よつばと! Vol 2 Discussion Thread (Yotsuba&! Reading Club)

Oh, I didn’t realise that was a reference.

Actually, I can’t recall thinking anything much of it at the time, which is odd, because it’s a little bit of a strange thing to say.

You get used to that sort of thing in Yotsuba. :stuck_out_tongue:

Page 118

Thank you for that!
By the way, it’s on page 118.
It’s always good to add page numbers, it’s a great help to everyone if you can!

I didn’t add a page (and just the chapter) cause I thought it was a pretty memorable scene. I’ll remember next time. It didn’t help that I didn’t have the manga in front of me at that time.

I thought it was very strange, so I looked it up. And there was an article (or wiki, I don’t remember) that pointed to the historical drama (and YouTube link). There is also this:

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Just found this wonderful series of videos translating parts of Yotsuba vol.2. I’ll add it to the OP as well.

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Page 75

Okay, I’m taking a break from volume 9 to work my way through these volume 2 videos and I’m finding them very useful. But one question has come up which I really can’t figure out.

On page 75 Yotsuba is trying to choose a cake and asks Miura: かーちゃんのは どれ?, “which one is mum having?”

But what is that の? The video (if I understand correctly) says the の is nominalising かーちゃん so that you can use it as a noun. But surely かーちゃん is already a noun?

I wondered if perhaps the の stood in for a noun, like “one”, “which one is mum having”, but I have no idea.

Any help much appreciated!


Likewise, in the next panel: このイチゴの のってるの, the video says the の here stands in for が. Could someone say why it does that? Thank you so much!

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I read this as 「かーちゃんのケーキはどれ?」 However, since they are obviously talking about cakes, the ケーキ can be left out. 「かーちゃんのはどれ?」

Here is how Tae Kim explains it: (emphasis mine)

If it gets a little confusing, but it essentially translates as, “Which is mom’s (thing)?” What thing it is isn’t spoken (but here’s it’s the cake). “Which is mom’s?”

Edit: Note that we’re not dealing with a verb or adjective, so that part of the explanation is a bit over the top for this example.

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Thank you so much! What a brilliant, clear explanation! Thank you! Much appreciated!

This is precisely it.

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:eyes: :cake: :+1:

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No questions (makes a change!), but Foxumon has just released a new video for volume 2, pages 135 to 139 and I learnt some interesting things…

Page 135

  • さんまからやって
    When I first read this I thought it meant “please do from a sanma” ie, “please swim like a sanma”, but I’ve just learnt that からして is it’s own vocab item… in Jisho it is “for starters, so, based on, since” but Foxumon defines it as “think about it from the standpoint of”. Nice.

  • 浮かないのよねー
    Okay, so Foxumon describes this (4:08) as “a godan ku ending verb”. She does this all the time but, I have to be honest, my eyes just glaze over at that. But this time I wondered… “what the heck is she talking about?”. The she said “to make that to its negative that u-based ending changes to an a-based ending, and then you add on ~nai”. You know, and this is going to sound terrible, I never thought about actually learning these rules (because they are so boring) - but perhaps I ought to? Ouch. Oh, and I loved her definition of the explanatory の-particle: “the fact of the matter is…”

Page 136

  • Foxumon mentions One Piece at the moment when the boys say 仲間 仲間 (which she translates as “one of us…”), but I’ve never seen or read One Piece so the reference is lost on me. I did a little search but found nothing. But I just know you guys will know what is going on here!

Anyway, I hope you don’t mind me sharing all that here, I just thought it was so interesting! (And one day, one day, I’ll catch up with you guys again in those far off later volumes!)

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I always forget, but I thought godan were just the “normal” verbs that can be conjugated to an ending with every vowel, like so:
買わない
買います
買う
買えます
買おう

And ichidan were the ones that only have one conjugation ending(?), like so:
食べない
食べます
食べる
食べられる
食べよう

Normally classified (afaik) as 1st and 2nd group, 3rd group are exceptions like 来る and する.

I’ll get back to you on this, I’m on my phone. :stuck_out_tongue:

Ps: One Piece is all about friendship and such, so they throw that word around frequently.
Psps: I’m apparently correct, maybe. :smiley:

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Don’t go there. Calling the verb types “group 1” and “group 2” is a particular pet peeve of mine, because there’s nothing about those names that tells you anything about the groups. I learnt them as う-verbs and る-verbs, which is better.

But yeah, 五段 verbs are called such because they have five different stems, while 一段 have just the one. Prior to the great reform after WWII, all 五段 verbs used to be 四段 - the ~おう conjugation didn’t exist back then - while there used to be a 二段 group which was merged into 一段 (the sole remaining holdover from that is 得る, as it can be conjugated as both うる and える, but it’s still counted as 一段 in modern classifications).

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Just thought I’d share how I learned them. xD
Not that it matters once you learn why they’re different.

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If you put a lot of time and effort into reading (as you’ve been doing and are planning to continue), and if you learn vocabulary and look up conjugations as you encounter them, things like 浮かない being the negative of 浮く may become as familiar as knowing that “slept” is from “sleep” and “baking” is from “bake”.

This is one thing I like about the site ichi.moe; you can drop a conjugated word into it to get a breakdown of the conjugation.

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@Kazzeon, @Belthazar, and @ChristopherFritz - the three grammar-teers! I kid you not, you are my heroes! I fully expected a slap (“Marcus, you lazy so-and-so, you come here wasting time with all your questions but you don’t even know the difference between a go-dan and an ichi-dan verb, how dare you!”) but instead I get a lovely cut-out-and-keep easy guide (thank you so much Kazzeon), an explanation as to why they are called what they are (thank you Belthazar) and support for the way I study, plus tips (thank you ChristopherFritz). You guys are great! Thank you!

And yes, today on the train into work, I’ll be bringing a grammar book!

Thank you everyone!

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You’ve become an Internet sensation @Belthazar!
And on the best Youtube channel in the world at that!
10:43 ff!

Oh, nice. :grinning:

I’ve always been an internet sensation, though. It’s about time the rest of the internet took note. :stuck_out_tongue:

That said, 3日間 is みっかかん…

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Apologies if I’m reviving a dead thread, but I think that’s short for 限定販売

P.S. I’ve started reading Yotsubato on my own after this article, and all your questions and answers have been very useful!

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Yay, the club was mentioned!

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