よつばと discussion (Beginner) April 2024

Lalala, just plodding along at my own pace… Just finished Ch 2.

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I made it more than halfway through chapter 4 now.

The part where Jumbo and Dad (do we know his first name?) are yelling at each other got very slangy, can somebody explain the “ズボンくらいはかせろ!!” line on page 131?

The deck lists the “about/approximately” meaning of くらい, which I don’t know if that’s correct, but even if it is the “to the extent…” meaning I can only half make sense of it. “Let me wear pants at least!” maybe? Or something like “I’ll make you wear pants!”?

Breaking down the the はかせろ I get はく (to wear) → はかせる (to make/let wear) → はかせろう (either an order from Dad to Jumbo, “make/let (me?) wear!”, or a volitional statement: “I shall make/let (you?) wear”)

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I’ve been a bit busy since break was over and I had to go back to teaching on Monday, since I had some time today I just read up to the point where it seems like most other people are. I had some questions, but I don’t really have time to look at them too closely rn so may backtrack later this week :yum:

ズボンくらいはかせろ response

【"カッコつけてん"and "ズポンくらいはかせろ"】とはどういう意味ですか? - 日本語に関する質問 | HiNative
What is the meaning of "ズボンくらいはかせろ!!"? - Question about Japanese | HiNative

These are two responses I found, which provide translations but don’t really fully explain what’s happening. My crack at decoding the translations and the text provided is, ジャンボ says 「かっこつけてんじゃねぇ」which I would interpret as ‘Don’t try to be cool!’ which slightly elucidates the response of 「ズボンくらい」Since くらい expreses an extent, the idea is maybe ‘Of clothes that could be worn, at least pants’ and then はかせろ being ‘let me wear!’ turning this all into ‘At least let me wear pants!’ or within the context, more appropriately ‘Don’t criticize me for wearing pants!’

This is just my guess, I’m not really satisfied with the interpretation of くらい but maybe this’ll provide some food for thought!

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yep, you are right here! ‘Let me at least wear pants’ iirc though I’ve not checked this page so the context could perhaps be slightly different.

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Checking in to say I got my 5 pages done today. I stopped at the bottom of page 127.
Only 3 vocab lookups today.

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Hi!

One doubt about page 126, lower section, right-hand frame:

When 風香 says ‘リサイクルに出そうと思ってた奴なんで’, I would take she means something similar to ‘And that is the guy that thought of recycling’.
But why would she say it aloud and call トーちゃん ‘奴’? What am I missing!?

Thanks in advance.

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I am pretty sure the TV is the yatsu in this situation. As In something like “I thought I was going to recycle it”, and in the line after she elaborates that it’s a little old.

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Thanks, you’re right!

I forgot for a moment that can also be used to name a ‘thing’.

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Backtracked today, did a little deeper reading to make sure I was catching the little things :star_struck:

118-125

大塚さんにこういうのもらった - A quick tidy brush up on some N5 grammar points, remembering giver + に for もらう and the の being used as a pronoun caught me off guard with the thing not necessarily being referred to earlier. But it makes sense being used like that since she’s referring to the document she’s holding.

回覧板が回ってきたりとか is a bit confusing to me, I understand it’s got something to do with the notice she brought over to them, but the english translations of まわる in this instance don’t make a lot of sense to me.

I found this definition, which based on my understanding seem to be the likely usage
順々に決まった場所などをめぐる.

Which puts us at “Taking the notices around to places” てくる and たりとか add on the nuance of ‘It ended up that that the notices get taken around amongst other things’

Which makes sense within the idea that she’s explaining why she brought this thing over - the added context of たりとか makes it sound a bit like these are neighborhood chores that more than just one person does. But without a direct subject I don’t really know.

With all that said, very cool japanese tyvm for being very easy to understand. Will tackle some more tomorrow :muscle:

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You’ve basically figured this out on your own but just to give some added cultural context, in Japan many places have a kind of local circular notice system (回覧板) which is linked to the neighbourhood association (町内会, mentioned on page 118). When you move into a new neighbourhood you need to sign up for the neighbourhood association/circular notice system which is what is happening in that scene. The circular notice is passed to each house in order and I think you have to stamp it with your hanko or sign saying you’ve seen it and then pass it on. I believe in some communities there are also rotating responsibilities involved with belonging to the neighbourhood watch. Basically Fuuka is explaining what Yotuba’s dad is signing up for (“The circular notice comes round and other things like that”).

