Week 7 thread is here!
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Week 8 thread is up!
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Week 9 thread is up!
I do notice we seem to have higher than normal drop off these last two weeks, so I thought I’d poll people here to see what they think.
How are you doing with the book club?
- Up to Date
- Behind
- Quit
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voters
If you are behind, how do you feel about your future participation?
- I’m happy to follow along at my own pace
- I’d appreciate if a change was made to allow me to catch up
- I’m considering dropping out because of the pace
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voters
If you would like a change to help you catch up, which of the options do you think would help?
- Slow down pages per day
- Bring back the weekly grammar points post
- More vocab in the vocab sheet
- Take a gap week after chapter 3 to catch up
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voters
Also, more so for our new readers, and more because I’m curious, but:
Which resources are you using?
- Vocab Sheet
- Posts by other readers
- Mokuro
- Manga Kotoba
- Online dictionary
- Computer translation
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voters
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Just in case this wasn’t intended: All those polls only allow to select 1 option. I feel like that only makes sense for the first two.
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fixed, thanks. We did lose 1 vote for online dictionary in the process, but it’s still early
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I think the pace is alright - one week to read a couple of pages is more than enough time, especially with the help of people in the club and online resources. I even thought it was too slow in the first week!
Two main things led me to fall behind though - Wanikani really picks up after the first three levels so I’m spending more time doing lessons/reviews every day, and I found it personally hard to keep a steady pace in reading and having to stop at every phrase because of grammar/dialect/spoken language you don’t really learn in most Japanese language classes/textbooks. At some point my motivation decreased and it becomes harder to get back again.
It was also my first book club experience and the first time I tried to read something entirely in Japanese, and it was more challenging than I was expecting. CCS does require more knowledge and easiness with the language than say a child’s book, which could have been personally a better choice for me given my current Japanese level.
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In my case, I’m totally behind on this book club but it was expected, this time of the year is always busier for me and I’m behind on many things 
But I’ll keep reading and finish the book eventually, it’s very helpful to read people’s posts. Slow and steady 
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The first few pages of Week #1 was deceptively easy so I thought I’d be catching up by Week #4. But because I kept on returning to the vocab sheet and not understanding the grammar structure at all, I decided to stop for a while and binge-watched a few Cure Dolly episodes to understand basic grammar and it helped a ton. But I’m still reading at a snail’s pace.
I’ve thought about quitting so I can focus on grammar at least, but if I did, I won’t have a challenge for reading and I might forgo it entirely - which is not the point. If anything, it’s my work stuff right now that causes me to be behind. So I’m going at my pace and for sure I’ll reach the end anyways, or catch up, whichever comes first.
I also have a habit of re-reading the previous weeks because I might have forgotten some details haha.
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I dropped from several book clubs myself. It’s just hard to keep up sometime, as we get more pages each week. All it takes is one missed week to just fall behind and never recover.
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In that situation, I find it helpful to adjust the goal from “catching up” to “keeping pace.” Then it’s a success to read one week’s worth, and if you get through more words that’s extra and it’s great, but not necessary for succeeding at the week.
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Ok, I’ve closed the schedule related polls, so it seems like most people are happy for the club to continue at the current schedule so I won’t make any changes.
I left the “what resources are you using” poll open since that doesn’t need a specific time frame.
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And with that, the week 10 thread is up:
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Week 11 is here!
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lol I’m so behind that I missed the poll entirely. To be honest I’m not really sure what happened besides “life”. I was behind but keeping pace through October, then I got sick and fell behind another week again. Either way, happy to keep at my own pace behind the crowd. It seems the threads are still somewhat active even a few weeks behind, so it’s been nice for feeling like I can still be part of the community even though I’m not reading the same stuff everyone else is.
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Too late for the polls, but I fell behind, being in a bit over my head, and just have not managed to catch up. Will try to pick it up at some point and will try to keep up in real time with another one of these in the future.
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Also late for the polls. I had to stop due to personal reasons (covid, work, and moving) and by the time I could do it again, I was behind. I definitely want to finish the series, just on my own time 
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Good luck to our late readers! I hope you enjoy reading at your own pace. It’s a fun volume!
Wondering if anyone would be interested in an offshoot club for the rest of the volumes? It’s a pretty long series, but I’ve been having fun with it.
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I could be interested in an offshoot club if others are! I started this club with not a lot of interest tbh but it’s been fun and I think getting more comfortable with the series’ style and characters has been such fun.
I think the series is only 12 volumes total if you don’t count the clear card sequel
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I did enjoy the manga more than I thought I would. I like the characters and the structure of the story.
Still, there’s not that many of us left, I’m not sure there would be that much activity. 
(I also need to finish レンタルお兄ちゃん and ホリミヤ)
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I’d join for an offshoot, but given the timing (Christmas), I probably wouldn’t be super active initially.
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