Well, yeah but the most difficult thing is understanding the nuance without looking them up 
They usually make a good fit in context, but on their own you need a lot of exposure to start to get a feel for them naturally. I gave up on adding them to SRS because they just don’t seem to stick on their own…
I’ve read the first two pages! It’s a lot of work and I’m having to rely on Google a lot, but I’m surprised that I’m able to remember so many Kanji! Hey, if worst comes to worst, at least this has been a great exercise in reading aloud xD
I (re)read chapter one and… wow, this is the real proof of how much I’ve learned since I attempted this originally. I didn’t even know what a なくちゃ was (do I even know now? 
).
I just did some quick investigating and it seems last time I got to chapter 4 before dropping it due to difficulty/lack of time. I don’t even remember much of it, to be honest, but I guess it’ll come back to me as we read. Kind of excited to be able to read this in a way that is pleasurable and not absolute torture.
Anyway, this is just to encourage anyone that is struggling along. If you keep it up, it will get better. But even if you get overwhelmed and have to drop it, whatever you have managed up to that point will have helped.
一人でも多く in my dictionary is “as many (people) as possible”
I would remove くせ and just leave in くせに
So, it seems my habit has become to read about a page per night, but to begin by rereading the previous night’s page and posting my thoughts/questions. Seems to be working well so far.
My thoughts from the page 4: (Page 8 in my red book)
たまにはいやがる子もいる - This was hard to parse. I actually didn’t fully grasp it until I pasted it here! “Occasionally, there will also be a child who dislikes (becoming a witch)”. I had difficulty reading もいる as も and いる.
ひとり立ちをすることになります - This one is easy to understand, but I’ve never seen phrasing quite like this before. It takes a noun, then verbifies it, then nounifies that, then sorta verbifies it again. It seems a little extra.
たったひとりで暮らしはじめることです - I’m not sure exactly what the たった is referring to. No more than by oneself?
もちろん、小さな女の子にとってそれはたいへんあことだったのですが、今では魔法の力も弱くなり、数もめっきり少なくなってしまった魔女たちが生きのこっていくためには、たいせつな習慣なのでした。- I have not yet developed a tolerance for run-on sentences in Japanese. I get most of this at the beginning and end, but 4th section somewhat eludes me.
I imagine I’ll be back tomorrow to talk about the next page and a half or so, as I actually ended my reading partway into the next page.
To ease your mind, 事になる is a grammar point that you can simply remember as-is if you like. (There are a bunch of similar ones out there, so make sure you remember it exactly 
)
But since we are already doing a literal breakdown of sorts, just some small remarks:
Nする may look like a verbification of a noun, but in fact this noun is also called “suru-verb” which means this is actually a normal verb in Japanese 
Only suru-verbs can be used like that, other nouns cannot. I guess it’s a bit like in English: “the walk” and “to walk” is both a noun and a verb, but for other nouns this does not hold true.
Nすること is not the same as N. It is rather the nominalization of the act of Nする. Like as in English: “independence” vs. “the being-independent” gives a different nuance.
Also, なる means “to become” so this is not just a verbification again but indicates a transformation (something did not exist before but exists afterwards).
So if we take this all together, we end up at meaning #2 in Jisho: to be the result (of); to be the outcome
But here I really think the meaning is #1: to have been decided (so) that; to have been arranged (so) that
(and this also applies to everything that comes earlier in that long sentence)
ひとり立ちをすることになります
The になります adds politeness in this case (Nicole explained the すること part). Stripping this away from the sentence, it could have been ひとり立ちをすることです. In a conbini you will hear something like 102円になります instead of 102円です to tell you what the price is.
たったひとりで暮らしはじめることです
たった is “only, just”. たたひとり is a common way to say “alone, by herself”.
もちろん、小さな女の子にとってそれはたいへんあことだったのですが、今では魔法の力も弱くなり、数もめっきり少なくなってしまった魔女たちが生きのこっていくためには、たいせつな習慣なのでした。
“Of course, this is hard for a young girl, even now the power of magic (in general) is getting weaker, for the witches who got remarkably smaller in number to keep on living on, they have those important customs.”
