(thanks for visiting - if I end up keeping this thread going then I promise to make this prettier)
What is this thread?
This thread is a study log for me to try and force some sort of semi-public accountability upon myself. Find more info on goals and whatever else below. Can’t vouch for how well this well go but let’s try.
Who am I? (learning background stuff)
Got N1 last year after around 3 years of study.
Reading is my strong point but I still am dogshit in general.
Live in Japan so do speak a little but work is in English so not that much.
No real handwriting experience but obviously can read kanji to some extent.
Work full-time normal adult office job so cannot be doing crazy AJATT speedrunner type business (social life and health also will always come before reading gains).
Tracked Goals/Metrics (subject to change)
Read 10,000,000 characters starting from the start of this log (have read maybe 30-50 books in JP already, plus listening and so on on top of that).
Learn to write 2500 kanji by hand, secondary goal of taking the 2kyuu kanken (initially do this via an hour of daily kanji study but cut down later).
Don’t neglect listening by always doing an hour of listening before any reading is allowed.
Why these goals? (thanks for asking)
I like reading but could be a lot better. It is fun and makes me think.
I plan on staying in Japan long term so want to have the literacy level of a normal adult.
I went for characters and not “books read” or something as I also read news and occasionally manga and so on and want to be able to track that as part of this.
10,000,000 is around 100 short books or 50 longer ones but the number is just a nice random round one and should take a couple of years to complete.
Why not?
Why on this forum? (why is a lurker suddenly posting on my precious forum?)
Seems chill, lots of active study logs.
Seems to have less beginner spam than other places (nothing wrong with being a beginner but at this point need occasional advice and support from non-beginners).
1 hour listening
1 hour kanji study (450/2500)
(0+21,605=)21,605/10,000,000 characters
Note on kanji study
I am using the “Kanji Study” app on Android, with it set up to show me sentences with a blank where the kanji goes. This is a similar skill as is needed for the kanken, also is actually testing my recall and writing from context and not just cramming aimlessly. I actually did about half an hour yesterday and the day before as well to grease the groove a little so between that and today and having no or only easy reviews I have managed to get to 450 kanji in rotation already. The new kanji rate will slow down once the reviews actually start coming in properly.
At the very least I want to add new books I finish and leave reviews when relevant. If I have some time and the will then I will maybe mass update specific previously read books later on.
I would need to spend the time to remember what I’ve read which would take an hour or so once I start digging through old files, I would guess. I also don’t trust myself to be able to rate even the relative difficulty of books I read a couple of years ago so would be adding them to my profile to the benefit of no one really, as far as I can tell. Maybe the data is still useful, I am not sure. Mostly I am looking forward to writing some reviews though and perhaps I can write some retrospective ones as well when I have the time.
I’m only now studying for the N2, but my listening is probably my strongest skill, and I think I got there just by watching a lot of shows last year. I started by listening to the easiest shows I could watch raw, and slowly increased that level until I made it into around Natively L25, which is where most slice of life/everyday shows tend to sit. Then I just watched a ton of TV every day and have added audiobooks to my listening since I can.
Currently I can watch most scripted shows without subs as long as they’re not very genre heavy, but I usually do watch with subs now both because I’m lazy, and I think it’s better for my vocabulary, which I think is what I need to improve right now to help my overall Japanese ability. If it becomes an issue later, I may do the same technique of watching without subs at my current level and try and push into harder shows, but since I don’t live in Japan (and, sadly, don’t realistically have any plans to change that), the only inconvenience it causes me is that some shows are too difficult for me. Most things I’d want to watch are English subbed anyway, so if I really wanted to watch something that’s always an option.
The light caveat to my story is that I’ve been learning Japanese for a long long long time (like more than 20 years now), so I probably had a few hundred listening hours already since I started learning forever ago. But even pretty basic shows were still very challenging or even out of reach for me when I started, so it’s not like I was starting from already being able to understand all that much in native shows.
Anyway, welcome to the forums. Best of luck with your goals. I hope you stick around because I’d like to read how your progress goes.
