That’s a good shout. I’ve used Tae Kim before but it didn’t quite hit home. I tend to be good at picking out the grammar I’m unsure of or know I’ve not learned it as well as picking out the grammar I do know even if it’s in a form I’ve not learned yet (like some of the formal level stuff I’ve learned being shown in informal form, if that makes sense). I’ve got a list of the grammar in the MNN textbooks at the front of the second text book as well as having the dictionary of Japanese grammar set.
Might be an idea for me to run through the ones I’m not sure of or haven’t learned yet in MNN and maybe keep the dictionary beside me while reading.
I do have a few different books by the same authors where I was hoping if I read a few of their books I would get used to their writing style which will hopefully help a little in my reading journey.
That makes sense. I first stumbled upon extensive and intensive reading through a multilingual language learning youtuber I follow and it was after that I started trying both techniques out and my reading got a lot better for non textbook stuff.
I thought while using the short stories with several chapters, that if I read the first chapter intensively then read the others extensively (while only looking up what I needed to to understand the gist of it) that it would help my understanding while still allowing me to enjoy what I was reading. Mostly it has worked for those so I was hoping it would work when switching over to novels and longer stories by reading the first part or first few chapters intensively then switching to extensive reading again.
I’m kinda stuck on my own atm as I’ve been self studying but don’t have the ability to get a tutor right now and there are no affordable courses I can take that wouldn’t affect my work hours so everything I’m doing is limited to what I can do and what info I can glean from other sources. It does make checking things more difficult as even if you get a translation of a book, the original and the translation are not an exact copy because translations are down to interpretation. It’s a great way to check understanding when you’re translating something to your native tongue and then checking with someone who knows the original. It is something I want to look into, just not something I can do right now, though when I do get a tutor, I’ll be looking more at speaking practice as well as help with confirming I’ve understood things correctly.
Thanks, I am part of the WK community as well but so far I haven’t found a book club book I have or could get quick enough other than Kitty detectives and when I tried that a few months back, it was fin until I got about half way through then I just kinda stopped understanding anything in it and was having to look up everything. I want to go back to it but haven’t yet, it was just after that that I ended up reading through most of the free graded readers in the space of a few days then switched onto the longer guided short stories I have.
The book clubs are great but also intimidating for me because I prefer to go at my own pace and sometimes work constraints and personal stuff gets in the way (other than reading, and Wanikani, I’ve had very little time to study over the last 2 months due to personal stuff getting in the way). I like the help and support the book clubs give but I also feel like I get left behind very quickly regardless of what the book is (I have tried a few other book clubs from a different site before attempting the Wanikani one).
I might need to have another look at the WK book club list and see if I can find any older ones I can look into.
Thanks I’ll have a look at eBay and see what I can find.
I’m in the UK so a lot of my books have either come as sets from Book depository or direct from sellers in Japan with free delivery. Book depository tend to have second hand books in near mint condition at low prices for the ones I’ve gone for and the Japanese sellers usually have good deals for those that Book depository are selling at a higher price. There’s also no import tax on them or the ones direct from the different Japanese sellers so it’s worked out cheaper that getting it elsewhere. I will check out eBay though as if they have stuff at a decent price, then it would leave me with more to get other books.
I’ve never tried to read the first few chapters of a book intensively but that does sound like a great method. Especially since the main characters and plot will have been introduced after the first few chapters anyway.
I hope you’re able to find a tutor/course that will fit your needs.
For me it was the real time aspect of the book club that really helped though. I had also tried reading Chi’s Sweet Home before (much easier than Takagi) and referring back to the old book club for help, but I quickly felt overwhelmed and gave up.
With Takagi, It was the fact that I “had” to read something in a specific time frame, and had people available to answer questions in almost real time, that helped me overcome my hesitation and keep at it even when it felt difficult. Of course you can still ask questions in old book clubs, but it’s just not the same, for me at least.
As for worrying you’ll fall behind, that’s perfectly okay. No one will judge you for not keeping up (many people don’t), and you can still ask questions in older threads. I just personally felt I needed this extra push or I’d forever feel I wasn’t yet up to it.
Thanks, I’m hoping once things settle down here and I’m more financially stable, that I can get a regular tutor to help or start a course so that I can have a more structured environment. Self studying has suited me fine but it can be difficult yo practice unless it’s reading and listening since I don’t have anyone yo check my writing and speaking is ok but if you’re not corrected then it makes for picking up bad habits.
Feeling overwhelmed is how I felt when reading Kitty detectives which I was using an old book club thread and trying to go at the pace of the original club. Even though I could ask questions I was spending a lot of my time scrolling through the thread looking for the answers in case anyone else had asked them already.
