[2024] 多読/extensive reading challenge

Japanese Language Reading
2593

To be fair, I never said they were :wink:

I never said I was trying to actually be helpful with that comment :slight_smile:

Though, more seriously there’s also the (unofficial)term ライト文芸 which I’ve seen used for books that are supposed to be kind of Inbetween light novels and serious literature. For instance there’s a couple labels that mainly publish books from light novel authors that want to try writing more serious stuff whose books I’ve seen labelled as such (but it’s not an actual official category on most of the stores that sell books though, and more something that seems to be used on various sites for talking about books and for instance on Wikipedia).

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2594

I don’t. That is, I don’t think I’ll read kimi no na ha with the book club, since I haven’t actually bought the book, and I’m not that interested in reading a book that’s basically the script to a movie I watched.

The others… For the ones I’m reading, I’m enjoying honzuki, and re zero. I liked kemono, and like Nicole, I like the read aloud group we have. Also I like fantasy and don’t mind well written literature aimed at teens, so I probably would have read this one on my own eventually too. (Except for the lack of kanji, but I tell myself reading without is also a valuable skill to have and close enough to listening practice. :eyes: )

Of the ones I haven’t started yet, I intend to finish 1Q84 because it’s my first Murakami and while I’m not sure I like it, his writing style is interesting. I’ll form my opinion as I continue reading. ^^ I want to read yougisha x because I want to try reading a mystery novel at least once, and from the reviews and the bookclub’s reception this is a good one.

Erm… I think that’s it in bookclubs? I’ll read harry potter on my own time since that one’s halfway through already anyway.

This is an interesting thought. I think I also have this commitment in that I’m more likely to join book picks by the intermediate and advanced club than I would be a standalone club, provided they’re both of the same level of interest to me.

In fact kimi no na ha is the first pick since I first joined with kino that I’m not reading.

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2595

Ah, yes. I justify my lack of listening practice by calling this listening practice as well. :upside_down_face:

(I actually do think it helps with that.)

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2596

184 pages a day on average is pretty bonkers imo, even for books in your native language.

I know your actual goal was to read more difficult books, but still…reading 184 pages a day surely you at least come across some stuff you don’t know 100% every now and then right? Even reading in english, coming across new words isn’t particularly rare for me. Do you add any new words you come across to an SRS system or anything or do you just kinda remember them?

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2597

君の那覇, a tourism campaign movie produced by Okinawa prefecture.

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2598

I was feeling weird about leaving it all in romaji. Thanks for making me feel better about that. :joy:

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2599

Personally, I would have gone with:

kimi no na ha(wa)

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2600

Oh, sure. Especially with the current series I am reading, which has a lot of Chinese-inspired terms.
I do not use any SRS at the moment, mostly because I don’t have the time. I’m spending probably 95% of my free time reading these days (hence my numbers). Since I read by series, the text itself is the SRS at this point.
Obviously, I’ll forget those words if I never see them again (honestly I don’t mind never seeing 折檻 again by the way). But at the same time it means I don’t need them, so nothing of value is lost.
I guess it also depends on the book. There was literally nothing I had to look up in volumes 1-3 of KonoSuba. It obviously helps with speed; I read each of those books in a single day. At the same time, it obviously doesn’t feel like I am making progress when I read a book like that.

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2601

Makes sense. Authors really do seem to like to use the same words lol. I 顰蹙 has come up like 4 times in 2 books of my current series but I didn’t see it in like 15 volumes of oreshura. ime same for 四字熟語 too, interestingly enough.

While you’re clearly far ahead of me in terms of reading ability, this is at least one thing I can relate to now in the realm of manga. Its super easy to go through a couple volumes a day which is like over 500 pages, and yet it feels so unproductive because there’s just nothing I don’t know. I loved reading ドメカノ but it kinda sucks because it feels like I’m wasting my study time by reading it.

The difference between that and your situation, however, is I imagine you’re getting quite close to having a vocabulary comparative to plenty of natives, no? The average native even doesn’t know a handful of words they come across. So really it makes me curious, are you trying to further your reading ability for yourself at this point or is there some external necessity or goal? My situation as a college student in america is pretty different from yours as a working adult in japan, so I’m curious as to what your thoughts towards further language progression are.

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2602

January marked a big shift from 2020 for me. In 2020 I read a ton of manga, but when I finished my manga goal with a couple weeks left at the end of the year, I gave that remaining time all to novels, and it feels like that pushed something further open for me in terms of novel-reading motivation and stamina. This year so far I’ve read very little manga, which feels strange, and is also a little unexpected considering I’m in the middle of series that I really like and want to get back to, but the novel pull is too strong at the moment. The other different thing about this year so far is that since 2021 is the year of “I read what I want” for me, every novel I’ve finished so far has been a light novel, lol. Several はめふら, the first two spider books, and a 本好き. Since my manga reading motivation is low right now, I’m considering only doing book club manga for a while, because I’d rather not get too behind on that.

