Bunpro Book club (Beginner)

Book Clubs
#1

Hi everyone!

This is the welcome thread for users that want to join in Beginner level book clubs. Information about levels, past, present and future titles can be found here, along with links to various resources.

If you’re thinking about joining this reading community. Please have a look through this post, and then say hi to everyone! We’d love to have you join!

Focus of Club

To reiterate, this post is for the BEGINNER group. To participate in this group it is assumed that you would have a strong foundation of the N5 grammar, a reasonable base of vocabulary, and potentially be a decent way into N4. Beginner does not mean beginner to Japanese, it means beginning to absorb native Japanese content. If you’re not sure what level you’re at, have a go at reading one of the free samples available online for any of the books that we have read in this level in the past.

It is the goal of this club to act as an inclusive community where we all help each other make strides in being able to understand native content. It feels good when all of your hard study has paid off! Let’s share that joy together and support each other’s successes.

Please note - As this is a book club, there may be a need for you to purchase the books. I will do my best to provide several links to several different websites where they can be legally purchased, but it will be your individual responsibility to procure them. If you would like free material to be used, feel free to suggest something! :blush:

Making Suggestions

Before making suggestions, please refer to our official rules for book clubs. Answers to many general questions can be found there. After reading the rules, please feel free to make suggestions by posting here! (Nothing NSFW :face_with_monocle:)

Reading Log

Past books.

Nobody here yet. May we pray that with the passage of time this list becomes long and is studied archeologically as a testament to the coming together of human kind.

CURRENT BOOK -
Book club thread - よつばと discussion (Beginner) (Starting Monday, 1st of April, 2024)
Purchase link - よつばと, volume 1 (Manga)

Future books.

Nobody here yet. We may occasionally choose to have a reservation system for books where we book something in for reading at a set date in the future. In those cases, the titles and dates set for reading will be recorded here.

Suggestions

This is a list of books that we have not read yet, but that have been suggested. They will likely all appear in future polls.

Polls

All active polls will be displayed here. Please vote for the books you would like to read!

To keep the voting process manageable, no further suggestions will be accepted after a poll has been started. If you would like to suggest something else while a poll is currently running, please be aware that it will need to wait for the next round of voting.

Previous polls.

March, 2024. Winner - よつばと, volume 1 (Manga)

!!! CURRENT POLL !!!

(Nothing here right now. Check back again once we are close to finishing the current book)

We hope that you all enjoy participating in the book club with us! Feel free to ask any questions here that you cannot find the answers to anywhere else. Whenever you find yourself reading this, I hope that you are having a great day :partying_face:.

24 Likes
Book Club Rules + News
#2

Feel free to participate in more than one level if any of you would like to! I will be participating in all levels.

5 Likes
#3

I’m in!

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#4

I’m in for this. I’m not really sure I have any great suggestions though, I’ve been slogging through One Piece lately (almost 100 chapters in) but I’m not sure it’s easy enough to be considered beginner. I don’t really know what’s considered beginner besides everyone saying read Yotsuba, I’m not sure I’m actually interested in reading that though.

5 Likes
#5

When deciding the level, we will mostly go with the grammar usage, as there is quite difficult vocabulary even in beginner books depending on the topic. One Piece is probably somewhere between beginner and intermediate, as it contains a lot of slang grammar forms. Feel free to suggest it though! Depending on the people that want to participate, there may be a large portion of people at the higher level end of beginner.

5 Likes
#6

In!

4 Likes
#7

私もしたい！！！ 楽しいそうです

4 Likes
#8

I’m in! I’ve been meaning to do more reading to help grammar points/vocab stick, and doing so with a group sounds fun. Looking forward to it!

3 Likes
#9

よつばとはいいほんがおもっている

6 Likes
#10

My suggestion, Pokemon Special, part 1. (Manga)

There is a little bit of slang usage, but most of the new words for those in the beginner level will be fairly easy to understand if you’ve ever played anything Pokemon. The story follows the adventures of Red.

Link to Pokemon special 1 where you can read a sample in your browser.

This series has furigana for all kanji. I would say it is on the higher end of difficulty for a beginner as it does include a little bit of slang that needs getting used to.

9 Likes
#11

That’s actually something I’ve picked up to read so I’d totally be down for that

3 Likes
#12

Also down for this! Actually happen to own a physical copy that I haven’t gotten too far into

3 Likes
#13

I’m in too!

3 Likes
#14

I’m in!

If we do decide on Pokémon Special, I’d like to mention pokejisho.com, where you can get translations for all the series-specifc terms.

6 Likes
#15

“‘I’m in’ type reply”!! :sunglasses:

I’ve heard Doraemon is a pretty easy read!

5 Likes
#16

I’m in

3 Likes
#17

In! :+1:

3 Likes
#18

I’m in!

3 Likes
#19

I’m in

3 Likes
#20

Seconding よつばと
Would love to have a grammar oriented book club for this book series. I had to do a lot of digging to understand some of what was happening with the grammar when I did the kanji oriented book club.

6 Likes