For me, at this stage, if it was a much shorter story I might be ok but if it’s longer than a few chapters, trying to keep up causes me stress and anxiety. It sounds stupid because other people can do it fine and it’s not usually that taxing in volume but with work constraints I’m limited to 3 days of the week where I can make chunks of time for activities and 4 days where I’m majorly restricted for time due to work and traveling. Stressful situations don’t end well for me feeling motivated. If I could keep up it would be fine, but it’s easier for me to go at my own pace and not have the stress of pushing myself to fast.
I have tried and each time it’s brought my motivation down to the point I feel ready to give up and I’ve had to take time away from studying til I can get that back. Hence why its taken me so long to get as far as I have done.
There’s also not many book clubs with books that I want to read or know that I could read even to get the gist of the story and I don’t want to create my own because that’s just more stress to keep it maintained
I love the concept and that it helps people, I just can’t deal with it irl.
Personally, I watched anime with subtitles from kitsunekko.net for about two years and jumped straight into reading light novels. It was a much smoother experience than I expected. I was never interested in reading manga, graded readers, or textbooks. My first book was Orange (L23).
You’ll drive yourself crazy if you try to understand every word and sentence from the very beginning. You’ve got to embrace the ambiguity and focus on the things that you know you’ve seen multiple times before. I think this is easier to accomplish with audio-visual media than it is with reading books. After enough time, you’ll come to understand more and more. It can be difficult to trust the process, though.
I’m in Europe and I don’t find buying from AmazonJP is that expensive, specially with the JPY how low it is. It might be a bit more expensive, but the good thing about AmazonJP is they do customs clearance for me, so it’s way less expensive when it goes through the border.
Totally agree, specially when they have long time members, it feels a bit weird to jump in.
I used to feel like this, but from my experience, new members are not only welcome, they’re actually desired! Especially the Absolute Beginner Book Club is designed specifically for first time readers who are expected to struggle. The long time members in that club are those who will be there for support and to answer questions, since they’ve done it before. Without new members that specific club really serves no purpose at all.
Sadly I feel like the total beginner club would have a similar issue to a graded reader, as I’d probably wouldn’t be interested in the books they are choosing.
I might be wrong, so I’ll take a look and see if I find anything interesting but yeah, main reason why I went solo with the novel I’m reading now (by looking at Natively, seems like a number of people picked it up after).
They’ve been reading a lot of manga, to the best of my knowledge. Actual books that I have seen were aimed at 1st or 2nd years, so no kanji and simpler vocabulary, but still a step up from graded readers, I feel.
ETA: but their pace would still be slow for you, I think.
For whatever reason, I can’t create a japanese amazon account so can’t buy direct from them. Mines has all been through amazon uk. I’ve never had customs tax on books through it, only had it on other items. My books have all cleared customs without issue, even the sets with 15-20 books.
Yeah, I’ve two separate e-mail addresses. One for my current Amazon account and an unused e-mail address which I’ve tried to use to set up a Japanese amazon account but couldn’t.
I still haven’t fully finished my first Japanese “book,” but that’s mostly because I keep switching to other more interesting or more easily completable things to read.
I’ve made some great progress with manga:
volumes 13-39 of Skip Beat!:
not too bad, especially as I’d already seen the anime and read volumes 1-25 of the manga in English
volumes 1-16 of Ace of Diamond / ダイヤのA act II
this is the “sequel series”, again picked up after watching the anime… twice or three times, most recently with Japanese subtitles — I would say generally tougher than Skip Beat, but only because of the baseball terms and more common abbreviated high school boy speaking style (think “とれのかい？とれんのかい？”)
volumes 1-17 of Yona of the Dawn / 暁のヨナ
some weird “period” words (皇女, etc.), and a few characters speak in a dated overly-formal style that’s hard to decipher, but reading it with the WaniKani bookclub and we’re keeping a running vocab list
volume 1 of 町田くんの世界
definitely the easiest read for me, but also just plain slice of life so not that interesting and I ended up stopping at 1 volume for now
a couple X-rated eromanga (fun way to practice kanji reading without furigana?)
I keep picking up light novels / short books and then reading a chapter or so and then putting them down.
But since I’m also reading manga, occasionally watching anime with Japanese subtitles, and getting through at least 4 news articles each week I don’t feel like I’m stagnating or anything.
I also VERY recently got into reading some fanfiction “novels” on Pixiv for some of my favorite series (though obviously quality varies and Pixiv is a really annoying site to try to search as you need a paid account to filter on things like “most popular”). But it’s kind of nice to have relatively short stories to read in a fandom I already like.
If anyone has any other suggestions for fan sites with Japanese stories I’d love to hear about them!
that’s a great idea. I’ll try that before I dive in properly to test the waters
