1

Learn Japanese with Anime Clannad!

Ushio in the Snow Scene
Free Learning Material
A TRUNKS Manga and JSC collaboration

Scene Transcript
Ushio:
Tomoya:
U:
T:
U:
T:
U:
T:
U:
T:
U:
T:
U:
T:





2


Vocabulary
In order of appearance in the transcript.
Japanese English
snow
Ushio
(name; lit. meaning
tide, eventide, salt
water)
like
to walk
a little
to rest
snow/rain-fall
car
to pick up
Ill carry (you)
now
train (lit. electric car)
middle
dark
night
midnight
love (lilt. great like)
to help
someone








3


Grammar - Marked Scene Transcript
Ushio:

(There is) snow.
In Japanese, the ending to a sentence is the plain (non-polite)
version of the copulawhich is more polite. A copula designates
a definition. It is a form of the verb be connecting a subject and
complement.
Other examples include

(There is) a dog.

I am Rka.

(There is) a cat.

Tomoya:

Does Ushio like snow?
This sentence in its complete grammatical form (as you would find it in
textbooks) is However because we are
talking about a child speaking to her father, we are seeing the plain form
of the language in which only the particle is seen without the use of
the copula.
Also note that when defining something using an adjective, in this case
(), or like, than we mark what it is the adjective is referring
to with the particle .




4

Other examples include:

I like dogs.

(Do you) like cats?

U:
Papa also likes (snow)?
Japanese is a high context (HC) language by which we mean that we
leave off obvious information that has already been mentioned or easily
understood from the context. In this case, snow as it is mentioned in
the previous sentence from Tomoya and there is no chance of ambiguity.
We will be showing this by putting the missing info needed for English
in brackets.

T:

Papaoh, Papa also likes (snow). Can (you) walk? Ushio? (Would you like
to) rest a little?
Again, we can see the HC nature here as well. The missing parts, from
the English translations point of view are given in brackets again.
The particle is one used at the end of sentences in order to
emphasize some kind of emotional charge. In this case it gives the feeling
of of course to the statement, meaning to assure Ushio.

U:
No.
This is a simple refusal of the offer to rest from Tomoya.




5



T:

Lets pick up the car while its not raining/coming down. Ill carry you
because (of this).
Let's break these longer sentences into smaller components and then put
them together before understanding their connection. Remember that
Japanese has its order reverse to that of English because it is a
conjugating language, that is, it puts all the main info at the end and not
the beginning. Its easier if you break the sentence up into components
and work your way backwards.
Sentence 1
Not becoming rainy/coming down
within

Lets pick up the car

So we get: Lets pick up the car while its not coming down.
Sentence 2
to give a piggy back -form of the verb.
~ Ill do / to do
~ because
So we get Ill give (you) a piggy back because.






6


Sentence connection
In Japanese we can give the because connection between two
statements in the following ways.
Sentence pattern 1
REASON EFFECT
Because of REASON, there is EFFECT
Sentence pattern 2
EFFECTREASON
There is EFFECT. REASON because of
In case of the sentence in the scene, this is the last one, giving us the full
translation when we put it together.

U:
(Im/Its) fine.
Meaning that Ushio feels her father doesnt have to, shes capable alone.

T:
Ushiowhats wrong? Ushio?
Here the phrase means whats wrong and is used quite
often when asking whats up from someone.




7


U:
Where (are we / am I) now? Already on the train?
Here the question particle is again omitted because of intonation
and the fact that non-polite language can be used here.
Also, we dont say on the train, but literally in the train in Japanese as
shown by the meaning inside of~. Its simply the languages
logic.

T:
Ummalready on the train.

U:
Its a dark night?
Here all you need to know is that in spoken, plain Japanese the ending
particleis the exact same thing as the question particle.
The is added as a grammatical plus in order to make the last
particle more easily pronounced. Its easy enough to remember that
follows nouns if you ask plain, spoken questions like this one.

T:
Thats right. Its midnight.
The first part before the comma is often used to support or agree with
something state by another person. Also, the at the end is used
to emphasize information, such as in an explanation. It is the shorter,
plain, spoken form ofand, just like in the last sentence
will come before to connect the copula to the noun.


8

U:
I seePapa(I) love (you).

T:

Papa also loves (you). Ushio? Ushio? Ushio! No wayThis cannot be. Help
Ushio. Somebody, somebody, Ushio!
The new section here, compared to the ones already mentioned is the
fact that the particle right at the end shows us that this sentence
is, in fact broken up into two. The whole, textbook sentence would look
something like the following:

This is broken up to get a more natural situation, especially as the
character Tomoya is obviously distraught and will not be thinking about
speaking correctly. It gives the feeling of someone saying something,
then adding on information as it comes to mind. This happens quite
frequently in many living languages, Japanese included.