In general, this doesn’t have a problem with spoilers, however there are two instances where spoilers are a good idea.
When you share sentences from what you are consuming, 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).
If you decide to translate a sentence you are sharing, please hide that behind a spoiler so people have a chance to take in the sentence without a translation. Or if you are helping someone and use translation as a part of that help, then hiding it behind a spoiler tag would be good too.
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 entry (and 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!
Resources
For additional explanations, here are some options:
Auxiliary verb:I just had to comment on this sentence: 僕は宿題をしてしまった。Because all I could think was “what’s so bad about that?” and then I read the translation and was reminded of the basic meaning. xD
Also, if anyone is wondering, I’m not sure what “Cp.” stands for but it points to other (related) grammar terms that will be (/has been) explained.
The OED thinks it stands for the latin ‘compara’, making it one of a handful of abbreviated Latin markers you might run into, others including cf. (confer), id. (idem), ib. (ibidem), et seqq. (et sequentia), i.e. (id est), e.g. (exempli gratia). This one’s a bit on the rare side, and it’s unfortunate the dictionary didn’t put it in the abbreviations list.
Thanks all! My brain assumed “contrast point” and I just knew that wasn’t exactly it, even though I didn’t think I was that far off on meaning.
I did immediately look there and was surprised it wasn’t there. Maybe it only comes up in the grammar terms pages, so it was forgotten/not considered important enough.
thirding or fourthing the ‘cp.’ meaning: from this context, it definitely means compare, yeah (“compare active sentence to passive sentence”)
Also same, snuck up on me
I hadn’t seen a good example of the difference between using の and こと as nominalizers before, but now that I see it written out this makes a lot of sense to me in the places i’ve seen them
DoBJG seems to group these differently from other sources I’ve used. Namely 助動詞 - 国語の文法(口語文法) and cross-referencing Goo.
For one, I don’t think there’s normally considered to be a difference between auxiliary adjectives and auxiliary verbs. They are both just 助動詞. For example, らしい (treated as a 形容詞) and られる (treated as a 動詞) are both 助動詞. On the other hand (and I just learned this!), things like the いる in ている are actually 補助動詞, which are basically just verbs that have taken on a grammatical usage separate from their original meaning.
Second, ほしい is just considered a normal 形容詞 according to Goo. Same with やすい. So I’m slightly doubting these examples…
Side comment: I forgot how awful romaji is. What a terrible decision to not just use furigana or hiragana copies of the sentences.
I think this is a good way to look at it. I wasn’t sure about ようだ being considered an aux adjective or aux verb because よう is a noun after all, but “bound auxiliary” (definition for 助動詞 given in Jisho) is a good way to put it.
ugh I know right? And it’s the type of romaji that uses ō instead of ou… At least is does show long vowels in some way though?
With the lack of examples in the intransitive verb section (only one) I’m hoping that this really was an editing mistake and not that they really think those sentences are transitive…
I’m done with this week’s reading, now trying to decide if I should track my progress with this one in Natively even though I usually don’t use that for textbooks…
In defense of this, ō is better, because it draws a distinction between an う sound elongating an お sound and an お and う that happened to fall next to each other, but are otherwise pronounced separately (a distinction, that doesn’t exist in kana, but I digress). As far as I know, besides IME romaji, really no other romaji systems uses ou as a substitute. I, for one, am glad, that this isn’t the kind of romaji, that writes せんせい as sensee
I guess I mostly like my romaji to match the kana as much as possible (to distinguish おう from おお), but it doesn’t really matter, either way I can’t stand romaji lol. But I can see your point of view, and I’d rather it’s ō than oo or just o.
True. (this makes me wonder if せんせい’s ever been romanized as sense…)
Off topic, but about romaji
Speaking of romaji, this is a bit off topic, but in something I had to read for class last semester, a word was written as zibunzisin and it took me so long to figure out what the heck that meant It was a linguistics class not a Japanese class so in that case it makes sense that romaji was used, but I was so confused. Turns out it was 自分自身, I completely forgot that じ can be romanized as zi.
Finished reading this week’s part. What an exciting story. When it said:
Kaori deceived Ichiro.
Ichiro gave a scarf to Midori.
I knew exactly what kind of story we’re getting into. Full of betrayal, yet still finding joy in the small things in life, like a cute girl in a scarf. I’m looking forward to what the main chapters have to offer.
Terms are the following. Try to recall what it refers to, subclassification, and comparisons. The first two may be easier to understand on first go-through.
Active Sentence
Agent
Appositive Clause (Construction)
Auxiliary Adjective
Auxiliary Verb
Compound Particle
Compound Sentence
Contrastive Marker
Coordinate Conjunction
Direct Object
Double Particle
Embedded Sentence
Hearer
Imperative Form
Indefinite Pronoun
Intransitive Verb
I-type Adjective
Na-type Adjective
Nominalizer
Passive Sentence
Potential Form
Predicate
Prenominal Form
Punctual Verb
Stative Verb
Subject
Subordinate Clause
Transitive Verb
Volitional Sentence
WH-question
WH-word
Yes-No Question
So there are 32 keywords. Having 7 days, going through by 5 each day seems reasonable.
A little personal rant
I shouldn’t really bought a localized version (Thai). The keywords are still in English anyway. Not everything is originally in Japanese or one language, to begin with.
So far, Bill has physically assaulted two characters, Martha and the narrator. I strongly suspect that this chapter is trying to foreshadow Bill as a future antagonist.
Additionally, Bill didn’t show up at an unspecified location when he was expected to. He seems to be quite the unreliable character. Personally, I don’t trust him, and I think he’s someone we should keep an eye out for as the story continues.