Learning Japanese From Zero

[golyplot]

Today, I read Yotsubato ch7 (I gave up on intensive reading and went back to only looking up the occasional line, rather than everything, making progress much faster.) There were a few bits that really confused me

一緒にやったげようか (WANT TO DO IT TOGETHER?)

Even ichi.moe couldn't figure this one out. It literally didn't even suggest a meaning for the げ part. Could anyone please explain what this sentence really means?

ありがとねー洗濯もん (THANKS FOR HELPING WITH THE CLOTHES)

Can anyone please explain what the もん part means here?

[kelvin921019]

I remembered that ちゃった is an abbreviation of shimatta (meaning "happened unfortunately") from going through Erin's challenge. However, I wasn't confident about it, so I looked it up in ichi.moe anyway. Much to my surprise, ichi.moe got it wrong, listing the meaning as the lesser used alternate meaning "indicates completion (to finish ...)" instead. Or am I the one wrong here?

ichi.moe isn't wrong. しまう = 仕舞う (to complete, to end)
You can see the below link for the use of -てしまう
https://jlptsensei.com/learn-japanese-grammar/%E3%81%A6%E3%81%97%E3%81%BE%E3%81%86-te-shimau-%E3%81%A1%E3%82%83%E3%81%86-meaning/
An example mentioned in this site is 仕事は全部終わってしまいました。(indicate completion)
Usually the context will tell you which meaning of てしまう is used.

There's one notable scene where the English translation has one character say "Did you catch any Ena?" to which Yotsuba responds. However, it doesn't look like she ever referred to Ena by name in the original Japanese, which makes Yotsuba's misunderstanding much more understandable. I guess this is what you would call a Tranlasion Induced Plot Hole.

She asked if Yotsuba caught any "セミ" (cicada). Perhaps Ena refers to something else? I don't know.

Today, I read Yotsubato ch7 (I gave up on intensive reading and went back to only looking up the occasional line, rather than everything, making progress much faster.) There were a few bits that really confused me

一緒にやったげようか (WANT TO DO IT TOGETHER?)

It's another contraction of "てあげよう" -> "たげよう"

[Edit note: Deleted as pointed out by vonPeterhof]

Just wonder if you are interested in going through an intermediate textbook? Many of the items (in particular contractions) are actually covered in these books, for example Tobira (which I have just finished).

[Edit note: adding one more response]

[vonPeterhof]

Was going to write a response but got distracted by work and got beaten to the punch by kelvin921019.

ありがとねー洗濯もん (THANKS FOR HELPING WITH THE CLOTHES)

Can anyone please explain what the もん part means here?

It's kind of sentence ending used by kid / girl for explaining something or asserting something. It's kind of "cute ending" (It is super difficult to explain, but if you can hear people using this kind of ending you will understanding how it's used)

Just gonna point out that this isn't that もん at all, especially since that was her dad's line. In this case it's just a colloquial pronunciation of もの, hence 洗濯もん = 洗濯物.

[golyplot]

She asked if Yotsuba caught any "セミ" (cicada). Perhaps Ena refers to something else? I don't know.

Ena is the name of one of the characters present. It seems like she was talking to Ena, but Yotsuba answered anyway, which makes less sense in the English translation where she addresses Ena by name.


Anyway, this morning, I heard Noriko talking about her one year anniversary of studying Korean and how to maintain motivation. She recommended constantly talking to different new teachers on Italki, because they won't have seen you before and will praise you for your Korean. She also said that when talking to new people, you tend to always get asked them same things and you quickly become a master of self introductions, making you seem more skilled then you are.

I've never been on Italki, but I've certainly noticed that effect when going to language meetups for other languages. Unfortunately, that seems far out of reach in Japanese. I can't even figure out how to learn how to say the basic self introduction stuff correctly. On the bright side, the fact that I even managed to understand most of what Noriko was saying in that episode was a nice confidence boost.


