10 Minute Biographies Home Thread (Absolute Beginner Book Club) - Finished!

Prime shipping is, from what I understand, always domestic online. Amazon JP certainly is

image

1 Like

Hm, I just read the terms of conditions of Amazon Prime Japan and unfortunately, the answer is no. It would be too good if it was possible :sweat_smile: Gonna have to pay a lot in shipping :cry:

Thanks. Poor Okinawa though… :sweat_smile:

Poor 沖縄本島 indeed!

Poor us too, haha.

It’s JPY 900 for the book for me and JPY 1,525 for shipping.

So something like £13 for shipping and £5 for the book :stuck_out_tongue:

Then again, when I buy parts from aliexpress, it usually works out like that, haha

1 Like

When I saw the shipping was more than the book I just said “ok, I’ll just add another book” and just threw in another one from my list lol.

3 Likes

You can look here for some advice on buying books in Japanese.

5 Likes

I did that too :joy: I’m buying 3.

3 Likes

I’ll grab my copy now!

3 Likes

I’ll order my copy from Kinokuniya.

3 Likes

I’ve closed the start date poll - it was a unanimous vote for November 7th!

7 Likes

I’m very much a beginner, but I enjoy reading, so I would like to start as soon as possible.

Between this and big brother rental, which one do you think it would be easier to start with?

1 Like

I’ve only taken a quick look at the biography, but I’d consider レンタルおにいちゃん to be the easier of the two to start of with. You have more context from the panels, it’s a tad lighter on text and the text is more conversational, so you might be able to recognize more words without having to look them up. You’d also have the benefit of the bookclub to ask questions already, seeing as this one only starts november 7th :wink:

1 Like

@anon3564849 yeah I think it is a good idea. I caught up rental bro in few days but it is not so easy like you may think. Current 5th-week pages are murderous at least for my level heh. I also will go with the next two books mentioned. For example 10 minutes I have already bought with BookWalker and waiting for November :-).

1 Like

A VPN reroutes all of your network communication (browsers, mails, …) and is not limited to one browser. Even your WLAN will not be visible anymore as long as VPN is active (quite as if you were sitting in Japan or elsewhere).

2 Likes

This is true when running a VPN in general, though you can set a split tunnel on many (most?) VPNs, here you can choose to let certain applications access the internet normally, only work on certain applications or only work when your VPN client is active. Have set up firefox for normal browsing and chrome for faux-Japanese with PIA just this way :wink:

2 Likes

That’s interesting. I will have a look at the settings for mine (NordVPN). I downloaded a Japanese movie from Netflix USA and couldn’t cast it to my TV using my WLAN.

1 Like

I was looking at the free Tunnelbear extension for Chrome, but ended up installing the proper version (free). It has split tunnel options in the paid version (I think :sweat_smile:)

1 Like

Just looked at our book (I bought from BK). Holy sh*t. Wall of text on every page. It will probably kill me in November. Looks like I need to speed up my study of Japanese now if I like to make into new 2021.

2 Likes

I would say that both are very approachable for beginners. The manga has a lot more short conversational language which is obviously easier to read. However the casual language can sometimes be more tricky for beginners - particles get dropped, sometimes it’s not clear when one sentence stops and the next starts, and words are sometimes written a bit funny making them difficult to look up (e.g. きれー instead of きれい).

The 10分 book is written in more formal Japanese and so the sentences are very grammatically correct, and the language may be more similar to what you’ve learned so far from a textbook. Sometimes the sentences are quite long with subclauses that are confusing for a beginner. But with the help of the group you’ll rapidly improve in being able to break them down. It was really amazing the progress we made in previous books doing this, plugging away at a page a day.

I found it almost a completely different skill set reading manga to reading a “book book”. So I’d just recommend going with whichever grabs your interest more. From others experiences in the past, you might not want to read ahead on 10分 until the club starts. You’ll find it much easier going with the group alongside.

10 Likes

I’ve had issues in the past with it declining my card unless I purchase a gift card instead. So basically once I have my cart total I buy an Amazon Japan giftcard (I buy it through Amazon JP) and send it to my own email address.
This is when I use a Visa. Can’t report for other cards

ETA: First book club I’m joining! That’s near the end of my first semester of Japanese class so it will be a nice way to keep practicing during and after break (club should end by the end of my second semester if I did the math right)

3 Likes