I just found this series while looking for something easy to read, and I thought we could make an informal book club out of it. No scheduling, just a thread to talk about the series.
What I like about it is that it has easy languages and short chapters, about 4-5 pages each. That makes it possible for me to read a chapter in one sitting. For me that feels less intimidating than a chapter of 20 pages or more. The setting is slice of life / school so the vocab is not that bad either. All in all I think it’s a good series for those who want to start reading Japanese.
Who has read this series, and who wants to try it now?
It looks like I should be able to read about half of the kanji at level 20, and that feels about right. There are some furigana too, and the rest I can look up on Kindle.
How did it go for you? I have it in paper, so I will eventually read it, but I’m interested to know whether it was hard or not, and have you had any learning materials prepared for this book?
Didn’t know this thread existed but since it does… I’ll link to my other post (Probably belongs here anyway)…
Did chapter 2 but didn’t do a breakdown at that detail…so didn’t share it.
In any case… started chapter 3 and ran into an interesting sentence… kind of wondering if @ChristopherFritz our resident book club promoter/detailed explanation dude… might be able to shed some light (yes I noticed you are promoting ABBC in quite a few places) haha
Anyway this isn’t manga so no frames to share, just a wall of text and the sentence is:
部室には、いつものように皆の姿があった
Not gonna bother hiding anything cuz…this isn’t a spoiler really and don’t think anyone is actively paying attention to GJBu…
That sentence breaks down to:
部室には = In the club room,
いつものように = like always,
皆の姿が = everyone’s appearance/form
あった = there was
Natural English would become:
In the clubroom, like always, everyone was there.
Since that’s essentially what’s being said…what the difference in Japanese if we say:
部室には、いつものように皆の姿があった
部室には、いつものように皆がいった (changes from ある to いる）
same English meaning essentially (or not??) Imagine this is a subtle difference in meaning that cannot be conveyed in English…thoughts people smarter than me (which is almost everyone )
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Been doing more digging…maybe the primary sentence better conveys “there was the sight of everyone” or “there was the presence of everyone”? Guessing that’s probably a better way to read it…
Which would make “部室には、いつものように皆の姿があった”
In the club room, like always, three was the presence of everyone.
and “部室には、いつものように皆がいった”
In the club room, like always, there was everyone.
Both mean the same but the first one feels more literary and reads ‘nicer’ if I’m correct…?
I’m probably too much of a manga reader to comment on something a bit more literary, but I feel like the difference between these two is on whether you’re specifically putting focus on the people being there (皆がいった) versus simply the figures of people being there (皆の姿があった). I know, that much was probably too obvious…
Maybe it’s more indirect, perhaps disconnected, disinterested? But I could be way off, and it could be that that’s not the feel of the narration at all.
it seems like it now but if it was obvious wouldn’t have spent as much time on figuring it out as I did…for some reason it wasn’t obvious when I first read it…not until I figured out (presence) made more sense overall.
)