P.S. Kevin's response made me go back and look at the panels I posted, and I noticed the sound effect when Yotsuba opens the cage. At first, I thought it said "baka", which would have been pretty funny. Sadly, it's actually "paka".

[Sizen]

I remembered that ちゃった is an abbreviation of shimatta (meaning "happened unfortunately") from going through Erin's challenge. However, I wasn't confident about it, so I looked it up in ichi.moe anyway. Much to my surprise, ichi.moe got it wrong, listing the meaning as the lesser used alternate meaning "indicates completion (to finish ...)" instead. Or am I the one wrong here?

Incidentally, I also noticed Noriko say what sounded like "hamachatta" when talking about the show Snowpiercer, presumably meaning that she has unfortunately been addicted to it lately, a combination of ちゃった and はまる (to be addicted).

Originally, しまう, which was written しまふ before Japanese orthography was reformed, did indeed have the meaning of "to finish."

From 旺文社 全訳古語辞典 under 仕舞ふ: "し終える。始末する。"

In linguistics, there's a concept called grammaticization (or grammaticalization or grammatization...) whereby words lose their core meaning and adopt grammatical functions or pragmatic meanings. A great example of this is the word "will", which originally meant "to want". It went through a period where it lost its core meaning and just came to denote someone's intention (e.g. I will go tomorrow) and finally came to denote the future (e.g. It will rain tomorrow). A common feature of grammaticized words is that they are given shortened forms (e.g. "He'll be late).

仕舞ふ has gone through a similar process, but ended up with a pragmatic (i.e. emotive) meaning. In many cases, しまう simply denotes the speaker's stance regarding the action in question. This stance is most often somewhat negative, expressing some form of regret (e.g. 花子行っちゃったね) or embarrassment, but can also sometimes put a somewhat silly spin on those emotions (ふふ、冷蔵庫のビール飲んじゃった [a very てへぺろ moment, indeed]). As with any grammaticized word, it comes with shortened forms, of which there are a few: ちゃう (a bit more neutral/feminine), ちまう (masculine), ちった (cutesy and only used in the past form as far as I’m aware). 大辞林 has this to say about しまう: "動詞の連用形に助動「て（で）」を添えた形について、その動作がすっかり終わる、その状態が完成することを表す。終わったことを強調したり、不本意である、困ったことになった、などの気持ちを添えたりすることもある。" (Attaches to the continuative form a verb followed by the auxiliary ‘te (de)’ and expresses that the action has finished entirely or that the state has come to an end. It can also emphasize the completion of an action or convey the feeling that it was unintended or has created an awkward situation.)

While it certainly does still have a meaning of doing something to completion, I would say that the pragmatic meaning is more dominant in many cases based on my Japanese linguistics classes and on my own experience. I am, however, by no means an expert.

[golyplot]

I've noticed Noriko say something like "samashi" a lot in a context that means "sad", but I haven't been able to find the word on Jisho. Anyone know what it could be?

Also, Yotsubato ch8:

早坂みうらってみーんだ (I'M HAYASAKA MIURA)

So the weird thing here is that 早 is normally read "haya" and that's what the English translation says, but the furigana says "hara" instead. What's up with that?

えっと…
きのうなー
ばんごは

(UHHH... YESTERDAY'S DINNER...)

What does the な after kinou mean here? Shouldn't that be a "の"?

いそじゃ
ないよーヘタじゃん！

(I'M NOT LYING! IT'S BAD!)

What does this mean? Why is it iso rather than uso (lie)? Also, what's with the じゃん at the end? Ordinarily, I'd assume it's a contraction of じゃない, but he's saying it is bad, not that it isn't bad.

[vonPeterhof]

I've noticed Noriko say something like "samashi" a lot in a context that means "sad", but I haven't been able to find the word on Jisho. Anyone know what it could be?

My guess is that it's 寂しい.

Also, Yotsubato ch8:

早坂みうらってみーんだ (I'M HAYASAKA MIURA)

So the weird thing here is that 早 is normally read "haya" and that's what the English translation says, but the furigana says "hara" instead. What's up with that?

