夜カフェ ☕ Home Thread (Beginner Book Club)

I’ve been a bit undecided, but I think I’d like to give Volume 2 a chance. The reason I’ve been unsure is because I fell so far behind; since I didn’t really read along with everyone, I felt a bit disconnected from the club and the story. But I think as long as I catch up, I’d like to continue the club!

I think the pacing is fine as is (I fell behind b/c of personal reasons, not b/c of the pacing). But if people want to slow down that’s fine too.

Sounds good to me!

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On the one hand, I definitely plan on continuing this series, but on the other hand, I apparently can’t tell when someone’s actually not sure what’s going on and is asking for clarification or when they’re deliberately posting incorrect info for a joke, which is why I dropped out of this club, so. I’m not sure if I’d participate in the offshoot club if there is one or if I’d just read it on my own

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Really? I assume it was a mistake because I haven’t noticed something like that happening at all. I mean, we’re all learning so it’s not that surprising for a couple mistakes to occur but I don’t think anyone here is deliberately sabotaging the club lol.

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First, big thanks to @sumsum for nominating this book and doing the legwork to run the club, and to @Hantsuki for the massive headstart we got with the vocabulary, as well as providing numerous insights throughout the book. I definitely enjoyed reading along here!

The language was very easy to grasp, either from context or after a quick search, and I only ever had a couple of moments where I felt I had to stop and puzzle over what was being said (mostly the handicrafts sections :laughing:).

Initially, this book was set to be my first completed light novel. I had started another before it, but found my reading pace much slower, and the difficulty much higher. Something here made the way prose works click, though, and ultimately, I ended up finishing my other light novel first! I still have this book club to thank, though, for making this kind of descriptive text (as opposed to the pure-dialogue manga I’ve been used to) feel significantly less intimidating. Perhaps I just needed the easy win to make me feel like I could tackle the harder stuff! :joy:

Either way, I’m currently on the fence about continuing. I have done a very good job of overloading myself a bit with personal reading projects, and while I find the story cute and endearing, the handicrafts sections remain somewhat of a bore for me. :sweat_smile: But if a larger break between starting were to happen, I might decide to join in. Spoilers for Chapter 13: I am curious to see what goes on with Yamato-kun’s move to LA, and how Hanabi and Tina continue to grow both themselves and the 夜カフェ.

So, put me down as a “maybe” for any offshoot!

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Most definitely, and many thanks to everyone who helped answer our questions throughout the club, it’s definitely been a huge help in keeping it accessible and fun!

I assume you mean the offshoot club. Yeah I’m not all sure myself but I’ll definitely be joining the next main book club whenever that is!

As for that, if people want to take a longer break that’s fine by me. I don’t mind starting as soon as everyone else wants to, in the meantime I’ll be doing some studying, working on my WaniKani levels (I’ve been struggling to pick up the pace after being off for so long due to my exams, I’m only now getting back up to 80-90% correct lol) and hopefully some grammar stuff too.

Has anyone here tried the JLPTsensei grammar books? Are they any good? I’m assuming they’re a bit more focused than traditional textbooks (e.g., Japanese From Zero, Genki etc) which tend to drag on a bit too much for me

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I think a break might be a good idea, as others have also expressed. It would give those of us who didn’t finish time to catch up.

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I was surprised that there are JLTPsensei grammar books, so while searching for them, I found this through this instead. Which is a bit concerning, considering I use JLPTsensei a lot, and I obviously I don’t have the expertise to actually properly double-check them. (Take it with a grain of salt though. I have no idea if the linked post is right, but I felt like I should at least mention it after finding it.)


Same for me! I did enjoy a lot about the book, but I don’t think I am interested enough to continue.

I really did (and continue to, considering I’m not done with chapter 13 yet) enjoy reading along with everyone though! And thank you all so much for putting up with my ceaseless stream of questions. This was my first light novel, and apart from a few tries of reading それでも歩は寄せてくる, this was my first dive into actual native content. Before that was only graded readers. With your help I learnt so much during reading this book, and thanks to this and the confidence I gained, I have already started reading another LN on my own!

