Properly I’m reading Japanese Graded Readers: Level 2: 1 (Japanese Edition) | L14 - I have levels 0-3 on the bookshelf, but L2 is about where I’m at. I really like these - I’m not a very good reader but I can still knock one of these books out in 30-45 minutes, so even if I don’t enjoy the content, it’s over with pretty quickly.
I’m also sort-of reading both しろくまカフェ and ふらいんぐうぃっち (edit: added the links!), but last time i started I really struggled with the much more casual language in them, and gave up a little. My classes recently started on 中級へ行こう 日本語の文型と表現55 | L20 (after completing both MNN books), so I’ve re-started しろくま and will try ふらいんぐうぃっち again soon™
I went through that series (Level 1-4) a long time ago. I enjoyed the stories.
I spent a long time looking for similar things and had a lot of problems.
This site exists now so things should be a lot easier
I feel like my preferences in reading are really different than other people here, however, the difficulty levels that others assign are pretty accurate. I really haven’t seen anything yet, where I think the difficulty is way off.
Looks like I’ll need to start some new book club books soon (probably 十角館の殺人 | L34 for the mystery club here unless we have an influx of contrary voters and FLESH & BLOOD 2 | L33 for the F&B book blub on Wanikani), so my goal is to finish up a few of the books on my current reading list this week.
I’ve been listening to the first Harry Potter audiobook as I read along, and only have two more chapters left in the book. Haven’t quite decided how/if I’ll grade the book, as this is currently the only book I’ve plowed through via audiobook. I have a sense of HP1’s difficulty, but since I’m not sitting down and religiously looking everything up like I normally do, I’m not sure the best way to compare it to my normal reading methods.
My other “book” is a short sampler for one of the mystery book club nominees: https://learnnatively.com/book/c660b049b9/. It contains the first few chapters of the book, a short manga intro, and an interview with the author.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to get both of those wrapped up this week; only one remaining on my reading list after that is 薬屋のひとりごと 2 | L37, which… I really want to read it, but all the lookups tire me out. I got through the first one, so I told myself the second one would be fine. I think I just haven’t read quite enough to get into the flow of things with book number two. It might sit on the backburner while I read my other books for the time being…
I started reading the second part of 怪人二十面相 and it feels crazy obvious again.
“Oh no, the thief is going to come tonight, what can I do? Wait! I just remembered seeing in the local news that the famous detective 明智 is on vacation around here! Lucky!”
Later: “Not only does he accept to come, but he will contact the police himself and bring a few police detectives! So convenient!”
Yeah, well, you know, I’m pretty sure that 明智 is just 二十面相 finding a way to enter your impenetrable fortress and those “detectives” are just the henchmen he needs to carry your stuff out of there… You can’t fool me, I have read most of the “club des cinq” as a kid. The first unlikable person you meet is the criminal.
(Except if I am wrong, in which case, I was fooled indeed )
I just finished それでも歩は寄せてくる 1 | L20, which marks my first finished manga in Japanese!
Now I’m trying to decide whether I should give this “one book at a time” thing a go, or if not, what should I read next. I have a few ideas, but it’s probably coming down to…
Do you want something heart warming or something emotionally impactful? If the former, my 2 cents is to go with おじさまと猫, if the latter, go with ごんぎつね. Another plus of ごんぎつね is that pretty much every Japanese person has read it / is at least familiar with it, so it makes something of a talking point.
Today I started reading うらら迷路帖 6 | L32. I read the 5th volume back in May and decided to finally get back to the series. There’s only 7 volumes in total, so I’ll probably go right into volume 7 after I finish volume 6 and wrap up the series at this point.
I’ve also been reading 少女終末旅行 (series) | L20 recently. I’ll keep reading that and wrap it up in the next week or two as well.
Alright, I finally finished the book this morning.
It was short in terms of actual time spent reading, but quite long in terms of how many days I took to finish it I haven’t been reading much, this days.
I don’t think any development fooled me in the whole book. I was surprised to see the kid from the first part (I forgot his name already, 壮二?) again, though.
