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(4.14/5)A good first foray into native material
This is a story about how we approach situations presented during our lives, in relation with those close to us, and the possible ramifications of how we choose to approach them. What is happiness? Is what Nanoka, the protagonist, is assigned to find out by her teacher Hitomi.
This is a good first book if you have experience reading easier short stories/graded readers and feel ready to jump into material targeted towards native speakers. Nanoka speaks politely, so if you have started learning w
Great story, good for beginners
A girl has to give a presentation at school answering the question "What is happiness?" To do this, she goes to her three odd friends - an old lady who lives in the woods, a young woman who meets customers at night, and an upperclassmen who self-harms. Her conversations with them, as well as an interesting situation with a classmate, lead her to her answer.
This is a great story with a simple premise but very interesting characters. Although ostensibly for children, there are some very deep and
A great book for language learning and long sentences
It started out kind of dry but as it went on, I really enjoyed the story. It has a really wonderful meaning in the end for anybody. I may have even cried a bit. Had me thinking that maybe the cats in this story are actually God lol. A decent beginner book with sentences that don't lack in length. We're talking many 4-6 line, long sentences, billions of commas etc. By the end of the book you'll at the very least be much better at reading those. Overall, highly suggest to anyone
Good for learning, interesting story
This was a great book about an individual's search for happiness. I was a bit surprised by some of the sad scenes in the story, though, because of the reviews I read beforehand that mentioned the humor. I went into the story expecting it to be a little more lighthearted and then the story got quite heavy in the middle.
As for language learning, I felt pretty comfortable reading through it at my current level (N3ish). I definitely struggled with the longer sentences and some of the conversation
Perfect for learning indeed
I will parrot what most are saying, this is excellent for beginners to pick up their first novel. First 20 pages for me were a big struggle, parsing longer sentences. Then i got used to them. First 100 pages were going slow. Next 100 pages I was struggling but going at decent pace. Last 100 pages were at a speed I was satisfied with for now. So within a span of a single novel I saw huge improvment in my reading. Countless mangas would not do that.
As for the entertainemnt value - it's okay. I l
The Best Beginner Book
If it wasn´t for learning japanese, there was no way in hell i would have read this kind of novel - ever. So color me surprised when i say that i actually came to enjoy it more than i thought.
This story is told by a child, but neither its themes nor its writing style is particularly chilidish. Meaning it can very well be enjoyed by an adult and doesn´t leave a lot to be desired kanji-wise compared to many actual children books.
I´ve conquered a few books before this one, all of which wer
Great book
The rumors are true. This is a good book.
- The language is accessible in terms of vocabulary.
- The girl thinks about what she will say and what others will say and considers the situation so there is some natural repetition and regurgitation of similar sentences making it great for language learning.
- There are humorous sentences and scenes maintaining some mild entertainment
It took me awhile to get into this, as usual for me, as not much really happens in dramas like this following the
Very approachable slice of life novel with likeable characters
This was my first novel in japanese. Considered myself at a ~N4 level, and it took me about 50 days to finish, looking up everything I didn’t recognize (made a 800 words deck (!) and learned a hundred new kanji). This could have been a chore, but the pleasant tone and characters meant I never got close to giving up.
Outside of my limited vocabulary, the main difficulty was understanding the longer sentences (textboooks don’t prep you for this). Understanding the vocab and the grammar isn’t alwa
My First Full-Length Novel
Before reading this book, most of my reading practice was non-fiction or objective material such as the news. In my head, Japanese was connected to studying, objectivity, and emotionless small talk. My experience with the language was dull. It may sound a bit pretentious or strange that I'm saying this, but it truly opened my eyes. Before I only had exposure to "duller" uses of Japanese. For the first time, I was able to read Japanese that was written for an artistic purpose. I was surprised tha
A good first novel
I made the serendipitous decision of reading The Little Prince before starting this, completely unknowing that the two books are quite intertwined, so if you enjoyed The Little Prince and want to see that evolved into a slightly more matured story, then this is for you.
As I was reading I found myself wavering back and forth on whether or not I was really enjoying it. In retrospect, the pacing of the book makes a lot of sense with the thematic elements all laid out in the end, but as you read
Captivating read
This was my first Japanese light novel. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to other Japanese learners or people who are generally interested in Japanese culture.
In terms of Japanese learningthis is a good book for early immersion. There is a good amount of drilled repetition, grammar points (I found N2 and N1 grammar points in the book, although most are N3), and useful daily use vocab and phrases. However, despite the easy language, the content and themes in the book can be difficult to gra
Story-wise, the earlier parts was quite slow, but the pace kinda picks up in the middle. It does give an interesting thought on the main topic being discussed on. The slow pace, however, does help for a language learner.
Language-wise, as someone who just finished Minna no Nihongo 2 and completed a few "easy-ish" anime, a lot of lookups are required. Counting from the number of Anki cards I "mined", around 500+ words were found. Some expressions and conjugations are quite challenging too.
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