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I suppose no resource is perfect then. It’s definitely unfortunate that it seems to be the case since JLPTSensei has some pretty nice and brief explanations/examples on many grammar points, but of course it’s not worth much if they aren’t accurate.

“A Handbook of Japanese Grammar patterns” is something I’ve heard of before several times and since it was mentioned in the Reddit thread I suppose it’s high time I checked it out myself. Hopefully it proves to be useful too. * sigh * this learning process is a constant war in many regards eh XD.

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Thanks for the feedback everyone! It looks like there’s somewhat of an interest in an offshoot club, so as long as @sumsum isn’t interested in managing it, I’ll set up a thread later tonight or sometime this week (when Tan-chan is asleep because my laptop has a habit of freezing when she’s awake…).

I’ll add some polls too and let the majority decide on the details on when to start, pacing, etc. I personally may start reading earlier and do the same thing of sharing any early vocab list that I make and just reread when that chapter’s reading comes up because the discussion part is the fun part! But I won’t have time to really sit down and read until July 22nd when my schools are on break.

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I don’t remember which chapter, but someone wrote something about who did what in one of the cooking scenes (when Yamato-kun was using the garlic and anchovies), and I thought, “Huh? Was that right?” and went and checked, and I went through it a few times to make sure I did understand what was going on and corrected them, and they were like, “I know, I was making a joke.” Then… why would you purposely attribute the actions to the wrong characters…? You don’t need to do that to make a comment about how bad the kitchen mighta smelled

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I’m sorry if that incident bothered you, I hope you can take it in humour and please know that this isn’t representative of everyone’s behaviour on these forums. I’m sure we can all keep a light-hearted atmosphere without messing up the important info. And whoever did that meant well, I’m sure.

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Feel free to go ahead :heart: I’m interested in joining myself, but I’m more of a lurker anyway and it would probably be a good thing for someone more active to take over :smiling_face:

Personally while this isn’t something I’d pick up for fun reading in my native language, it kinda hits a good spot for me learning wise. So the language is mostly manageable and doesn’t make me wanna pull my hair out and it is interesting enough to (mostly) keep me going :wink:

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This is one reason I may come back to it - I think it’s been useful for dialogue and also vocab, if you ignore the handicrafts.

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I know, most of the people on here are great, and I generally have a really nice time on here. But I have difficulty with tone sometimes (granted, it’s mostly with my own tone, like making it come out how I intend, but I have difficulty with others’ as well), and, well, at that point I’d already finished the volume and I mostly understood it, and I was happy to stick around and help others where I could, but the prospect of having to navigate more of that sort of thing was just. utterly exhausting, and it felt like this club wasn’t really a good place for me anymore. So while I like book clubs, I’m kinda torn about whether I’d want to participate in an offshoot of this one or not

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don’t sweat it… the good news is there’s always another book… did you get your copy of shadow house :slight_smile:

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I did not yet, no. I’ll probably end up starting that one late, but I’ll be able to catch up

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Thanks @sumsum for your blessing! I wouldn’t consider myself active, active, but I do find myself lurking in the middle of the night when I’m inevitably kicked awake.

Anyhow, the thread for the second volume is up!

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Du du duuun! Here we go, one last time!

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For those who are undecided about the offshoot club, the whole series is currently discounted on Bookwalker, and with I think 50% coin back, so it’s only a couple of dollars for each book effectively.

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I remember back in March I wanted to join the club and read along, but after reading the trial pages on bookwalker I was like “nope, I can’t understand any of this.”

Fast forward to today, when I saw there will be an offshoot club, and decided to try reading the first page again just out of curiosity and… you guys… I was finally able to understand like 90% with no help whatsoever! :heart_eyes: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

I’ll order the first and second books and catch up as soon as I can :heart:

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