コンビニ人間: Week 2 Discussion

@morteasd

I’m probably (definitely) exaggerating, but the ones I’ve seen have definitely been more jarring than I’m used to. Seeing 挨拶 in kanji threw me for a loop and a half, couldn’t even find the first kanji initially.
And realistically there are more that I’ve just forgotten because I haven’t seen in a while than actual brand new kanji. Gonna have to unburn some things I think :upside_down_face:

1 Like

Yeah true I don’t think I know either of those kanji but when I see the word I just know it from previous readings and current context, so I tend to not worry about those :stuck_out_tongue:

That was my first time seeing it in kanji, so with how much trouble I went to figure it out I doubt I’ll ever forget lol

1 Like

Ah, that’s a good point. A lot of common things (like 挨拶) you’d know if you read a bit.

2 Likes

I have a feature on my kindle that highlights popular highlights. that one was highlighted by 169 people. I really like this feature because when I see the highlight in the corner of my eye I know that line will be important/impactful/funny ect and get excited. It’s also more heartwarming to know that most people who read the book, not just you, felt kind of an ‘aww moment’ or an ‘oh shit that was cool’ moment. It makes decent parts more decent and heartwarming parts more heartwarming.

6 Likes

Repeat Club Discussion Starts Here!

16 January 2021

End Page (PB): 27
End Page (HB): 22
End Kindle Location: 229
End Phrase: 人間にしているのだった。

Welcome to Week 2, and congratulations for everyone who’s chosen to stick with it! If you’re still on the fence, keep pushing through for one more week before making a decision, and get involved in the conversation for a little help and motivation.

Feel free to use past discussion for reference, but please don’t hesitate to post any questions or comments! The more we discuss the more we all learn, and the more fun it is! Also, I strongly recommend setting each week’s thread to “watching” to stay abreast of the discussion. Please try to mark any spoilers as such.

  • I’m reading along
  • I’ll catch up soon
  • I have no intention of catching up or the club has already finished, but I’m using the forums as reference

0 voters

Live Reading Sessions

The first live reading session will be 2021-01-17T03:00:00Z (less than 24 hours from the time of this post). If you haven’t already, join the Japanese Book Club Discord. When the time comes to start, just enter the コンビニ人間 voice channel. I will try to log on a few minutes early for anyone who wants to do mic checks.

We’ll do quick introductions (non-obligatory, feel free to comment in Discord if you just plan to listen to the read-aloud), then anyone who volunteers will alternate reading anywhere between a sentence and a page. We’ll allow discussion and questions throughout and see how far we get. The secondary reading time will be Sunday, January 17, 2021 8:00 PM. After this first session we can discuss how we want to use this second time block and how we want to format sessions going forward.

Please bear with me, this will be my first time doing anything like this, and I’m open to feedback from anybody who has more experience doing these live reading sessions.

Please post any questions regarding live reading session logistics in the Discord channel or on the home thread.

Vocab Sheet

@Tonina has generously decided to lead the vocab sheet, but anybody should feel free to add to it. Read the guidelines on the first sheet- even if a word is not yet included you can use the spreadsheet as a tool to get help.

Discussion Questions

  1. What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!

  2. What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?

  3. Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?

  4. What does Keiko mean when she says she’s been “reborn” as a cog in society? How does her attitude toward becoming such a cog differ from what a “normal” person may think?

3 Likes

I thought the secondary reading time is for people who cannot participate during the first one? :thinking:

Regarding discussion question 4 - is it okay to ask you to blur out parts of that question? :caught_durtling: I feel like it’s kind of a spoiler :flushed:

4 Likes

That would be part of the reason. It would also be to break up the reading into more manageable sessions if it takes a long time or if people want to go in depth on questions/translation/discussions. I figured that if we use the secondary session we could do half the week’s reading in each, and people can join one session or both if they’re available.

Another option would be to do the whole reading in each session and have people come to whichever is more convenient. This would depend on turnout, because I don’t want to divide the group if it’s already small. So before choosing a course of action it will be good to gauge turnout and get a sense for how long a session will take.

Edit: Shoot I see you’re not available during the primary time. We will probably plan on doing the secondary time as well, I’ll include it in the post. It looks like after I posted the times there were actually a few more people who voted and the secondary time became more popular.

You’re right. Done.

2 Likes

Thank you :3

1 Like

I don’t want you to do it just for me, as I want to only listen anyway, and I agree that dividing the group is risky, but first session is in the middle of the night for Europe (4 AM for me).
So it’s not like I’m not “available”, but I’m not committed enough to do reading at such hour :grin:

4 Likes

From the previous discussion:

kn

This aged badly :sweat:

21 Likes

I can’t find the reading of a kanji, does anyone know it? On page 24 pb, 横で立って袋詰めをしていた社員が満足そうに ?? いた

頷く

Thanks – my iphone dictionary won’t recognize that kanji for some reason, only coming back with 領 no matter what I try!

That’s interesting - have you double-checked the stroke order of the little 口? Because it’s different from the stroke order for that other thing, and some of the drawing input fields are quite sensitive to that.

If that doesn’t help: I personally always use the radical selection mode, I find that to be much quicker, especially for more complex kanji or those I cannot see clearly (it already suggests kanji based on what is selected so far).

1 Like

Yeah, I went with radical mode. “Hat” + “mouth” + “geoduck” and it popped up right away.

1 Like

Oh, proper nouns. First sentence of this week’s reading, thoughts on 日色町, anyone? ひしきちょう or ひいろまち? I started typing it into Google to ask, and I got as far as 日色 before Google was already suggesting 日色町駅 読み方, so I guess even the natives are unclear.

Evidence for the former: there’s a 日色野町 in the north of Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, which is read as ひしきのちょう. Evidence for the latter: there’s two people on the Japanese Wikipedia with the family name 日色, both are read as ひいろ. Also, it’s written as “Hiiromachi” in the official English translation.

It definitely seems to be a fictional station, in any case. There’s no station in all Japan which contains 日色 in that combination.

4 Likes

I hope that translators from Japanese have some way of asking questions about readings, so I would treat it as an official version.
How Japanese readers are supposed to know is a different issue. x)