Exploring the palace
from A new Japanese learner takes on JRPGs
Words/kanji learned: ご苦労さま: thank you for your hard work! 鍵: lock/key 鍵がかかってる: it is locked. 玉座: throne. 恐れ多い: awesome, awe-inspiring, gracious.
Today, we're going to explore the palace, and also complete the next part of カタリナ's plan. There's actually some NPC guards to talk to! I bet they're loaded with information!
...they all say that, actually.
Anyway, let's figure out how to format these more exploration-based sessions! I'll start by listing some actions and the responses they give, similar to how I capture dialogue scenes.
(When I talk to a guard) 「ご苦労さまです！」 (When I examine a locked door) 「カギが かかってるわ。。。。」 (When I go to the throne room and examine the throne) 「ミカエル様の玉座。。。。 恐れ多い」
Then, we can just go through each line, like before!
ご苦労さまです！ ご苦労(くろう)さま: interjection meaning “thank you for your hard work” or “I appreciate your efforts”. These kanji mean “suffering” and “labor”. The さま at the end can be written as the usual kanji for that pronunciation – 様 – or not. Thank you for your hard work!
カギがかかってるわ カギ: either lock or key. But this is カタカナ, why? It turns out that we can use katakana to write regular 日本語 words when we want to emphasize them (like using italics or ALL CAPS). So for everyone's benefit, I'll go ahead and note that 鍵(かぎ) can mean key or lock. かかってる: without Kanji, this verb can mean several different things. But we can figure it out in context, as we'll see on the next line. 鍵(かぎ)がかかってる: phrase meaning “it is locked”. It is LOCKED.
ミカエル様の玉座。。。。恐れ多い 玉座(ぎょくざ): throne! We already learned this as part of 玉座の間 earlier. 恐れ多い(おそれおおい): awesome, awe-inspiring, gracious. Can mean other things, but those wouldn't make sense in this context. Mikhail's throne... awe-inspiring.
Next time, we'll venture into the castle's jail for a small but key interaction. (It literally involves a key.)
