How long did you take to beat Genki 1?
I have just started it and feel like I should wait to finish it to start trying to read anything and join this kind of thread ! 
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I think I took about six-seven months to do Genki 1 at one chapter per two-three weeks. I’ve seen people online say they can do it much faster but I’m older with a full time job so that was the pace I was comfortable with. Honestly even with that “slow” pace I didn’t feel like I’ve mastered Genki (i.e. being able to perfectly apply all of the grammar consistently, knowing all of the vocab by heart) so I ended up taking a local class that went slowly over the last third. But then I needed a break from Japanese so now I’m reviewing Genki 1 with bunpro and will likely soon review the Genki 1 vocab again, so we can argue Genki 1 is taking me a year.
That said, if you’re not aware I highly recommend this youtuber for Genki (he’s followed up with Genki 2 and is now doing Quartet):
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Yeah, i can get it. Even if there are plenty of practices in the textbook and in the workbook, one needs some time to fully assimilate the concepts and structures. Like it’s something to recognize them but it’s something else to use everything when needed.
And as for the vocabulary, there are so many new kanjis in each lessons. I’m just learning the pronunciation so far and will go back later to focus on them ! Wanikani still has a job to do!
Thanks for your answer !!
And yeah i know him ! Might check him for some complicated lessons! 
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From glancing at the first two pages I feel the biggest hurdle for me will be coming to terms with the more colloquial style that Genki didn’t really prepare me for … I guess it will be slow at first.
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You can probably count on one hand the number of times you’ll see a form of ます in this volume =D
I’m not certain if です even appears at all!
The good(?) news is that this is normal for first-time native material readers. That’s why it’s good to know in advance that it’ll be slow-going up front (first whole manga volume, for example). Otherwise, it’s real easy to say “this is too hard for me right now”, and give up on reading (for a while).
One of my favorite things about following the Absolute Beginner Book Club for the past couple of years has been seeing new readers transition from stumbling through their first manga, to following multiple ABBC offshoot clubs at the same time, to trying out reading other native material they’re interested in, and working their way up to joining the Beginner Book Club.
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I’m pretty proud of myself! I figured out what Bookwalker is, managed to purchase the book (with the website entirely in Japanese!) and download the readers on my phone and iPad. I am really excited about trying to join in even though I am still on Level 2 of WaniKani and Lesson 1 of Genki. (I did take a year of Japanese in college a LONG time ago) I have no illusions about being able to understand everything - but I am sure I will learn things by tagging along. At the very least, at this stage I am able to reinforce my reading in hiragana/katakana. Nothing to lose! and at the very worst, I’m out $5. I am trying to sort some things out on my own ahead of time but very much looking forward to this group to get going to see how close I got and will be grateful for the help.
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That part was almost too much for me. I was ready to give up until somebody helped me with it. Maybe we need a guided tutorial for that. 
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That actually might be helpful! I panic a little each time the reader dumps me back into the store but I think I have it figured out.
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I am determined to do this one! I’ve reached the point with my Japanese that my biggest weakness is grmmar, so with any luck this will help with that! Even if it is tough to understand the sentences in the beginning, I’m hoping that over time of searching up specific grammar points, I should have a much easier time by the end.
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It’s good that these days browsers can auto translate foreign languages.
At least that’s what I used when I started browsing bookwalker. (Now I know which button does what, but some kanji still go over my head. )
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I had the problem that when I got to the checkout screen, the translate button disappeared for some reason.
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Oh - I didn’t even think about using the translator. I just guessed really well. 
I suppose I am lucky I didn’t end up ordering something really weird.
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I got suggested this for reading practice - I’ve never participated in a book club (or read native material) so this looks interesting!
I’m comfortable with hiragana and katakana, so the only thing I’m really worried about is grammar readiness. My exposure to grammar amounts to like the first 6 lessons of Genki I, the “Basic Grammar” chapter of Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide, and the first 6 videos of Cure Dolly’s Japanese from Scratch playlist. If I understand correctly, exposure to at least the N5 grammar topics is expected/would be highly beneficial before starting this book club? I think BunPro lets you look over grammar by JLPT level, so I could use that to at least skim over those concepts.
If I were to join the club, I’d likely just have to buy the book digitally. I don’t think a printed copy could arrive in less than two weeks. And I don’t really have free shelf space for physical books anyway.
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Welcome to the book club! 
Some exposure to grammar is definitely a plus, as it will make reading a bit easier to start out. It’s hard to divide manga into N5, N4, etc. levels, since they are native material, and you will run into ALL levels of grammar as you read. I would hazard a guess that this will especially be the case with this book, as it is going to be primarily casual Japanese, which is all over the place in terms of grammar levels.
