what was your first book? 
Done with the first chapter. There was a lot of hiragana but it’s to be expected with a children book.
It looks interesting so far, I like the world building about witches losing their magic over time and the black cats they grow up with.
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クマくま熊ベーア. actually I am only 50% in, but the story is so boring… I also tried Yotsuba before but Manga are difficult with Migaku
wait, do the individual witches lose power or just as a whole? I remember one sentence like that, but did they explain the reasoning?
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This is a bit of a spoiler for others who haven’t read the chapter yet.
response
I would say as a whole. In the past witches were more powerful and had many different magic skills but modern witches only have 2 magic skills. That’s why Kiki’s lack of aptitude for potion brewing is lamented because she’d know (and could teach) only 1 skill.
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I’ve read some chapters of this book before but dropped it because I had other things come up. This is the perfect opportunity to pick it up again.
I use ttsu reader and made my setup so I can save the new worlds to Anki with one click through Yomitan. Also got the english version which I’ll use only as a backup in case I get so lost that I have no idea what’s going on.
As I recall from my first reading attempt this book uses a lot of hiragana which results in more confusion imo.
Also wishing Happy New Year to everyone 
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I think it was meant in general. But there was a part that said that Kiki only knew two magics, making medicine and flying, and that she sucked at medicine which was an example of how magics were lost.
Were there any particular sentences that threw you off? If so, feel free to share here and we can break them down together.
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thank you, I just glaze over stuff I semi understand
It took me 30 minutes to read chapter 1 
but we did it.
No questions yet but I was briefly very confused by the term 鼻の頭 to refer to the tip of the nose… like what do you mean ur noses head… everyone’s nose is attached to their head…
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Actually yes small question- I was confused about the part talking about a nose pimple or a friend’s dress. Did it mean when she’s flying, her attention gets caught by that random kind of thing? I wanna know how Kiki can see someone’s nose pimple from the air oh wait now im thinking about it probably meant shes like thinking about those things and getting distracted rather…
Yes, your understanding about her getting distracted by random things is correct!
たとえば、鼻のわきによく出る大きなにきびのこととか、友だちのたんじょう日に着るドレスのこととか。
Looking at the Japanese, the use of たとえば and とか are indicating that these are just a few examples of things that she gets distracted by.
ただ、ちょっぴりおとなになりかけでしたから、飛んでいるといろいろなことに気をひかれてしまうのでした。
In the previous sentence, it mentions that as she got older (ちょっぴりおとなになりかけでした), she started to get distracted by various things. The specific examples given are pimples and what dress to wear to a friend’s birthday, which makes sense when you realize that she is starting to enter puberty.
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I see! Thank you!
Kiki is very relatable but thank God she doesn’t drive a car LMAo
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Happy New Year All!
How did everyone find the first chapter?
For week 2, I was thinking we would push ourselves a little bit and read the entirety of chapter 2. In the Fukuinkan version, this ends up being around 13 pages. However, the majority of this chapter is shorter pieces of dialogue, so I think it should be doable. If you’d like to confirm start/end sentences, please reference the Pace section at the top of this post.
For those wanting to double check their comprehension after reading this chapter, please feel free to read over the summary below:
Week 2: Chapter 2 Summary (SPOILERS)
Kiki's parents go out to run some errands, leaving her and Jiji alone. Sitting in the garden, Kiki says to herself that they should probably leave soon. Jiji questions whether Kiki has changed her mind about wanting to be a witch, to which Kiki firmly rebuffs him. She then starts to reminisce about the thrill of riding her first broomstick, which moves us to the next scene...Up until she was 10 years old, Kiki was raised more or less as a normal girl. Although she knew her mother was a witch and that she would need to decide whether she also wanted to be a witch, she hadn’t really thought that hard about it. However, shortly after turning 10, a comment made by her friend about becoming a hairdresser like her mother prompted Kiki to suddenly start thinking about following in her mother’s footsteps. Although she had some notion that her mum wanted her to become a witch, Kiki was determined to decide her own future based on what she liked.
Around this time, her mum invited Kiki to try flying (a broomstick). Knowing in part that this was an attempt by her mum to entice Kiki to follow in her footsteps, she reluctantly agreed. But to her surprise, she ended up immediately loving it.
The chapter then moves back to the present, with Kiki and Jiji still in the garden. Since Kiki’s mum is away, she invites Jiji to look at “something” that she is keeping secret from her. Hidden in the space between the storeroom and the fence, we discover that Kiki has secretly been crafting a new broom. The reason given for this is because, when she sets out on her journey, Kiki wants everything to be new, as a sort of fresh start. After bantering a bit more with Jiji, Kiki decides that they’ll set out on the night of the next full moon, which is in only five days!
Jumping ahead to later that day, Kiki tells her parents that she’s decided on a departure date. Her mother panics, as five days is not enough time to prepare. Kiki and her dad call her out on this, as she had previously been the one pressuring Kiki to hurry up and pick a date. Kiki reveals that she has done some of her own preparation and fetches the broom from its hiding place. Her mother tells her that even though the new broom is beautiful, she can’t use it. Since Kiki can only do one type of magic (flying), it’s all the more important that she has a broom she can rely on. She urges Kiki to use her broom instead, which Kiki is frustrated by, as her mum’s broom is stained and clunky.
Kiki eventually agrees to use her mum’s broom, and instead tries to convince her mum to buy her a new flower patterned dress for her to wear. Her mother also rejects this, saying it’s tradition for witches to wear black. However, she does agree to make her a new black dress for the occasion. Already resigned, Kiki asks for one more thing, a red radio so she can listen to music while flying. Asking this time from her father, he laughingly agrees.
The chapter ends with Kiki’s mum wishing her a good night and then softly drying a tear from her eye with the hem of her apron.
頑張って to everyone this week!
(Also, sharing a picture I took this morning while reading through this week’s chapter. I may or may not have bought some Kiki’s Delivery Service coasters to act as motivation during reading).
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In the first chapter they have this expression
“一つでも多く” - as many as possible
it appears a couple times in this sentence (on page 10 in my copy)
“一つでも多くの町や村に、そして一人でも多くの人に、魔女がまだちゃんといることを知ってもらうためには、いい方法でもあったのです”
I thought it was an interesting expression, and it’s not in bunpro (actually 一人でも多く is in bunpro). I didn’t understand it immediately, but once I translated, the meaning does make sense, 一つでも meaning even one and 多く meaning more quantity.
Looking forward to reading chapter 2!
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Finished up chapter 2, I think it was a good call to encourage us to read that as Bookwalker seems to think it equaled out to another 5% of the book. Still enjoying it so far, I like the chemistry we’re seeing between Kiki and Jiji. There’s certainly a sense that the real story will begin now too.
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Day 2 of deskwarming at my school and day 2 of forgetting to bring the book with me to work pain
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If you’re allowed to look at your phone while at work, bookwalker has a preview of the book that goes to the halfway point of chapter 3.
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… At last, my copy arrived yesterday 
It’s way later than expected but it is what it is. I’ve got nothing big planned for the upcoming weekend so I’ll do my best to catch up. It’s also the furigina-less version but I’m not that worried about it, I’ve always been way ahead on kanji compared to my grammar/vocab knowledge so it’s time to put that to good use !
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Finished week 2. Those adverbs (I guess) like とたんに, たまに, やがて etc. at the beginning of the sentences have always been my most hated enemies. For some reason my brain can’t remember them. After reading the second chapter I said enough is enough and I started collecting them to a notebook where I will read them every day from now on. If there are good resources with mnemonics for these things please tell me.
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