While book clubs generally focus on one language, some books are translated into multiple languages, which gives the opportunity for other language learners to read along. Japanese in particular has a well-established Natively presence, with many active members and a multitude of well-graded books; the other languages on Natively have fewer learners and non-temporary graded books.
This thread is meant to serve as a place to announce a new book club read so that those learning other languages have the opportunity to join if they have access to a translation in their target language. The example below shows one way you can format your advertisement - you can include links to the translations on Natively if you know them, or leave it up to the individual to find out if there’s a translation in their target language. I would advise including the English title (if known) to make it easier for people to find translations.
Tips on Finding Translations
Search Wikipedia: Often you can find the book page (if it is particularly well-known) or the author page listing their works, then you can use the toggle to select your target language and find the title of the translation if there is one.
If you have ideas for a better title or information that should be included, please comment below!
Neat idea bibliothecary! We don’t have as much issue with discoverability on the Japanese side, but I bet we miss a bunch of learners in other other languages. Hopefully some might notice this thread on their dashboard on the main site as well.
I guess the polls would be good for before a book club starts, right? Otherwise it feels like it might be more efficient for a learner to visit the home thread directly to say which language they’d be joining in.
Yeah, I just noticed that! However, for a L25 book, I’m not sure I can follow with only the audio if I don’t read it first. I listened to the audiobook of 사라진 날 | L20, and I feel like right now that’s around my upper limit for listening comprehension currently, when I don’t have visual support or knowledge of the story in advance.
I have been trying to find the physical book, or even an ebook, either one, however so far all I’ve seen is a bundle of all 6 books on booksonkorea which would end up costing me over $130. Not a bad price per books, but still a lot, considering that I don’t know if I’ll end up liking the first book enough to read the rest of the series.
I bought it on booksonkorea last year, but you’re right - I checked my link and the page for it is gone, it just pops up with a ‘book not for sale’ notification… Annoying, because you can still buy the rest of the books in the series individually…
It might be worth looking into a proxy service for a quote - I haven’t used any from Korea, but @eefara recently got a Korean copy of a book using one:
Oh nice, thank you for the website rec. I just put in a request, I’ll see if the price is more reasonable. Hopefully I’ll manage to get it by the time we start the book club.
There’s lots more translations out there though, Italian, French, Russian, Catalan, …
(I think the German version is only out late this year - sorry German readers)
Would you like to join? If so, which language would you read in?
Korean
Japanese
Spanish
Other
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Japanese