We actually discussed this yesterday, but you may have missed it because we used spoiler tags so that people have the option of deciding whether or not they will read the translation…
Funny you give that example - one of my Japanese teachers once had a good rant about this construction because it is wrong Japanese… The correct polite sentence would be 102円でございます。I even found an article describing this at length (well it goes about コー ヒーになります which you hear equally often).
Money quote:
これから「コーヒーになる」のではなく、
もうコーヒーとして存在しています。
ですから正しくは「～となります」もしくは「～でございます」です。
I’m getting careless 
I spoiler blurred the translation.
Ohh interesting to know, and makes sense now that I think about it. But yes this is happening a lot in modern Japanese, there are quite a few grammatically incorrect expressions that are becoming more common (but well, the language is what the people use so sometimes even natives don’t know about this).
Yes, true And Japanese evolves just like any other living language. In 100 years you will probably find this in every textbook…
same goes for 'いい’（good）ー I screwed up in my lesson yesterday and conjugated it as 'よいです’ instead of just 'いいです’。While she told me that grammatically it’s wrong, it’s what young people do now speaking Japanese to keep it somewhat in line with the past / negative forms!
I believe the use of なります in that whole sentence conveys the meaning of “will become”, since the narrator is telling that after being taught by her mother and choosing a night of full moon in the year she turns into 13 years old, she will become independent. Replacing it with です would convey a meaning of “it is” rather than “it will be”.
Episode 2 of the 2010 television drama series 日本人の知らない日本語（にほんじんのしらないにほんご）is based on this ungrammatical usage, which they refer to as バイト敬語（バイトけいご）.
Whoops, completely missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.
That does help, actually. I do understand the difference between a noun and a noun+する＋こと, and that the meaning is being tweaked with each addition, but that doesn’t make it feel less weird to read a sentence like that for the first time.
Eyyyy, my current Japanese teacher showed our class this same clip!
Hm. While it might be a faux pas to double post, I think it’s best to separate this from my previous post.
I actually went and finished the chapter last night. Couldn’t help myself. But I’ll keep reading a bit at a time and posting my thoughts and bits I wasn’t 100% sure of. Otherwise I might not be able to resist the draw of the next chapter before it comes time. From page 9 of the red book:
おとなになりかけでした - I’m not sure what the かける is adding to this line. Would the meaning change if it were just おとなになりました？
レースの下着のことばかり気にして - the のことばかり throws me off. Is it saying “from no more than thinking about lace underwear”?
キキのほうは鼻の頭と両足のひざっこぞうに合計三つもこぶをつくってしまいました - The のほう and も after 三つ don’t seem to fit nicely into what I already know. Is it saying she’d amassed a total of three lumps between the tip of her nose and both knees?
おとなになりかけでした
なりかける is 成り掛ける. 掛ける added to the stem of some verbs is a common form to mean “almost”, “something began but didn’t complete”. So this means something like on the verge of becoming an adult, instead of just becoming an adult.
レースの下着のことばかり気にして
Xのことばかり means “only of/about/etc X”. So this means thinking only about laced underwear, being concerned about laced underwear all the time, etc
キキのほうは鼻の頭と両足のひざっこぞうに合計三つもこぶをつくってしまいました
The も after 三つ changes the meaning to become something like “as many as 3 things” (in general with a surprised nuance). And yes it’s saying what you thought. (Not sure what you’re asking for the のほう, since it’s only stating that “as for Kiki, …” This doesn’t stand alone, depends on the previous sentence)
Oh man, went camping last weekend and had to catch up on work so I’ve gotta get started ASAP with this book! There’s already so much discussion happening; I don’t wanna fall behind, haha.
Okay! Much easier than I thought! Managed to get through the first page and I’m already having so much fun with this book.
There were a few vocab words I had to reference in the sheet, but honestly at level 20 this was surprisingly easy to get through! Some of the grammar and idioms gave me a hard time (e.g. ”「木という木」 or 「嵐でもないのに、ときどき大きな音をだすことがあるのです。」), but seeing other people put it in context really helped out.
I’ve tested out my Japanese with manga before, but this was the first time I’ve attempted to read through Japanese prose. Even with my limited experience, the way the author paints this quaint little town nestled in verdant forested hills and mountains just has such a lovely charm to it. I’m so excited to continue!