🐶 わんにゃん探偵団 🐱 Book Club

[Radish8]

This is an overarching thread (a club, if you will!) for the わんにゃん探偵団 series of children’s books. Many thanks to @_Marcus for introducing us all to these excellent books!

I’ve love to cover the entire series in time. This is a wiki, so if I disappear or don’t have the time / inclination to run all the sequels they can be added here by anyone else who does run them.

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わんわん探偵団

Book 1 / わんわん探偵団
Book 2 / おかわり
Book 3 / おりこう

にゃんにゃん探偵団

Book 1 / にゃんにゃん探偵団
Book 2 / おひるね

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Poll of Awesome

• I’ve finished book 1
• I’ve finished book 2
• I’ve finished book 3
• I’ve finished book 1
• I’ve finished book 2

[Radish8]

Okay, first of all: how do people feel about 6th April as a potential start date?

Is it too soon? - does this timing mean you won’t be able to participate, when you otherwise would have done if it had started later?

• I can participate if it starts in April
• I won’t participate regardless of start date
• I would participate but April is too early (please elaborate)

[Phryne]

Excited to continue with our わんにゃん adventure, especially if we start after Flying Witch. Between that and Shin Chan I’ve got my hands full at the moment.

Here’s some handy links:

Physical: Amazon JP (￥1320) ・ cdjapan (￥1000)
eBook: Amazon JP (￥1100) ・ Kobo (￥1100)

[Micki]

Thanks for setting this up! I’ve no preferences on the start date. I’ll get the ebook so I don’t need time for delivery. The only other book I’m reading at the moment is the なぜ book with the absolute beginners book club.That one is a long read (finishes July) but it’s a gentle pace so I’ll happily read both together.

BTW shouldn’t the thread be called わんわん, not わんにゃん…

[Rowena]

@Micki

shouldn’t the thread be called わんわん, not わんにゃん…

Radish8 is setting up a home thread here for the whole 5-book series, which has both dog and cat books, so わんにゃん is appropriate here.

[Micki]

Ah, I see!!

[fray]

@Micki

The only other book I’m reading at the moment is the なぜ book with the absolute beginners book club.That one is a long read (finishes July) but it’s a gentle pace so I’ll happily read both together.

Same!

I’m most probably still going to read Sailor Moon, too, but I think I can handle that. Might have to push (re)starting to read Zenitendou further into the second half of the year if it’s getting too much but that’s fine with me.

I’m also going on a long trip to Japan from end of July to end of August. Then I won’t have much time to read but at least book one should be finished by then if we start in April.

EDIT:
I also want to add that I’m excited already! And really happy that you’ve started a thread already, @Radish8! Thank you! I was actually kind of sad thinking about how you might decide to give us all a break and maybe introduce the new club in the second half or even end of the year but yay, we might already start reading the wanwan books in the first half of the year!

[Rowena]

Well, after voting in the poll that I wouldn’t be participating, reading the comments in Marcusp’s study log throughout the day has me thinking that it is my all-out approach (trying to do everything perfectly on my own in presentation style for posting to the forum) that is the problem rather than my levels of competence.

I have the books, and have 6 weeks to mull things over. You’re such a lovely, supportive, and fun group, I would be sad to miss out…

[fray]

@Rowena

You’re such a lovely, supportive, and fun group, I would be sad to miss out…

I feel the same! I’d always drop naze or other books in favor of the kitty/doggie club! So it would be great if you find the time to read with us again.

[Phryne]

I had to draw a similar conclusion after I tried writing out a translation for every sentence. Just the effort of typing out the Japanese was enough to put me off a lot of the time! And then struggling to put hard-to-translate phrases into English…

What I do now is just trying to read it ‘in my head’. If I struggle with a sentence, I’ll add a little ‘sticky note’ that explains the grammar (or sometimes even translates the entire sentence) and move on. It has made reading much faster, and because of that, I feel more capable, which in turn makes me more motivated to keep going!

Here’s a screenshot of what my pdf looks like. If you click on a little sticky icon, it folds out:

[Micki]

It’s interesting isn’t it. At first line by line full translation seems to be the way to go. But after a while you start to feel like it begins to actually get in the way of progress! Not least because it takes so long - and there starts to be something about quantity rather than quality. But also because the aim is not to be a Japanese translator, but to be able to read and understand Japanese without translating it into English (or whatever your first language is).

