Ahahahaha I have the same problem, I just see a page from a book and feel overwhelmed xD I really need to practice reading actual books rather then manga more lol (even LNs are already a bit overwhelming for me at this point)
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Seems I’ve sparked quite the discussion here lol. I just want to add that I’ve personally been comfortable with the difficulty of the books I’ve read here so far (first one for me was 夜カフェ) so I’m certainly not complaining. Nothing too hard such that I can’t keep up, but challenging (and interesting) enough such that I’m always learning something new.
As for the IBC, well, perhaps I’ll give it a go at some point lol.
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Right, and I think part of the reason IBC reads these “harder” books is because there really aren’t that many books that fill this space between beginner and intermediate. (I guess probably many of the kids books read by BBC could really be in that gap, but I think people in BBC got by with them as well.) And the ones that might fill the gap (to me) just aren’t interesting, and regardless of interest are probably still too long. Like you’d have to find books that are 150 pages long to read a slower Upper Beginner (or whatever) pace, and books like that don’t really exist.
It’s a tough one because I also think the gap between BBC and IBC is probably the largest.
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The recent discussion got me curious 
Btw, feel free to use the Master List of Book Clubs for reference.
How many of the books/manga in the Absolute Beginner BC have you read? (Both with the club and on your own counts)
- None yet / Currently reading my 1st one
- 1
- 2
- 3-5
- 6-10
- 11+
0 voters
How many of the books/manga in the Beginner BC have you read? (Both with the club and on your own counts)
- None yet / Currently reading my 1st one
- 1
- 2
- 3-5
- 6-10
- 11+
0 voters
How many of the books/manga in the Intermediate BC have you read? (Both with the club and on your own counts)
- None yet / Currently reading my 1st one
- 1
- 2
- 3-5
- 6-10
- 11+
0 voters
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I went ahead and counted my half-completed, dropped books as 1 total book for each category, they probably add up to that or something.
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I see the same problem. I wonder if it would make a difference to increase the max page count to 200, but then to read it in 16 weeks, it seems to be up in IBC pace anyway (if I use the current IBC book). So higher page count makes it problematic indeed.
I wonder what kind of possibilities there are. Because right now it seems that either someone needs to have the energy and time to quickly slog (that is what I assume it will feel like partly for my first book) their first IBC book. They can, of course, read slower, and nothing is stopping anyone from that, but talking more active club here since anyone in the gap between BBC and IBC could read their first book by themselves.
Right off the top of my head, I see two possibilities. The upper beginner/lower intermediate club that goes for a higher page count, say 200 (hopefully that is enough), that go 5-6 pages per week for the first month and then speeds up to maybe 10-12 pages so as not to let a book take TOO long.
The other option if that would kinda be awkward to have a whole club doing all the time, would be to specifically try to do IBC primer (single) book clubs, with either a similar reading schedule as above or that is okay with the book taking a lot longer (so staying at the lower page count or speeding up after a longer time), and these would maybe be organized once a year. (Oh gosh, I feel another book club entering my book club duties in my near future. 
)
Basically this would give people the extra push of a book club while beginning to bridge the gap to IBC. And I think in some ways, it might be enough with one full length “regular” novel to be ready for IBC (going by the read every day threads, once someone gets their first book under their belt, their next one typically goes a lot quicker as long as they don’t jump up a lot in difficulty).
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I really like the idea of an IBC Primer book club, where the picks are allowed to take longer than the regular book clubs. Looking on Natively by level, I was able to find quite a few novels/light novels that seemed like good candidates for an upper beginner/lower intermediate book club, but they tend to be about 300 pages long.
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I’d join a Lower Intermediate club! I’m reading 僕が愛したすべての君へ with the IBC right now, and even though I’m keeping at it, it does feel like a pretty big leap from BBC books. It’s the pacing more than anything. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to bridge that gap but it’s been hard. I’m just not at that level yet where I can read that many pages in a week (especially if it’s not manga), but I feel ready to move on from the beginner club. So if there was a club in between that would be super helpful!
I’m fine with it being a once-a-year thing or a regularly-scheduled club, I see the benefit to both. Leaning more towards the once-a-year IBC primer option. And I’m fine with picks taking longer than other clubs
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I don’t think reading through a single book would bridge the gap between BBC and IBC, especially if you dont enjoy the current pick. It’d at least need to be a couple to slowly get someone used to the increased difficulty, just like boiling a frog.
Also, it doesn’t have to be books, could be manga with increased reading speed, or heck, if the voting process is slimmed down, one could even read few pages long short stories. In some cases it could even be Wikipedia articles. Just anything that’s readable, isn’t made for children and increases the difficulty.
