Harry Potter lives in the cupboard under the stairs at his uncle and aunt’s house at number four, Privet Drive - until the day when a mysterious letter arrives from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and a giant on a flying motorcycle arrives to change his life with four simple words: ‘Harry - yer a wizard.’
The regular schedule covers one chapter a week, but if you find this too fast, the relaxed schedule covers one chapter every two weeks.
Regular Schedule
Week
Start Date
Chapter
2
Apr 8
Chapter 2
Relaxed Schedule
Week
Start Date
Chapter
3
Apr 15
Chapter 2 (first half)
4
Apr 22
Chapter 2 (second half)
Discussion Guidelines
Spoilers should always be hidden using spoiler blur.
When discussing a specific section, please mention where you are in the book, ideally by chapter so people reading different versions have a clear point of reference.
Feel free to read ahead if it’s exciting, but please refrain from spoiling ahead of the appropriate week.
If you have a question about grammar, vocab, cultural things, etc - ask! That’s a welcome part of the discussion too, and other readers will be happy to help.
I surprisingly never had a problem with them. I think it helps partly that I was young enough it didn’t really click how abusive the Dursleys are, and partly the first couple of HP books feel very “fairy tale” like in my head? Idk if that comes across like. It is interesting to see Harry’s developing relationship with the Dursleys as the books progress, and honestly I’m glad Harry isn’t as traumatized as he should be in real life.
Spoilers for all books
I wish that Parseltongue had played a larger part in the books; I thought it was crazy cool as a kid, but it was barely used as a plot device.
Finished chapter 2 in Spanish; I need to go back and listen to chapter 1 in Japanese still. Been putting it off, but if I get too far behind there it’ll be really difficult to find the time to catch up later.
There’s always fanfictions. I love the universe, but some things aren’t explored fully, like parseltongue, Gringotts, heirships/lordships… Certain characters just get a tiny backstory as well, but nothing more than that (for example Blaise Zabini, he’s just there in the books/movies, and the only other thing of note is the backstory about his mother. So much potential, but he’s just an inconsequential character in canon).
And JP chapter 2 listened to! Did better this time; I was still at work, so I don’t know what all contributed most between having a more dialog-heavy chapter, the chapter being shorter, me being less tired, setting a more casual scene, etc.
I really like the Japanese narrator’s voice for Dudley; it’s really deep!
Shame we don’t have any German readers participating; we really need to get our German numbers up…
Yeah, it’s really a shame. When the german section was opened on natively, I was all set and wanted to help as good as I can when someone would have questions and I was looking forward to bookclubs etc. But currently there are no german learners it seems I hope this will change one day
Finished listening to this chapter in Korean, Norwegian, and German!
Thankfully it hasn’t gotten boring (yet?) listening to the same story in different languages. The Norwegian narrator is still my favourite by leaps and bounds.
Yeah, German’s the only language that doesn’t have a book club so far…
I might make a poll to see if there are people lurking that might like to join a book club.
Found some time to read chapter 2 in Spanish today. I’m finding this an enjoyable read so far. Glad I got a physical copy, enjoying just sitting with the book and reading it without the temptation to click on words I don’t know and look them up.
I did look up alacena - cupboard after it came up multiple times in the chapter and I wasn’t quite sure what it meant. Turns out it was pretty core Potter vocabulary!
Weirdly, my edition doesn’t have alacena but armario instead. These translation differences really are a lot more present than I thought!
Also, I’m finally back to the place where I’d left my Korean version of book 1, so I’ll be catching up with that starting from tomorrow! I’m still not sure whether I’ll use the regular schedule or the slowed down one. I’d tried reading the first chapter of Harry Potter in Korean maybe 4 or 5 months ago, and it was super hard then, so I’m curious as to how difficult it’ll feel now in comparison.
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Did better this time; I was still at work, so I don’t know what all contributed most between having a more dialog-heavy chapter, the chapter being shorter, me being less tired, setting a more casual scene, etc.
I hope this will change one day
