Yotsubato!: やめろor とめろ?

Japanese Language Reading
1

Reading Yotsubato 1-1, I found the following scene: Yotsuba and her father meet an old friend, and he, affectionally, shakes her head a little. She says うあー やめろー。

I have read that やめるand とめる are both transitive verbs meaning “to stop”, and that the difference between them is, やめる is used when the person speaking stops something, and とめる is used when another person (different from the one who is speaking) stops something. So, shouldn’t she say とめろ? Or did I mix up the verbs the wrong way?

2

It’s more along the lines of とめる is to stop a vehicle or machine or something, while やめる is to stop doing something, like “quit it!”. They’re the same regardless of whether it’s the speaker or someone else doing the stopping.

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3

Thank you so much!

4

Ah, Yotsubato!
So much fun to read^^

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5

Lots of fun!

6


*him

In case you don’t get the joke/explanation, I think you can use とめろ as in saying, “Stop them!”