Overall, it was a pleasant read, but I guess I might have enjoyed it more back when I was in the target age range.
Well, the “what should I read next” thread said I should finally finish 獣の奏者 3.
I’m probably an outlier but I think I enjoyed it more as an adult that I even would have as a kid. Timing for me played a part - it was 5th book I ever read in Japanese, and the first one where I felt like I wasn’t putting in a ton of effort to read and instead just enjoying the story. There was a delight in finding the similarities of how the kids’ detective novels of my childhood were so similar despite being in a totally different language along with the boost of feeling like wow this is Japanese and I’m not struggling to get by.
But yeah, Edogawa Ranpo’s kids stuff is incredibly tropey and silly. Although I will say that one of the tricks used in 怪人二十面相 he reused in 黄金仮面 (which I still haven’t finished. His adult writing is another beast!) - I was shaking my head at that.
I can definitely relate to that! And that’s why I mentioned the age because, in my case, I couldn’t feel the sense of excitement and wonder I felt as a kid when reading that kind of book. It would have been wow’d by the messenger pigeon as a kid; now, I am just wondering how it is not dead from spending so much time in his jacket. Also trap doors. Trap doors everywhere. I loved trap doors. Can’t say I feel much about them anymore.
It’s sad to get old.
For the last month I’ve mostly been reading VNs vs novels, but I did just finish the last few volumes of 妹さえいればいい。 (series) | L31 yesterday. Really enjoyed the ending - the series is silly most of the time, but when it gets into the more serious chapters it really does a good job, and the last few volumes were full of them.
A few weeks ago, I read the VN route written by 三河ごーすと and it really stood out among the stuff from the other writers that worked on that VN, so now I’m starting on 義妹生活 | L30
I think it has probably been the only book I have read where I feel like I pretty know every word. Typically things with easy vocab have a lot of 擬音語 and there is a never ending ocean of 擬音語 that I don’t know. I leaned タオルケット from it, which is actually now kind of cute, now that I realize it’s a combination of two English words.
It puts me to sleep when reading it for some reason, so I have to read it in the morning or I will never finish it…
And I finished ごんぎつね (おはなし名作絵本 1) | L23. @cat, you were right on the money with your description of it, and I fully agree with your review. Especially that first sentence.
Spouse bought volumes 1-7 of 怪獣8号 (series) | L29, so I was reading that.
The premise sounded interesting (alternate reality Japan where 怪獣s are just a part of life like typhoons and earthquakes, main character in his 30s and part of the clean up team, the unsung heroes who put everything back in order after the actual heroes have killed the monsters), but it sadly went quickly back to standard power fantasy. It doesn’t even matter that he is older than the usual protagonist, he behaves like a typical “俺” shonen/seinen manga main character. And people still put up with that for some reason. I thought it would be interesting to see how he can get into the defense force and get up the ranks (to finally catch up with his childhood friend/current love interest?) while being an average human being in a group that is made of the elite of the elite. Well, never mind, he just gets a 怪獣 parasite that turns him into a crazy strong 怪獣 so that he can pretty much one punch anything. There was still some tension in the sense that if anyone else on his team notice that he is a 怪獣, he would immediately get everyone against him… but even that ship has sailed around the place where I am (just finished volume 6).
… Now that I have typed all that, I wonder if I should just put the review on the main site.
The last three days, I’ve been reading (playing?) the Visual Novel L∞PERS together with a WK “book” club. I never really felt like getting into VNs in English, so I didn’t expect too much, but this has very quickly turned out to be the most fun and engaging reading/listening experience I’ve had in Japanese so far! No idea if it’s the plot or the medium or a combination of both, but I’m really itching to continue. If I wasn’t kinda exhausted after reading for 3 hours already today I would probably immediately start with the next part.
If anybody is interested, there’s a free demo. I’m still quite early, so I don’t know it will stay this good, but so far: Highly recommended!
malicious damage
I got through the first one, so I told myself the second one would be fine. I think I just haven’t read quite enough to get into the flow of things with book number two. It might sit on the backburner while I read my other books for the time being…
)
