Multi-Language Readathon [FINISHED]

All Languages
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As some of you may know, the time-honoured tradition of the WaniKani seasonal Japanese Readathon is about to celebrate its 2026 Spring Edition. You can see the thread here for more details: 🌷 Spring Equinox 24-hour Readathon - Reading - WaniKani Community

I think it is a wonderful initiative, and I love the idea of dedicating a whole day to reading, however I do not read or speak Japanese. In the past I have done mini-marathons of my own, but this year some people are wanting to join in with different languages, so I figured I’d open up a thread and read along with anyone interested!

We will be reading for 24 hours!

:check_mark: Rules of the Readathon

  • The timeframe is 24 consecutive hours (see below to choose the day that works best for you)
  • Read in any target language: the challenge is to improve our reading skills in our target language(s), so as long as you’re not counting your native tongue, feel free to include any other language! If you are learning several languages, count any reading you do in them during the Readathon.
  • That’s it, really. You don’t have to post updates in this thread or to let us know your results, but it would be greatly appreciated if you did!

:date: When?

We will be reading the week after the Wanikani Japanese Readathon so that people are able to join both.
For this multi-language edition: pick a 24-hour window from Friday 27th to Monday 30th of March, and spend as much time reading as you can!

:trophy: Goals

The only real goal is to spend time reading in your target language. Of course, you can set your own individual goals: a number of page, an amount of time, finishing your TBR, reading you first graded reader…

:pencil: Tracking

I know different people like to track different things, so feel free to either track how long you are reading, or how many pages, or even how many characters if that’s relevant to your target language.

:busts_in_silhouette: Community event

On top of improving our reading, it is also fun to read with other people.
This is where this thread comes in handy: once you have picked the 24h you will be reading in, let us know here you are participating so we can cheer you on! You can also let us know your goals or plans beforehand, and post updates during your Readathon. When you’re done, post your results to let us know how you did: how long did you read? How many pages? How did you feel?

See you all in two weeks time!

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Readathon Strategies and Tips
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Participants list

Sign up here to keep track of your homepost (if you choose to have one) and later your results ~

Name Homepost Language(s) Goals Final results
Biblio :books: :hot_beverage: :cherry_blossom: :jp: :thailand: see homepost :thailand: 1:30 h :japan: 5:45 h
bibliothecary :palm_tree::hut::palm_tree: :germany: :japan: :south_korea: read :distorted_face: 112 pages, 5 hours
CatDQ Home post Japanese Read 6 volumes/ stretch goal of 8 volumes Finished 3, started a 4th. Read 452 pages in 6 hours, 20 minutes
Ddochi Home post Korean Read 1 book from start to finish 7 hr 24 m = one 300 page novel start to finish!
eefara :cherry_blossom: :white_flower: :cherry_blossom: :china: ≥ 1 graded reader Results
HopeWaterfall Home post :japan: :south_korea: :italy: :spain: 500 (novel) pages 577 novel pages and 109 manga pages, in 7 hours and 5 minutes. 1 manga, 2 novels and 1 memoir finished.
Kroki Home Post :japan: 50%+ of the book is a win
latepatate Results :japan: Read (light) novels 64 pages, 3:18h
monace The Plan :south_korea: Finish current novel 127 pages, 7h26. Finished current novel + current short story + new short story
Pashmina Home Post :japan: Read at least 4h 5h 25m
shitsurei TBD Korean A (few?) graded reader(s)
exp-1 Home Post :south_korea: :netherlands: :united_states: Finish as many books as possible 7h59, 421pages - finished 2 books + 1 short story
cloverff TBD :jp: TBD TBD
julien Home Post :jp: :uk: :es: :fr: Read one short story in each language 4 stories and a novel chapter
nikoru Results :france: :japan: read as much as I can :sweat_smile: :france: 54p. / 5:23 h
:japan: 4p.
Redglare Results :japan: Read Watanare 324 p / 8h 10m
nopenopenope Results :france: :es: read stuff :es: 23380 words / 4h
:france: 11519 words
cat none :france: read 52 pages, 1 hour 57 min
voi none :japan: read 27k characters & 185 manga pages, 349 min
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I went to check out what people over at wanikani do (specially about reasonable expectations) and uh, it’s literally the same cast I see over here at Natively?

