Any spoilers, for the current chapters must be behind spoilers or detail curtains. When we get further in you don’t need to hide details that were revealed in previous chapters.
Always mention where you are in the book when discussing, ideally by chapter so people reading different versions have a clear point of reference.
Feel free to read ahead if it’s exciting! But please refrain from spoiling ahead of the appropriate week
If you have a question about grammar, vocab, cultural things, etc - ask! That can be part of the discussion too and I’m sure some folks would be happy to help.
Even if you don’t read the chapter(s) in time, you are still encouraged to post in the thread for that reading once you have finished it. I advise not reading ahead in the threads as you may see spoilers.
Thanks for adding the final line - alas, the ePub (kobo → calibur → epub) percentages are a bit wacky (character count vs page count again i suspect) so I’m not sure where the ending is, but I’m sure someone will fill me in. I didn’t quite come across the ending line yet (I found 私は首を縦に振りました…?)
Once we got to the conversation section I was able to follow along well enough, but the run-on sentence at the beginning confused me.
A literalish translation - “the fact that If I stood and raised my hand and said [preceeding sentence] like a proper elementary schooler but not only would I be called to the teacher’s office but I’d also be made to run laps around the school - that’s something i cannot accept”?
Sry about the percentages, if eBook readers wanna share their percentages when they find the line, maybe it will turn out they match, and we can update it.
That sentence was a mess (ちなみに it’s p2, p1 is the title page). Your literalish translation is basically correct afaict… to restate chronologically: She tried to get out of gym class properly; it didn’t work; she had to run laps instead and got called to the teacher’s office afterwards; she’s displeased/can’t accept that
Oh, boy, only page 1 and I already have a question
It’s concerning this passage:
「日本では頭がおかしい奴は嫌なことから逃げられるって。」
I translated it roughly as:
“In Japan, weird people can run away from unpleasant things.”
I decided to compare it with the official translation and was puzzled. The official one is:
“The Japanese don’t like people who are weird in the head, so they run away from them.”
It’s completely different. Instead of “weird people” being the actors and running from unpleasant things, it’s now other people disliking and shunning them.
I’ve tried to wrap my head around it, but I just can’t see how you could translate it like that. I did a little bit a searching and found someone asking the same question on reddit and according to that topic, my translation is the correct one. I also found a fan-translation of a manga based on this book and it had the same passage translated the way I did.
In my mind, the official version doesn’t make much sense grammatically or contextually. The logic is:
Nanoka saw a professor on TV saying that if you’re “weird” then you have an excuse to not do something you don’t like. For her, it was PE class. So It’s a fair game to say that your head feels “weird” and get a pass.
According to the official translation, her asking for a leave from PE wouldn’t make sense, as being “weird” is not an excuse to skip chores.
Am I missing something here or the official translation is actually wrong? I would greatly appreciate any input!
I think your translation seems correct, given the context/logic. Out of context, I would have assumed (incorrectly?) that people in Japan were the actors
I think what makes me inclined to believe that it’s the 頭がおかしい奴 who is the actor in the sentence is the part that follows - 嫌なことから。 If it were だから then I would assume that it’s the Japanese people.
My grammar understanding is still weak though, so I rely mostly on intuition.
I completely missed that y’all were reading this, but it’s been sitting on my TBR pile waiting to be read since sometime last summer, I think. Definitely will be considering using it as a good excuse to jump in
I agree with you, for what its worth. I tried using google, and found this reddit post, which seems to agree with us, but grammar and such isn’t explained so who knows
Just from context, isn’t Nanoka saying “weird people can run away from unpleasant things. I am weird, so let me skip PE.”
Her argument makes no sense if other japanese people run away from “weird” people. Like, would she scare off the teacher, and that’s why she can’t go?
If you have the official translation nearby, how does her argument resolve there?
Also, I realized that it is very difficult to notice the “last line” when you are only listening to the audiobook. I didn’t notice it and am pretty sure I went too far Maybe that will fix itself when my listening improves though.
Well, I just used a preview feature on Amazon. It allows you to read two full chapters
Hitomi-sensei said “Running away from the things that frighten us isn’t always a good thing.”
Which, again, doesn’t make sense considering she didn’t mention any “things to run away from” before. So far the official translation looks way too inconsistent.
Just because it’s an official translation, doesn’t mean it’s perfect. I think the translator probably read it as だから which is an easy mistake to make - especially if you are in a hurry (which as a translator you always are). As a translator you don’t have the time to second guess every word/sentence, if you want to make a living. They get paid so little, I am amazed there are not more mistakes in translations.
I finished listening to this weeks pages (though I listened a little further to the end of the audio chapter) and intend to go back and read it as there’s stuff I only caught a little of or missed the meaning entirely. I did get hung up on a few of the sentences (especially that one at the start) but put it into DeepL for a rough translation after I worked out the vocab meanings.
Finished this week’s reading.
I’m listening to the audiobook as well which was very soothing great narrators!
And wow 奈ノ花 is a very smart child imo!
Overall a very interesting start, I’m looking forward to next weeks!
Very interesting start, had to read the pages twice because I’m used to sentences that are a bit shorter so it was a bit confusing at first but this will be good practice. I also learned about the grammar point ~とは限らない which I hadn’t stumbled upon previously.
I think the overall vocabulary are a good fit for me, had to look up some words like 人差の指 (and the other fingers )
I read ~40% of the first week, and I’m really liking this so far! Nanoka seems like she’ll be really fun to read about.
This is hard though. Especially in the first part there were whole passages that I had to cram into DeepL to make sense of them.
And I tried to listen to the audio book first, but in retrospect I have no idea why I thought I’d be able to follow a L25 book as an audio version.
I’ll try to listen to this week’s part again after I finish it!
Question right at the beginning (ebooks are weird and don't have pages)
小学生なりの小さな手をきちんとあげ
Is that “Raising my small hand properly like an elementary school student” or “Raising my small elementary school student hand properly”? Or something else? (And why?)
I’m sure the official translation is comically wrong here. Yours makes a lot more sense.
I was really happy to see that one not once, but twice! I knew about it vaguely, but I’m not quite sure anymore if I’ve ever seen it in the wild.
Haha. Me too! I also looked up the two unused little finger and thumb, for good measure
Wooooo, I thought the first novel wouldn’t be that hard, but reading certainly took longer than anticipated. I have been reading along to the audiobook, and I really really like the narrator + the fact that there are multiple voices for each character makes it even more enjoyable to listen to it.
As for vocabulary, I had to use the official translation quite a bit to know what was happening.
As for the last part of the sentence, what kind of construction is 見つけやすいのでしょう? Doesn’t やすいお mean cheap? Or why 見つける shortened to みつけ. I am quite confused o.o
私の家は、周りにある他の建物と比べて一際大きなマンションなので、彼女でも見つけやすいのでしょう
In the official translation and deepL やすい is translated as easy.
Pages
Pages
great narrators!