夜カフェ ☕ Chapter 13 (Beginner Book Club)

夜カフェ :coffee: Chapter 13 (Beginner Book Club)

Start date current chapter: 02 July 2022
Previous chapter: Chapter 12
Next chapter: atogaki
Home thread: 夜カフェ Book Club Home Thread
BBC Home thread: Beginner Book Club

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We are reading the first volume of 夜カフェ as the Beginner Book Club!.
This thread is for chapter related discussion. We are reading together from the aforementioned date on, but this thread will be kept open mu~ch longer (like 10 years longer). So don’t be shy to ask questions even if you are late to the party :heart:

Vocabulary List

Feel free to add any words you looked up as well! Page numbers may be off by one or two because of differences between physical and digital editions, but we try to keep the words roughly in order of appearance

The book is also available over at koohi.cafe (formerly known as floflo).

Discussion Guidelines

  • Please blur / hide any major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur), like so: [spoiler]texthere[/spoiler] result: texthere
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked
  • Join the conversation — it’s fun!

Participation poll

  • I’m reading along
  • I’m planning to read but haven’t started yet
  • I’m from the future and reading way later
  • I’ve read ahead already/read the book before
  • I’m not reading, just passing by

0 voters

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Finale! After this we basically only have the atogaki left :exploding_head: How are you guys feeling? :slight_smile:

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I’m a bit behind. But I’m planning to read chapter 12&13 this weekend. Mostly have fallen behind in the book clubs because of the superb weather. Overall I liked the story so far and it is a really chill read (#Middleshoolerproblems).

Will update again after having finished the 13th chapter.

6 Likes

I’m just finishing up the last page of chapter 12 and start on chapter 13 later today hopefully.

Overall, I’ve really enjoyed the book so far. It’s been a fun read and I’m happy with all the progress I’m making. This is the first time I’ve properly participated in a book club here and I’m glad I did.

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a couple of pages behind but should start this chapter today…overall feeling good cuz… will be the first light novel I’ll have finished!!!

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Hah, good to hear that you’ve been enjoying the weather. I’m no good with the heat, I’m counting the days until Autumn lol.

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I couldn’t bear stopping so close to the end after finishing chapter 13, and ended up reading the atogaki too. I am weak :sweat_smile:
Thank you @sumsum for shepherding me through my first novel, and everyone else for answering questions and contributing to the vocab sheet!
I’ve finally broken through my fear of large blocks of text, and also reading vertically! Thanks for the help and support everyone. :slight_smile:

13 Likes

I’m slowly catching up. Woke up in the middle of the night to read chapter 9 so just 4 chapters behind now. The nice thing is when I do have time to read, it’s easy for me to read the whole chapter in one go.

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yeah finished…first light novel finished!!!

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It’s been awesome. It’s my first time reading a light novel in Japanese and having everyone making questions and participating has made it easier and less scary that I thought it would be. I’m really looking forward to this last chapter :eyes:

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This isn’t the first light novel I’ve finished (actually, I haven’t finished this one yet, I still have the atogaki to go), but it went a lot more smoothly than my first experiences. The first one I read was Grimgar. If you don’t know that one, it’s an isekai light novel. Oh boy, the number of times I had to look up “chainmail” in Japanese :sweat_smile: The second one I read, Gamers, was at least set in the modern day, so that one went smoother.

Those were the first books I read in Japanese. I figured manga would be harder than light novels, because in a manga, I wouldn’t be able to select the words to look them up. Two things I didn’t account for were that the Kindle dictionary functionality is no good because it can’t “unconjugate” conjugated verbs, so most of the time, trying to look up a verb was futile.

The other was that copying words to paste them into Jisho quickly came up against the DRM copy limits of the Kindle software. After that was triggered, I had to get around it by doing a search within the book for a word I wanted to look up, which didn’t trigger the copy protection. At that point, the word would be in the search bar and I could freely copy it out. That was a huge pain :sweat_smile:

After reading those, I started reading manga, and then stuck to that for a long time. I had found the WaniKani book clubs, and joined the Takagi-san club, and Nichijou club, which were the first clubs I joined, and the first manga I read, along with 結婚しても愛してる, which had a completed club, because it seemed way too cute (and it was!).

