I’m actually starting to seriously consider trying to set a 100 books goal for next year. The rational part of my brain keep saying “no what are you doing stop”, but the emotional part keep saying “是非” (that’s a 大日本人 reference; sadly cannot find a gif ).
Still one book to go (I originally came here to update the table since I finished volume 6). If volume 7 is anything like volume 6, I think it’s great overall. However, volume 4 and 5 (especially 5) are really slow, with barely anything happening. That can be the occasion to truly practice 多読 and ruthlessly read without pausing through anything not too interesting. (コホン, the first 70% of volume 5).
Relates.
I feel the same. Also, for some weird reason, I feel like I need to finish a series before I can start something else. So committing to a 20+ book series means I’m stuck for a while. (Well, external factors can unstuck me as well, though, that’s how DanMachi is currently rotting on my bookshelf).
I think I will do that with 本好き. The problem is that the end of arc 1 really pulled me to continue.
Gaaah you made me look at the name of the next arc, and it’s a massive spoiler. WHY IS THAT EVEN A THING? もー!
It’s volumes 8-12 (5 volumes).
Right, that was not a problem for volume 4. Volume 5, though, has a lot of technical explanations, since マイン is teaching things to other characters. I don’t know why the reader has to be taught as well, especially for that long. It is worth it to push through, though. (Also, I guess some people do enjoy that kind of things…)
2021 would be the first year for me to even make any plans, because at the beginning of the 2020 I didn’t even suspect I’ll be reading novels already.
Reading by arcs is a nice idea, although it is also nice when an arc ends simultaneously with the end of the volume. It really bothers me that while my current stop with One Piece is just before the timeskip, and it is a perfect place to stop for a longer break, I need to finish in the middle of the volume. Ghhh.
I hope this is more of a manga problem than novels’ one.
For manga, I don’t really have too many plans. I want to finish Wan! (Bungou Stray Dogs comedy spin-off), with or without the book club, depending how the further participation goes. With book club’s current pace, there will be 4 volumes for 2021 and that’s basically it. Maybe I’ll add something more if there will be some interesting book club going on or someone mentions something really exciting, but I also don’t really want to start any long series now.
For light novels, I’ll also be going with above-mentioned Bungou Stray Dogs series. In BSD case, light novels are also sort of spin-offs/bonus stories, although some of them were adapted into the anime. But manga is the main story. Anyway, I’m picking the order here by prioritizing the ones who sound most interesting to me and/or weren’t covered by anime, because chronology doesn’t really matter too much here.
And another light novel series I want to do is of course HameFura/乙女ゲーム[…]. Secretly I wish to catch up in 2021 to the last volume published, but I don’t dare to hope I’ll really manage it.
For regular novels, I’m still awe-struck about the fact that Sayaka Murata uses such straightforward language. I was afraid it would be ages until I will be able to read any of her works untranslated, because I regarded them as big, scary books for adults. I’m still gonna read anything they decide to translate, on the release day, but I’m really happy I can pick anything from the full Japanese selection any time I want. I’m going through the 殺人出産 now, and I’ve picked しろいろの街の、その骨の体温の; 丸の内魔法少女ミラクリーナ; 生命式 and 消滅世界 to be my 2021’s books of her.
And I guess text-heavy games also count here? I want to start with the Utapri series somewhere in the second half of 2021 and play Disgaea 6 and Rune Factory 5 on their Japanese release dates. I’m also considering Shin Megami Tensei V in Japanese, but I’m still not sure. There will be SMT3 remake in the 2020 November, and I’ll see how well it goes. If it won’t be too heavy for me, then SMT5 in Japanese it is. And I’m leaving a little space open for any more new releases that may appear. I also plan to repeat some older games, now in Japanese, but I don’t have a schedule for that.
You’re sort of starting to become a role model for me I’m looking at your reading speed and I’m thinking “that’s where I want to be in several years!”
Yessss.
Plus, it definitely gets easier as you go with a given series, so it should be doable. Well, as long as you remain interested in the story, that is That being said, that’s a very thorough plan you have here, there’s probably an opportunity cost in trying to finish the series quickly. *looks at own all consuming focus on 本好き*
They do
I don’t think I fit the role model status, since reading that many books (even in my native language) would take way too much of my free time, in a way that isn’t really healthy. That’s borderline 活字中毒 at this point. But, at the very least, I’m glad I’m one more point of data showing that it’s possible to get to that level.
As @morteasd said , in the things I read these days, there’s very little that I need to look up, and it usually is explicit from context. When it isn’t, I do look it up, though.
interesting! i find myself having to look up about one word every 3-4 pages for the stuff i read these days. it’s so much less than how much i used to have to look up in the past so i feel proud of that ^O^
but were you very intentional about increasing your vocabulary up till you got to this point? for example mining words and reviewing them in anki?
Yes, I was! I used Floflo specifically. I was really hitting a plateau in my Japanese progression before that. Then I decided I would basically add all the words I don’t know (that sound interesting or appear often) as I go. It was painful at first, but eventually I reached a point where I couldn’t get enough new words per day.
Ah, note that I did that once I was already N1, with approximately ~10K known words. (It was still not enough to ready comfortably without look ups). Getting to the N1/10K words level was a much more haphazard process that span many years
thank you for your reply <3 never heard of floflo gonna look that up! but yeah i used anki for most of my vocab gains too, but lately i just look things up and wait for them to stick with natural repetition as i read and listen to stuff how well that’s working, i’m not 100% sure yet haha
just curious how long have you been learning japanese?
Not that I know of. 本好き happens to have separate AniList entries for each arc, so it was easy to figure out. And I know Re:Zero has several arcs from watching the first season of the anime, but I couldn’t tell you where the arcs are in the books.
I tried the same thing for a while. It works to some extent, but the problem is that some words are just so infrequent that reading alone will never give you enough repetitions. (In a sense, you could also say that it means you don’t need to know those word… but they still have an impact)
If I’m counting correctly (it’s getting fuzzy), that would be 13 years of actively studying. Although for the past year and a half, my “studying” has been reading whatever I feel like, so I don’t know if I should count it… If I don’t, then ~11 years to get to that point.
Still, that sounds pretty good. In my current book I still have on average maybe 2-3 new words per page (but some of them are clear from context and kanji). Granted, first volumes are the worst in this.
In January 2021 it will have been 5 years since I started studying Japanese. That’s really weird to think about.
Goes to check highlighted kindle words
Wow, I only highlighted one word in the last 6 kindle pages (= about 3 real pages) for 本好き. Granted, it’s the very end of the book, so I’m familiar with more of the words being used. But that’s also just what I highlighted; in general I look up more than I end up highlighting. I just checked Kitsun, where I’ve added 204 words from 本好き (though I’m a few chapters behind in adding words). Since I don’t add every word I look up, I’d guess I look up an average of 3-5 words per page.
That’s pretty nice. I calculated my number from my 青春ブタ野郎 freq>=1 floflo Anki deck, which from the current rate of suspending familiar cards adds about 700-800 “new” words. New in the sense that I found them worth keeping and not did not suspend them when they appeared in Anki. Probably some redundancy in there.
The volume is about 330 pages, so maybe that 2-3 is accurate. I’d wager it’s heavily weighted to the start of the book or some discussions about some specific topics.
).
I’m looking at your reading speed and I’m thinking “that’s where I want to be in several years!” 
