Volume 01 > Chapter 01 > Page 02 > Panel 00
Original Text:
1. よつばとひっこし
2. 挿話１
Romaji:
1. Yotsuba to Hikkoshi!
2. Souwa 1
English Translation:
1. Moving with Yotsuba
2. Episode 1
よつば:
This is the name of the main character.
When literally translated, the name "Yotsuba" (四葉) means "four leaves", as in "yotsuba no kuroubaa" (四葉のクローバー), which means "four-leaf clover".
Observing her green hair which is always styled into four pigtails, the author's reason to choose such name becomes evident.
と:
This is a japanese particle that can be roughly translated into "and".
However, unlike the english word "and", と is only used to connect nouns and pronouns , never phrases and clauses.
Here's an example of how you should use it:
Japanese: 英語と日本語を話します｡
Romaji: Eigo to nihongo wo hanashimasu.
Translation: I speak English and Japanese.
And here's how you cannot use it:
Japanese: 私は本屋に行きましたとマンガを買った
Romaji: Watashi wa honya ni ikimashita to manga wo kaimashita.
English Translation: I went to the bookstore and I bought a manga.
For this kind of situations, where you need to connect two phrases or clauses, you would use the particle そして which can be also translated into "and".
So, here's the correct way to do it:
Japanese: 私は本屋に行きましたそしてマンガを買った
Romaji: Watashi wa honya ni ikimashita soshite manga wo kaimashita.
English Translation: I went to the book store and I bought a manga.
The reason this manga is called よつばと！resides in the fact that all chapter titles are named "Yotsuba and [something!]. Like "Yotsuba and Cicada Hunt!"
ひっこし:
This is a noun that means “moving”, as in “moving to a new residence”.
ひっこし is "the act of moving".
ひっこす is a verb and means “to move”.
By turning that final –すinto a –し (ひっこす –> ひっこし), we get the i-form of that verb, more commonly known as “Base 2”.
This way, we can use that verb as if it was a noun.
We have something similar in English: the gerund. We add -ing to make a noun out of a verb, like studying in the sentence “I like studying”.
Although in many verbs this form can be considered, by itself, a noun related to the verb, beware that this does not hold for all verbs, so you must learn these nouns on a case by case basis.
Here are a couple of examples portraying this concept:
はなす: Is a verb and means “to speak”.
はなし: Is a noun and means “speech”, “chat”, or even “story”.
かつ: Is a verb and means “to win”.
かち: Is a noun and means “victory”.
Note that since this verb ends in –つ and not –す in its dictionary form, we had to replace the ending with –ち instead of –し.
Note:
In this particular context in which the word ひっこし appears (よつばとひっこし), I could have translated it as "Yotsuba and Moving", or "Yotsuba and the act of moving". But none of those sounds natural in English.
While translating something, the most important thing to keep in mind is to come up with translations that sound natural in the language we're translating into, while still retaining the original meaning. It doesn't matter if we twitch the sentence a little, add a few words, remove another few...
That's what I did here.
挿話１（そうわ１）:
This is a noun, and it means "episode".
エピソード, a loaned word from the English language holds the exact same meaning.
Despite being less formal, this one is more commonly used.