Unlike the light novels I had read, which only included furigana for a word the first time it was used, Takagi-san used furigana all the time, which made it much easier. I honestly don’t remember if the other two did as well. And of course, the discussion threads made it easier and more fun. At the time, I think I mostly lurked, but I loved seeing the discussions on each chapter.

Holy cow, looking back at those book club threads, that was over a year ago. I’ve been reading stuff in Japanese for over a year :exploding_head: Back when I first started checking out the new beta Japanese course in Duolingo, having gained an interest after finding myself knowing what certain words meant in anime from hearing them over and over, I never would’ve imagined I would actually reach this point!

Anyway, this is my first time diving back into a light novel since I first started reading. It’s much easier now with more knowledge of kanji, and more grammar knowledge from reading as part of other book clubs. And of course, it’s even easier with the help of my lovely fellow book club members filling out the vocabulary sheet and answering questions. In conclusion, I’m feeling pretty good :grin:

With that said, in this chapter, the specialized vocabulary came back with a vengeance! I found myself more than once looking up a Japanese word, only to be faced with an English word that I then also had to look up :joy: How many of you were able to recognize ロサンゼルス as Los Angeles without looking it up? Because I sure wasn’t!

As for the story,

It was pretty obvious from the chapter title, but that didn’t make it any easier. Hanabi realizing she likes Yamato made it hit even harder :disappointed: Still, it was really hearwarming to see the three kids recognize and appreciate the influence they’ve had on each other, and Aiko and Saki had on them, as well all the great things they’ve experienced since meeting each other.

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me cuz it’s where I live hahahaha and I h8 that word its so hard to say!!! that stupid Z sound

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Just want to thank you guys for this book club! This was my first novel in Japanese and I’m so glad I kept up with the book club as I’m sure without it… I would of just stopped haha!

Admittedly I struggled at first, but found that after a few chapters it became the perfect level for me. In the end I found the book club pace to be extremely slow, as I could finish the chapter within 1 sitting, which I never expected… so I ended up finishing the book a couple of weeks early :sweat_smile:

Overall, I really enjoyed it!

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So… I started this chapter but it’s the one giving me the most trouble somehow. I mean generally I get the gist (the level is easy enough) but the amount of unknown clothing vocabulary and the cooking specific vocab again is pretty brutal. コク、アク、一片 anyone? Who knew I’m still learning new counters XD…

So I’m splitting it into two parts this time around. But I still have one sentence that bothers me, would love any feedback:

「ね、ね、焼きポテトサラダってなに? どうやって作るの?」 レシピブックを手にたずねると…
Isn’t there a verb missing or am I going crazy? (I would expect something like 持って). Is somehow the レシピブックを手に used here adverbally in a strange way?

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To me it sounds very natural: “I asked, recipe book in hand”
I’m not expert of course, so I looked for similar patterns, and found an answer on StackExchange.

A を B に is a common literary adverbial expression that means with A in/on B, literally or figuratively.

In most cases you have a part of body in B, as 小銭を手に with coins in hand, 期待を胸に with expectation in chest (= heart), ドアを背に with door in back (= with back against the door), リュックを(背/肩)に with backpack on shoulder etc.

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Thanks for the link omk3. After letting it sink in for a bit I feel better about it. But I expect it to trip me up on verbs which I don’t know as well ^^

So I’m done with the book. Another one down! The second half flew by like a breeze. With all the casual conversation and topics I actually know the vocabulary for this half was easy to read through :upside_down_face:.

Overall I’m REALLY happy with the book. It’s not like the story was super gripping, but honestly, if we are talking about a book that is perfect for a learner of Japanese I would have to say that this one comes pretty close. The amount of grammar and the wordchoices are kinda perfect for getting accustomed to more native material. In additon one can learn a lot about Japanese culture from this book albeit it being centered more around earlier parts in a persons life.

