Scoring like crazy in the ball-toss event with 玉入れ
Vocabulary Explanation: Sports day and athletic events (Future entry)
A couple of Urushi’s classmates noticed Tanaka’s athletic performance, starting with his pulling ahead and taking first place in the sports day relay race.
- 生徒:
- 「さっきの玉入れもめちゃ入れてたぞ」
- “He was scoring like crazy in the ball-toss game earlier, too.”
Key Points
1玉入れ is the sports-day ball-toss event
- The name combines 玉 (ball), with the stem of 入れる (put in). Teams throw small balls into a raised basket.
2入れ appears twice, but it does two different jobs
- The 入れ inside 玉入れ forms part of the event’s name. The later 入れてた is the verb that describes Tanaka’s performance.
- The scene supplies the omitted object. A fuller version would include 玉をめちゃ入れてた, “he was putting in a ton of balls”.
3めちゃ入れてた means he kept scoring like crazy
- めちゃ is a casual intensifier. With this action, it conveys a large number of successful throws.
- 入れてた contracts 入れていた. Past 〜ていた presents the repeated scoring as an activity underway during the event.
4さっきの玉入れも adds another athletic feat
- さっきの means “the one from a little while ago”, so it locates the ball-toss event earlier that day.
- も means “too”. The classmates add Tanaka’s ball-toss performance to the relay result they were already discussing.
5ぞ gives the report a rough, excited punch
- Sentence-final ぞ is common in rough, masculine dialogue. Here it makes the classmate’s report sound excited and assertive, not threatening.
Vocabulary
玉入れ (Ball toss)
玉入れ means a team contest in which players throw small cloth balls into a basket on a tall pole.
See Also
- Grammar: Ongoing actions and resulting states with 〜ている
- Grammar: Marking the topic with は and も
- Future entry: Rough declarations with ぞ and ぜ
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