Yeah, half the time I ignore it and just use the 部首 lookup on Jisho for the kanji.
January is slow in general due to the holiday hangover. 
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I fell behind last week due to my dad being sick, and I’m struggling to catch up at the moment. I’m about half way through Chapter 3 right now so I’m less behind than I was last Saturday and should hopefully be back on track by the start of the next chapter.
I agree the tiny Furigana slows me down a lot, especially as some of the kanji is hard to see too.
I’m trying to fill in some of the gaps in the vocab list as I’m going, but I’m a bit worried about messing something up since I’m one of the weaker readers!
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In that case maybe we would’ve been better off scheduling a week off, or making week 5 a two-week ‘week’.
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I think unfortunately given that it’s quite dense and each week has quite a lot to read (if you are as slow as me at least) then once you fall behind then it can be quite a hill to climb back up! I’ve been sick for the last week so also will be trying to catch up for next week but given I’m still getting headaches when trying to read for longer than half an hour that might not happen.
If there’s enough others that have fallen behind then don’t know if it might still be an option to have a pause or slower catch up week as you suggested? If most people are doing okay though then I’m sure we will catch up!
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I’ve personally been drowning in work and family commitments this month, so I’ve fallen behind and am just starting the Chapter 3/Week 4 reading this week. This is the first week I’ve noticed that the vocabulary list is not too populated, so I’ll actively be adding to it. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up by the end of next week! 
there will probably be a bigger gap between week 3 and 4 than 4 and 5 (69 -> 34 -> 30 -> 19 -> 9(but it’s the first day so i expect it to go up).
But my point was that week 4 wasn’t a great week. It seems we lost a lot of people. After a whole week of reading we only had 9 posts. The vocab list is only just being finished off. We can plough forward into week 5, but at this rate not a whole lot of people will be able to post anything in the week 5 thread during week 5.
Another thing I don’t quite understand is this… it says the starting date for Week 5 (and chapter 4) is Jan 16, but for some reason there is also a thread for chapter 5?
The text that says ‘chapter 4’ actually links to a discussion thread called ‘week 4’, in which we read chapter 3.
I am getting pretty confused right now about what I’m supposed to be reading.
i made a mistake a few weeks back and put the link to chapter 3 twice in the table. and the error propagated. it’s fixed now sorry!
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it’s probably worth noting that the there is a significant majority who attend the read aloud. many questions are asked there! i realize that it’s unfair to people who can’t attend but you can’t just ignore that there are ~10 people in the read aloud session every week for 3 hours reading the chapter.
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That’s a good point. I guess the read aloud sessions ‘cannibalise’ a lot of the discussion. If you feel certain that there is no need for a break, it’s up to you as book club leader to make that call.
I’ve also definitely fallen behind quite a bit.
I love Haikyuu, but not gonna lie, the digital version is kind of a pain in the ass to read sometimes with those tiny fonts and the bad quality. That can be a little demotivating. 
But mostly I also just didn’t have much time lately.
I definitely still wanna read it though, I just need to catch up first (Though I already know the anime, so maybe I could just skip ahead and read the bits I’ve skipped later…).
If it’s similar for a lot of people and you guys think it would help I also wouldn’t mind an extra week or something so maybe more people can catch up.
i had not considered that since the next book club has selected it’s start date.
@Radish8 can you read the few post me and @Phryne made today and say what you think? is there anything you think we should do?
it’s probably worth noting that the there is a significant majority who attend the read aloud. many questions are asked there!
That’s good to know actually. I’m not really interested in the whole reading aloud thing but now I feel like I’m missing out, lol.
Do you guys ask and answer those questions out loud in the voice chat or (written down) via the chat?
I’m wondering if it’s somehow possible to easily collect the answers and make them available to everyone else in the thread…
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I think they ran into this issue with the Kiki club too (long after I had already bitten the dust lol). Maybe a poll could elucidate the matter, like it did there. The problem is that it is unclear to what extent there is little discussion because people have dropped off, and to what extent it’s because there is discussion, it’s just not available here.
I will say, for me personally, this does make me think twice about joining a book club with a Discord in the future. If most of the discussion is taking place elsewhere, I might as well be reading on my own lol
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Hi, I’ve taken part in all of the previous readalongs - they are really good and I would say add a lot to the book club experience for me but I wouldn’t necessarily say that they are replacing the discussion on the forum in any real way (although I would agree that the fact that folks are showing up to the readalong does show that there is still engagement)
In the readalongs we each read a character and then we take another run through the chapter and translate for that same character. In the translation section there is sometimes a bit of grammar chat/discussion if someone is stuck on a bit or needs some help - but I can’t really think of a practical way to record that discussion that wouldn’t be a lot of extra effort for those taking part.
What I have thought the discussion on the forums is good/better for is going in depth into a point and having more detailed discussion. You could really see that in the first few weeks but I agree it’s trailed off somewhat.
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That’s definitely a frustration I’ve had with the discord sessions - several times now I’ve had experiences where I or somebody else has asked a question, and it’s mentioned that “oh, someone asked that in the reading session a few days ago”, and it feels like it really takes away from the forum conversation both at the time and in terms of creating a useful resource for future readers.
I’m sure it only feels like the odd question here and there to those taking part, but when the thread is limping along it’s a bit disheartening. It’s not so bad if the thread is really lively anyway.
I can absolutely see the appeal and added benefit of the reading sessions though. I don’t know how you’re running them in this club, but I imagine it would work a lot better if the reading sessions ran substantially lagging the forum threads. So read the week 2 passage only once you’re into the week 3 period, etc. That way - although questions are of course always welcome - the reading session hopefully becomes more about the reading experience and less a time to save your questions for.
In terms of engagement, are people not voting in the weekly polls? That should at least tell you whether people are still reading along.
@yukinet I’m totally happy to shift the start dates by a week if necessary at this point - we’re still a way from starting - but it would be good to check in with people first over whether they’re still reading along and could use a bit of a breather to catch up, or whether it wouldn’t make much difference. Sorry if that’s already happened and I just didn’t see
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AFAIR this has never happened in the club
this is what we do, we have a one week lag.
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with those point in mind. if there is a SIGNIFICANT majority who want a break, we will, otherwise we’ll continue as planned.
should we make this weeks chapter two week long?
- yes
- no
0 voters