Do you ever do the listening-reading method? Basically reading alongside the audiobook. I’m at over 100 books read and still love this method (when an audiobook is available and good quality, otherwise without is fine). No stopping to double check the reading of a kanji, get a nice feel for the cadence of sentences and my extra favorite bonus… I can speed the audio up and go at the edges of my normal reading speed
What sorts of books do you like? It could be your profile is private but I don’t see any on your profile yet
1 hour listening
1 hour kanji (568/2500)
(21,605+40,159=)61,764/10,000,000 characters
Notes on today
I am expecting 271 kanji reviews tomorrow so the insane pace of new kanji will probably stop. I guess it will even out in a few weeks and I’ll find out how much is actually viable in an hour a day.
Listening was a mix of easy TV and then some much harder news/politics stuff (I tend to try to balance things out in this way when possible).
Currently reading: 白夜行、人間失格、嫌われる勇気、鹿の王、and a very trash VN.
Also currently playing Ghost of Yotei, which is fun but taking time away from reading. Will maybe write my thoughts when I finish or give up on it.
I am pretty much the same way. I watch with JP subs when they are available as it is easier to follow things. I tend to just want to enjoy things and have largely lost the “study” mindset I once had. Although I am trying to get that back a bit with this study log. Once I am done with this reading and writing business and have fortified my vocabulary I may focus on upping my listening and speaking a bit more.
Thank you for the warm welcome! I’ll be lurking, maybe commenting elsewhere, when I have the time.
I tried this for about 3ish books but I don’t like audiobooks in any language that much so found it less enjoyable than just reading. It definitely felt like it was good for my Japanese ability but I was having to push myself to do it a bit. I also am someone who loves to pause when reading and think about things or research things so found that I could only do listening-reading with books which were both easy for a learner and also not especially deep.
I haven’t filled anything out yet on my profile! I should probably start putting some stuff in there…
As for my tastes, in English (native language) I like more literary fiction and “difficult” books with the occasional mystery novel and so on but in Japanese my media diet is more mixed with genre fiction and easier to read stuff just due to it being quicker to consume. I do read literary fiction in Japanese but my reading speed gets cut in half. I also am still trying to read fairly widely to improve my vocabulary and language sense and also just to try new things! Once my reading is a bit better I’d like to switch to mostly non-fiction and literary fiction, things closer to my taste, but I am not quite there yet and it is fun to try things I wouldn’t normally touch in English even if I end up not liking them. I’m generally up for trying anything once though.
I started logging books around the time where you are now, and it took me years to get everything sorted out. There was always a pesky book or two that I only vaguely remembered, no title nor author…
(Obviously, it’s not that big of a deal to not get everything logged, but still, better start early; also, looking at people’s libraries)
Yep. I don’t trust my memory and I also have at least 10 books which I have read half or more of but stopped due to lack of enjoyment. I struggle to remember those ones the most and also don’t feel comfortable adding those as being completed for obvious reasons. Maybe LearnNatively has a DNF’d tag or something? I’ll start adding some stuff and investigate when I have some downtime this coming work week…
Yes, you can add them as “stopped”. There’s one book that I plan to finish one day™, so I added it as “reading” instead (even though I am very much not reading it)
1 hour listening
1 hour kanji (625/2500)
(61,764+17,302=)79,066/10,000,000
Notes on today
Kanji still going up rapidly although I was rushing my reviews a lot, which doesn’t make a difference when you’re aiming for an hour regardless so I will have to be more careful of that tomorrow.
First day of this log where I had a full work day so only getting to reading pretty late in the day (19:15 now). Likely will aim for at least 10k characters but will see how my energy is once I have cooked and so on.
Finished reading 白夜行. Pretty mammoth book at around 417,000 characters and something I’d been dipping in and out of on the side for a while now. Could’ve been shorter but was still good. Seems to be rated a bit too high in terms of difficulty on LearnNatively in my opinion but it’s probably to do with the use of Osaka-ben and the length. Want to push on with reading and play Ghost of Yotei this evening so will update my profile and write a short review tomorrow when I have a chance!
1 hour listening
1 hour kanji (705/2500)
(79,066+19,792=)98,858/10,000,000
Notes on today
Kanji is still going up a crazy amount. I may start to cut back the time requirement a bit each day to try find an equilibrium where I’m doing around 5 new kanji a day. I don’t have a need to speedrun here so there’s no hurry. Can put the extra time towards more reading. Tomorrow I’ll try 45 minutes and see how that goes.
