A Look Back at Year One
Happy belated reading anniversary to me! This post is almost a month late, now, which means I’ve had plenty of time to take a look back at what I feel like has been a really good first year of reading books in Japanese.
Last June wasn’t the first time I’d tried reading, but it was the first time I’d tried reading a book and actually finished it 
Before then, I’d tried Yotsuba (not impossible, but I felt like there weren’t enough words for me to understand how they were being used; illustrations were giving just as much information to me as a reader. Good for comprehension but not as good for learning how to read words) and Haikyuu (my favorite manga series of all time, but too difficult for me back then). Didn’t even attempt a non-manga book.
So what changed?
Looking back I think the biggest obstacles in my past, failed reading attempts were:
- Being frustrated about lack of progress
- Not realizing the importance of memorizing (or at least becoming very, very familiar with) vocab
- Losing momentum by not making a habit of reading
As it turns out, I have a few words to say about each of these:
1. Saying no to frustration and yes to solutions
Since these language logs are all about self-reflection I think it’s important to take a look at what exactly frustration is and where it comes from. Of course, this is different for everyone, but I really believe it is something to investigate and understand rather than minimize or ignore.
I think this is something I may have referenced in my first post, but a very smart person once told me that “should” is a very dangerous word. In the context of foreign language learning, perhaps something like this sounds familiar to you:
“I’ve been studying for x months/years, I should be able to get through the easiest book on this list at least!”
“Shouldn’t I be able to pass this test by now?”
Frustration, anxiety, and resentment, probably all aimed at yourself, may follow. But in these types of situations, nothing you think/say/yell at yourself changes the fact that you’re at where you’re at right now. It’s tricky because having an ideal in mind and striving towards it is just a breath away from the often very useful and helpful concept of having a goal and holding yourself accountable. But it’s also dangerous if you get mentally bogged down and worn out by this ideal because that’s just not who you are right at this moment.
If your goals or ideals or image of your future self are things that inspire and motivate you, great! That will surely help you work towards success. But if those same things make you depressed, frustrated, or angry at yourself, first of all there’s nothing wrong with you for thinking that way, I promise. Just know that this mindset is not worth your precious brain time and energy for now and try thinking about something else.
One particular frustration and solution I encountered over the past year has more to do with the next section, so…
2. How I learned to love Anki, as a solution
When I decided I wanted to give Japanese a try again a couple of years ago, I looked at some kind of vocab list (either a JLPT or maybe a Core x000 deck, I don’t remember) and realized the words I still knew after not touching Japanese for at least 5 years were ones I’d made Anki cards for back in the day or just kanji I was forced to memorize as a kid learning Chinese.
So it was pretty clear that Anki worked for me. I then started playing some Japanese mobile games, but I was doing lookups and making cards manually (writing the words with my finger on Gboard on my phone) and that was kind of an awful experience that took a lot of time and energy.
The worst part was when I looked up words I’d already made a card for, and maybe even went as far as starting a duplicate card until Anki told me to stop. Basically walking backwards and tripping for no good reason.
This is when I started thinking about reading books, because maybe a ereader dictionary lookup wouldn’t be too bad, but making cards would still be a pain… fortunately I discovered ttsu and Yomichan–and even more importantly, the fact that the Yomichan popup tells you a word you’re looking up is already in your Anki deck.
Total game changer, for a few reasons.
First, card-making became a one-click affair that doesn’t really even interrupt the reading process. Next, no accidental duplicate cards. In fact, seeing that I’d already looked a word up before went from being frustrating to a useful tool. Because becoming aware of and accessing that card-I’d-already-made was so easy with Yomichan, I could easily edit that card to improve my chances of remembering it. Perhaps the sentence I’m reading right now is a better, more memorable sentence that I can put on the card. Or the dictionary I just added gives a better definition. Or maybe the reason I didn’t recognize the word is because it’s actually a different meaning or usage than the one I already know.
At any rate, it’s another opportunity to interact with a vocab word which I think gives my brain another chance to learn it.
Speaking of more opportunities to interact with a word, I don’t do this all the time but sometimes I go through my deck and (with the help of the anki web browser plugin) I do google image searches for cards whose definitions can be replaced by an image. I don’t feel comfortable enough with monolingual dictionaries to use them efficiently or exclusively, but when the definition is something that can be a picture or illustration I feel like it really helps to bypass the English during the flashcard review process and go straight from Japanese word to direct meaning (aka image).
3. Not just any old habit but a comfy habit
Sometimes when I get really into trying to be efficient and optimizing processes and stuff I forget that reading is a thing I like to do for fun. That said, I think all of my vocab review has brought me to a point where I’ve graduated from looking up literally every part of every sentence (first chapter of 本好きの下剋上 took me actual months) and can read comfortably on a Kindle. (The fact that I don’t seem to have the same dictionary problems as others have on this forum does help though…)
While I’m not sure what cause led to what results in terms how much I read and how much time I spend reviewing vocab, consistency and volume have definitely made a difference on both fronts. I use Anki every day, though I have days when I only review 5 or 6 words instead of the usually 120ish to preserve my streak. Over the past year the average time I spend on each card went from 8 seconds to less than 4 seconds, which means reviews go a lot faster now plus I can read books faster.
Well, it’s not so much about speed as it is about ease. Switching over to Kindle wouldn’t have been possible or worthwhile for me if I didn’t also find a way to make cards easily–I’m super thankful for Fluentcards, which lets you look at your Kindle dictionary lookups and the sentences they came from in a browser so you can still Yomichan them like usual. (There’s something a little funky about how sentences are grabbed but making all the cards I feel like making for an entire book all at once is still worth it.)
Goals for Year Two
- A 365 day reading streak. I’m on day 143!
- Finish parts 3 and 4 of 本好きの下剋上.
- Read nonfiction regularly *not putting a number on this because I don’t own that many and my book budget at the moment is… illusory, at best
It isn’t terribly difficult and has all those good thrilling sports moments and a lovely cast of characters.
