Intermediate Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: セーラー服と機関銃

Yeah you’re totally right, I have to agree with you. I didn’t realize that at first.

you raise a good point…
but i suppose if people want to read kiki’s they may want to join the beginners club to do so?
i’m not really sure of the level of the book, because i haven’t tried to read it, but if some of the intermediate people went to the beginners club they may be able to help out in the difficult sections.

That’s what I was thinking at first, but you know just because we didn’t get our way here, to go another club and influence the vote for 1 book isn’t fair. If we did that then we’d have have two chances, and the beginners with there one chance, could have their voices taken from them entirely. In a way it would create two intermediate clubs.

I do believe they have more active members than us, so I don’t think this would happen. I think it’s fine if someone wants to join both, but the most considerate thing for someone at an intermediate level to do would be to let them choose their book on their own, and if you happen to like the book join in.

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fair play.

I agree. I may join if they choose Kiki, but I didn’t vote for the reasons above.

I do think it would be okay for people from here to do @Abstormal’s second poll about ‘would you join if we chose X?’ - if you’re sure you would join.

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I was thinking same as the other, if they really wanted to do that book then they would be a great help for us who are at a lower state but really want to try it. And it was the leading vote for a long while, and last I checked only one vote shy, so looked like it actually would win (and still can) by our own account =)

It is one of three books that we are considering as possible choices for books, as a step up from manga (since it was not meant to be a manga club) as we feel like going even lower might be harder (as materials for even younger might be without kanji and other reasons given)

If people voted, it would be cause they wanted to join and be a part of it. Anyone is welcome to be part of both (I am too). And if it gets chosen on the basic the speed will be a completely different from if it got chosen here.
If you think it’s too hard for us and have other suggestion that might be better we would love to hear it =)
Personally I want to do the Scary Stories series, they feel easier. It was part of the vote but not very popular (while Kiki was)

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I understand the logic of having higher level readers to participate. But shouldn’t the beginner book club members choose books they feel are appropriate for them? I’d be pretty pissed if 30 beginner book club members came in and voted for a book that appeared in our poll but was rejected by the majority of their group. I feel that the groups were separated for the purpose of making sure people who wanted to practice their reading had a opportunity where they were not left behind.

Granted the numbers of the intermediate club pales in comparison to the beginner book club, the votes of 5-8 individuals to tilt the decision of a close poll one way or another is not fair for those who only have the beginner book club to participate in.

EDIT: I also ready the discussion about a possible Manga club and was puzzled why more people weren’t behind the idea. They definitely should be separate if people prefer that medium. However that was one of the original arguments that was brought up when the beginner book club was introduced at the start of choosing Autumn Prison. Finding beginner level books can be a bit of a challenge, especially when guidelines of what “beginner” actually means.

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Thanks for the heads up @Iwasneverhere, but since the N2 is around the corner, i will be busy studying kanji, the books i bought are somehow a desperate last try to not fail the test completely OTL.
I will probaly join in the third round after all <D.

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I do see your point though =)
If it does win we will be happily welcome anyone who wanted it here, just make sure it doesn’t affect participation here as we don’t want to steal from the precious few (I am a mostly silent reader of the current book and love every comment made and need it to be able to hang on =P )
And be aware that our speed will be a much slower one, and might talk a lot about grammar points.

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I don’t plan to join though, if there isn’t a digital version (ebookJapan/Kindle).

What the polls have shown is that we would totally divide ourselves into 2 different groups. I think that wouldn’t be good for either side. I don’t know the level of difficulty from the so called “beginner books”, but I’m willing to try. If it fails, then the whole group will know what happened and work together to fix the problem.

There is dw

I understand the concern. I didn’t like the idea of the original book club splitting because I was afraid that only those who participated in NO. 6 would be the only ones left. (Not that there’s anything wrong with a small group). But in the end, both groups flourished separately. I’m sure there will be at least a few intermediate level participants floating around both groups if the beginner book club splits into a manga club and a book club. There are plenty of users who already read manga on a regular basis where doing something like this would pique their interest because they weren’t following the book club threads. I think it’s best to take something like that into consideration rather than to have lack of participation due to the selection being a book or a manga.

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As I mentioned in the beginner thread, if one of the picks is something I’d like to read, I’d probably read along to and participate in the thread. However I don’t think it’s right for me to dictate what the beginner club reads or how fast it should be read, because the members’ who are relying on that club shouldn’t have to be affected by what’s more comfortable for me or people who are just dropping by for a specific selection.

I’m sure it’ll turn out fine, though!

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So I updated the reading timeline for Autumn Prison, because soon we are headed into the next book. How’s the pace we going at? Is it suitable? Too fast? Too slow?

Secondarily, during the third book, we have to deal with how to handle discussion during the holiday season; particularly the New Year’s holiday. What do you think we should do? Continue as usual? Take a break and reconvene after certain holidays? (And when answering, please be realistic; there’s nothing worse than having people committing to something only to bail out at the last minute. If you know that you’re usually busy for on certain holidays, then it’s probably best to opt out from the start.)

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I think the pace is good for me, but I wont be able to participate during the holidays.

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I like the pace, I think it could be a little faster, but its honestly fine. Because I’m such a slacker, and I keep getting busy, I keep falling behind but I can easily dedicate a day to catching back up. It’s why I’m so lax with it, but if you guys want to go faster I’ll def take it more seriously.

It’s hard to say if I’ll be busy or not as of right now. Sometimes my family bothers me and sometimes they don’t but, other than that I should be fine. I think I should be at least able to keep up with book because I’ll be off from school.

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Around New Years is one of the few times when I am guarenteed to have enough consecutive time off to travel. So I will probably not be around then. That being said though I am barely keeping up as is so I’m ok if people just want to continue on.

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This is a good point. Personally, I should be fine keeping up with the reading, however, I’m unlikely to be doing anything beyond that (ie posting).

In general for the pace, I like it. It’s easy to catch up if you get behind eg over holidays. With that in mind, I think maybe we don’t need to create a break. If there are a couple of weeks where the forum is not as active as usual, that’s fine. People can discuss whatever they did read after the new year and the pace should allow anyone who won’t have much time to catch up after the holidays (or get ahead before them) without too much stress.

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The reason I proposed the suspension of activity because there are people currently just keeping up with the reading and then having holiday festivities thrown into the mix, might push them further behind. This can be frustrating especially when some individuals are relying on the conversations on the forum to help them through making sense of the reading. If many individuals aren’t participating, then why would we breeze past two weeks of material without any discussion. It would make more sense to stop and restart when people have more availability. For those who aren’t really struggling with the reading, it’s not going to detract too much, but those who are it could probably be the difference between continuing or quitting if they get 20+ pages behind.

I personally don’t mind what we do as that I’ll be off and since I’m living abroad, I don’t have any engagements holding me back from reading. Personally, my goal is to increase participation on the forum and reduce loss from attrition, if possible.

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