氷菓: Week 1 Discussion

Japanese Language Reading
#1

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Week 1

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Start Date: Jan 11th
Next week: Week 2

Reading:

End Page End Phrase Page Count
13 俺の、自分のモットーへの忠誠なんてその程度だ。 8

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle:

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m planning to catch up later
  • I’m skipping this book

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#2

Bleh. I was looking everywhere for my book but couldn’t find it. I was in the middle of posting here about how my dog ate it… when I suddenly remembered I’d taken it away with me when I went for a trip last month in the hopes of maybe flipping through when I had a few hours spare.

Ok, time to start reading, then.

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#3

Oh. For a moment I thought you wanted to tell us how you managed to transform it into Flying Witch Vol. 2 :joy_cat:

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#4

I was almost starting to suspect I had. Like, maybe I found Hyouka on the shelf in Kinokuniya, then went to muse over Flying Witch volume 2, then decided not to buy the latter, but then I accidentally put Hyouka on the shelf and bought Flying Witch. But no.

And suddenly I feel like Oreki. It’s a completely mundane solution. :stuck_out_tongue:

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#5

So, uh… is anyone else gonna comment? :stuck_out_tongue:

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#6

On what? :joy: Theoretically reading started yesterday. :stuck_out_tongue:

I don’t quite remember where this week ends - I don’t think much happens till page 13? So I’m a bit hesitant to comment on the contents.

4 Likes
#7

I hadn’t started reading :wink:
Now that I have read this week’s part,

between the attitude of the main character and him joining an empty club, I’m getting some strong Haruhi vibes. It might be because I haven’t read many novels set in a high school environment.

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#8

I speculated with @NicoleRauch that maybe these types of novels are so popular because they’re so true to life - maybe people enter obsolete clubs and are pretentious teenagers in high school all the time?

One of those sounds truer than the other.

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#9

My copy won’t be here until around Wednesday but I was able to get a 立ち読み version from Honto, so I started on that. And…I think I don’t actually know anything about Japanese? I can read manga without any issue at all, but I look at this and it’s almost like I don’t know how to approach it. It’s probably just due to my unfamiliarity with prose and I’ll get over it soon, but it’s a weird feeling. Anyone else?

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#10

Yeah, I get that a bit too. Haruhi was taking me half an hour a page, so I decided to slow down from the club’s reading speed, but pitched up too much and stalled out completely.

Just take it one sentence at a time. When you get your book, photocopy it to A4 size so you can scribble furigana and notes and whatnot all over it.

4 Likes
#11

Ooh that’s a great idea!

#12

Novels are quite different to manga/dialogue. One can even say they’re 2 different languages. You do get used to it though, but yeah I remember the first time I read one I thought the same.

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#13

So I read chapter 1.
I haven’t made it to page 13 yet though.
I ended up buying from CD Japan and paying for shipping. Cover says “The niece of time”

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#14

Aye, it does. I started re-watching the anime over the weekend, for the fun of it (not cheating, honest), and each episode that comes from this book ends with “the niece of time” captioned across the closing image. At the finish of the arc, I suddenly worked out what it meant.

Not gonna explain it now, though. Not until we get there. :stuck_out_tongue:

The next few episodes end with “Little birds can remember”, which is the subtitle of book four. Haven’t re-watched further than that, though. “You can’t escape” may be the subtitle of the anime series itself, though I’m not too confident on that. It’s what Googling seems to imply.

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#15

I feel the exact same way! Didn’t help that I tried to start reading at night without proper lighting. Squinting at the teeny tiny text was giving me a headache so I went back to playing Stardew Valley instead. I shall try again today with a proper light source!

This is also my first Japanese novel and now I wonder if I’m in way over my head… I expect I will be asking a lot of questions once I actually manage to start reading!

1 Like
#16

…when a short sentence takes you a long time to read because it takes you a while to work out that 業務上過失致死 means “professional negligence resulting in death”…

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#17

It’s convoluted phrases like that that made me ditch my perfectionism and decide to skip the long words in Oreki’s monologues :upside_down_face:

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#18

I might need to use that strategy at times to get through this book.

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#19

But then how will you manage to talk to Japanese people about 業務上過失致死 in your daily life when ordering soup at a restaurant?

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#20

「その味噌汁も業務上過失致死も同じだよ」

That’s a pretty serious ramen shop you’re visiting.

10 Likes