There’s nothing wrong with it, but like I mentioned I feel like my reading speed is hindering my enjoyment of reading currently. Everyone reads differently, after all.
But really, I think there’s a misunderstanding here; I’m not looking for how to optimize for reading speed, but for ways to practice and improve reading speed that isn’t just read more, as this really is so obvious I think we should all be taking it for granted here. It’s been quite a challenge to find any information on this topic, and so it’s pretty disheatening when most of the posts I’ve seen have been a lot of dissuading people from focusing on the topic all together.
This has nothing to do with retention, and everything to do with trying to read native reading speeds, the same way I assume we all want to reach native listening and speaking speeds. There are ways of practicing listening and speaking and I don’t think it’d be nearly as contentious.
Unfortunately (especially in language) the only honest to God answer is practice. There is no secret routine or information that will get you better. It’ll just be pure exposure and repetition.
I’m not refuting that at all though, am I?
In fact, I think I’ve been about as explicit as I could possibly that the goal of this thread was to find additive forms of practice, or tips to help improve reading speed. Not skimming text, not speed reading, not trying to avoid doing the work of reading every day and getting exposure to the language. The repeated reading thing that I’ve been trying out is just that, a form of practice.
I’m sorry if this seems rude, but I feel like I need to make myself clear about this.
It was more of a general response to the discussion here, not necessarily to your original post.
I’m seeing a lot of numbers of reading speeds, sessions, what books the speeds are for, but very little mention of how it’s related to the activity of reading - examining grammar, quizzing yourself, generative techniques during reading.
Natives don’t usually have to read up on textbooks or have a conscious understanding of grammar. Going slow and using cognitive techniques like quizzing yourself on grammar while reading is a way to reach language competence, but such a technique inhibits a learner from seeing linear improvements in their reading speeds.
Yeah, but at least for me personally my reading speed in Japanese is still way slower than my speed in English, even for straightforward books where I don’t need to think about the grammar or look up any vocab, even 275 books in…
That’s not reading, imo, that’s studying. 2 different activities.
It was earlier referred to intensive vs. extensive reading.
And this discussion is about extensive reading - i.e. reading as fast as possible without skimming or losing comprehension.
Nothing wrong with intensive reading. It’s a great study tool if you enjoy it. For me, personally, intensive reading doesn’t work as I just start hating reading and never pick up the book again.
For extensive reading, a certain level of speed is recquired to really enjoy it. Below a certain threshold it just feels like dragging your feet through mud. So, I completely understand where OP is coming from.
However, as people mentioned before, unfortunately practice is really the only option. Even the speed increases when you read the same section, is just simply down to practice of that section.
However, reading along with audiobooks does speed up your reading speed - it does, however, not translate 1:1 to not-audiobook-assisted reading. At least in my experience.
I feel the first major speed increase comes when people become comfortable reading 縦書き. That’s a pretty sudden jump and after that it’s slow going but it does improve.