[...]

いそじゃ
ないよーヘタじゃん！

(I'M NOT LYING! IT'S BAD!)

What does this mean? Why is it iso rather than uso (lie)?

Pretty sure that both of these are typos in bilingualmanga.com that weren't there in the original. It should be はやさか and うそ.

えっと…
きのうなー
ばんごは

(UHHH... YESTERDAY'S DINNER...)

What does the な after kinou mean here? Shouldn't that be a "の"?

In this case な is kind of a pointless filler particle, sort of like "y'know", "now", "about that..." or sometimes "wow!". They use it a lot in that chapter.

Also, what's with the じゃん at the end? Ordinarily, I'd assume it's a contraction of じゃない, but he's saying it is bad, not that it isn't bad.

It is a contraction of じゃない, but at least in the general colloquial Japanese (as opposed to western Japanese dialects where it originated) it's only ever used in a tag question sort of way, like "isn't it?" じゃない itself is also used like that, but more like a soft suggestion, whereas じゃん is usually more assertive and/or exasperated (which is why it's generally not written with a question mark).

[golyplot]

Yotsubato ch9: This was a weird chapter, where Yotsuba goes around repeating lines from TV. I didn't bother looking up most of the lines, but I did learn that yaru is slang for "to kill". Anyway, here were the most notable bits of the chapter:

はいはーい

Does anyone know why Yotsuba says this while walking out the door at the start? It seems like a complete non-sequitor.

うごくな！ノンストップ

The translation says "Don't move! Non-stop!!" which obviously makes no sense. I assume that Yotsuba is just spouting random English without knowing what it actually means here.

ふーかはなからみずでた

I automatically read this as "Fuuka wa naka...". I had to look at the translation and ponder for a moment to realize that it was actually はな = nose, not the wa particle. Why Japanese, why? Also, shouldn't there be some sort of particle in there at least? I guess this is one of those things that kanji help with, but trying to read stuff written in kanji brings a whole new set of problems (i.e. you have to already know what it says and there's no way to confirm that you pronounced it right.)

大丈夫っぽいよ

I already knew the reading here, but I was really surprised to see kanji without furigana at all. They almost always use furigana in Yotsubato. I wonder why they didn't bother this time. Incidently, her later line (あー今ちょっと銃を突きつけられた) is missing furigana on the 今, but has it for the rest of the kanji.

バイバイ
小さな殺し屋さん

I already knew from the discussion of the previous chapters here that you can use -yasan to refer to a shopkeeper, but this line still surprised me since assassins don't really seem to have anything to do with shops here at all. What's up with that?

Lastly, we have the scene where Yotsuba says shimatta for no apparent reason. It is translated as "ah ah". Can anyone explain?

[kelvin921019]

はいはーい

Does anyone know why Yotsuba says this while walking out the door at the start? It seems like a complete non-sequitor.

It's something like "Coming!" "O~K" "Ye-s". I think that is not yotsuba saying "はいはーい", it's the person answering the door who said that.

Lastly, we have the scene where Yotsuba says shimatta for no apparent reason. It is translated as "ah ah". Can anyone explain?

I usually understand it as "Oh shoot". Of course, it's not a swear word at all.
That's the "I accidentally did something and I regret" type of shimatta.

[vonPeterhof]

小さな殺し屋さん

I already knew from the discussion of the previous chapters here that you can use -yasan to refer to a shopkeeper, but this line still surprised me since assassins don't really seem to have anything to do with shops here at all. What's up with that?

I guess you can also think of this as an example of grammaticalization, with the semantic shift chain of 屋 going something like "roof -> house -> shop -> shopkeeper -> artisan -> -er (as in, someone who performs some action professionally or habitually)". I don't think it's a terribly productive suffix, but there's plenty of examples that don't even refer to a job, like 分からず屋 (blockhead, ignoramus) or 一発屋 (one hit wonder).