魔女の宅急便 Book Club - December 2025

thank you so much! :smiley: I now have the correct version and will start reading again. It makes me happy to see some N2 grammar in action, although I am very far from outputting on that level. I love bunpro too much to ever stop adding new things^^And it does come in clutch for immersion.

2 Likes

Finished chapter two ! There were a few things I didn’t get based on the summary but at least it was a faster read than chapter 1… both because of the heavy dialogue and my starting to learn how to let go and accept I can’t understand everything. Manga aside this is my first real book so I guess it’s a natural thing to struggle with at first.

I’m still lagging a bit behind due to starting a week later, hopefully I’ll catch up soon :crossed_fingers:

3 Likes

I’m behind too, still haven’t done chapter 2. I’ve put Japanese into maintenance mode for a bit cause I wanna learn Spanish but I’m still planning on doing my best to keep up with the book.

1 Like

I am also still on chapter 2. But catching up :slight_smile: After I understood what ほうき meant it suddenly became more clear. I do have to translate quite a few sentences, but I don’t have the patience to do that with every sentence.

3 Likes

How many pages (roughly, I appreciate) is Chapter 3 in general? I might just push on and read the whole chapter if it’s not ridiculous…

@Reporterdem

It’s quite long compared to the other chapters, 39 pages in my version.

Was there anything in particular that you remember missing when comparing with the summary? I can try to point to where it happened in the reading, if that’s helpful.

1 Like

Ah that sounds like a bit too much then :sweat_smile: Thanks for checking!

Thanks a lot for the offer :green_heart:
There were a few details it’s also possible I just forgot about, from reading this chapter in multiple sessions (like the parents going shopping or Kiki’s friend wanting to be an hairdresser) but the main thing was the new broom.

Summary

The part that confused me is our first introduction to Kiki’s mystery broom. I understood that it was a secret broom and some of the talk around it, however I didn’t get whom the secret was kept from until we got to the discussion with the parents. My first assumption was that Kiki found the new broom her parents were planning to gift her or something. It wasn’t until she presented said broom to her parents and her mom went “you can’t use that” that I understood it was the other way around :sweat_smile:

Finished the reading for the week. I admit this beginning of chapter 3 was not the easiest for me. All the exposition came through expressions that were hard for me to follow.
Had to reread a few times to finally get all of it :smiley:
Hoping the next bit of chapter 3 will be a bit easier :smiley:

2 Likes

Understandable! In terms of the new broom, there’s a few key sentences I’ll call out below that may make the context more clear.

Summary 「ねえ、ジジ、あれを見てみようか、ちょっとだけ。かあさんいないから」 Translation: "Hey, Jiji, let's go look at that/it for a bit. Since mum isn't here." This is the first reference to the broom and who it's being kept secret from, although at this point we don't specifically know what Kiki is talking about since she just refers to it as あれ or why it's being kept a secret.

Jiji responds by asking, 「どうして、コキリさんに秘密にするのさ」
Translation: “Why are you keeping it a secret from Kokiri?”
This sentence makes it even more clear that Kiki is specifically keeping something secret from her mum (Kokiri).

Kiki replies with, 「だってさ、かあさんはひとり立ちのことになると、大げさにさわぐんですもの。それになんでも口をはさみたがるでしょ…」
Translation: “Because, whenever coming-of-age comes up she makes such a big fuss out of it. And she always has to put in her two cents/make a comment…” From this, we now know why Kiki does not want to tell her mum about whatever secret she’s keeping. (At this point, we still don’t know she’s talking about a new broom.)

The next part if a bit more tricky and involves picking up on more subtle clues. Referring to the new broom, Jiji makes two specific remarks, 「…でも、あれはたっぷりお日さまにあてなくちゃいけにんだよ」and 「…また抱いてねたりしたら、かびがはえちゃうよ」
Translations: “But, make sure it gets lots of sunlight” and “if you (hug and) sleep with it, it’ll get moldy again.” Again, we still don’t know what they’re talking about at this point, but we do know it’s something Kiki has been looking after that needs sunlight and has the ability to go moldy.

A few sentences later, the chapter reads: …細長いほうきが一本、ぶらさがっています and seeing it, Kiki says, 「あんなきれいになったわ。もうだいじょうぶね」 and Jiji responds with, 「こんどは、うまくいったらしいね」
Translation: “A long, thin broom was hanging”, “It’s become so beautiful. It should be okay now, right?”, and “It looks like it went well this time.”
So, we finally know now that they’re talking about a broom. We aren’t actually specifically told that it’s a broom Kiki made until later in the chapter when she shows her mum (「柳の枝を川の水でさらして、そのあとお日さまにもさらしてつくったの。」- “I rinsed willow twigs in river water and then bleached it in the sun”), but I think at this point we have enough clues to know it’s something that Kiki has been working on and isn’t a present from her parents. We can deduce this from the use of words like また、こんど、あんなになった etc. which show that various attempts may have been made and that progress has been made.

Hopefully this makes that section a bit more clear! If you have more questions, let me know :blush:

Read our assigned lot for this week. Definitely think the fact so much is in hiragana means I miss out on a lot of details because my brain is too caught up in trying to work out what’s vocabulary :rofl: I really appreciate the summaries since even tho I get the jest, it does help fill in some blanks!

2 Likes

I am suuuuper behind on the book right now, but I look forward to catching up on everything and reading everyones comments!

2 Likes

Reading excessive hiragana with no spaces and omitted particles is quite an experience.
For example, みないそがしく makes me parse 見ない first and then double back when the rest doesn’t add up. You’d normally expect みんな in hiragana.

That one definitely got me stumped too :slight_smile: