That is one tip that I still remember @ChristopherFritz giving in the first book club I joined: when you’re really scratching your head about a meaning, always be sure to read the next few panels. Often the answer will be revealed with further context/continuation!
5 Likes
Just finished this week’s reading. Very helpful discussion above about that last difficult panel!
9 Likes
Just finished this first part quite late, also new but I found it quite difficult. I think I only understood about 3 or 4 of the speech bubbles without translation 
5 Likes
Did you use the vocabulary list? I found it really helpful!
4 Likes
You’re not late, you finished perfectly on time! 
4 Likes
Week 2 thread is now up!
(For anyone reading behind schedule, feel free to continue to discuss Week 1’s pages in this Week 1 thread, even if you come at a later date people will still be around)
9 Likes
Is this your first time reading? This is perfectly normal. Different people will have different levels of grammar understanding and possibly reading practice from other sources like textbooks or graded readers, while others might be operating on a handful of basic grammar tutorials and whatever vocab they’ve picked up in Wanikani. An important thing is the thing that makes reading easiest is… more reading.
Also the first book club section here is quite useful advice
(And similarly, the advice I got from @TobiasW on my first book club: ルリドラゴン ・ Ruri Dragon 🐲 Week 1 - #2 by TobiasW )
6 Likes
Yeah I came back to it after reading the part, just to make sure that all the translations I found were correct. I’m not sure if it’s better to work out the translations myself, like I did this time. Or if it’s better to read the vocab first. happy to take advice
5 Likes
Haha it was definitely a grind though, I had like two days and because I’m a beginner it was an intense couple of study sessions 
3 Likes
Yup, it is my first time! I was hoping to be a little more prepared by my volumes from Amazon took a little longer than expected
Thanks for the confirmation that the struggle is normal though, looking forward to this getting easier over time. 
3 Likes
I made myself an anki deck from the recommended vocabulary and just binged it in the week before. I thought this way I’ve at least seen all the vocabulary. I wasn’t expecting it to work this well, but I actually didn’t need to look up any words.
Usually I hate grinding vocabulary, but knowing those words will be in the manga really motivated me, so they sticked easier. Later reading them reinforced the learning, so it was not only an enjoyable read but also a good learning experience.
The downside of learning vocabulary in advance is possibly spoilers, but I don’t care much about it.
I really like my approach and thought it was very helpful for me personally, but keep in mind everybody is different, you may find it boring or not helpful at all.
6 Likes
That’s honestly an awesome recommendation. I think I’ll do that this week with Part 2 and see how I go. I’ll let you know in the next weeks’ thread how I went. Because I think you’re right, not getting caught up on every new piece of dialogue I think will be more motivation, and hopefully get me through the weeks’ chapter more quickly.
3 Likes
I like to make a copy of the sheet and go through it line by line before reading. Not only to familiarize myself with new vocab, but also to delete any rows with words I know (hence the copy). This makes the list less cluttered and easier for me to reference while reading. I read hardcopy so usualyl print off the condensed vocab sheet.
Also, with each successive book club, I find that I’m deleting more and more rows due to WK progression. And that’s a nice confidence boost in and of itself!
3 Likes
MattVsJapan has a good video explaining using Anki/SRS in this way. You can jump straight to Part 3 if you just want to know how/why this method works.
Everything he says (as best I can remember from back when I watched the video) matched up with my own personal experiences.
While I stopped using SRS for a while, I’m back to using it again, following the method of adding the highest frequency vocabulary for what I plan to read to SRS. Then when I see it while reading, it all ties together. (It doesn’t mean I’ll actually learn the word, but one has to accept some words won’t stick.)
7 Likes
I’ll give these a go 
I went more in depth about bits of translation in my study log so I won’t repeat too much of what I said there.
- うまくうごけね (pg.7) - I wasn’t super sure about this but I think its possibly うまくうごかない but with the ending changed to “e” sound as they sometimes do which I’ve forgotten the reason for, but I think it makes sense in the panel? Like she’s suddenly a baby and is like aw crud I can barely move.
- Probably 交通事故 though I’m not sure why, maybe cause I like a long word and something about the kanji looks nice.
- pg. 5 was so sad, just the son(?) telling her to hold on and that they were going to go to the hanami festival together I was just like noooooo :(((
- I LOVE HER ARTWORK I wish her mum had said holy moly or something or reacted to it a little bit more but alas (I know she thought someone else did it but it would have been funny if she was like when did you learn this old art style)
- This feels like where’s wally, 大野幼稚園（おおのようちえん）which appears to be in Wakayama unless there’s multiple by the same name and I’ve just picked a random nursery
4 Likes
The ね is ない as you thought, but the け remains a け, 動けない - it’s the negative potential form, “can’t (really) move”.
Mostly the reason is “because it’s easier to say when you’re talking fast”. (The technical English term is monophthongization, and it happens in English dialects too, for example Scottish English pronounces “pay” as ぺぇ insead of ぱい.)
It’s 太野, probably chosen because (so far as I can tell), there’s no real-world places named 太野幼稚園 - unlike 大野, of which there are several, as you suspected.
3 Likes
Ahh thank you, that clears things up