I know that some of you are still in the process of reading Murakami’s short story, but I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of you for your enthusiasm and dedication over the past week. I couldn’t have imagined the overwhelming response the project received. It was very fulfilling to see that people were not just posting their questions, but were helping each other out, sharing their experiences and really coming together to form the community that I envisioned when I started this newsletter.
My hope is that all of you were able to take away something valuable from this project. I hope you felt, as I did, that reading together is fun and a great learning experience. I also hope that you found that reading literature in Japanese is not the unattainable goal you might have thought it was. Of course, these things take time and energy. But I hope at least that this was a helpful first step in getting a reading habit started.
Given the great response, I plan on doing more of these projects in the near future. Let me know if that is something that would interest you, and if so, what you would like to read.
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Thank you Bunsuke! I’m still only halfway through the short story, but thanks to this community, I’m reading something that I didn’t know I could. Also I’ve decided to spend less time using shortcut technology and more time actually reading and taking notes. Reading fiction has always been my goal, so that’s how I’m going to study from here on in. Though I wasn’t able to comment much, I read every daily thread and appreciate this community. I’ll finish reading this story and will certainly join in next time too. Maybe a female author next time?
I found a single Murakami short story, divided in little sections, like one long Bunsuke daily long each, with translations and notes.
Its oriented to japanese english students, but I find it very helpful and relatively easy to get everything out of it. I'll leave the link, but you can find as 象の消滅 in amazon.co.jp.
After this, I'm jumping to short stories collections!
Thanks to you Bunsuke for this amazing initiative!! I’m now reaching the end and soon I’ll be able to post the questions I’ve been jotting down. Thanks again!
Started reading Kokoro using the methods I picked up during the project - first page went surprisingly smoothly! Maybe because there's less boxing ^^" Horizontal text now looks weird to me haha (aozora bunko is great, it has a bunch of options for presenting the text vertically). Looking forward to next time, whatever we end up reading :)
Thank you Bunsuke! I’m still only halfway through the short story, but thanks to this community, I’m reading something that I didn’t know I could. Also I’ve decided to spend less time using shortcut technology and more time actually reading and taking notes. Reading fiction has always been my goal, so that’s how I’m going to study from here on in. Though I wasn’t able to comment much, I read every daily thread and appreciate this community. I’ll finish reading this story and will certainly join in next time too. Maybe a female author next time?
Great idea Renee!
Hi Renee, great idea! I was actually already thinking of doing Tamura Toshiko's works next.
I found a single Murakami short story, divided in little sections, like one long Bunsuke daily long each, with translations and notes.
Its oriented to japanese english students, but I find it very helpful and relatively easy to get everything out of it. I'll leave the link, but you can find as 象の消滅 in amazon.co.jp.
After this, I'm jumping to short stories collections!
https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/dp/B00U3UMSMK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_91CG3WVVGCNEDN77SSDK
This looks very useful indeed, thanks for sharing!
Thanks to you Bunsuke for this amazing initiative!! I’m now reaching the end and soon I’ll be able to post the questions I’ve been jotting down. Thanks again!
Hi Daniel, glad to hear you enjoyed it! Looking forward to your questions. Good luck with the final pages :)
Started reading Kokoro using the methods I picked up during the project - first page went surprisingly smoothly! Maybe because there's less boxing ^^" Horizontal text now looks weird to me haha (aozora bunko is great, it has a bunch of options for presenting the text vertically). Looking forward to next time, whatever we end up reading :)
Great!! You'll love Kokoro. It's tough at times but there's a lot in there to enjoy.