According to the results of the last poll, the first break is scheduled for next week (Week 4). If you’re currently struggling with following along, don’t worry! You’ll have a little time to catch up soon! Don’t give up!
This is an offshoot book club for 夜カフェ which we originally read with the Beginners Book Club. Please follow the links below to guide you to the proper jumping off point if you’re not quite ready for chapter 3, volume 2 yet.
The vocab list is a community effort, so if you contribute to the list or even just point out a potential error/typo, you’re helping your fellow readers out! It goes without saying, but feel free to peruse the list to help make your reading experience easier! You’re not obligated to contribute but any help you provide is truly appreciated.
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Sharing your impressions and predictions of the reading are highly encouraged! It’s fun to see if the story pans out the way some of us think. Just be careful not to give away anything if you’re reading ahead.
Thanks for updating the vocab list for this chapter! I added a few more words the other day that I thought would be somewhat helpful.
As for this chapter’s contents, we see the result of Hanabi’s encounter with Ryoma last chapter. Considering Yayako and her gang are the ones pulling the strings, naturally nothing pleasant would happen.
To lighten the mood, we get a happy cooking chapter (which explains the shortness of this week’s reading). I’ll say, we love curry in our house so we cook a lot of it. The advice in this chapter are on point! Definitely take notes to refer to the next time you make it!
Are teachers encouraged to ignore bullying? Although to be fair, the author can choose to have oblivious teachers if it fits the narrative. But to me, this feels so unlikely. I feel like it would be pretty hard to miss when a whole class bullies one person… Different cultures is probably the answer, but yeah, feels bad. Poor Hanabi.
This sentence「ルウの箱に書いてある量より百ミリリットル少なく水を入れる」means, If I’m not mistaken, “Add 100 ml less water than what’s written on the box”. I’m interested in the usage of 量より、少なく which I assume are the parts which give the “less than” meaning. Anywhere explaining this usage in more detail?
Also, I have a question out of curiousity. Now I know that native material can be somewhat all over the place in this regard, but which JLPT level is approximately the closest to this book?
My answers to HaydenAscot's questions but I'm no expert, hopefully other people agree
夏休み = summer vacation/holiday
に = the に particle
さえ = even; if only
なれば = なる to become, but in if/when form (can’t remember the actual grammar name). So if it becomes/when it becomes
Do you need more for this one?
やろっかな = やる (conjugated) and かな is how I read it. I couldn’t say exactly what the conjugated やる is doing because I’m not entirely sure.
It is いためて so to fry/saute plus いく. Do you know what いく does in places like this? (So 使って, いためて, いく is the way to break up this verb-phrase or what to call it.)
より = than. 少なく = fewer/less. As far as I know (which isn’t very far to be fair), I don’t think that “量より、少なく” is a thing, like a common phrase/phrasing, just how those words happen to work together.
I only know up to about half of N3, and I find it fairly easy to read so N4-N3ish? I’m not dialed in enough to say how much of the grammar belongs to N3.
やる is to do and やろう is let’s do it. かな is her being unsure or hesitant if she should take on the task or not. The way the two grammar points are combined with っ suggests casual speech. The written form would be やろうかな.
You’re correct!
ルウの箱に書いてある = written on the (curry) roux box
量より = less than the amount
百ミリリットル少なく = 100 ml less
水を入れる = put (add) water in
So 百ミリリットル少なく水を入れる = add in 100 ml less water
ルウの箱に書いてある量より = than the amount written on the curry roux box
~より means less than and it often pairs with の方 for comparison purposes. For example 今日、梨よりリンゴの方が高い = Today, apples are more expensive than pears. / Pears are less expensive than apples.
Or something that doesn’t exactly translate to less/more: 私より娘の方は早い = My daughter is faster than me.
~少ない also means less than but it actually measures amount vs comparison. So you can say 昨日よりリンゴ一個少ない = There’s one fewer apple than yesterday.
Before I say anything, I’ll just say I haven’t taken the JLPT save for the practice test on their official website.
The book is very easy for me to understand in terms of grammar and even kanji/vocabulary (with the exception of some new onomatopeias that the author likes to toss in a lot). Personally, I’d place my level at N3.
I did a quick check up on grammar for different levels, and I’ll say the series uses some N3 grammar like さえ~ば. I’m surprised grammar points like ばかり、ちなみに, etc are considered N2 as they’re very common speech patterns you can often catch and understand just from watching anime or dramas.
But even if you can find those grammar points in a book, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s that level. Rather than denoting by JLPT level, it would be more appropriate to say the book is appropriate for lower level intermediate readers, possibly advanced beginners but it might take more effort.
In terms of native speakers, it’s aimed towards upper level ES (5th-6th grade) and JHS. Since it has the added bonus of furigana, it’s more of an accessible book to ES students except they might not fully appreciate the lessons and the main character’s struggles as JHS is a completely different experience than ES. As non-native speakers with probably more life experience than children, it’s easier to understand the book (just language being the only barrier).
Sorry that was longer than intended, but hope that gives you a better idea!
So I went grammar diving because I realized I haven’t touched on いく in a while, and unless I clearly don’t understand something I have a tendency to kinda gloss over things. But good grammar resources comes to the rescue.
いく grammar stuff
さっそく木べらを使っていためていく。(Is the sentence we’re working with.)
So looking in my A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. The いく in our case have these possibilities:
いく = go on ~ing; continue; grow; become
And since Hanabi hasn’t started yet. It takes the nuance that is showed by some of the example sentences: from now I will go sauté the onion and continue doing so.
When used in relation to time, the nuance is usually that something has already started/is about to start, and then will continue to progress in the same way.
So that confirms the probable use case of いく for this example from DoBJG.
