gets the feeling that maybe everything will be okay after all.

The base form of 思えちゃう might also 思える (to seem, to appear likely) instead of the potential of 思う, but that makes it harder for me to think about the か. I don’t remember if it can mean something like “maybe” in this context? Either way, I don’t think it would change much in the underlying meaning of the sentence.

6 Likes
p. 38

I think your interpretation is on point, but I think @Till is correct here that it’s でも used in the “even though” sense.

"Just because I was called by my [first] name, even though I’ve been completely useless (as in, she’s been making a fool of herself in the phone conversation so far) I can suddenly think it might be okay (or, more literally, I can suddenly think ‘is it okay?’) "

That also means the ダメダメでも is not part of the quote - so it’s basically ダメダメでも「いいか」って思えちゃう, if you were to insert quotation marks in there.

6 Likes
p. 38

I can see either, and since “I can think ‘Despite being useless it’s okay’” and “I can think ‘It’s okay’ despite being useless.” seem to have the same meaning…

(Minor technical detail: I think it’s “being completely useless” and not “having been completely useless”, since there’s no past in the sentence.)

3 Likes
p. 38

Yeah, the past was more intended to be stative than genuinely past - more like “I’ve been completely useless so far [and still am]” than “I was completely useless and now I’m not”. Should’ve probably clarified.

I do think there’s a difference in nuance between I can think “despite being useless it’s okay” and despite being useless I can think “it’s okay”, but that’s nitpicking tbh. The gist of it is clear enough, and her feelings are the same either way.

3 Likes
p. 38

If you want to, nitpick away, I’m curious now :smiley:

For me, both sentences express: “I think I’m being useless, so usually I’d consider the situation to not be okay. Despite that, I can consider the situation to be okay.”

3 Likes
p. 38

The difference is admittedly minor.

ダメダメでも「いいか」って思えちゃう to me implies “because I’m useless, I couldn’t think it might be okay, but now I can”

Whereas「ダメダメでもいいか」って思えちゃう implies “I couldn’t think it was okay despite me being useless before, but now I can”

I’m not sure if that’s entirely clear - essentially, it’s about whether the ダメダメ is used as a reason why she wouldn’t be able to have that thought of being okay, or whether it’s just used as a reason against the thought of being okay itself.

Or, in other words, it’s about whether she goes from ダメダメから「いいか」と思えない to ダメダメでも「いいか」と思える, or from「ダメダメでもいいか]と思えない to 「ダメダメでもいいか」と思える. The first makes a bit more sense to me, given the context - she loses all confidence because she’s incapable of having a normal conversation with the guy she likes, but because “he” calls her by her first name, she regains some of that confidence and is now able to think she might be doing alright after all.

4 Likes

Omgggg same it‘s so cute :face_holding_back_tears:

Question page 31

When Mitsuki’s uncle says ひま, it‘s written in katakana.
But when Mitsuki answers him, ひま is written in its kanji form.
Why?

Question page 33

音楽があんだろ
I looked up あんだろ in the dictionary and found nothing, but だろ reminds me of だろう
Is あん the contraction of a verb/grammatical thingie?

5 Likes
Question page 33

Yes. It is short for あるんだろう.

7 Likes

Thank you!!

3 Likes