Overall I took around 220 words from this book into my Anki deck (I feel like 50 were onomatopea ^^) wich comes out at a little more than one word per page. I put nearly everything I didn’t know into the deck so overall the book was a pretty easy read for me. Combined with sometimes a low amount of Kanji I feel my reading speed in “not so easy conditions” actually improved quite a lot. I also got exposed to quite a few N2 grammar concepts I was looking up just a few days before which is always a great reinforcement :smiley:

I loved reading everyones opinion here already but look forward to the polls and opinions in the last thread next week.

7 Likes
Finished reading this chapter, just have a few more questions:

(Page 95)

  • In 「…じゃあ、ヤマトくんは、いつか作ってくれた焼ポテトサラダをおねがいしてもいい?」 what is the いつか here exactly? If I’ve understood this sentence correctly it’s something like “Yamato, could you make the potato salad you made the other day”?
  • In 「…愛子さんに味見をしてもらった」 what is 「してもらった」?

(Page 98)

  • In 「そんなあたしの思いに気づくはずもなく、ヤマトくんは続けた」 I’d like some help breaking down the 「気づくはずもなく」 part.

Thanks in advance for any help!

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Agreed. For us learners such books are really great. A simple story and the kind of day-to-day vocabulary that is actually helpful and relevant. It’s a big reason why I want to go for the subsequent books in the series, it’s great learning material.

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Page 95

I agree with your interpretation, I also believe “the other day” would be the most fitting translation of いつか there.

My understanding is that it comes from:

味見をする => To do taste-sampling.
味見をして => to do taste-sampling in て-form.
味見をしてもらう => to receive the favor of someone doing taste-sampling (for me).
味見をしてもらった => in past tense.

「…愛子さんに味見をしてもらった」 => “I had Aiko-san taste-sample it for me”

Page 98

This is how I’d break it down:

気づく => to notice
はずがない => it cannot be that… / it’s unlikely that.
はずもない => not sure about this one, but my understanding is that changing the が for も here emphasizes the impossibilty of the situation.
はずもなくて => connective, て-form of ない
はずもなく => more literary version of the connective form of ない

気づくはずもなく、ヤマトくんは続けた => (there’s) no way that (Yamato-kun) noticed (my feelings / emotions), and he continued (his speech).

6 Likes

I’m still lagging a bit behind, but I’m slowly getting there. A few questions that came up while reading:

ebook page 149:

  • 手作りのレシピブックに、作り方を書き取っていると、急にふられた。
    What’s the ふられた here?

  • そこをなんとか!
    “There somehow”…what?

ebook page 151:

  • こんなこと、パパとママがまだいっしょにいて、ホテルのレストランに連れてってもらって以来だわ。
    Such a thing, since mama and papa were together and took me to a restaurant…
    Is there an implied はじめて after the ていらい? For “hasn’t happened since”? (I found the ていらいはじめて in the Handbook of Japanese grammar for “expresses that something has occured for the first time after quite a long time/since a certain point in the past.”)

  • さらには、焼きポテトサラダなるもののおいしいことといったら。
    I assume that means something like “Moreover, the potato salad turned out to be delicious”? But I assume there’s more to it, considering that it uses multiple parts that I don’t understand.

    • I had never seen なるもの before, but I think it’s a synonym for というもの. Alright.
    • Is “のおいしいこと” “the deliciousness”?
    • And といったら? I found some (potentially questionable) sources that say it’s something like “if it were the case that…, then certainly; if one were to speak of… then certainly”, and others just say it’s “Used to emphasize the speaker’s surprise, excitement, etc”. I guess the latter fits if it’s true? Sadly I found nothing in the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar nor in A Handbook of Japanese Grammar Patterns.

New grammar I learnt

ebook page 148:

  • その日はティナちゃんの誕生日ということもあって、愛子さんをはじめ、みんなで料理のうでをふるう。
    をはじめ: According to the Handbook: “Used to indicate that something encompasses a wide range of things, from a prime example to more peripheral ones.”
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