それでも歩は寄せてくる ・ When will Ayumu Make his Move? ♟ - Volume 1

Finished Genki 1 today ! Now i have some time to review the grammar points and the vocab before we start the book :slight_smile: Looks like there are many first-timers here :slight_smile: Im really excited for this one.

9 Likes

Not much to add, just thanks a lot. Loads of good advice there. This has all been really helpful, and we haven’t even started yet! The last point especially is something I kind of know but it’s always good to be reminded of. Can’t always see the learning and reinforcing the moment it’s happening. I’ve already noticed that in some simple ways. Like, after about a month, it’s very noticeable that I can convert hiragana/katana into sounds without too much effort, where when I had first learned them, that alone was a mentally draining process. But there’s obviously no moment to pinpoint there; I just have to look back on where I started and remember the “easy” parts weren’t so easy at one time.

8 Likes

If anyone’s been procrastinating on getting a free digital version of the book, you have ~15 hrs left! (On Bookwalker, but I’m assuming the other stores will follow a similar schedule)

8 Likes

Hello there,
I’am an absolute beginner (started to learn japanese less than a month ago), i did download it im afraid im not good enough to understand anything, still i’ll try that !

Thanks for the idea.

6 Likes

Hi there!
I’m an absolute wanikani baby and I would like to join the club…
how do I do it? Is there a prerequisite?
Any help would be very much appreciated!
Kindly,
Anabee

5 Likes

The top prerequisites:

  • Can read ひらがな
  • Can read カタカナ (or be ready to practice)
  • Buy a copy of the manga:

It is highly recommended to have a certain amount of grammar and vocabulary background:

However, it’s entirely possible to join in with little to no grammar, so long as you’re ready to ask a lot of questions, absorb a lot of answers, and learn a lot of material in a very short two month period. Likely much of the vocabulary will be included in a spreadsheet, so you won’t need to look it all up on your own.

The worst that can happen is you find you’re not ready for reading yet, and you try again in a few months. If that happens, the club’s posts will still be here to read through and ask questions in after the club finishes.

10 Likes

With just over a week left before we begin, now’s the perfect time for both a little boost of motivation, and some early setting of expectations!

☖ For first-time readers…

You’re about to embark on the first step to a very transformative stage in your language acquisition journey. Immersing in a language, be it by reading or listening or watching or communicating, often has the greatest impact on learning a language.

If you haven’t started learning grammar yet, you’re about to take a crash course. Everything will be new and confusing. Nothing will make sense and you’ll want to give up. Don’t give up. Ask questions. Read responses. Accept that you won’t learn grammar on first contact, and keep going. Just as you see kanji over and over as you continue to do WaniKani reviews, you’ll see grammar over and over as you continue to read.

If you have been learning grammar, you’re about to discover that knowledge isn’t understanding. Simply knowing the textbook definition, or an indirect English counterpart, for Japanese grammar doesn’t mean you’ll know what’s going on in a sentence that uses it. Take this opportunity to get to re-learn grammar at a deeper level, married deeply to situations that use it, rather than divorced from context.

You will find reading difficult.

You’ll find some concepts don’t make sense, or they just don’t stick. This is normal. Keep reading, and you’ll find those elusive concepts show up again and again. Over time, you’ll start to recognize when and how they are used. It may take longer than you’d like or feel it should, but each time you encounter that bit of grammar or construct of vocabulary words, you become just a little better equipped to one day understand it.

Much of your progress won’t happen within a single volume of manga. That’s just how it is. Yet, stick with it to the end of the volume, and I guarantee you’ll be able to look back at the first chapters and see some level of progress.

The progress made will differ from person to person.

☗ For the newest learners of Japanese…

Trying to grasp grammar while working your way through pages of unknown vocabulary, your main victory may be in improving your hiragana reading speed, or your recognition of katakana.

Perhaps you’ll find you’ve gotten better at recognizing these written in various fonts.

You’ll likely pick up at least a few words along the way.

Let these small victories be a window into the greater progress that awaits with time and effort.

⛉ For those who’ve been learning for a few months…

You may find your progress is in learning how to follow context, or developing the ability to tolerate some levels of ambiguity. Sometimes you simply have to accept you’re not ready to understand a given line of dialogue or usage of grammar yet, and push forward knowing all you need is more exposure.

⛊ For those who’ve previously read a little bit already…

If you feel you have a grasp on the grammar you encounter, try answering questions that come up. Simply trying to explain grammar often shows weaknesses in your own understanding, and looking up information to fill the gaps in your understanding (so you can properly answer the question) will result in more progress than you may have expected to make.

