Jisho has it right, of course. It was 大きく I was thinking of.
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So I started to read the book and noticed that my lack of grammar makes this difficult to read. Should one have a fair amount of grammar before tackling this? There were a few sentences in the very beginning that had me guessing:
おすしは、子どもたちから お年よりまで、たくさんの 人に 人気の、日本の 食べものです。
すを まぜると ごはんが ながもちするので、むかしから よく 食べられてきました。
Roast me in the forums, but I used google translate Japanese to English to figure out the first sentence and then realized I might be out of my depth here because I’m not sure what to do for the second sentence. What would the process be for me here? Hit the books or tank through this with a lot of help and time? Any advice is appreciated!!
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First off, you know that the group starts on November the 1st, right? Until then, it would not be right to start discussing these sentences.
But, in terms of general advice, I see that you mention you have problems with the 4th and 5th sentences, how did it go with the first three? If you could read and understand them, then you will be fine!
For the others, I’d first identify anything I do know. I’d try to identify what is vocab and what is grammar and see how much I understand. Then I’d use a dictionary too look up what I believe to be vocab.
Gradually some meaning will arise and you can then ask here. Asking for a translation is not the most useful thing to do. Offering your own translation is much better as it makes you work at the sentence and people can see where your problems are. Like showing your working out when you do maths.
Come Thursday there are hundreds of people ready to help as much as we can! See you then!
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Since there are still some days until the group officially begins, start sneaking in some basic grammar. This free cheat sheet has pretty much all the N5 grammar on it (the particles in particular should be helpful), and you can start stepping through the brief explanations and reference links in bunpro as well.
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Wow, thank you so much, I wouldn’t have been able to find this by myself! Have a nive day 
I’m pretty new too, but what I was doing in the dust jacket sentences I posted about above was look to identify particles first (a grammar guide and/or grammar dictionary is essential!*) and use that to break up the sentence into managable chunks (the liberal use of spaces between words and commas between phrases really help 
). Then I will look up any words I don’t know and then using that and my grammar dictionary I attempt to piece together a sentence. I also try to stick to writing English that sticks to the structure of the Japanese more which helps when glossing back over the Japanese to sort of map the particles and words together. Trying to get a flowery-worded English sentence I think makes mapping the translation to the sentence way too confusing.
Also, it’s much better to try to piece together a sentence, be wrong and then be given guidance on what you may have misunderstood then skip to Google Translate. I tried to shortcut circuit one of the sentences from the cover using Google Translate and while I got a halfway decent translation, it didn’t help me learn any concepts from the sentence.
I guess this is my long and rambling way of saying to not give up because plenty of us like myself are newbies and I think we can get a lot of this if we have the patience to stick with it. I hope this helps somewhat or maybe it’s just a rambling mess…
** I use a combination of Tae Kim, Wasabi and A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar.
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OMG It’s here! … Well it’s being held hostage by the postmen because I missed the delivery, but I can pick it up TOMORROW! 
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How about that! 
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My copy isn’t even sent yet, but if people post the whole sentence when posting their questions, like we often do and most have already, I’ll be able to keep up via the questions till I get my copy =P
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Small success, I managed to get the ebook.
So I’ll try to follow this 
Is there an option to read ebook-japan stuff on android?
Decided to check on progress…
“In Shipping Process”
Both books marked as In stock! So any time now I guess! =D
But I did pick slow shipping though, so will still be somewhat late 
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They have an app in the play store called ebiReader. It’s in the NA region one anyway not sure about others.
It’s… okay. Nothing special.
Perfect, found it as " e-book/Manga reader ebiReader" and am able to install it, so seems to work in Germany/EU.
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Thanks for the cheat sheet and the link to Bun pro! I didn’t want to have flounder through Tae Kim’s in-depth grammar guide.
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T-2 guys… cant wait
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I’m so thrilled! I’ve finally managed to get the book on my Kindle! Can’t wait to begin this book club
EDIT : I’m also happy because I burnt my first 20 items today! Yay!
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Nice! I won’t get to burn anything for another three months… 
“In Shipping Process”
Both books marked as In stock! So any time now I guess! =D
But I did pick slow shipping though, so will still be somewhat late
Thanks for posting this. I assumed in still wasn’t in stock yet as I hadn’t heard anything from them. But it is now listed as “in stock” at CD japan, and mine is also “in shipping process”. So hopefully won’t be too far behind!
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At least I’ll be able to join in the first 2 days using the sample pages on the amazon website!
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