I personally have a ton of manga, that would probably be too hard for BBC (too long, no furigana, weird kanji, etc etc), but too easy for IBBC.
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I don’t know if the difficulty is different, but it looks like the schedule of that IBC book is slightly faster (17 weeks) compared to the time we did the repeat club of 魔女の宅急便 (Kiki’s Delivery Service) (21 weeks), which is a BBC book. The number of pages are similar, around 250 pages for both of them it seems like. 21 weeks is quite long for a book club, isn’t it? Was thinking it might fit what you’re looking for. And the pace can always be changed if it’s too fast or slow.
So perhaps another repeat club could be an option? 
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This was my thought as well. The difficulty difference (at in terms of # of unique or uncommon vocabulary) increases pretty significant between the childrens books in the BBC and the harder but more interesting books in the IBC, and that’s probably something that will take multiple books or harder manga to work up to.
Interesting that the next BBC pick looks similar in difficulty (same natively level, both have no furigana) to one of the easier IBC picks, ヨコハマ買い出し紀行; so it isn’t aaaaalways a huge gap. It could be that when the IBC picks a harder book, the schedules also tend to be a longer, so it could just feel like they’re always reading harder stuff.
I also have quite a bit of manga on the wishlist that would probably be too hard for BBC. Finding appropriate novels or light novels in that gap might be challenging, but there’s plenty of harder manga out there imo (including some stuff already getting offshoot clubs, like @MissDagger mentioned! but maybe having either a dedicated easier novel/light novel book club between BBC and IBC or a dedicated harder manga club w faster pace between BBC and IBC could be beneficial so that people could still nominate and vote if they aren’t interested in reading the stuff that’s popular enough to get offshoot clubs. Of course, that’s assuming someone wants to actually organize this, it would be a lot more work)
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I’d definitely sign up for a repeat Kiki club (or a repeat Mysterious Sweet Shop club)!
I don’t think just reading manga can bridge the gap though, because part of the difficulty of novels is that they tend to have a fundamentally different narration style from speaking/dialogue. So I think it would be important to do novels and/or light novels as well.
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A lot of my favorite manga are in this range. As in no furigana but not easy like 少女終末旅行, yet still too easy/short to read in IBC. Things like ぼっちざろっく, 紡ぐ乙女と大正の月, こみっくがーるず, and とんがり帽子のアトリエ.
Any thoughts on how this would work? I still struggle to see what novels / light novels are harder than BBC children’s books but either easier than IBC books or short enough that they could be read slightly slower than IBC would without taking forever. Nobody likes a book club that lasts half a year.
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For this I was meaning something in-line with what @MaraVos mentioned, where a lot of the difficulty of starting novels is that they are, well, all text! The picks wouldn’t necessarily have to be harder than the difficulty of the current books the BBC is picking, but just a dedicated group for reading stuff that is almost entirely text-based. Instead of like the BBC where it’s split between manga and childrens books, something that’s dedicated only for helping people get their first (maybe first few) experience(s) reading walls of text. It would still be hard to find good stuff for a club like that, though, you’re right. Maybe repeat clubs of stuff like kiki’s and 夜カフェ would be enough for that
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actually, there's so much fun stuff on Natively!
また、同じ夢を見ていた
ゆっくりおやすみ、樹の下で
八丈島と、猫と、大人のなつやすみ
ぜんぶ、藍色だった。
雨の日も、晴れ男
経験済みなキミと、 経験ゼロなオレが、 お付き合いする話。
泣きたい私は猫をかぶる
雨上がり、君が映す空はきっと美しい
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I’ve started to think maybe rereads of previous IBC picks but slower could be good primers. Because I agree with @MaraVos, more difficult manga won’t fill the gap. Manga is still 90+% dialog. Novels on the other hand generally has a big percentage of narrative, and narrative sentences tend to be the more complex ones.
And maybe it is just me, but I don’t consider a larger vocabulary needed as a hinder for me joining the IBC, I hadn’t even considered that at all. Because look ups are in general not that hard to do. Looking up grammar (and understanding it if it is a different concept from your native language) and complex sentences that are hard to wrap your head around (especially when it goes into intentionally vague and/or ambiguous sentences) are the real difficulty curve. And stamina/experience.
And yeah, reading those IBC books slow would probably make them take half a year, that is why I was thinking more in terms of a primer club. Like you do one at a much slower pace, get used to reading a novel, get more used to understanding narrative sentences and more complex sentences, etc. And after that, while the IBC pace might still be fast, it should feel a whole lot more doable depending on schedule, interesting, etc. etc.
I’ve read 夜カフェ and the language in that one is super easy. So it is certainly a good book if all you’ve ever read is manga and need to just get used to seeing a lot of text. But I don’t feel more ready to tackle say コンビニ人間 or any other adult-aimed novel. Because 夜カフェ was basically like reading a slice of life school manga with narrative thrown in.