Another change. The requirement of completing the hour of listening before any reading is stopping me from reading when I wake up so I’m going to loosen that. An hour of listening is still a high priority goal but it needn’t be entirely done before any reading whatsoever.
Another consequence I’m noticing is that I’m leaning towards easier reading sources in an effort to get some more characters in. This is probably healthy as I have a habit of doing too much intensive reading at the expense of getting more reading done in general. Knowing myself, I’ll have ups and downs of wanting to do more extensive or intensive reading as time goes on.
1 hour listening
45 minutes kanji (785/2500)
(98,858+28,508)=127,366/10,000,000
Notes on today
Kanji still going up despite dropping the time. I think tomorrow I won’t be able to complete all reviews in the time limit and things should start to even out. I’ll do 45 minutes again tomorrow but will consider even dropping to half an hour. Seems I should be able to reach the kanji goal comfortably before the reading one so can relax the pace more than I was expecting.
Passed 1% of my reading goal. At this pace it should take about 400 days however I have a lot of travel for work and social stuff coming up in the next few months so can see the pace dropping. I am slightly hoping that my reading speed will pick up enough that I can make up a little bit of ground. I’ll be very happy if I am anywhere under 500 days but am expecting it to take longer given my schedule.
1 hour listening
45 minutes kanji (785/2500)
(127,366+11,067=)138,433/10,000,000
Notes on today
I went through the first 25 pages on LearnNatively by popularity and just added anything I have completed in the past so now my profile at least has a partial record of stuff I’ve read. There is definitely a chunk still missing and maybe when I get a chance I will add books I read half of and stopped.
From going through LearnNatively by popularity it looks like there are a lot of easy and popular books I’ve never read or considered so I might start trying to get through some of those to get some more characters in.
As predicted I couldn’t finish all my due reviews within the 45 minute time limit but I was close. I think the same will be true tomorrow as well. After a few days like this when the reviews balance out again I will likely go through the same process and reduce the time to half an hour. Ultimately I think I will try so that the kanji stuff can take a backseat to reading for the time being. In the future I will maybe do a bigger push on kanji and some test prep books for the kanken, although that is something to think about properly in the future and not now. If I get the kanji stuff down to about 20-30 minutes a day then I think it should be smooth sailing for the moment.
Pretty light day for reading as social plans and so on have gotten in the way. Will be quite busy this next few days as well so first real test of what I can do with limited time.
Heh, proceed with caution. Some of my least enjoyed books were ones I read because they were popular and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. Having the shared reference point with other learners is kind of nice, but still, if you look at a plot and think, “I’d never pick this up on my own”…trust your gut
Mentally I am currently on a journey of wanting to try new things I wouldn’t normally try but there are also so many books out there in existence maybe I should try not burn myself by playing with fire…
I’ll try the ones which look safest for my tastes first and maybe sift through the recommendations thread on the forums here as well! I’ve got plenty on the go for the moment anyway.
The important part, more than the number of people who’ve read a book, is the reviews. Sometimes a book club pick might be absolutely terrible for example, but lots of people will have read it, because of the book club. And then more people get curious and read it without necessarily looking at the reviews first, so it inflates the numbers even more.
Learning another language is a good opportunity to dive into genres you wouldn’t normally pick. But at the same time, if there’s something you absolutely despise, no need to make yourself suffer through it, like you said, there are countless other books out there you could be reading instead.
@わけわからんわ To add to this: This holds true even when you started a book! Of course each book will have its particularly difficult points, so there will be quite the learning curve, especially with a new author or topic, but if you really feel you’re getting nowhere either due to difficulty or due to the book being just boring to you, there is nothing wrong about dropping it. (Once you’ve dropped a hundred books or so, you might want to double-check and search for deeper reasons but so far all will be well)
I didn’t say you should be worried
But maybe there is a reason why you keep doing this (most obvious would be you keep picking books from a genre that is not interesting to you, or that are written in a style that you don’t like) and once you find out you can maybe improve this if you feel unhappy about it
but so far all will be well) 
)
