Alright, more or less figured it out with lots of help!
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Well the rest of this week’s reading was pleasant at least. I hope 白羽 is gone for good, and was just there to show how 古倉 reacts to negative change. I’d hate for him to become a major plot point.
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Wild theory that I doubt is true and hope doesn’t happen in any case: 白羽’s reason for working at the コンビニ was to meet someone and get married, right? Or something along those lines. It’s been a couple of weeks since I read it. 古倉 isn’t married yet and seems to want to try to fit into society at least in some respects. What if they get married later? 
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That’s what I was thinking too! Even if they don’t actually get married, it seems that the anti-social qualities they both possess (if well-hidden by 恵子) might serve as common ground and bring them together (?) They both seem to feel left out of society.
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I was also thinking the same, but I really hope not!
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Also just noticed this description on the back cover of the paperback:
ある日婚活目的の新入り男性・白羽がやってきて・・・・・。Hmm… I wouldn’t get your hopes up too high, seanblue 
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I thought something similar when that was mentioned and was kinda hoping she’d find someone similar to her she could like for real but please just not this guy he is…a literal stalker.
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From how he was introduced on the book cover, as well as in the book, I just assumed he would be a male of some importance in 恵子’s life.
So far she hasn’t shown any interest in a relationship, so I’m just neutrally interested how it’s all going to play out. 
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Well, those who pre-learned some vocab on FloFlo might have noticed that the word 白羽 is listed there with a frequency of over 100… So I would not place any bet on him being gone 
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I think you all are talking about things that will ruin potential surprises later. I’m going LA LA LA with my eyes right now!
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Repeat Club Discussion Starts Here!
13 February 2021
End Page (PB): 77
End Page (HB): 70
End Kindle Location: 733
End Phrase: 同じ朝を微笑んでいる。
Welcome to Week 6!
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 next live reading session will be 2021-01-24T03:00:00Z 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.
For live readings, we will take turns reading as much as we feel comfortable with (up to ~1 page), then go back and translate a section of our choosing together. Expect sessions to take anywhere from 1-2 hours, but feel free to join late or leave early as your schedule allows. We will be starting promptly at the designated time. Please post any questions regarding live reading session logistics in the Discord channel or on the home thread.
Vocab Sheet
Anybody should feel free to add to the vocab sheet. 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
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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!
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What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?
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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?
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Are there similarities between Keiko and Shiraha? In a “forcibly normalized environment”, is Keiko any less at risk?
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Popping in for a quick question:
レジは混んでいて、店長はゴルフの宅配便の受付をしていて手が離せず (36%)
Golf delivery service??? Feel like I’m missing some cultural context here… Or it’s not actually about golf the sport!
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Googling result: it’s literally about delivering golf equipment, because it is so heavy.
ゴルフバッグって重くて大きくて女性一人で運ぶのは大変ですよね。「え、そんなに重いものゴルフ場までどうやって運べばいいの？」と悩んでいる人も多いはず。
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Oh wow! Japanese convenience stores really do sell everything, ha.
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It was cute how Keiko was believing that konbini will “cure” Shiraha as well. I very much like the fact that it didn’t and that it isn’t any sort of “magical solution” for everyone, it just resonated very well with Keiko.
Just today I saw an article on NHK about booths for remote working - they mentioned that some of these booths are being put in konbinis
I think “second” here is a leftover from copy-pasting.
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Good catch!
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It’s quiet in here! Here are a couple of questions to liven it up.
彼は店を歩き回り、いろんな客に声をかけている様子だ。
I understand what those sentence means, but I’m curious about the use of 様子. What does it add to the sentence? It just a “Japanese like nomimalize thing” ? Is there another nuance I’m missing?
不気味に思いつつも朝… (This a long sentence!)(36%)
I’m having a bit of issue with parsing the hiragana near the end and figuring that out how it relates to the rest of the sentence.
だからわけわかんないだど (38%)
This is when the manager is talking about the disruptive customer. "Therefore reason not understand"??
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わけのわからない means “incomprehensible”. I don’t have context in front of me but it seems like this is probably the phrase he’s shortening.
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Hmmm, you could think of it as a kind of specialized nominalizer, but it actually means “situation” or “state” or something. I think what it adds is the same as in English, maybe?
“there are various situations where I’m addressed by customers” vs. “customers often address me” - it puts the focus more on the situations, not the addressing itself, is my gut feeling.
Do you mean this?
思い - ます-stem of 思う, to think
つつも - even though; despite つつも - Jisho.org
Does this help already? If not, I can go look up the full sentence (I’m not following the text as I read the book with the first club)
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Like @NicoleIsEnough said, 様子 refers to something (or someone) being or behaving a certain way, but I think the meaning is different here. If this is the part I think it is - with the rowdy customer? - then I think this sentence goes more like, ‘He’s walking around, appearing to be speaking to various customers.’
The verb isn’t in the passive, so it’s 彼 doing the 声をかける to the 客, not the other way around.
She’s observing him doing so, and that is what it appears like to her, is what I’m getting here.
1 Like