にゃんにゃん - Kitty Detectives - Vol. 1

I think the book is more consistent than Jisho here because I think this word is onomatopeia, which is usually written in Katakana.
(Note it’s also written in Katakana in Wiktionary)

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When I’ve seen this word used in other stories, it’s written as ふん or ふーん but maybe that’s just my limited exposure to how it’s suppose to be written.

I have a question about the last word on p58 つれてったの. How is this word translated and why the っ?

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Hmm I thought it was obvious but the て gets in the way :slight_smile:
I kind of suspect it’s 連れて行った with the “i” dropped
and “no” as a nominaliser
Something along the lines of “The one I took to some place” or “Taking someone to some place”

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Don’t know if this will help but here’s the full quote:
いやがらせよ。あたしが キャサリンが 大好きなのを しってるから
つれてったのよ!

Ah, the no is just the explanatory no here.
I think the “i” just got dropped and the verb is as I said.

(EDIT: deleted explanation that is wrong in this context)

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Oh, OK. So the い got dropped which makes sense.
Yea, I think she’s saying her husband took the cat because
he knows she likes it.

I translated it as,
It’s to trouble me, he (her husband) knew that I liked Catherine a lot, so he took her. (lit. took her and went away)

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Ah!
Sorry.
I got the context wrong (I don’t have the book at hand).

Yes, in this context it’s more likely that ga is marking the object and it translates as you said.

It’s kinda funny that on p56, the same word つれていった is written fully with the い because Hanae is saying it as the narrator so I got thrown off when seeing it used by Ipponmatsu in conversation.

It’s probably an intentional difference in pronunciation since Hanae is narrating calmly, presumably, whereas Ipponmatsu is quite agitated and less likely to pronounce words slowly and carefully.

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Since the grammar is a bit tricky, I figure some people might appreciate a breakdown:

あたしが キャサリンが 大好きな
“I like Catherine”
Note that が marks both the subject and the object of 大好きだ (since it is a state, not an action).
As an isolated sentence this would probably be phrased
“あたしは キャサリンが 大好きです。”
but は (as a topic marker) and です cannot appear in a relative clause.
So we change the は to が.
Instead of です one might think to use だ but だ before the nominaliser の becomes な.

あたしが キャサリンが 大好きなの
In general の can be both concrete (“The thing that is …”) or abstract (“The matter/fact of …”).
Here it’s clearly the second meaning, i.e.
“the fact that I like Catherine”

を object marker
しってる “is aware of” this is the ている form of 知る, but the い got dropped
から since

つれて “to taking someone along” => te-form “taking her along”
った as discussed, likely the i is dropped from 行った, “he left”
のよ! explanatory “no” + particle “yo”

(As a side note the relative clause from above could also appear as an independent sentence with two が but then it would likely mean “I am the (only) one that likes Catherine”, following the same logic as “ジョン (は/が) 学生です。” This only applies to the first が. The object が never has this meaning and is always neutral.)

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I just learned that うち is used for ‘I’ in Western Japan (Kansai dialect) mostly by females. If we think of this meaning, the sentence feels more natural, I think.
うちの近所の一本松さん
Mrs. Ipponmatsu of my neighborhood.

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On p60 third line, I’ve seen あと translated as “after”, “behind”, or “later”. In this context, does it mean “descendent”?

No, I think あとは can be translated with “additionally” here.

It’s listed as “After that” on

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OK, “additionally” works. thanks. Just wondered about “descendent” since Lily is her daughter.

I see where you’re coming from but “descendant” wouldn’t really work here I think.
“Who else has a key?” “Lily has a key”
cf “As for my descendant(s), Lily has a key”
It feels confusing to bring up “descendant” as a topic when it’s not mentioned in the question.
I think it could, in theory, work to qualify the answer
“Among my descendants, it is Lily that has the key”
but that also seems like a strange answer to the qeustion.

Wow, I hadn’t realized that リリー was Lily! I was just taking it literally.

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Riri is a Japanese female name like the pop singer Arai Riri (荒井梨里) or also others who spell it 利々 or 音 but because they are spelled differently from りりー, I kinda figured Lily (as in Jisho) was the way to translate it but I might be wrong.

It’s up to our interpretation, Lily seems perfectly fine though.