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Take the following sentences. The context is, one girl talks to another after having been caught examining someone's collection of stuffed animals. (Very out of character for the second girl.) The first girl is the only one talking:

The first sentence is easy, though I don't know the purpose of the squiggly line:

可愛いでしょ〜

Not, sure why the second is in カタカナ, but I believe it just clarifies the first sentence:

ソレ〜

I'm guessing the の at the end of the third just softens the sentence, but I'm not sure. I also don't know why 飾る is in gerund form, or whether ーてるの is doing something else entirely. If I had to translate, I would say: "I will go shop and decorate(ing?)"

私が時々買ってきて飾ってるの〜

The fourth sentence would seem to mean "Everyone is gathering things as well, but..."

みんなが持ち寄ってるものもあるケド・・・

Or maybe the 〜 aren't meant to break up the sentence?

Edit

My questions are:

What does the ーてるの construction do?

How does the gerund work in the example (-ing doesn't seem to fit)?

Does the last sentence refer to people gathering for something, or gathering things?

What is the tilde doing?

Amani Kilumanga
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johnnd
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  • Uh.. I'm not sure I understand what you're even asking here. Please clarify your question. What specifically do you need us to explain to you? You kinda mashed a bunch of doubts together and formed a slightly difficult to understand question. – strawberry jam Mar 09 '16 at 21:24
  • The squiggly line you speak of is a tilde ~. There should be a key for it on your keyboard; on mine, you press shift and #. – Angelos Mar 09 '16 at 21:29
  • It's actually a wave dash 〜, but you can type it on most computers using the tilde key. –  Mar 09 '16 at 21:39
  • Using a phone. I'll clarify in an edit. – johnnd Mar 09 '16 at 23:19

1 Answers1

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「飾ってるの〜」 is a casual colloquialism of 「飾っているのです」.

  • ～てる is short for ～ている (progressive form), denoting her habit in this context.
  • Sentence-end の is common in casual girlish speech. Semantically, this is the same as other affirmative expressions like 「～のです」「～のだ」, or questions like 「～のですか」「～のか」, depending on the intonation.
    • そうなの！ That's it!
    • 食べるの？ Do (I/you/etc) eat this?
  • The wavy dash (～) at the end is a casual variant of the long vowel marker (ー). And the elongation of the last vowel of sentences is a stereotyped(?) feature of cute, girly speech.

みんなが持ち寄ってるものもあるケド…　is "There are also ones (=stuffed animals) others have brought (into my house), though..."

I'm not sure why katakana are used often in the lines of the second girl, since I don't know her character nor the author's writing style. Sometimes katakana like this represents an unusual accent (for example, robot-like speech, Japanese spoken by foreigners). This is just a guess, but typically a timid girl may speak in this way.

naruto
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  • If みんな are performing 持ち寄ってる on もの, it seems odd that もの comes after the verb. Or is みんなが持ち寄ってる an adjective phrase modifying もの？ – johnnd Mar 10 '16 at 04:43
  • Yes, みんなが持ち寄ってる modifies もの as an adjective clause (lit. "the thing which everyone brings"). みんな in this context vaguely refers to her friends. So you know how to construct relative clauses in Japanese? – naruto Mar 10 '16 at 05:16
  • I've read about it, but I find it difficult. But that's what makes it fun. :) – johnnd Mar 10 '16 at 06:34
  • So, 私が時々買ってきて飾ってるの〜, to indicate casual progressive form in 飾ってる, might translate: "I sometimes go shopping to decorate." Or, "...return having shopped..." – johnnd Mar 10 '16 at 15:26
  • 買ってくる is "buy something and return" rather than "go shopping" (see this question). The "full" translation including the omitted words would be "Sometimes I buy stuffed animals, (bring them home,) and decorate my home with them." – naruto Mar 10 '16 at 17:34
  • So the progressive nature of the verb is due to it being 時々に. – johnnd Mar 11 '16 at 15:11