コンビニ人間 🍙 Week 3 (IBC Primer)

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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Week 3 of コンビニ人間

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コンビニ人間 (IBC Primer) :rice_ball: Home Thread

Previous Part: Week 2
Next Part: Week 4

Reading

Week Start Date End Page (PB)* End Kindle Location End Percentage Ebook End Phrase Page Count
#3 Jul 1st 21 172 10% どこか作り物めいて感じられた。 6

If the end phrase is bolded, it means that this week ends in the middle of a section/chapter. So the stopping point might be a bit rough and you need to keep more of an eye out for it.

Proper Noun Readings

Name Reading Notes Proof
古倉 ふるくら Main character’s last name Furigana
恵子 けいこ Main character’s first name English version description
菅原 すがわら Part time employee at コンビニ Common reading
泉 いずみ Supervisor at コンビニ Common reading

Vocabulary List

Please note that this vocabulary sheet was created for earlier コンビニ人間 clubs. The PB (paperback) pages should correspond with PB page counts in our schedule, but the weeks and schedule table won’t. This was created for the original IBC schedule. Example: the vocabulary for Primer week one, two and a couple of pages of week 3 will all be under original IBC week 1, so in the week one tab.

Please don’t change this sheet to correspond with our schedule, but do feel free to add to the vocabulary sheet if it is missing something, please read the editing guidelines tab before doing so. :slight_smile: If you are unsure how to add something or which page it falls on, post it in the thread instead and we’ll figure it out together!

Discussion Guidelines

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.


Posting Advice

Obs! Do note that the physical version seems to come with zero page numbers (yes, zero, I saw none while flipping through a good portion of the first volume). So alternative means of identifying page might be needed.

  • When asking for help, please mention the page number (if you can), and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(Please feel free to update your status whenever you like!)

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I am no longer reading the book
0 voters

Past IBC Thread Links

This week is covered by IBC week 1 and IBC week 2.

Don’t feel like you need to look there to see if your question(s) have been answered before posting here. There is no obligation nor expectation that you will look there first.

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Finished this part. It was very interesting. Especially the main character’s perception of the employee training was fun to read. :grinning: This week’s section wasn’t too bad, but I have some things I’d like to confirm:

Page 17 (PB):
「とにかく、愛情を注いで、ゆっくり見守りましょう」と毒にも薬にもならないことを言われ、両親はそれでも懸命に私を大切に愛して育てた。
Just checking: I read this as: “Anyways, let’s just pour love into her and monitor her closely”, was the harmless but pointless thing my parents were told by the specialist, but my parents were eager to raise my with love anyways..
Points I want to confirm:

  1. The text between the quotations 「」is uttered by the specialist, right?
  2. I am having troubles interpreting the それでも in the second part of the sentence 両親はそれでも懸命に私を大切に愛して育てた. Usually それでも has the meaning of even so or nevertheless or and yet, which to me means that action B was performed depite being advised to do action A or despite circumstance A. But this is not the case here. The advised action and the performed action are the same. That is why I was wondering if the meaning here is: the specialist advised A, and yet the parents were doing A all along.

Page 19/20 (PB):
自分と同じ大学生くらいの女の子や、フリーター風の男の子に、少し年上の主婦とおもわれる女性、年齢も服装もバラバラ15人ほどのアルバイトが、ぎこちなく店内をうろついていた。
I understand this to be a list of the people who came to the store for the training. Now, why are there different particles used at the end of each list item? や means it is not an exhaustive list, which makes sense, as the protagonist only describes 3 people in more detail out of the 15 in attendance. I also get that probably 少し年上の主婦とおもわれる女性 just lacks や due to style or simplicity. But why is there a に at the end of フリーター風の男の子に?

Thanks!

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  1. Yes.

  2. They were told that if they followed these instructions, she would recover, but they knew that it wouldn’t work because they were doing it all along. Nevertheless, they did it eagerly.

