🐱 にゃんにゃん探偵団 🕵️‍♀ Kitty Detectives 2 Home Thread!

How/where did you buy the ebook? I bought physical books from cdjapan, but these handy annotation features are tempting me to buy the ebooks too! I don’t want to end up with a locked down copy that I can only use in proprietary apps, however :confused:

I bought it from BookWalker, which you can find in the App Store. It is a little fiddly to use in parts but the overall experience is good. It might be worth doing a howto / translation guide here if someone hasn’t done it already. Some quick points:

  • I think it made me create my login through the BookWalker website instead of the app. But the login is good as I can also read my books in the browser at work on my lunch break.
  • The app has an English interface, but not all of it is translated.
  • In particular, the store part of the app is in Japanese. Using the in-app store is convenient (you can use in-app purchasing), so I just pushed through, but you can also use an English store on the website version.

Edit: sorry, I blanked on your format question. I’m not sure the web version offers free standing downloads in portable formats, but you could probably make your own.

2 Likes

Well done to everybody who made it through week one! Always the hardest :grin:

The next discussion thread is up:

If you’re behind or struggling, hang in there - it does get easier as you read more :triumph:

What are people’s first impressions?

Interested to hear people’s initial impressions, both of the story itself and the reading experience :slightly_smiling_face:

5 Likes

I managed to find this at Junkudo in Ikebukuro on @marcusp’s suggestion. I was kinda surprised that it’s only available in hardcover - I was kinda looking for a paperback in similar style to the なぜ?どうして? books. Also grabbed volume 1, because it was there (though I passed on the わんわん book), and spotted Zenitendou in the adjacent bay, so I grabbed that too. Gonna have to play catch-up when I get the chance.

5 Likes

I was likewise surprised when they arrived in the post.

What an excellent array of books you have there :grin:

1 Like

I’ve just had a look at the reading schedule and realised that I’ll only be joining for the first two stories as all my attention after January 1st will be going towards the Gundam manga I’ll be reading. Sorry about that!

But so glad you found the book @Belthazar! Both of them even! Even more books for you to carry back! Great! :+1:

2 Likes

Sorry to hear that D: but glad to have you with us even just for the first two, and the threads will always be waiting for you if you want to read it later on :wink:

2 Likes

I’m just gonna answer my own question about first impressions :grin:

I’ve actually finished the second week’s reading too, but I have to say I’m kind of impressed by the mystery itself. I thought from the target demographic that the mysteries might be fairly obvious or cliche, and perhaps we’ll get more clues in the next couple of weeks that will make it easier to guess the solution, but thus far I’m intrigued by the case!

… though I have my theories :eyes:

As for the reading, my first impression was damn, this really does just jump right in. There is zero context given to the reader. I guess it’s assumed you’ve read the character page, which obviously does help.

The writing seems pretty pleasant and straightforward to me, with a nice smattering of useful grammar points to learn. As always though it suffers from the afflication of most children’s books and has hardly any kanji, where more would probably help a foreign learner. It’s not all long strings of hiragana though.

8 Likes

The butler did it.

4 Likes

Hey! I’ve been thinking about joining this book club. I’ve even set up an Amazon JP account and put the book in my cart! When it comes to getting the book, however, I have a few questions.

  1. How long did it (physical book) take to arrive to you? (Assuming you’re in the US)
  2. Is having the paperback better? Or does the E-Book have more advantages considering it would be read with the Kindle app? I heard the app has a dictionary amongst other things.
1 Like

The physical book is hardcover, I believe.

E-reader app dictionaries will not work with this book because it is images (like scanned pages from a children’s picture book) rather than actual text data that a dictionary can recognize.

2 Likes

Amazon only offers DHL shipping to the US at this time, so if the book is in stock it reaches you in under a week. It costs roughly $9 to ship.

There actually is no paperback! The book is a very lovely, high quality hardback!

1 Like

E-reader app dictionaries will not work with this book because it is images (like scanned pages from a children’s picture book) rather than actual text data that a dictionary can recognize.

