よつばと! Reading club

I know, but voting “other” doesn’t convey my preference either. I wonder if anyone who voted for the “everything in this thread” option actually thought it meant all volumes in the same thread.

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Yeah, sorry about that. I missed a vital polling option that would’ve cleared up confusion. Next time I make a poll, I’ll discuss options before posting it so that I don’t miss anything. :slightly_smiling_face:

To be honest, I also confused this meta-thread with Volume 2, but it looks like we intend to use this thread to track later volumes too.

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This thread should just be the “home page” for reading Yotsubato with separate threads for the actual discussions.

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Yup, that’s what I’m thinking too.

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I posted a thread for Volume 2 discussion and updated this thread accordingly.

@anon20839864: Can you make the thread into a wiki?

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I can’t wait! :laughing:

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This sounds interesting! I will be travelling to Japan some time in the 2nd week of February so perhaps I can grab the first few volumes in (a hopefully) cheaper prices.

In the meantime, I think I will continue my grammar self-study and have some more Kanji under my belt. I have just completed Lesson 7 of Genki I and started with level 8 of WaniKani.

I know it’s difficult to estimate, but how much grammar and Kanji did all of you already know before picking up ‘よつばと!’?

I was level 21 iirc on wanikani before my reset but there’s almost no kanji and when there is, it has furigana.
I also had japanese classes for a few years, covering most grammar that you’ll encounter on manga, but with basic grammar you shouldn’t have too much trouble (taking into account Yotsuba’s age), and if there was something you didn’t understand (which happens to everyone), there’s always the thread for support and quick grammar questions.

I’m level 7 and just started genki last month. First time I’ll be part of this. Should be fun.

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Pretty much none. I can hardly put together a single sentence in Japanese, but with the aid of the vocab list and all the kind help I got here, よつばと!vol 1 was the first (and still only) manga I have ever read. I’m now reading some ドラえもん and can’t wait till we get started on よつばと!vol 2!

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N2, or close enough not to matter. I have no problem reading Yotsubato, I’m just in the club to give me a reason to read more.

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Thanks guys! It’s encouraging to know that people of all sorts of level are participating. I can’t wait to try it myself once I get a copy!

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Over volume 1, I was at WK level 8, which was enough to not feel intimidated by most kanji, but I also had a lot of prior anime-Japanese knowledge, including hundreds of episodes of fansubbing experience, which helped greatly with recognising informal patterns and making reasonable guesses.

For actual grammar, if you’ve got a strong N5 (finished Genki 1 and retained most of it), your questions will mostly be related to vocab and context. If not, you’ll probably find parsing structures, conjugations, and subjects to be the harder task and you’ll let context follow from the pictures. If you’re approaching N4 for grammar, it’s gonna be the domain-specific stuff, ambiguity, slang, and attempts at full comprehension that challenges you.

There’s nothing wrong with glossing over a sentence, panel, or even a whole chapter (looking at you, fishing trip) that’s too hard for you right now and coming back to it later. As long as you keep pushing forward, you will find your skills improve. And probably a lot faster than you’d expect. (And reading stamina is not something to ignore, either. You’re gonna feel really drained at first, but by volume 2, you might be able to tackle an entire chapter in one sitting)

You should ask questions (after searching for the page you’re on, of course) regardless of how simple they might seem. Other people will read through this discussion in the future and you could be helping a lot of future learners.

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I’d love to join in on this. I really need to improve my reading in Japanese. I currently only have volume 1, but I can easily get 2, and try to catch up~

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Nice club. Too bad I own and read all Volumes already. :frowning: I need more.

Are we going to start volume three this Sunday, the 3rd of March?

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しましょう! Let’s do it!

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I’d love to keep going and move straight on to volume three, and I truly truly hope everyone decides to do just that. For me it will be difficult because (1) no reading pack (2) I want to take N5 on July 1st and I need to really focus on that, and (3) I need a break from all the slang and contractions in Yotsuba!

But, like I say, I hope the group keeps going! Just that I think I’ll not be able to participate so much (many would say that’s a good thing! :grinning:)

I for one certainly benefitted from your participation and will miss all your questions. I can appreciate your need (and possible desire) to get back to complete sentences with formal structure. 頑張ってねー!

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Thank you so much!