Ah, gotcha. That is much more understandable, as I was trying to figure out how “year-dirt” made any sense
I was able to purchase the digital copy on bookwalker fine; I signed on via my google account, paid via PayPal, and everything worked out fine. While I did use Chrome to translate the page into English for the payment step so I didn’t do anything wrong, I was weirdly proud that I was able to navigate through the actual site in Japanese to find where I could look at my purchase. And hey, I actually managed to read a sentence on there without looking anything up! It was just この本を読む but hey, progress
Hurrah! It’s a big step now you can follow the Bookwalker freebies thread. Within a few months you can basically have unlimited free manga. Don’t worry about the “time urgency” of their sales - they reliably repeat every couple months.
I read the resource you linked and it was very helpful. Thank you! (And that bookwalker freebies thread is interesting, I’ll add that to my reading list!)
@whitewolfos Thank you for suggesting the sample pages on the amazon JP site, it gave me some confidence that translating this will be doable! I was a bit worried about the lack of kanji, but after going through the sample pages, I think I’ll still be able to separate the different words from each other okay.
btw @mitrac, are we considering creating a vocab spreadsheet for this club since most of us here are worried about the lack of kanji? I can help add in some words now and then if we are!
Just my two cents: I ordered the physical book from Amazon.co.jp to deliver to the U.S. It was an easy process and my book will arrive in 3 days. Definitely more expensive due to shipping but I really wanted a physical copy! You do have to make a Amazon.co.jp account separate from your regular Amazon account, but that process is also pretty smooth.
Greetings! I am an absolute beginner, and my level and knowledge is probably a bit too low, but I am currently feeling pretty determined to make this the first Japanese language book/manga I read. So, I am with you.
Short intro: I am Cody, but most people online end up calling me Kai or Kaiju which is fine. Currently raising 3 very small children. Lived in Japan a couple years (during COVID times) via the U.S. Navy. My time for Japanese study is limited but I push through because learning has been an unshakable dream for like… my whole life.
Thoughts relevant to this book:
What do y’all usually use for looking up new words? I typically use Jisho.org.
If we make a shared vocab document thing (as mentioned by others), perhaps we can find a way to include pitch accent? Pitch accent seems so important to not sounding odd when you speak.
What format would the shared vocab list be in? Google Docs? Google Sheets? Etc. (Google sheets sounds useful imo. Could add a column to show what chapter/part things are from for easy searching, and maybe sort “alphabetically” from there?)
I ordered both the physical copy and digital copy from Amazon.co.jp. If you can’t make your Kindle app log in because your US Amazon account uses the same email address, the solution is to change the email address of one account. (I don’t want to admit how long it took me to figure that out).
Also, random question for a friend… Would sharing torrents of books be frowned upon by the rules of this fine community?
Hi Cody, welcome to your first book club! I’m sure you’re going to have loads of fun here.
I use Jisho and sometimes ichi.moe if I want to better understand sentence structure. These days, though, I fully rely on Mokuro because it’s super helpful. There are a few steps involved to set it up, but the thread I linked to here is very helpful. If you’re planning to use Mokuro, feel free to ask any setup-related questions in the thread - people are very helpful over there!
This would be Google Sheets. You can check out the previous ABBC book clubs for an idea of how the vocab sheet would look. For example, the club is currently reading カードキャプターさくら , and they have a vocab sheet for the book - it’s almost always the same format.
I guess the mods may take it down, so probably yes
What prath wrote is correct, and actually the whole thread can get shut down or your account could get banned, so best not. Thanks for your considerate question!
It prompted me to go looking for something, since we have a lot of new people joining the community -
Here’s a link to the community guidelines for other questions or a bit behind the encouraged style of communication that helps make this such a friendly corner of the internet.
This seems like a really silly ( in a fun positive way!) read, I’ve watched Doraemon in Japanese before, so when I went to read the preview I was already doing the voices to myself. (I don’t know if I should confess this, but my Doraemon voice was surprisingly spot on )
So in short, I’m excited to start!
to the actual question!
The thing is, this will be my very first book club, and I’m not used to buying books online, from japanese sites even less, so. How exactly does this work? I want to buy a digital copy if possible, but is there a way to do that? (A sidenote, does Kindle have a different app for different countries, just how does it work? )This would also be my first digitally owned book so, to any more experienced people. help.
(I’m from europe, just in case that affects anything )
edit: I went to see how much it would cost on shipping for a physical copy, and at least on amazon it’s 3 times the cost of the book! so, I really need a digital copy
Greetings, Yaniyaniwani! This is my first book club too. It’s also my first ebook, but I am already familiar with purchasing from Amazon Japan.
Based on my own experience, Kindle doesn’t have a different app for different countries. However, Amazon Japan is technically a different (but very similar) site from regular American Amazon. You’ll have to create an account for Amazon.co.jp. Then you can buy the ebook for Kindle via the link for Amazon Japan from the initial post:
Then, you would have to log into the Kindle app using your Amazon Japan account to see the ebook. So, not a different Kindle app, but you do log in using a different account for Amazon Japan.
For me as an American the cost of physically shipping things from Amazon Japan is very high. It was like $40 or something just for shipping the six books in this Doraemon series to my house.
Oh, that seems doable, thank you Cody! I think I’m going with Kindle then!
I was already wondering if the shipping would be worth it if I bought some other books to go with it, and doing all sorts of calculations in my head to make it worth it
edit: It wasn’t as easy as I pictured I had some problems with logging into the japanese account, and getting the content to show for whatever reason, and since I didn’t want problems accessing books I already paid for, I ended up going with Book walker instead. But anyway, thank you for answering me so quickly, really helped me to get on top of actually doing this thing!
Sorry you had troubles getting Amazon Japan to work!
Just in case you ever try Amazon JP on Kindle again, it would only show you books you bought from Amazon Japan. My American Amazon account only shows me books bought on American Amazon when I log into Kindle.
Also of note, I had to make sure I had a different email address set for my Amazon Japan account. At first I had the same email address for both my regular Amazon and Japanese Amazon accounts, but that didn’t work for Kindle. It would only default to in my American Amazon until I changed the email address for Amazon Japan to something different.
I finally bought it and it seems to be working fine! (I used bookwalker) Like everyone said, it was easy to make an account and now I’m even more excited to start our book club
tbh that might be exactly the problem I had, but I already went and bought my book (and the 2nd and third book, I got a bit click happy there after I went and read the free pages for all of them ) so at least for now, I’m sticking with Book walker
This is my second (or I guess first because I didn’t finish Card Captor Sakura due to personal reasons) book in the ABBC. I was nervous at first because grammar does not come easy to me and I don’t know Japanese that well.
It is SO much fun to join the club. You learn so much and everyone is willing to help you understand stuff you don’t understand. Even though I only got part way through, I learned more than I thought I would.
P.S. I glanced at the book and it seems easier (?) than I thought it would be, but I’m probably overconfident right now lol
(And that bookwalker freebies thread is interesting, I’ll add that to my reading list!)
I have a template I’ve used for other clubs that I’ll modify for this club and post a link soon
I managed to avoid that heh
)
(I used bookwalker) Like everyone said, it was easy to make an account and now I’m even more excited to start our book club