I live in a block of flats where there is a residents association but we use an election system and a physical noticeboard, not a rotation system, so I am hazy on the details.

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Thanks again to all the questions askers before me! Getting into chapter 3 and having my questions already answered as I catch up has been great!

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Read a bit ahead since I won’t have time until the weekend and finished chapter 4! Seeing everybody’s reaction to Jumbo was funny.

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Ah very interesting thank you! Does not sound like a system I’d look forward to if I were to move to japan :joy:

126-130

Did a little review of なら for pg.126

The sentence ending けど always feels strange for me to read, but I understand the purpose behind it. I did take a quick glance of bunpro’s writeup for the grammar, and it doesn’t seem to mention it. Tofugu did a detailed writeup that might be of interest to others here.

pg. 129 ヤンダ is another character for those (cough cough, me) who forgot :joy:

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Whew! I got busy and completely fell off 2 weeks ago and spent the last week just catching up on reviews — I really should have turned on vacation mode, but it’s not like I planned the hiatus in advance! It’s really amazing how palpable the backslide is after just a few days away, especially with fresh material.

So now I have to catch up! I’m a little terrified of what my review queue will turn into if I try to learn all the material in the deck as I do, but it seems like the study material is front-loaded in the deck… that is, halfway into chapter 2 (where I stopped), I’m seeing that I’ve studied half the entire deck, so I have hope that the pace of new things (that I don’t mark “mastered” immediately) is slowing down relative to the reading pace.

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I actually like トーちゃん ’s comment: そのいって きますはいらん, that いって doesn’t need a きます.

I’m not sure… it feels much more like he’s just saying “you don’t need to announce that.” If he were saying she didn’t need to use polite form, wouldn’t it be more like “何で丁寧語?” or "ますっていらん” or something like that?

(いらん → 要らない)

助けてくれてありがと!

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I think the important thing from this sentence is その, if I remember correctly he just told her to say いってきます before she leaves the house, immediately after she says it to go the bathroom so it’s that いってきます that he doesn’t need/want.

What pablunpro said is true, that it would have been more appropriate for her just to say いって but I don’t think that’s what トーちゃん is getting at, he’s not really pointing out her specific verb usage or anything he’s just saying that she used the set phrase at the wrong time.

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Hello, on page 135 風香のお母さん tells よつば ‘毎日きても’ in response to her asking if it’s ok for her to come play. I was wondering about the きても part.

There’s the grammar point of “Verb[て]+も” which means ‘even if’, and it seems to fit here. But also in casual speech, sometimes the い gets dropped. So, could it also be short for 毎日きてもいい?

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Exactly right - the いい in question as actually said before 毎日きても. This kind of backwards formed sentence is quite common in Japanese, especially in the spoken language. It lends emphasis to the thing that is at the front, which in this case is an answer to Yotsuba’s question, before adding detail or clarifications. You could translate this 毎日きても here as “Even daily!” or some other similar fragment in English.

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Getting closer to catching up! Just finished ch 3. I feel like I’m just under the level where I would be getting the most out of it, so I’ll definitely go through it again sometime after I get some more grammar study in.

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Yotsuba and Jumbo are absolutely two peas in a pod lol, just bursting into these people’s homes and asking for free stuff.

131-135

On Pg. 132 - Jumbo’s dialogue 「しかしこんな美少女と友達なるとは」

First, the usage of しかし confused me a little bit, but nothing a little dictionary diving couldn’t help
「今まで述べてきた事柄を受けて、話題を転じるときに用いる」Used to change the topic :nerd_face:

Next, the とは at the end of the sentence seems to be this grammar point, but it’s not included in the deck.

Jumbo’s usage of the volitional with 車もらおう seems a bit strange to me based on my understanding of the volitional but I’ll take a closer look later.

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