So yeah, I was definitely thinking more in terms of reading books of the difficulty of IBC (perhaps one of those on the easier side), picking one of the shorter ones (there are those at 200 pages or less, even 250 seems doable) and just reading them slower. With an eye towards speeding up the pace as the readers who stick around through the first few weeks get comfortable. And maybe it takes more than one, but sometimes it is about building up that first little base of confidence and experience (and knowledge) that lets you spread your own wings.
But it seems we have like 3-4 different ideas of things we’d like:
- Just need to read a book (as opposed to a manga), to get that first experience of walls of text. A reread of a previous BBC book pick (or getting a book picked in BBC) would fill this need.
- Some want an overarching club trying to bridge the gap between BBC and IBC, but as several have noted it is hard to find short enough books to fit that gap, but there is a lot of manga that can’t fall in either club, and people would like a place for those.
- Those like me, who want help bridging the gap between very easy children’s/pre-teen’s books and the IBC level books. Which might in this case mean reading the easier IBC picks at a slower pace (or books of similar difficulty and on the shorter side).
- There might have been another idea brought up that I’m forgetting right now.
Does that seem to sum up the different ideas that have come up?
I would personally be fine with leading the third option, aka a slow read of a previous IBC pick (or another book of similar difficulty or such, doesn’t have to be a previous IBC pick); I’m already leading a club that started at the end of March and will finish in October/November or whenever it was. But I’m not interested in starting a regular such club. More like a one off primer / first step out of BBC towards IBC.
I’d probably join an overarching club that covered the space between BBC and IBC (aka option 2) if a pick I was interested in was chosen, but I currently don’t have the bandwidth to lead something like that. I already help lead an overarching club and I admire those people that are or have lead multiple overarching clubs at the same time, but unfortunately that is not me.
Maybe a poll is in order to see where the most interest is? If there are people willing to step up to lead the number 1 and 2 options, because otherwise there isn’t a point in having a poll.
10 Likes
I’ve only read a little bit of the Orange novel adaptation, but if everyone who read the manga feels the desire to re-visit it in the future, an Orange novel club could work =D
Knowing the material in advance has always helped me bridge the gap when it comes to intentionally vague/ambiguous material.
The main reason I stopped reading the novel was because we were still reading the manga, so the material was a bit too fresh for me to revisit yet.
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Based on that I actually think コンビニ人間 is the ideal choice since it’s less than 200 pages and on the easier side for an IBC novel. For me, it was only the fourth non-manga I read (after 魔女の宅急便, 時をかける少女, and キノの旅) and I felt it was doable at IBC pace. So for someone who’s maybe read 1-2 BBC children’s book, reading コンビニ人間 at a slightly slower than IBC pace should be doable I think.
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Here I am about to quote-reply @MissDagger 's whole post I think we have very similar views on this and/or are at a similar level because I agree with all of this. I’ll keep the quotes to a minimum though and just reply in general
It’s not just you, vocab lookups are easy imo. I don’t use the vocab sheets at all (except for the club I run, but that’s more because I feel obligated to fill it out, and also I use a vocab sheet for a series I read on my own but that’s turned more into a reading diary lol). Like you said, it’s grammar and complex sentences that make something more difficult for me.
I agree too with your and @MaraVos 's point about manga not being the best choice here. Same with 夜カフェ to some extent. 夜カフェ kind of reminds me of Satori Reader in difficulty, where they’re helpful for getting used to walls of text and narrative descriptions (rather than just dialogue), but they’re still very easy.
Choice 3 would be ideal imo. That way we don’t have to worry as much about it going slower. It could be treated the same as any other off-shoot club except it takes a bit longer and is specifically targeted towards those of us in that “in between” reading stage. I don’t know as much about the usual page requirement stuff though so I haven’t been keeping that in mind.
I would of course be happy with more children’s books/easy novels being picked for the Beginner’s Club. But I like Options 2 and 3 more (it’s 3 > 2 > 1 for me). Regardless of which option is picked though I’m happy because it’s still reading practice and I’ll be that much closer to higher literacy
Time to add all of these to my wishlist! And with this I’m seeing how Option 2 could work too!
If nobody else steps up I’d be happy to lead this sort of club! But I’m a bit unsure if I should offer to lead it in the first place… I don’t have experience with running such a large club (the club I run wasn’t one I started, I just took it over, and there’s only like, 3 of us).
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I would love to have a club that reads books like these! And thanks for being willing to lead! I’m intimidated about leading a big club as I’m not a very organized person (/being organized is very tiring for me), but if there’s some way that I could provide support I would be very happy to help out!
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