Aw darn. Thank you for telling me so! :slight_smile:

Amazon only offers DHL shipping to the US at this time, so if the book is in stock it reaches you in under a week. It costs roughly $9 to ship.

Dang, a week aint too shabby if it’s coming all the way from Japan!

There actually is no paperback! The book is a very lovely, high quality hardback!

Oh! That’s nice!

1 Like

I just bought the book!!! It says it will arrive November 13, but the Amazon global shipping says 3-5 days, idk which to trust lol! But I’m SO EXCITED! This will be my first truly Japanese book, and I can’t wait to catch up and read it with you all! <3

6 Likes

Reading a book in Japanese is definitely something to be excited for, @mickeyp. But there are also risks, so here are a few things to know to help temper your expectations:

Hidden for length due to being off-topic (click/tap to view)

Vocabulary

  • The more vocabulary words you know, the easier reading becomes. If you haven’t already done so, I recommend looking into using SRS flash cards for common Japanese vocabulary. (Many SRS platforms will have decks with names like “Core 2000” for cards of 2,000 of the most common Japanese words, or “Core 6K” for 6,000 vocabulary word cards.)
  • The fewer words you know, the more you’ll have to look up. This will greatly slow down reading. To make matters worse, once you learn 2,000 words, you’ll generally find that only covers maybe 20% of what you’re reading!
  • Be sure to reference the linked vocabulary list for Kitty Detectives 2. You can even start reviewing vocabulary words now, while waiting for your copy of the book to arrive.
  • As you encounter common words while reading, you’ll start to see them all over the place. Even if they’re only 5% of the material, they’ll stand out.

Grammar

  • The less grammar you know, the harder it will be to understand the story. Use this as an opportunity to learn new grammar! Read through everyone’s posts in the weekly threads, and if you have a question that hasn’t answered, ask!
  • If you learn new grammar while reading, consider writing down notes on it along with the page number it appeared on. (On paper, on a computer, whatever works for you.) Then, if you encounter the same grammar later and have trouble with it, you can refer to the earlier page that used it as a refresher. If you learn grammar easily and retain it well, this may not be an issue for you.
  • The most common grammar rules (such as past tense for verbs, or marking quotes with って), will show up often enough that no matter how lost you are on page 6 (the beginning), by page 149 (the ending) you’ll at least be able to recognize the general grammar taking place.

General Thoughts

I first started learning Japanese in 1996. Out of high school, I didn’t do much in the way of learning. I bought some grammar books, kind of read them, didn’t retain anything. A few times in the past decade, I tried reading some manga in Japanese, failed on the first two pages, and let that discourage me. Over 15 years of no progress? Don’t be like I was!

A few years back, I started learning common Japanese vocabulary. Last year, I started learning more grammar. This year I started on kanji here at WaniKani. I joined the book clubs, which helped me improve my ability to read native Japanese material. I’ve since read a bunch of manga in Japanese, and Kitty Detectives 2 is my second children’s picture book I’m reading. I plan to read a simple children’s novel with the beginner book club starting later this year. Keep learning grammar and vocabulary, and don’t give up, and this will be you before you know it!

(Of course, I’m still a learner, so I’m still looking up vocabulary and grammar all the time.)

10 Likes

Is there anyone else reading this book who also uses the Kitsun SRS site?

After spending all this time looking up all this vocab, it would be great to be able to really learn it with flashcards, but it would be a huge undertaking by myself - anyone interested in sharing the job??

It would be a great resource for future readers of the book, too.

I use Kitsun :slightly_smiling_face: I haven’t actually done any reviews in months because I’m focusing on WaniKani for now, but I’ve published other decks in the past and stuff. I haven’t kept up with all the new features though.

1 Like

What’s that? This thread is late? I don’t know what you’re talking about :eyes:

Just one page more to get through this week!

5 Likes

Oops, it seems I forgot to put the Week 2 thread on watching so I wasn’t informed of posts there. Also I was in bed with a cold.

2 Likes