That is how I interpreted that part.
Page 19/20 (PB):
に means in addition here. In addition to a girl who is around college-age like me and a guy looking like a part-time worker; a woman who seems to be a slightly-older housewife…

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Didn’t realize week 3 started today :eyes: excited to start! Will do this week’s reading later today :person_cartwheeling:

Edit: Finished reading. Felt easier to read relative to last week for sure, and the sentences flow were really nice so finished the pages relatively quickly. The training session was definitely interesting, and the whole stumbling into the wrong street seemed like destiny.

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  1. I agree. I wouldn’t say “monitor” though, more of a “watch over/care for” her energy.
  2. I think that makes sense. I’d translate it to something like "Despite the counselor’s pointless statement - ‘just pour your love into caring for her’, my parents continued to raise me with love nonetheless.
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A few questions for this week:

Page 19

What’s the 先で? Is it something like “after”? “After finally finding the train station sign and running there while being relieved, I discovered that the first floor of a white office had become to look like a clear aquarium.”?

Page 20

So, until the opening, they were divided into pairs and practiced with/towards “imaginary customers”. How does the 社員を相手にしながら fit into that? Were the “imaginary” customers already established employees? Were they the employees they were paired up with earlier in the sentence?

Page 21

What’s the ためにと? Is it ために + the “when” と?

Does she mean that the products feel like individual little fake products? Or that the whole “shelf with products” seems like one big fake decoration thing (i.e. the products are part of the fake “shelf with products”), despite knowing that they were put there “by the hands of the employees”?

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Page 19

先 means destination here. Monolingual dictionary definitions: 行きつく場所, 動作の及ぶ相手や場所。
She runs up to the subway sign and 先 is the place she arrived.

Page 21

と is quotation particle here.

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Page 19:
As mentioned before 先で describes a place and this place is “ahead”.

Page 20:
There was quite a bit discussion about this in the previous bookclub. I recommend reading starting from this post. From reading the discussion my interpretation of the sentence is: In the two weeks before the opening, we were grouped in to pairs and such, (and) while accociating with the (other) employee, we faced imaginary customers, (this way) we devotedly continued our training.
Few things that were brought up in the other thread: 相手にする is a set phrase meaning to accociate with or to deal with or to keep company. There were others which also pointed out that AをBにする is a grammar construction which means to make A to B. So here this would mean to make the (other) employee a partner. Personally, I find reading this phrase as 相手にする wiht an を object more fitting. But I wanted to give you options. :grinning:

Page 21-1:
As mentioned before, と is used as a quotation here. Think about it this way: The new hires were probably told “You need to get used to handling money, so we put some in the chash register”. And now the protagonist tells us about what was said. That is why と is used.

Page 21-2:
I interpret this as: because everything is lined up so neatly and there are still no costumers, all looks like fake products. So basically, as if this were a fake store with all fake products, becuase it is (still) too perfect, too neat.

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By the way, I didn’t mention in the original thread but I ended up asking a native speaker about that sentence, and they were confused too and couldn’t picture precisely what’s going on. They kinda implied it’s a bad sentence, but they put it nicely like “oh, it’s litterature, so it’s more about conveying a vibe/feeling than being clear” :laughing:

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This explanation is simple, comprehensible, and memorable. :+1:

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page 20
The imaginary customers was established to be the employees by “相手にしながら” because they are doing this while partnered up with each other. And yes the employee they partnered with is the 相手 and hence the imaginary customer. They’re taking turns role playing customer-cashier game.
My guess is that with the しながら usage, “…架空の客に向かって、ひたすら練習が続いた” was the activity that was done while they were in pairs - to practice against the imaginary customer played by the other employee.

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love this :D.

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Finally finished this section! a month later but shhh

That whole section toward the end (~pg 21) where she’s describing how the training session like being remade and becoming a new creature is really interesting. I especially like this part: その日の研修が終わると、皆、制服を脱いで元の状態に戻った。他の生き物に着替えているようにも感じられた。 The image of them changing out of their uniforms and becoming another being is just really vivid in my head.

idk it’s just cool to be able to not only understand the story, but also appreciate the author’s writing style and metaphors even though it’s in a foreign language :star_struck: The descriptions are really vivid even though the writing’s quite straightforward and not flowery. I’m really appreciating this book so far for that reason, it’s making this transition into novels a lot of fun without being too difficult… So glad we picked this book for the IBC Primer! :smiley:

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