Someone may submit a better answer after you, but that’s okay, because you’ve still benefited. Someone may even submit a better answer before you finish typing yours, and you may opt to discard your reply. But that’s also okay, for the same reason: you’ve had an opportunity to identify deficiencies and to begin to address them.

27 Likes

Christophersan,

Arigatou gozaimashita!
Thank you for all the information.
I can read both hiragana and katakana
And I am definitely willing to put in the work :blush:
Is there going to be an online meeting?
It’s really nice to have a community and not study alone all the time :cat:

See you in class :wink:
Anabee

6 Likes

All conversation will take place here on the community forums.

A new thread will be posted here each week. That week’s chapter(s) will be discussed in that thread.

Don’t forget to set this home thread to “Watching”, so you know when a new thread is posted!

You can also set each week’s thread to “Watching”, so you get notification of new posts.

8 Likes

Thank you, you’re amazing! I really appreciate it, and I’m sure everyone else does too!:laughing:

5 Likes

Just ordered a physical copy :smiley: Fingers crossed for fast shipping

7 Likes

I’m in! Last book club got a bit stressful due to a lack of time so hopefully this will be smoother!

7 Likes

I’m planning on joining this book club. It’ll be my very first and I’m a bit worried trying to read along with everyone else will be a bit much while also keeping up with my WK reviews and grammar studies (that I rarely get to do anyway already) but I’ll try my best. ChristopherFritz’ mention that at the very least absolute beginners’ll get to improve their reading speed was really motivational :muscle: がんばります!

Uhm also is it okay to ask questions already? If so what does 第01局 aso mean in our reading schedule? I haven’t gotten to 第 on WK yet I understand that it means ordinal number and according to the WK vocan in combination with 章 it means chapter number so and so. I’m confused as to why 局 is used which I just learned in my lessons means bureau and there isn’t anything else listed as a meaning that’d fit on WK?
Okay I just used Jisho and are the chapters counted like shogi games here?

10 Likes

Questions about anything not related directly to the chapter material is fine. For example, questions on the title or chapter numbering are perfect =D

As you found, 局 has multiple uses, and one is a term for a game of shougi (as well as go, chess, etc). The author is using 局 in a cute way, so instead of chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, we have game one, game two, game three. Still, these numbers correspond with chapters, not with how many games of shougi the characters have played.

Since you are on a subscription with WaniKani, you definitely want to give that some priority. But getting into reading will help you see those kanji in action, which will help you remember them, which will allow you to get through WaniKani more easily (and in some cases, more quickly). It’s certainly a balancing act.

I haven’t done an analysis on the kanji in our upcoming read, but by the time you’ve reached (started) WaniKani level 7, the kanji you’ve learned up to that point will typically cover about 35 to 38% of the overall kanji that shows up in a manga volume. By the end of WaniKani level 10, the kanji you’ve learned will typically account for about 54 to 58% of the overall kanji in a manga volume.

But that’s just kanji recognition. You’ll still find yourself encountering words with those kanji that WaniKani doesn’t cover. And even if you know all the words, the sentences will remain incomprehensible until you know the grammar. (It’s all a natural part of the process.)

Your grammar studies can be completely replaced by the book club for a while. That is to say, the book club can become your grammar study resource. Granted, this doesn’t help time planning if you’re not spending much time on grammar studies currently. But you may find you’re able to get a grasp on a lot of grammar more quickly via reading + book club discussion versus traditional textbook methods. It may not seem like it at first, but that’s because simply reading about grammar in a textbook gives you measurable progress (chapters of the textbook read), while slowly absorbing bits and pieces of grammar used in different situations and contexts is fairly immeasurable, especially early on.

14 Likes

Official manga PV~

10 Likes

I didn’t want to watch it because I thought Tanaka’s voice would sound too far from my internal voice for him, but I clicked the play icon anyway and was pleasantly surprised. It was actually directionally close to how I expect the character to sound.

From there I saw a link to an anime promo.

A link came up to a promo for a 2022 anime release, and the voice for Tanaka there sounds even closer to my internal voice for him. And that release year sounds good to me, as 2022 is when I want to transition into spending more time watching Japanese-subtitled anime. I hope it’ll have subtitles!

6 Likes

image

I hadn’t heard anything about an anime for this manga! Looking forward to it =^.^=

6 Likes

Thanks for the extensive answer! I’m really looking forward to this club now :blush:

Okay I’ve just run into a problem. I wanted to purchase the book digitally but it seems it’s only available digitally inside Japan. Did anyone else here manage to buy a digital copy outside of Japan?

6 Likes

i bought a digital copy from amazon.jp but i needed to use a vpn to buy there. (from germany)

2 Likes

Yes, I bought my digital copy from Bookwalker without any VPN!

Edit: Here there is a quick guide on how you can buy books from Bookwalker JP.

6 Likes