The most manga I’m getting read is with a friend reading 7SEEDS aloud. It is bringing me such joy, really, like a gift to myself. :joy: What other friends can I rope into reading 7SEEDS with me in upcoming years…

In my in-English Thief series reread, I finished book one and am partway into book two (of six), but I’m also fitting in some 本好き 5 and 獣の奏者 3. And the spider books are lurking in the back of my brain, definitely to emerge soon.

I have some questions that I don’t want to google for spoiler reasons, so, in case anyone here is able/willing to answer them, here are two polls. I figure this thread is a resource and also that I just enjoy polls. :bar_chart:

This one is for people who have read 本好き 5, but is not super spoilery:

Without more explanation than these answers, what is it that makes 本好き 5 feel so dense?

  • Mostly the restaurant stuff
  • Mostly something specific that isn’t the restaurant stuff
  • A mixture of things
  • Not really due to any specific thing, just generally dense
  • I haven’t read it and/or don’t know

0 voters

This one is for people who have read 蜘蛛ですが、なにか?. I don’t know how far in you have to have read, but past book two. I would say this is a much more spoilery question:

Is the main character spider I know and love also the 魔王 in the meeting who uses thread to immobilize others, etc? Please don’t expand, but I must know this one thing!

  • Yes
  • No
  • It’s complicated
  • I haven’t read it and/or don’t know

0 voters

2603

Well, I’ve only read the manga, which I’ve just recently learnt basically omitted half of the plot arc, but my answer is I don’t really think so, but the way it’s presented in the manga makes me not completely certain.

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2604

Interesting! My current feelings: I feel the books are leading me to believe they’re the same, but the very fact that I’m being led to believe that makes me suspicious that I’m being tricked. I’m not even sure which way I want it to go, but the wondering is making me antsy.

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2605

Once you finish book 5 please let me know how you feel about which parts were dense.

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2606

Because I’ve heard it’s dense going in, I’m thinking to take it slow and steady while reading other things more quickly, so maybe it won’t register too much? Or it will regardless, I don’t know~

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2607

I don’t think it’ll make a difference to be honest. It’s not like the book is bad. I just feel like it could have been 50 pages shorter and streamlined a bit.

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2608

Not quite; on topics I care about, that might be the case, but it is still lacking in other areas. A native speaker would come across a much wider variety of topics throughout their life and thus would have a more balanced vocabulary. If I want to progress further in that aspect, I have to get out of my way and read stuff I would usually not read. At the same time, I don’t read those stuff in the first place because I don’t really like reading them. It’s also unclear whether learning more about those would have any impact on my everyday life. The only case that comes to mind is when people try to have a conversation about such topic. I would be able to hit some 相槌 because I don’t care rather than because I don’t understand.
Needless to say, motivation is at rock bottom.

Sigh no, there’s no reason nor goal. There are other areas I should work on, the most relevant being the ability to produce business-level keigo. At this point in my career, I can still barely manage to get by as I am, but if I get promoted any further (which should happen in the 5 years horizon), that won’t fly anymore.
But I don’t want to actually study. At the end of the day, once the chores are done and kids are in bed, I’m tired and I just want to not have to think about anything. At this point, I definitely realize that my reading is just barely better than just crashing on the couch in front of netflix, but at least I don’t feel as bad about it as I can still pretend I am doing something active.

Overall, the most serious I was about actually studying was while I was going through WK, which really gave me some kind of structure and an end goal. If there was no end line, I would probably have burned out in the middle, but knowing that it’s “only 3 more months” helped a lot going forward. As soon as my weekly review count got below 100 and I didn’t even need to connect every day, suddenly everything else went down the drain as well.

On a more general note, my skills are extremely biased toward comprehension rather than production, so I should put some efforts into that. Someday.
I made it a yearly resolution for 2021, and failed on day 2. I didn’t even reach the 三日坊主 level.

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2609

My feeling exactly. Also, once you are past that part, things start moving quite a lot, which was appreciated.

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2610

I mean, it makes complete sense that your motivation to learn about things that may not even really benefit your every day life is at rock bottom. tbf I would say that reading is a whole lot better than just watching netflix and at the very least you’re doing a very solid job maintaining your level. I feel like the problem you’re having is a pretty inevitable one though for people who end up getting to a pretty high level.

relatable haHAA

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2611

I’ve been watching the anime on Netflix with audio descriptions (a narrator describes what’s happening between dialogue, it’s quite fun and extra practice :D), but honestly it’s not very good :rofl:. The manga seems to be much more highly reviewed.

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2612

I have heard that’s the case~ I’m sad that it didn’t turn out well, considering how great the manga is, but I’m glad that I heard it was disappointing before I watched it and got much more sad. :smile:

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