しろくまカフェ: Week 1 Discussion (Chapters 1 and 2)

Damnit, we are at over 200 posts already? I will never find something in this thread. I will start tomorrow to read the first chapter and the day after tomorrow chapter 2. that‘s at keast the plan

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We are doing line by line translations… so if you search for Page 5, you should start finding all the phrases pretty quickly

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So I’m now realising that’s a lot of vocabulary I don’t know. Not sure yet how I’ll tackle this, but if my plan is to find enough time to learn all the words I don’t know (apart maybe from thge silly ones like the party names), I might end up going more slowly than the group as I also have to stick to my regular study plan. We’ll see !

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Jisho also lists 武闘家 (ぶとうか) as “martial artist”, which seems more fitting for what is actually shown in the panel. So maybe that is just another pun where the third kanji is replaced by a somehow similar sounding one…?

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Hey everyone just to help us with accountability purposes, we should know a little bit about eachother (:slight_smile: like for starters where is everyone from or living? Ill do me first, I’m living in japan in the ryukyu islands. please if you feel comfortable share. God bless and gambatte

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I’m from Mexico :slight_smile:
I’m part of every book club that’s known to man (except キノの旅 this one doesn’t count :stuck_out_tongue: )
So you better watch out :wink:

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“But if I all I do is sleep, I’ll get fat.”
I mean, I think that’s what he’s saying. Only starting this now cuz what else would one do at 11pm on a Friday.

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I’m from Argentina. I’ve been studying Japanese on and off for the past two years, but never been to Japan :pensive:

I’m living in New Jersey. I took Japanese for 3 semesters in college, fell out of practice (for 18-ish years…!) and picked it up again last year, passing N5 by the skin of my teeth in December. Grammar is my weak point so I’m really appreciative of everyone explaining the grammar points in these chapters!

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That’s exactly the same thing I got from this line. :slight_smile:

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Ahh. Probably not even a pun; I suspect it’s just a reasonable pattern to simplify compounds like that in general. If you have a group/organization of martial artists (武闘家の派), that could be condensed down to 武闘派.

Would love to know if it’s common to switch suffixes on compounds like that, actually. I think I’ve seen the same pattern a few other times.

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thanks for the shout out, and your English is really good to btw!

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hey thanks for the reply, yea ive been studying off and on for like 10 years and the grammar kicks my butt to, its time to nail it down. Good luck yo (:

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O wow nice Argentina seems like a beautiful place i would like to go some time. But keep at it and whenever you do come the language will make the experience 10x better Gambatte

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Welp, no one seems to want to touch the next panel; it’s pretty complicated. I guess I’ll get it started, if this is how we’re proceeding. Page 8, bis version. The dialog, at least:

Shirokuma: 「あっそ」 “…I see.”
Panda: 「歩けばそれなりにあるんだよ」 “It is some distance, if you walk.”

歩けば—Conditional form of 歩く
それなりに—Cthulhu*
ある—It exists
んだ—Explanation/elaboration
よ—Adding new information

Came up with a couple of pages here and here on それなりに, but it seems to be one of those things that’s just a bit difficult to explain easily in English. What I gather from those pages is that it’s kind of analagous to “it is what it is” or “it is something” in English… The implied subject of the sentence is the distance from the house to the cafe, so it’s kind of suggesting “The distance exists as something of a distance” or the like. I think. Definitely would love to see a proper explanation of that point from someone who knows what they’re doing.

There are some scribbly annotations in the panel as well, and a sign on the house, but I’m terrible at reading those things, so I’ll let someone else try to identify the kanji involved.

Edit: Checked a couple of dictionaries, and あっそ seems to be more of a neutral/disinterested comment than a questioning one. “I see” is probably a better translation than my original “Really?”

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The arrow pointing towards the house:
パンダ邸(中華風)= Panda residence (Chinese style)

パンダ:「豪邸だから」= “(It’s quite some distance) because it’s a palace / mansion.”

Meaning the place he lives at is so big it takes a while to get to the cafe despite it being literally next door.

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Thanks! And I had a suspicion about the sign on the house… cross-referencing with 保守熊猫党 from the vocab list, I do believe it’s 大熊猫 (“great panda”).

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I rather suspect it’s “giant panda” (i.e. Panda-san’s species) in Chinese.

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And one more for the evening, I suppose. Bottom panel of page 8, end of chapter 1.

Panda:
ダイエット - diet
は - as topic of the sentence
明日 - tomorrow
から - from
にする - usually implies making a decision
“I’ll do my diet starting from tomorrow.”

Shirokuma:
ごゆっくり - leisurely, with an honorific prefix
“Take your time and enjoy.”

Earlier posts in the thread talked about ごゆっくり, I believe. It’s commonly used to tell restaurant patrons to enjoy their meal or something, and has a double meaning here because it’s telling Panda that there’s no hurry to start his diet.

And then the bear cupcake says:
そう - so, that way
ダイエット - diet
は - as the topic
いつでも - at all times, always
明日から - from tomorrow
“So your diet is always ‘starting tomorrow.’”

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So Chapter 1 is fully translated! :slight_smile:

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