スーパーカブ discussion (Intermediate) April 2024

Book Clubs
#141

It might be because 可愛い looks like it should be pronounced かああい, so the furigana serves as a reminder.

After some quick research into what determines whether a word has furigana, it seems to be dependent on the publisher or author. Furigana is always used (at least for the first appearance) for words with irregular or unclear pronunciation, such as gikun or names.

For similar reasons, 停める regularly includes furigana. According to jpdb, this kanji is used roughly 2% of the time for とめる, making it a rarer usage. This can happen with other characters too. I’ve seen to drink, usually written as 飲む, written as 呑む with furigana indicating the pronunciation as のむ. It can also be seen in old character forms, such as 嚙む having furigana to indicate its pronunciation is the same as 噛む.

It seems books may choose to include or omit furigana based on the target demographic. A book intended for adults probably would only include furigana for rare non-jouyou kanji. For example, 漕ぐ (row, peddle) is not a jouyou kanji, and regularly has furigana. It may also be decided by kanken levels, a kanji proficiency exam taken by Japanese students.

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#142

Hi,

Read chapter 8 up to page 50. Got this feeling.

We’ll see…

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#143

I started yesterday!
Will post more when I’m a bit more caught up

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#144

Awesome to hear <3

I’ve finished my daily 3 pages and will check in again tomorrow.

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#145

In chapter 8 there is the following

sentence

ホームルームが始まるまでの五分ほどの時間、…

I think 五分 in this sentence means “5 minutes”, right?

In the vocab deck the meaning is “half, 50%, tie, evenness, 5 parts, 5%”.

I understand that it can be 5 minutes and one of those things, depending on the context.

But how can it be both 50% and 5%? How would you tell the difference?

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#146

Yes, of course in this case the sentence is about 5 minutes of time.

Unfortunately both Bunpro and jpdb parsers struggle with these situations, where 2 words are spelled the same but pronounced differently.
五分(ごぶ) and 五分(ごふん).
十分(じゅうぶん) and 十分(じゅっぷん・じっぷん).
People can infer the right one from context naturally, but from programming perspective it’s a bit of work.

As for your second point, 50% vs 5%, I don’t know, and would be curious as well how to tell the difference. That is, in what context would it mean “5 parts out of 100”.

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#147

Tiny confusion

Chapter 8

エンジンは始動した、やっぱり昨日説明書で読んだチョークレバーとかいうものは必要ないらしい。
That か in とかいうもの is confusing me a bit. Is it とか いう もの? Or is it a typo?
Is it like, ”things like"?

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#148

I interpreted this as a combination of とか and というもの, but instead of repeating the particle と, the grammar points share the same particle. I think it means something like “the things such as.”

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#149

Thank you. Thats what I thought too. I guess I’m so used to read “というもの” and “ということ” so many times, that seeing that か confused me.

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#150

Yes, I think it is this combination and means “the thing called choke lever or something”. Like Koguma does not really remember the exact term used in the manual or she remembers the term but does not really know what it is.

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#151

I’ve been wondering for a while now, but isn’t Koguma thinking the word もの a lot?

For example, from ch 6 that I’ve been reading today (catching up soon :sweat_smile:):

。。。たぶん、原付での通学なんて。。。特に注目されるようなものではない

Here 通学 is an action or event, not a physical object, so wouldn’t こと be more standard to use?

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#152

もの can be used to express one’s perception of a concept. It represents the idea of “should” or “being the way it is.” You can read more about it here.

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#153

Slightly random aside, but I just read this article, and it reminded me that I noticed this gikun in the 同級生 (クラスメイト) furigana of the スーパーカブ blurb.

https://aethermug.com/posts/the-beautiful-dissociation-of-the-japanese-language

The author’s example of 辺土 (リンボ), has maybe more interesting implications, but still nice to notice stuff oneself!

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#154

Yay I finished chapter 8 today, which means I caught back up from when I fell behind during spring break. =D

Ideally I’ll be shooting for a chapter a day during my work week. (because that pace seems to be working out for me) If all works out then I’ll be outpacing the club by quite a lot, but I’m still very happy to have joined. It’s really been a lot more manageable than I thought it would be at my level.

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#155

Hi!

Just started chapter 9. What a relief! :wink:

Let’s see what this side trip brings along.

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#156

Just popping in to say I’ve read todays pages. ( I also read yesterdays pages, yesterday but totally forgot to check in ^^; )

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#157

In case anyone wants more Super Cub, the manga and a spin off is on sale on amazon right now.

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#158

Just finished chapter 8. It does get easier the more I read!

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#159

Agreed, it does get easier, though not easy <3

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#160

I am still a bit confused about the way tenses are used in Japanese books.

On the first page of chapter 10, there a these two sentences back to back:

sentence 1 - past

平日午後の甲州街道は思ったより走りやすかった。

sentence 2 - non-past

通学で通る県道より舗装がよく、道幅も後ろから速い車が来た時に横に逃げる余裕がある。

Both describe the conditions on the road at that time.
Why doesn’t the second sentence end with あった?

This is just one example. The tenses are all over the place.

I thought that maybe the scene will be described with the past tense
and the actions use non-past. But this example shows that’s not the case.

Can somebody shed some light on how this works in Japanese novels?
A link to further information would be great? Thank you.

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