Week 5 葬送のフリーレン ・Frieren 🧝‍♂️ (Beginner Book Club)

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Welcome to Week 5 of 葬送のフリーレン ・Frieren

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Week 5 17 May 2024
Start Page 56
End Page 76
Chapters Finish Chapter 2
Last week Week 4
Next week Week 6
Home Thread Here

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

Last panel iamge - end of chapter!

Vocabulary

Vocabulary spreadsheet

Names and places
Many characters have katakana names that derive from German words.

Japanese German English role first appearance
フリーレン Frieren Freeze main character Ch 1 p 3
ヒンメル Himmel Sky or heaven Frieren’s comrade Ch 1 p 3
アイゼン Eisen Iron Frieren’s comrade Ch 1 p 3
ハイター Heiter Cheerful Frieren’s comrade Ch 1 p 3
フェルン Fern far away new character Ch 2 p 42
シュトラール Strahl sunlight holy city Ch 2 p 42
エーヴィヒ Ewig forever, eternal reference to historical character Ch 2 p 47

Discussion Guidelines

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
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  • I’ve stopped reading this book
0 voters
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Sneaky corrupt priest :smirk:

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page 57

魔導書の解読のほうが早く終わるよ

Can someone help me out with how より ~ のほうが works? I was thinking the meaning here is Deciphering the grimoire will be finished sooner (than I thought previously) with the より section of the sentence implied, but I always get confused when I see this grammar point because it never seems to look like it does in the textbook.

page 58

今までまともに動けていたほうが奇跡だったのです

And similarly, what is the ほうが in this sentence doing?

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p. 57

Keep in mind that ほう is just a noun, and it’s not exclusive to comparisons. It happens to also be used in the XよりYのほうがZ construction, but even if you see it in a Xのほうが construction, that’s not always what it is, and it’s not always going to be some explicitly taught grammar point.

Here it’s just standalone (魔導書の解読の)ほう as the subject, in a sort of “using direction to refer to things” way, as Japanese sometimes does. There might be kind of a comparison going on here, or a contrast, as there’s a topic change going on - Fern’s coming of age is a ways away, the grimoire’s deciphering on the other hand is going to be finished soon - but it’s not an explicit one in the sense of an implicit より (and as such it’s not necessarily that Frieren’s saying she’ll be done with the grimoire before Fern manages to hit that rock, even though that may be her unspoken expectation).

You could think of it as a fancy は with extra contrast I guess - though I don’t know if that’s entirely the correct grammatical interpretation. It’s just what makes the most sense to me in this context. 魔導書の解読は早く終わるよ would have much the same meaning, but with a different “feel” to it. It’s a bit hard to put into words (and I may be off).

p. 58

This is similar to the previous. It’s a kind of indirection that doesn’t necessarily affect the meaning very much, but it makes it a bit more formal and indirect I think, and maybe adds a bit of emphasis. The meaning is just that it’s a miracle he was even able to move until now. So like in the previous case, you could essentially replace this with 今までまともに動けていたのは奇跡だったのです and not really change the meaning.

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Interesting :thinking: Thank you! Seems like I was overthinking it trying to map it onto an explicit grammar point.

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That was a beautiful chapter. And very sad, too.

p.62

Solved, see post below. I made a simple misreading error…

私は彼と違うので大人しく余生を過ごそうと思っていたのですが、
あるときふと気が付いてしまいまして。

I am different from him (Himmel), so I had been thinking to spend the rest of my days quietly. However, at some point it suddenly occurred to me.

私がこのまま死んだら、
彼から学んだゆうきや意識や友情や、
大切な思い出までこの世から無くなってしまうのではないこと。

If I were to die like that,
all the things I had learned from him like courage, determination and friendship,
and all the important memories we made, they wouldn’t be lost to the world.

I could parse all the elements on these long sentences, but overall there’s something bugging me. And it makes me thing I’m missing something:
Heiter talks about how good a person Himmel was. And that he himself was different, and was thinking about spending the rest of his days alone and quietly. Until he suddenly had a thought that changed his perspective. He considered that, if he were to live and die like that (doing basically nothing with his life), those things that he learned from Himmel would be lost to the world. Except the last sentence ends in a negation: この世から無くなってしまうのではないこと. And I don’t know how to interpret that. I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to convey: " As long as I try to follow in Himmel’s footsteps, those memories and lessons won’t be lost from his world". But that’s not what I get from 私がこのまま死んだら. Any thoughts?

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p.62

It’s not ではないこと, it’s ではないかと.

“If I die like this, won’t all the courage, determination and companionship I learned from him, and even the precious memories we made, be lost to the world?”

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Doh. Thanks for catching that. I must have read that passage a number of times, but still fell into the trap of seeing what I thought would be written at the end of the sentence. I feel embarrassed now. :frowning:

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It happens. I won’t pretend I didn’t read it wrong at least twice trying to figure it out just now either, and I’d already caught the meaning before when I wasn’t overthinking the grammar :rofl:

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overall thoughts

I really enjoyed this week’s reading. I like how it’s filling in the world and some back story details. I appreciate the insights into who Fern is. It feels like we only get glimpses into Frieren’s inner world, perhaps to emphasise how different she is and an enigma to those around her. The funerals are coming thick and fast, though, which shouldn’t be a surprise given the title.

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Story comments so far

I have had 0 exposure to Frieren except those two chapters so I’m also really curious as to where this is going. Will the narration time slow down and now it’s about Frieren and Fern? Or will it keep going that fast and everybody she meets always dies?? (Also please nobody answers my question if you already know :joy:)

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Completely misread フェルン as フリーレン as the first word for this week’s reading! Took a few takes rereading the sentence before I realised what I’d done wrong…

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Wow, I didn’t say anything but glad to see I’m not the only one! It happened to me more than one time, brain autocompletes フ…ン to フリーレン apparently :confused:

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Don’t be too embarrassed - that’s how we all read anyway (imho)

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Cross posting from my study log :saluting_face:

Reactions chapters 1+2
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What do you mean “fast”? It’s been twenty-four years since the last one we saw. :stuck_out_tongue:

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touché ! :sweat_smile:

@WeepingWeeb your reactions are just so fun to read, glad you cross-posted!!!

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Heh thank you I’ll try remember to post them in the threads here, I keep forgetting and doing everything in my study log instead

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p.67

そんなものがあるならエーゥ゙ィヒ自身が使っていたでしょう。

Is he saying that this Ehwich guy would have already used this magic had it existed?

p.71

そうするとするかな。
Is she referring to Himmel here?
like," if he does it i shall too"?
kinda confused with this one.

last page of chapter

私はがただしてやられただけだよ。
I was just made to do it?

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p67

Yes. Basically he guessed that the wizard didn’t find the secret to eternal life since otherwise he would have used it on himself. Since he found the secret manuscript in his grave it was a bad start…

My free ebook expired last week so I can’t help you for the rest since I don’t remember it well enough…

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