So many familiar nicknames and profile pics with a very similar forum layout - I thought I got lost for a moment :rofl:

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Yes, it’s Natively but a little to the left :laughing: more importantly it’s Japanese only.
As for expectations, no pressure at all, this is just for fun :smiling_face:

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Sounds fun! :smiley:

I’ve never participated in a readathon before, so probably not going to set any page/time goals, but it would be nice to read in Japanese, Korean, and German. :smile:

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Sounds fun! I’ll join but may have to do it across 2 days (eg 12noon to 12noon but still a 24hour period) just due to work etc. :blush:

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I’ll be participating as well! On which day exactly idk, I guess I’ll decide that closer to when it starts. Doing a multi language readathon is fun though, so I can’t wait to see how much I manage to read! I almost got to 500 novel pages on Valentine’s day when I did a mini readathon, so I’ll try to actually reach that this time.

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I may join if I have time that weekend. There are a few manga sets I bought in the last year (4-6 volumes each) that I haven’t read much of, so maybe I’ll try to binge one of those. I don’t necessarily expect to finish a whole series that way, but even if I just finish 3-4 volumes I’ll be happy.

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I should definitely be joining as well; probably that Saturday or Sunday. Since I’ll be doing the Wanikani readathon this weekend, I think I’ll try to do 100% Mandarin for Natively’s. I’ve been reading through the Mandarin Companion graded readers, and if I stay on schedule I should be starting their Level 1 readers just in time for the readathon, so my goal then will be to read through at least one. I’ll set up a home post as we get a bit closer.

Ah, and I hope it’s okay @monace, I added a languages column in the second post; I just thought it’d be cool to see what everyone’s reading at a glance!

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Thanks, forgot about that! It’s fun to see all the different languages we are learning :star_struck:

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I’ll join with Korean and my goal is to finish a book in a day. That is also something for my bingo. The book cannot be trivially short. At least 350 pages.

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I already was planning to use the WK reading day as French reading day :thinking: Maybe I actually will read Japanese during the readathon and just binge the book I started recently

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Yay - I was also planning to read in French over here!
Please let me know what you are planning to read- maybe we can be reading buddies for the day? :blush:

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:tada:
I’m most likely going to be working on one of my already in-progress books :sweat_smile: But we’ll see how things shake out closer to the date!

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FRENCH READERS! maybe I’ll join … maybe. I’m swamped but I need help with french reading. It’s kicking my sorry little tuchus.

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No worries! Sadly I can’t stalk you on Natively because French was disabled at some point - but do let me know what you decided on shorter to the date! I might join you even though you started already :laughing:
(I can always pull the French-flatmate-joker if I get stuck :winking_face_with_tongue:)

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Thinking of joining. For the first time in about a year I have nothing over the readathon! Either of them!

My Korean and French aren’t at the level of reading yet though so I might just read Japanese both times. Maybe knock out a big chunk of my bingo card.

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Did French ever go live? I thought it had been in vague plans but never launched. :thinking:

I’m currently on the second volume of a series so probably a bad option for joining (The Mirror Visitor books), almost finished with Nymphéas Noirs (warning: graphic violence including animal death) and around 15% done with La Vérité sur l’affaire Harry Quebert (content warning: pedophilia).

I did barely start Surface by Olivier Norek, though, so I could pause that entirely and put it aside if the plot interests you?

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I think it had been live but then was taken down again because Amazon blocked access? :thinking: But I might be wrong.

If you picked the book, then I‘m sure the plot is interesting :grin: Let’s do this!
BTW what is your current level of French? I‘m around B1-B2 but my vocabulary is pretty patchy (especially when it comes to police procedural) and I never properly learned passé simple which means I will need to look up a lot, at least initially, but that’s totally fine with me. :+1:

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I think brandon applied to Amazon France to get API access, and they just never replied to him? Or rejected his application and refused to explain? Something like that. :sweat_smile: I think we got close to Natively French, but I don’t think it ever went live iirc.

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