Aaah, thank you! 
It’s funny to think back on then vs now. Looks like you’re nearly there too!
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Out of curiosity, when did you start?
Around December 2017, I think - I got to level 40 in 2018, had an… unexpectedly long break in 2019 (only about three months where I stopped reviews as well as lessons though) and then worked through the last 20 levels this past year. I got to 55 in June and then took a break from lessons for a while before the final bit.
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I have a question. Until now, I wasn’t interested in this, because it didn’t seem like my type of story, but in Tofugu’s article I noticed a mention about Aomori dialect, which is apparently being explained in-universe. And I want this baby level introduction to Tōhoku dialect.
So, my question is, how large a part of the story is this? Idk, one new expression per chapter on average, less, more?
@NicoleIsEnough
The manga doesn’t lean too heavily into dialect.
There’s an occasional (rare) scene with an older character speaking with an accent so thick that the main character who moved to the area can’t understand what’s being said, and one of her local-to-the-area cousins has to translate for her. (In these scenes, it’s never baby level, even after getting a translation to Tokyo dialect.)
There may be common minor dialect bits that I’ve gotten used to to the point that I don’t even notice them, but that’d be entry-level dialect. I wouldn’t recommend the series it for the sole purpose of the dialect.
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Fully agree with what ChristopherFritz said. Over the course of the 9 volumes, I remember like maybe 4 or so distinct scenes where people from the area (her uncle (twice at least), the guy in the apple orchard, the shopkeeper - did I miss any scenes?) were speaking to her in Tohoku dialect, but it’s mostly totally unintelligible to me (and to her as well btw). Maybe there are other light bits strewn into the language of friends and classmates, but at least I didn’t recognize it as specifically being Tohoku dialect but it rather felt like normal casual speech. I’m probably just too ignorant 
What I found much better in terms of understanding how the dialect works and what it does to standard Japanese was a beginner book club pick called “The mysterious town behind the mist”, chapter 1. That was only about the sound shifts, though, and not about dialect-specific words. The fun thing was, I could read this “aloud” in my head and was able to “reverse-engineer” the sound-shifts because I had enough reading experience and kinda knew what they were going to say and how they would phrase it. I would rather recommend that book (it’s a book, not a manga) if you want to get some exposure, but it doesn’t go very deep either on the dialect, it’s more something to add some flavour.
Have you tried to find a dedicated youtube channel for Tohoku-ben or something?
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Oops, I may have used “baby level” too freely, I meant is as “introductory level”.
Anyway, awww, that’s too bad 
I really really liked the idea of new phrases being explained inside the plot, and not requiring outside checking.
I saw mentions that there are some language shenanigans in this one, but as I’ve just said, I really wanted this gimmick with a character explaining what’s being said. 
Oh no, not for me. First of all, I’m awful with auditory learning, podcasts and audiobooks, even in my native tongue, are pure suffering for me.
I sometimes grit my teeth if a channel is really interesting, but right now, I was looking for a pleasant solution
And secondly, I’m learning best when there is some plot included. 
Anyway, I’m disappointed, but it’s better to learn this before purchase and/or getting my hopes up, so thanks to you both for your answers! 
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This actually only happens in one chapter, sadly. (And, to disappoint you further: it’s an explanation on how to prune apple tree blossoms, so I guess it’s nothing like you imagined.) If you’re interested, I could find out which one it was, and you could read that on its own. The manga being slice-of-life, I don’t think there would be anything you don’t understand straight away (or could be explained in three sentences, I guess).
Ok, gotcha 
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well I thought it was an interesting…
also it happens more than once…of the top of my head there’s also the converstion about setting up a field for makoto to grow plants in
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Yes, I remember the scene with her uncle, but is there somebody translating? That part totally slipped my mind. Thanks for the reminder!
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Chinatsu handles the translation for that one.
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Nope, it’s okay, but thanks for the offer. ^^"
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I just got this from box of manga so I will probably start checking out bits of this thread though I only have volumes 1 and 2. It was interesting to me that the title was not in katakana
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It’s still a little early yet, but how’re we looking on digital vs physical?
- I plan to buy digital.
- I plan to buy physical and have it shipped to me.
- I plan to buy physical in person.
0 voters
(I’m totally not asking for a selfish reason such as planning my spring reading schedule for other manga, and wondering if we’ll have a delay after release for physical orders to ship before reading the next volume.)
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I think it’s safe to assume that we will indeed have a delay after release because there is usually always someone who buys physical (and so I think we simply wait out of courtesy and for the „just in case“ case).
E.g. we just started Shimeji vol.2, around 5 weeks after it was released.
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It’s me, I’m the one who buys physical
From the look of the poll right now, I might be the only one
I usually order from Amazon Japan, though, so I can usually get it pretty fast. My last order from there came in like 3 or 4 days. If that helps anyone for planning purposes. Not to say that the entire group needs to wait on my account
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Ah, don’t worry about us waiting! The more we wait before reading, the shorter we have to wait until vol. 10 comes out
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you’re not the only one… no batteries or internet required!!
There is something to be said about a physical book! and 100 years from now you can still read it…no guarantees that the e-content will still be around in a useable format… 5 years sure…10 years probably … 20 maybe…30-40…hmm… already seeing this problem with older file formats (work related stuff) that cannot be opened from 30 years ago backwards compatibility is often lost the older it is…all the young folks haven’t had the joy of experiencing this yet
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