Let's read Harry Potter from September 1st!

Marifly · March 1, 2021, 7:46am

The school year at Hogwarts starts on September 1st. Let’s start the school year by reading ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石 (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone)!

CDJapan has the physical book, and Kobo has the eBook. Honto seems to have it too. Amazon Japan has both the pysical book and the eBook. US Amazon also has both the physical book and the eBook.

We’ll read 1 chapter per 2 weeks, and the schedule looks like this:

Chapter 1: September 1-13 (1 day shorter since I want us to start on September 1!)
Chapter 2: September 14-27
Chapter 3: September 28 - October 11
Chapter 4: October 12-25
Chapter 5: October 26 - November 8
Chapter 6: November 9-22
Chapter 7: November 23 - December 6
Chapter 8: December 7-20

CHRISTMAS BREAK

Chapter 9: January 4-17
Chapter 10: January 18-31
Chapter 11: February 1-14
Chapter 12: February 15-28
Chapter 13: March 1-14
Chapter 14: March 15-28
Chapter 15: March 29 - April 11
Chapter 16: April 12-25
Chapter 17: April 26 - May 9

After May 9 there are about 17 weeks until September 1st 2021, so we can do a re-read before starting Volume 2 next year!

I have never organized a book club before, but I really want to read Harry Potter! Who wants to join me?

Kumirei · July 13, 2020, 11:35am

Down.

Look at these covers!

Saida · July 13, 2020, 11:37am

Hey, I’m just trying to finish reading this book by the end of the month

I think I’ll read along with your thread, but I’ll be focussing on my own Murakami bookclub!

You can get an e-book copy from Pottermore.

Marifly · July 13, 2020, 11:42am

The e-book is also available from Amazon. I’ll put the links in the first post later.

Belthazar · July 13, 2020, 11:47am

Intriguing. Might be interesting to read something that was translated into Japanese rather than out of it. And I should be just about free of my other entanglements by September, if all goes well.

I’ve heard it’s challenging, though.

kmurgs · July 13, 2020, 11:50am

I have a first edition copy of Philsopher’s Stone in Japanese, it’s such a prized possession. I’ve also got the full collection of the carry-sized books (bunkoban???), the audio version, and the Kindle version. So yes, I am in.

I’m nowhere near the right level in terms of grammar and vocab, but I’m up for the challenge and I certainly know the material well enough to bumble through!

Marifly · July 13, 2020, 11:55am

Yes, me too. But since I can read the original in English along with the Japanese I think it will be ok.

That’s exactly my thought too!

Radish8 · July 13, 2020, 12:09pm

That’s gonna be a looooong book club!

IgorTheGreat · July 13, 2020, 12:15pm

Aaah! I so want to do this! But I feel like my Japanese skills are just too low at the moment D:

Marifly · July 13, 2020, 12:42pm

I know, but I think it’s honestly a little above our level for many of us. Therefore 2 weeks per chapter could be good. It will also be easier to catch up if someone falls behind.

Phryne · July 13, 2020, 1:27pm

On the one hand I am super hyped, on the other hand I don’t think I can manage without a vocab list. I believe it has no furigana, right?

Saida · July 13, 2020, 1:29pm

If you know the story, it’s a lot easier! I feel like it was translated almost sentence by sentence, so you could even do a side by side comparison! (It’s been a while since I read the original, though.)

IgorTheGreat · July 13, 2020, 1:31pm

I read the entire series for the first time in December! Already had seen the movies a few times.

I might just buy the first book (or two books in this case) for a motivator… plus the covers really are great

Omun · July 13, 2020, 1:39pm

floflo.moe has the Harry Potter 1 word list available for free.

You can either generate the full list and scroll along as you read (it will of course only display a new word once), and / or you can SRS words of a chosen frequency beforehand or during reading.

So for example, you can spend the next month and a half SRSing the words that appear more than 5ish times in the book.

It’s also on the new version of floflo, koohi.cafe, but be warned that koohi didn’t get around to implementing password recovery. So record your log-in stuff well if you want to use that one. And due to personal reasons of the creator, neither websites are currently being actively supported. Just so anyone interested knows what they’re getting into.

I tried to read HP1 when I was early on in my Japanese journey. It was far too hard for me, and just such a chore to get through that I dropped it very fast. I read the first two chapters recently and now it’s not really a problem grammar-wise, but I still bump into quite some vocab I don’t actively know. But my extensive knowledge of the original means I can infer a lot of words from memory.

Marifly · July 13, 2020, 2:08pm

If you read it on Kindle, it’s easy to look up words. There’s also an Anki deck I think, plus the resources already mentioned.

I could make a vocab list, but I can’t fill it in on my own…

Phryne · July 13, 2020, 2:23pm

Duh doy! This never occurred to me, but it’s a great idea! I have a Kobo, I will investigate if that’ll work.

Saida · July 13, 2020, 2:31pm

My kobo dictionary doesn’t sit well with me: I find it hard to select the words I want to look up. I think the screen reacts too slow to my touches.

There is a bunch of furigana, though.

slither · July 13, 2020, 2:38pm

Wow! This is very coincidental. I just started reading it two weeks ago. So I’ll probably join in for the club when it starts and reread.

The kindle edition has pretty generous furigana.

Saida · July 13, 2020, 3:22pm

(Are you Dutch?)

There is furigana, but not on every kanji. On certain words it will only be shown once every couple chapters.

conan · July 13, 2020, 3:24pm

I’m reading it right now. There is furigiana on most of the kanji. Any that don’t have it are either super basic kanji, or they occasionally omit furigana on kanji they’ve shown it on recently to help you remember them.