However, don’t let that spook you away from the club. Speaking from personal experience, when I came into my first book here (Takagi-san, in May of this year), my grammar experience was limited to several failed attempts at reading through Genki (it was entirely too dry/sterile), a number of Japanese Ammo with Misa’s videos, and some Googling here and there from when I was trying to read things on my own. That was it. I was completely floored how quickly the grammar started to make sense just by virtue of exposure to native material. Keep in mind that some grammar points will take multiple passes. You’ll likely often find that you’ve already learned a grammar point that still feels new the second, third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth time you come across it, but patterns are what the brain does best, and it will eventually stick. (@christopherfritz especially has some very insightful and helpful posts on grammar and pattern recognition in various boards throughout the forums. I also attribute much of my understanding on grammar to discussions with them, so that they are running this book club means we are in great hands. 
)
The most important thing for progress in my opinion, is if you don’t understand something, ask a question about it. It’s really that simple. The folks who are in these clubs are truly amazing people, and between them, there’s a lot of knowledge to be shared. Somebody will always be willing to jump in and answer any and all questions, regardless of how “silly” you may think it is. It’s perhaps a bit cliche to say, but in learning environments, there is no such thing as a silly question. The purpose of these clubs is to have fun, and to learn!
My recommendation is that even if you find yourself struggling initially with the text, and understanding, is to push through the frustration. Hold fast to the vocabulary sheet, ask questions, read other people’s questions and answers, then once we are most of the way through the volume, look back through some of the early chapters we’ve already finished when you have the time. The reason being that this is the easiest way to gauge your progress and change in understanding. I think you’ll find yourself surprised by how much progress you make in just a few short weeks of reading. I know I certainly did! The only exception to this, is if you find that you just don’t enjoy the material. I believe it’s always better for learning if you read something you are actually interested in, even if it feels somewhat above your level, than to read something that you don’t enjoy at all.
As far as digital vs physical, I pretty much exclusively deal with digital books. Like you, I don’t currently have the space to be adding more physical books to my collection, much as I would love to do so. I can say that this manga has some exceptionally clear furigana (which isn’t always the case with digital), so you aren’t losing out on much of anything by going digital vs physical. If you need help figuring out how to purchase digital copies, let us know. I use Amazon, personally, given that I have a Kindle reading tablet, but others can walk you through the process on Bookwalker or other sites.
The tl;dr version:
- Having some knowledge of grammar is helpful, but not totally necessary.
- Ask questions whenever you have them; that’s what the book club is for!
- Push through the initial frustrations and slow reading, and I’m positive you’ll see results!
I look forward to seeing you in the club!
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Yeah, it makes sense that it’s hard to specifically review grammar points for native material since you’re going to see a little bit of everything, just like you would with native material of any language. I guess I should be prepared to ask a ton of questions, since from the looks of it, I’m not very prepared for the book. From looking over the first few pages of the first chapter, I could get a vague gist of what was happening from recognizing words and some grammar in the dialogue, but that was about it.
If you really think that shouldn’t be a dealbreaker, I guess I’d better go ahead and get a copy of the book and be ready to tune in on the 13th.
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Can anyone walk me through how to get a digital copy? I didn’t see an option for the Kindle format on Amazon JP…
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While I have a moment, I figure what might also be helpful for a few folks starting out is to give a list of resources that I personally use when I find I need to look something up.
Potential Resources for Learning and Searching
For words, whether they be all-kana or kanji, I tend to use:
Jisho.org: Japanese Dictionary
It’s an intuitive interface, and you’ll find a lot there, though it doesn’t have everything, so keep that in mind! One major pro, though it doesn’t necessarily pertain to this manga, given that it has furigana, is there are “Search by Drawing” and “Search by Radical” options, so even without furigana, you should be able to find a kanji on that site!
Similarly:
Is also a great source for finding words. It will also often given you a great list of example sentences, so you can see those words in context!
The downside is that the interface is primarily in Japanese, and if there’s a way to change that, I’ve not found it yet (also haven’t bothered to search around for it much), so it is a bit more difficult to use than Jisho, though the interface itself remains intuitive.
For looking up grammar, I’ll either literally just type the grammar point + grammar into google. (I.e., “てくれる grammar”), and look at those results, or I’ll consult a few different sites.
JLPT Sensei | Learn Japanese & Study for the JLPT (日本能力試験の勉強) is pretty decent at breaking down grammar points and giving example sentences, though much like Jisho, it doesn’t have everything! It does have a very intuitive interface, however.