I’ve been enjoying on the last book just trying to read it at first and not looking anything up. It’s amazing how much starts to make sense from context, and words you don’t know don’t matter because you have a sense of the sentence. I do then go back and look up some words and grammar, and on more tricky sentences still break them down in more detail and translate them fully.

I’m finding sentences that I can understand, even though I couldn’t explain the grammar to someone else fully, because I’m getting more confident with how the language flows.

I’ve found this a much more enjoyable approach and it means I’m getting through material much faster. Hoping you decide to join us!

[Phryne]

@Micki

At first line by line full translation seems to be the way to go.

I think it’s because you don’t have the ‘fluency’ yet to read a long sentence. When I started reading I’d have to puzzle over grammar so much that by the time I reached the end of the sentence, I’d’ve already forgotten the beginning again! But now that my familiarity with the most common grammar has grown, my ‘Japanese RAM’ has expanded a lot. Especially with relative clauses, those used to confuse the hell out of me!

[Micki]

Japanese RAM! I like that!

[fray]

@Micki, you pretty much have summed up how I’m feeling about reading (and how I’ve felt and dealt with it in the very beginning).

@nienque

When I started reading I’d have to puzzle over grammar so much that by the time I reached the end of the sentence, I’d’ve already forgotten the beginning again!

Haha, so true!

[ChristopherFritz]

@Rowena

Radish8 is setting up a home thread here for the whole 5-book series, which has both dog and cat books, so わんにゃん is appropriate here.

Maybe in a couple of years, it’ll become the わんにゃん名探偵 club to encompass the series that took place before わんわん and にゃんやん =D

I’m going to miss 小松良佳’s artwork in this style. (All her other works are a different style, so likely she was trying to capture the essence of the art style in the earlier books in the series.)

@Rowena

all-out approach (trying to do everything perfectly on my own in presentation style for posting to the forum)

Here’s what I’ve started doing last month for reading the detective books:

1. Read the case portion. Don’t look anything up. Even if I’m completely lost, don’t look anything up.
2. Ask myself: Do I have a grasp on what the case is?
3. Find a section in the case where I have no idea what was going on, and look up the vocabulary and grammar necessary to understand it.
4. Return to step 1.

Note that I started doing this after carefully analyzing and completely translating a different case/conclusion in the book, so I had an immediate contrast. I found that what I lost in reading comprehension (not looking up every little thing) I gained in reading speed (because I was re-reading the material a few times). As @Micki says, quantity rather than quality.

Even though I’d read the case portion a few times or more (and likewise the solution portion after), I was still taking less time than when I looked up every little thing and translated it out carefully.

This is how I plan to proceed with the detective books, at least until I come up with something better.

[Radish8]

Yes! I definitely think that putting a lot of work into… hmm, how to put it… the study aspect rather than the reading aspect can be detrimental. It can be super useful to really break things down for understanding, but the most important thing, in my opinion, is to find an approach that keeps the process enjoyable. Otherwise you stop altogether / don’t have time to keep going, which is definitely worse than not doing it at all.

That’s not to bully you into reading the わんわん book you know your own study load / personal situation. But I definitely think it’s something important to think about for one’s studies in general

[Radish8]

@frayderike

And really happy that you’ve started a thread already, @Radish8! Thank you! I was actually kind of sad thinking about how you might decide to give us all a break and maybe introduce the new club in the second half or even end of the year

I’m glad you’re glad! Haha ^^ I did think about starting it more like in July but the fact that there are three of them makes me want to get going a bit. The わんわん book is a tad longer than the one we just did, so I think it’ll take about 22 weeks… if it’s gonna be close to half a year I don’t want to hang around too much

I do want to see how people vote in the poll though, because there’s no point running it if a load of people won’t be able to join in.

[IgorTheGreat]

I may try to pick this up too. I am in the なぜどうして book club right now and that is about enough for me at the moment, on top of all my other studying

[Rowena]

I’ve decided to finish off the last case of にゃん2 using a simpler approach, and will post here in 2 or 3 weeks as to whether I’ll join in with the next book or not - I hope it’s a yes. In the meantime, you’ll be seeing me ‘necroing’ assorted Kitty threads…

@nienque Thanks for the screenshot - the sticky notes look like a great alternative to what I’ve been doing, what programme would I find the them in, please?

[Phryne]

I use Readdle’s PDF Expert, but I believe pretty much all pdf editors should include sticky notes.