Can someone confirm that I'm understanding this sentence right? (春子んちのって あんなだったっけ)

Japanese
#1

I seem to have some problems where I understand the words, the grammar and how they connect but for some reason, it still doesn’t mean I understand how this sentence in Japanese means the English Translation. Overtime I’ve been able to piece things together better but this one I wanted to make sure I follow the structure. This is from the first episode of Usagi Drop

何か 庭に女の子いたけど. 春子んちのって あんなだったっけ
By the way, there was a girl in the yard. I can’t remember, is Haruko’s girl that age?

The first sentence is cut and dry to me. In the direction of the garden, a girl existed. The next one I’m iffy on. From what I understand 春子んちのって is basically a fragmented part of a sentence with the の connecting to the little girl from the previous sentence. The next part being “In such a way” roughly and だったっけ basically meaning that he’s remembering something in the past or from what he remembered. Is it safe to assume that あんな implies age and the actual translation is that that little girl in the yard is the same stature as his guess that Haruko is and age is just implied or is just the cleanest way to translate?

#2

I think this is one of the tricky things about looking at English translations – they sometimes translate things in a way that gives the same general idea but not the closest literal translation.
Also, the Japanese sentence here is very much spoken Japanese, so there’s a lot of clipped information.

Here’s my cut at translating…

Literally: Something | in the garden | little girl | there was | but…
Natural language: Hey (by the way, there’s something, something to mention), there was a little girl in the garden but…

Literally: Haruko (春子んち sounds like a nickname to my ears) | possessive の | casual quotation or casual は | that much | it was | (remembering)
Natural language: Is Haruko’s [girl] that much (that old)? I can’t remember.
yeah, this sentence is definitely confusing to follow. I’m not even 100% on it.

I think you got tripped up on って (short for といった or という)
https://www.bunpro.jp/grammar_points/358
https://www.bunpro.jp/grammar_points/435

Hope this helps!

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#3

Just thought, maybe 春子んち is short for 春子の家（はるこのうち）?

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#4

Thanks you immensely for the assistance. There is no other context I’m afraid. That was the start of the conversation and the next thing was the other person’s reply then they talk about something else so it’s what you see is what you’re given.

I haven’t gotten to N3 grammar yet so that’s one culprit. I was thinking it was being used more or less as a conjunction. 春子んち is a nickname since this is a family reunion of sorts. You helped me out a lot.

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#5

I watched the episode and I’m pretty sure the 春子んちの part is a corruption of 春子のうち because when he meets haruko again he just calls her haruko and not a nickname, and he also later asks the girl 俺んちくるか which is translated as “wanna come stay with me?”. It just gets changed because saying something like “is that the girl from the haruko household?” sounds weird and old fashioned. As an aside, one piece of advice I’ve found useful from when I first started is that if you can’t quite figure out a sentence sometimes trying to read it backwards helps. Not sure why exactly.

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#6

I got same problem. But idk tbh. I think i need more vocabulary.

#7

Can confirm that んち is short for のうち. I’ve seen it a few times, and here’s a post about slang that I found (んち/のうち part is at the bottom)

https://blog.skritter.com/2015/10/すげぇ！-slang-in-japanese/

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#8

何か 庭に女の子いたけど. 春子んちのって あんなだったっけ

Late reply, but to me it means this-

何か(So…)庭に(in the garden)女の子いたけど(there was a young girl, but…). 春子んちの(The one from Haruko’s place)って あんなだったっけ(was she always like that?)

To me the あんな doesn’t need to be about age (unless it was implied, I haven’t seen the episode). Remember that あんな is just like そんな and pretty much behaves like any other な adjective would. な just points out that the girl in question has traits that are being desribed.

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#9

From what I remember there wasn’t anything about her age from the japanese side. I think it’s just a confusion from the subtitles, there was a few moments that felt like they just went for something that was close enough.

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#10

Looks like Asher seems to have gotten the translation correct to me.

I will just add that the って after 春子んちの is functioning as は in this sentence, which can be very confusing. This is very common in casual speech.

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#11

って in casual speech as は is very confusing if you’re not used to it. I still can’t process information fast enough sometimes when I am speaking to someone that says って, all the time.

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#12

Also sorry for a late response (Didn’t know alerts were getting moved to spam). I appreciate any information or insight regardless of the age of the post. Thank you and everyone else for helping me understand things better.

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