Maggie Sensei is very good at breaking things down in a way that’s easy for me to understand. One of the big downsides, however, is that she is very much a “wall-of-text” explainer, and with all the different colors she uses to color-code grammar points, the site can quickly give you a bit of sensory overload. Ctrl+F is your best friend on her website, in my experience, though once you find what you’re looking for, she does a good job of breaking those points down.
Organic Japanese with Cure Dolly - YouTube If you aren’t much a fan of reading your grammar, and have better luck with videos, this channel comes highly recommended by a number of people. In my experience, she does a good job of making some particularly difficult points make sense, once she stops pontificating on how her method is the best method. I also have a hard time with the voice, but the downsides are definitely outweighed by the upsides of her explanations.
Japanese Language Stack Exchange For some of the more difficult grammar questions, sometimes the best results are in Q&A forums like stackexchange or HiNative! I always take these sites with a grain of salt, but they can be useful in finding some answers on the off-chance that nobody in the book club knows an answer for sure! (One of the fun things about Japanese is its ambiguity, after all, so even when you think you know something, sometimes it’s hard to be sure!)
Edit: Adding https://ichi.moe to the list, at the suggestion of @Wizz. It looks to do a good job of helping you break down some more complicated sentences, and aids in the understanding of sentence structure.
Finally, the weapon of last resort: a translator. Sometimes you might find that you have a very difficult time parsing something, and there’s just no way it’s making sense. In desperation, you turn to Google Translate. If you’re lucky, it spits out something comprehensible. More often than not, though, because Japanese is such a contextual language, it requires more context before it could possibly help you out. If you absolutely feel that you have to go to a translator, I would recommend DeepL Translate: The world’s most accurate translator, over Google Translate, hands-down.
I’m going to supplement this with this major warning:
It REALLY should be your weapon of last resort. You will almost always get a better answer talking it out with the book club, with people who are reading the same book as you, than from a translator which doesn’t have any context to the situation from which you are feeding it a sentence. This is especially the case in Japanese, which relies so heavily on context. The translator can break down to a few different scenarios:
- You put your sentence in, and the translator gives you an answer that makes sense, and it’s actually correct. (Best-case Scenario)
- You put your sentence in, and the translator gives you an answer that doesn’t make any sense, and it’s wrong. (Bad scenario, but not the worst-case)
- You put your sentence in, and the translator gives you answer that makes sense, but it’s WRONG. (Worst-case scenario)
The problem is, that if you are fairly early in your Japanese journey, you might not be able to differentiate between Scenario 1 and Scenario 3, and you’ll go on with a misunderstanding on how a phrase is used, or what it means. That’s why I say it’s absolutely a last resort, and should be avoided, but I’d rather give a link to a translator that’s a bit more accurate than Google to try and equip you a little bit better.
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You may want to check out my rough outline of how one in your grammar position might want to prepare in advance here. It’s nothing scientific, but rather is about trying to increase the amount of grammar concepts you are exposed to (even if you don’t understand them yet) in prep for reading.
For Cure Dolly, try to at least finish video 15 (“Lesson 13”). If you watch one video per day, you’ll be able to reach it before we start reading. After we start, I recommend continuing at least a few episodes per week, especially if you can fit them in on weekends. (You might not have enough time weekdays if you’re working through the manga pages every day.)
The most important thing to know is that jumping into reading native material will be very difficult. But if you follow through with the book club until the very end of the volume, you will learn a lot of grammar at a fairly rapid pace.
If you decided you actually do want to go the physical route, the first three chapters are free digitally online, and we’ll be spending five weeks across those chapters. That adds a lot more leeway for shipping.
Have you been peeking at my “what to post at the start of the club” notes? 
For every question that gets asked, there will be some number of people two afraid to ask that same question. By asking a question, you’re actually helping a lot of others out by giving them the opportunity to get the answer as well.
But that’s not all! There’s also people who feel they know the material being asked, only to find they’re learning something new about it when they read someone’s answer.
Every question asked can ultimately help a lot of people learn!
The worst positive outcome that can happen is the club moves too fast for you, but you continue reading at a slower pace.
I try not to mention this option too often, because I think there’s a lot of value in accepting “I can’t fully grasp this yet” by the end of one week, and moving on to the next week’s material on schedule.
However. Questions can still be asked in the threads weeks, months, or years later, and will likely get fairly prompt responses. Plenty of people, myself included, tend to keep all the book club threads on “notification” so we know right away if someone’s asking a question even on a three-year-old book club thread.
I should add a link on the first post. Will do so later, but here it is now:
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I think I just figured out why I couldn’t see the Kindle version on Amazon. It’s apparently not available to the United States where I am, for copyright reasons. So I guess I’ll just have to either get a digital copy elsewhere or try ordering a printed copy from Amazon. I have space to keep just one book just for this club.
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