[ch 1] Grammar Corrections

[Da~Mike]

Grammar Corrections

A Few minor corrections I thought I'd leave here. I probably would not have caught them if I my English teacher last year hadn't always take off a full point per grammar/spelling mistake.


"At the end he/she could only say "I see...then I will just...", and ask themselves..."

-Here it is probably fine to leave he/she because it is a translation (showing the victims to be both male and female), but 'he' is the standard for a pronoun with a gender unknown. But, you should change "themselves" to "himself or herself" (or himself/herself to match with your slash usage before. You may also want to use "or" instead of a slash in the future because the slash in this place is non-standard usage and probably would not be used in a book.)

"Therefore when I came to school the next day and discovered that instead of tying three ponytails, Haruhi had cut her long and slender hair short, I felt quite depressed".

-You need a comma after "therefore" because "when I.... ponytails" is a separate clause and "Therefore" is part of the clause "I felt quite depressed".

" But none of it is possible— no aliens, time travelers, or supernatural powers exist in this world. Okay, let's say they do exist. They wouldn't just appear right in front of us humble citizens and say, “Hello, I'm actually an alien.” "THAT'S WHY!"

- Okay, this part is a bit confusing to me. Does the narrator actually Say the first paragraph above out loud? If so, you need quotes, one before "But" (the one up there is one I added to quote text) and another after "alien."

That's all I found, keep up the great work.

(Submitted by an anonymous contributor)

[Mawootad]

A few grammar issues:

Line: "What 'stuff in my intro?'"
Problem: There should be no apostrophe in front of 'stuff'.

Line: But still, there were always naïve guys who wanted to talk to Suzumiya Haruhi, who was always frowning her brow and pursing her lips.
Most of them were those fussy girls who just wanted to give a hand to a lonely fellow female classmate. This is a good thing, but, at least they should have checked their target beforehand!
Problem: Lack of gender agreement (I assume that guys are not girls in this line). Change 'guys' to 'people' (or something of neutral gender).

Line: "If you are not, then, what do you want from me?"
Problem: 'You are' should be changed to 'you're' (unless it's supposed to sound that alien)

[quigonkenny]

Line: "What 'stuff in my intro?'"
Problem: There should be no apostrophe in front of 'stuff'.

Not an apostrophe. It's a single quote. Its twin is right next to the double quote at the end of the sentence, so it's easy to miss. She is quoting his "stuff you said in your intro" line back to him. Actually, come to think of it, it is incorrect punctuation, though, as the question mark, since it's not part of what she's quoting, should be on the outside of the single quotes, but inside the double. In American punctuation, only the period defaults to the innermost level of quotes among ending punctuation. The other two (exclamation and question) only do so if the inner quote shares the same punctuation. In Commonwealth punctuation, to my understanding, all three would be outside of the inner punctuation, unless the inner quote itself is a complete sentence.

Line: But still, there were always naïve guys who wanted to talk to Suzumiya Haruhi, who was always frowning her brow and pursing her lips.
Most of them were those fussy girls who just wanted to give a hand to a lonely fellow female classmate. This is a good thing, but, at least they should have checked their target beforehand!
Problem: Lack of gender agreement (I assume that guys are not girls in this line). Change 'guys' to 'people' (or something of neutral gender).

Guys =/= girls. Agreed. However, it's not going to be changed. Tell you why in a second.

Line: "If you are not, then, what do you want from me?"
Problem: 'You are' should be changed to 'you're' (unless it's supposed to sound that alien)

Considering "you're" is used by Haruhi only a few lines later, I agree. Also the comma after "then" is unneeded. If there is supposed to be a pause in the dialog at that point (unlikely, as the original Japanese sentence should be arranged quite differently), then a comma is not the correct choice in this situation.

Problem is, this chapter is locked for editing, since the official English novel adaptation has been released. A number of the other volumes have been locked as well. Check the front page of the Haruhi translation section for details. And go read the official translation. It's good.