魔女の宅急便・Kiki's Delivery Service 🧧 Repeat Club

Ha, キキ放題. :laughing:

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That moment when you realize you could have bought the V3 with an amazing cover (and instead have the V2) :scream_cat:
I did not see this repeat club until today (my fault, I should not stay only in the threads I already know :stuck_out_tongue:) but I will try to read 魔女の宅急便 (starting this week-end) and hopefully catch up, in time.

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@Wildjinjer, You just reminded me of two phrases that get used write a bit in the book that also “jump out” of the audio… These are my lame ways to remember their sons/meanings:

“It’s no Monica!”. (I have a close friend named Monica, so this made me laugh as a mnemonic) いつのまにか meaning “before you know it”

しょうがない meaning “it can’t be helped/what’s a person to do?” Shrug My mnemonic…“Not even a Shogun could help you…Shogun ない.”.

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V1 for life. Love that beautiful red border. Red like carrots in a soup.

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@H_S

[Quote] I haven’t really figured out the whole kiki-houdai thing and how it works - it seems that it’s not for all books (and kiki’s delivery service doesn’t seem to be included), but even for the ones that seem to be included I could not figure out how to listen to them, so if anyone has any tips on that please let me know! I would like to listen to Kokoro which seems to be included (I stumbled my way through reading it on an app called V reader, so I know the basic story).
[/quote]

I’m using a phone app called Musicolet, which lets you listen to Mp3 and other files which you own not purchased through it’s app. It at least grouped all of the files together into an “album” and put the Kiki’s cover art, and let’s me listen to the chapters in order (or on “shuffle” lol). It uses hardly any memory on your phone, it got great reviews (I’m on Android). It lets you slow down playback (but not speed it up), it’s not great on rewind and fast forward in detail, so I use pause and continue when making notes.

Good luck with your listening!!

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Week 5

This week we’re finally conquering the mega chapter :triumph:

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For some reason, I was thinking chapter 3 was split over two weeks. Suddenly I’m not nearly as far behind as I thought! (Only about 45 more sentences to catch up on…)

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Nope, it’s by far the longest chapter, so it would make for pretty horrific pacing to do it in two weeks :wink:

In the audio book, chapter 3 runs for 46.5 minutes!

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This past week was rough for me in terms of reading; didn’t have much free time. I’m still quite a good deal behind (only got two pages from last week), but much like @ChristopherFritz I didn’t realize Ch. 3 was split over three weeks!

While I’d love to sit down and parse out the grammar of each and every sentence, I’m wondering if it’s better for me to just focus on speed and general understanding over precise comprehension. I feel kinda like I’m gimping my overall learning if I do it that way, but it’s less overwhelming if I read casually.

With my current level of Japanese it’s been a bit of a balancing act figuring out whether or not to spend as much time as possible on a given sentence.

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I encourage up to think of the book holistically: putting effort in now means the end of the book will be easier. That being said, an in-between approach could be to actively look for new-to-you but common-in-Kiki grammatical structures. If you do that, you’ll learn them really well.

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My system for moving forward is based on my perceived understanding:

Understanding Action
What does this sentence even mean? Stop and break it down.
I think I understand this sentence. Move on to the next sentence.
I understand this completely. Move on to the next sentence.
This sentence makes no sense in context. Go back a few sentences and review those “I think I understand” sentences. May have improved understanding knowing what comes next.
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If the alternative is not getting through the book, definitely just focus on getting through it.

I’ve found that one go through with minimal lookups, then a second pass looking more things up after I’ve had time to sleep on it works well, but I can see that not working out if you’re already low on time. It does make it a lot less overwhelming, though.

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Thanks for this - I did figure out in the end how to listen to things, but I’m going to take a look at the app you suggest too. Cheers!

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That’s a pretty good point, and something I’ve already noticed in my reading thus far. I’ve seen lots of common turns of phrases used by both the narrator and characters within the story that show up and help me get tbe general idea of a sentence.

That’s a pretty good benchmark and more or less where I’m at right now! I’ve given myself a bit more leeway to just move on ahead if I get the overall idea of a sentence. Up till now by typical approach was to evaluate my understanding by rephrasing what I’ve just read in English. That’s what I think has slowed me down a bit (and gives me vastly more appreciation for people who work in localization).

Yeah, if I had more time I’d absolutely do a once-through then another after I’ve given things time to simmer haha. However, with my SRS reviews on top of book club, I’m barely finding enough space in the day to get things done.

Solid advice from everyone, thanks for all your input!

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Hey all!

Funny enough, I picked up this book a few days ago with the intention of reading it on my own, I didn’t know there was already a book club for it! I’m quite behind though, I’m only a bit into chapter one, so I have some catching up to do. My Japanese is also still pretty poor, but I plan on reading each chapter once extensively and once intensively. Hopefully if I devote enough time I can catch up to everybody!

This is my first book club, and it’s also actually my first time reading a Japanese novel. I’m sure it’ll be really tough, but I feel like it will be a great supplement to my Kanji/Vocab and grammar studies.

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Week 6

Starting chapter 4 this week, and it marks the start of a more consistent pace going forward. Two weeks per chapter from here till the end!

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Hey Kaito,

Welcome to the forum and the book club. I woudln’t worry about being behind, up until three days out… I thought this was going to be a Manga for some reason. :sweat_smile: Then my book showed up in the mail! The first two chapters were an uphill battle unitl I got used to the writing style and some specific dialects used in the writing. Chapter three is LONGGGGGG, but I’m finding it a much easier read than the previous two. The people in this group are amazing, post a question if you have one and you’ll find some assistance on grammer.

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Oof, was super behind because of personal stuff two weeks ago, so I only caught up last night. Thankfully, most of Chapter 3 was pretty easy dialogue stuff, and like @Wildjinjer noted, the holistic perspective has really come into play because I’m noticing a lot of common vocab and turns of phrases that had slowed me down prior from having to look them up.

Pleasantly surprised how used to grammatical structure I’m getting. It’s one thing to study proper grammar, it’s another to actually see it haha.

Now to finally get started on this week’s reading…

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Week 7

Finishing up chapter 4! We’re about a third of the way through, and if you can make it to next week there’ll be slightly fewer pages :wink:

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