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Ok, so I've been reading よつばと recently, and I've been seeing a suffix coming up that I cannot seem to find a meaning for. It's not in any dictionary, and I'm not sure if it's a name suffix, or some obscure grammatical marker I've never heard before. Here's an example:

おばあちゃんちから帰ってきたら夏休みも後半って感じするなー

What does the ち after おばあちゃん indicate? Is it actually doing something in the sentence, or is it a soft version of ちゃん? That's my hypothesis, but I'd like confirmation.

KingPumpkin
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1 Answers1

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It's short for の家{うち}.

You will normally see the abbreviation んち:

(1a) 俺の家に来い。
(1b) 俺んちに来い。
(2a) お前の家に行きたいなぁ。
(2b) お前んちに行きたいなぁ。

But in cases where there is already an ん before the abbreviation (like おばあちゃん ends in ん in this case) we just see ち:

(3a) タモリさんの家に行きたい。
(3b) タモリさんちに行きたい。
(4a) 明日麻美ちゃんの家に行く。
(4b) 明日麻美ちゃんちに行く。

So your sentences means:

おばあちゃんの家から帰ってきたら夏休みも後半って感じするなー

Robin
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  • OH MY GOD, that clears up so much of the dialogue in the manga. The closest I got in a dictionary was ちゃんちゃん, so I incorrectly assumed it was a shortening of that. Do you know why this particular phrase has a contraction, though? – KingPumpkin Apr 29 '14 at 21:10
  • Haha, glad I could help :) No, I'm afraid I don't why this particular phrase has a contraction. Try saying 俺の家{うち} a few times fast though - it pretty naturally slurs to 俺んち :/ – Robin Apr 29 '14 at 21:26
  • The phrase was in [日本語俗語辞書 (Japanese slang dic)](http://zokugo-dict.com/46n/nchi.htm) by the way so you might use that the next time your regular dictionaries fail you. It was in [wikitonary](http://ja.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%82%93%E3%81%A1) too which even mentions 「ん」の後では「ち」のみ. You were unlucky in this case with it being just ち though; pretty impossible to look up x) – Robin Apr 29 '14 at 21:29
  • Exactly. My dictionary is pretty good, so I think it'd probably have んち, but just looking up ち, I of course got blood (血). Also, I'll be sure to check out that slang dictionary. Looks really cool! And yes, I can totally see why の家 is hard to say. – KingPumpkin Apr 29 '14 at 22:15