レンタルおにいちゃん Volume 1 (Absolute Beginner Book Club) - Finished!

Putting this up a bit earlier as I’ll be busy later on. Week 4 thread is up.

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Now that we’ve reached chapter two, how’s everyone feeling so far?

First-time readers, has the first chapter been harder than you thought it would be? (This is normal, and necessary!) Has it been frustrating? (It’s okay if it is!) Or has the discussion made things smoother?

Have you gone back and re-read chapter one to see if it feels more comfortable yet? It’s expected to still feel difficult at this point, even when you know what’s going on. Don’t be discouraged. By the time we reach the end of the whole volume, you’ll have been exposed to a lot of the same grammar repeatedly.

If you re-read each chapter once or twice along the way (time permitting), or even just a few random pages each week, and if you review what everything means in English, it will slowly become easier to recognize the grammar patterns. It takes time to get to understand them. It’s no different than failing to burn a kanji the first time around. The more reviews, the more recognition.

After completing the volume, if you re-read chapter one, you may even feel like you have a super power that lets you understand the chapter better than back in early August. But it’s all right if you don’t. Keep reading new (or old) material, keep encountering grammar you’ve learned before (even if you need to look it up and learn it again), and keep learning new grammar. Do this, and a year from now you’ll be able to re-read this series like it’s nothing.

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The Absolute Beginner Book Club is NOW VOTING on what book we’ll read after this one. Click here to go to the poll.

There are 8 choices and you get three votes. Have a look through the nomination posts to see a brief description of the books, and some sample pages, and then cast your votes!

The poll will stay open for a few days.

(For those who want to carry on reading the other volumes of レンタルおにいちゃん there will likely be a spin off club for continuing this series - assuming there is an interest in this)

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This is my first book/manga that I read and I didn’t really learn any grammar before. Without the discussion in the forums, I probably would have given up already. For now I slowed down WK lessons and started to learn grammar.
I didn’t think to reread but that is an excellent idea and I am curious how much I will remember :slight_smile:

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It’s a little easier than I thought it would be if only because the first thing I tried to read before was a children’s book and that felt very hard.
I haven’t chimed in with questions yet, but I’ve been finding the threads so through in going through the grammar.
I appreciate the time you all put into it!

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Here’s the link to the week 5 reading thread posted a day in advance as I’m going to be busy tomorrow. Keep going everyone we are making steady progress through this book!

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The home thread for the next ABBC book club book is up. 10分で読める伝記(2年生) starts reading in November 2020.

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I don’t think I’m going to be getting any quieter on Fridays - I think I’m just going to keep putting up the new threads on a Thursday evening (UK time). Hope that’s ok for everyone. Week 6 thread is up!

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No problem!

By the way, I’ve just ordered volumes 2-4 from Amazon. :smiley: I’m confident enough now that I’d like to read the rest! Hoping the spin-off book club continues with them!

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This is my first book club. I’ve only been on WaniKani for about a week or so, but I’ve been studying Japanese on my own for about two years. I’m super excited to have a community to help me read my first Japanese book!! Thank you for setting this up. I’ll try to catch up with the group quickly.

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We move onto chapter 3! Hope everyone is still enjoying reading along. Week 7 thread is up.

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Continuing chapter 3. Week 8 reading thread is up.

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Week 9 thread is up - we start chapter 4.

If anyone fell behind on chapter 2 and wants to jump back in - you might want to skip ahead to chapter 3 which was a lot more straightforward. If you want to know what you missed in chapter 2…

Chapter 2 summary

Kanami is at school. Children’s families are invited for the day to hear the children’s presentations on recent family memories. Kanami brings rental big brother, and reads an essay about her day with him. He realises how important he’s become to her. A spiteful girl in class sets up Kanami to make it look like she stole something from her. Kanami feels bad but takes comfort in the fact that rental big brother believes she is innocent.

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Clearly bookclubmasters have no need to be impartial =O

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This is the first book in japanese I read. I will try to finish genki I in next 1 or 2 weeks and learn the vocabulary sheets. After that, I’ll push hard to catch with the team !

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Last part of chapter 4! Week 10 thread is up.

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For anyone else reading physical, I’ve been really getting use out of these post-it markers I added to separate the weeks! It’s nice not worrying about where each week begins or ends, and being able to quickly open to a certain section when I see a new forum post on that week’s thread.

The dots are added when I’ve finished that week’s reading. That way I don’t even need to remember what week we’re on lol

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Just started reading from the physical book and that, sir, is a great idea. Thanks for sharing!

Although I prefer digital, the covers of this series sure do make me wish I had physical copies.

Regardless, I did do weekly organization as well =D

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That has its own kind of beauty :smile: If you don’t mind me asking, but how did you manage to download the pages?