I think you are both underestimating a lot . If we talk about mostly passive understanding in context. Several friends who tracked their known words from the start (of course not that accurate, I know), said that at 12k words they really started to have a lot easier time in reading, and you are both well past that point. I didn’t track everything as accurately but had a similar hunch.
I feel the same. I have the 6k words from WK (obviously I’ve forgotten a lot, but probably understand the meaning at least on a lot of them), on floflo I have trashed about 11k words, and Anki shows me almost 6k words (suspended as known or in review). Those shouldn’t really even have a lot of overlap, since the Anki words are exported from floflo filtering out known words.
But that would be well over 20k (even if you would account for a few thousand misparses) Not saying I have a perfect recall of every card , but at least “know” it at some level. Especially since these are all words I’ve seen in context, in books. Of course there’s the problem of defining ‘a word’ so everything is highly inaccurate.
I have it on reliable sources that it stretches at least 4 weeks - provides you don’t turn on the wifi. I really wanted to do that, which turned out to be a huge motivation to read lots of 黒執事. My book reading suffered, but I read the 30 volumes within 31 days (plus one other manga I’d started previously), which is… The fastest I’ve read manga so far, and likely for a good while in the future too. I would have liked to read it a bit more leisurely, and spent some more of my reading time with my novels.
some thoughts on 黒執事
I wasn’t expecting to like it as much as I did. When the limited free time officially ended I had read the first 5 volumes, and was a bit meh about it. The art is beautiful throughout, and I liked it well enough to continue (for free), but wouldn’t have paid money to do so. Especially not since I knew there were 25 more volumes! By volume 10 I was sold. I think around that time the motivating forces behind some characters began to become clearer, and everyone gained much more depth as the story went on.
And then around volume 15 I was starting to feel really bad about cheating the author, but 30 volumes is a lot of money.
I’ll be supporting the author beginning next volume!
Now I’m sad since I saw that the average amount of volumes released per year is… 2. Between volumes 29 and 30 there was almost a whole year’s break, even! It looks like this might be the last major arc though, so… I’ll be looking forward to the grand finale next year, or maybe 2023?
(looks at our potential sparring partners) (looks at all the reading I’ve been doing in English)
… … Sure! I have no doubt of our v for victory!
Also, though of course this takes nothing away from my absolute confidence on this matter, I feel like I definitely know fewer words than @Naphthalene and I have 22k+ mature cards in my vocabulary deck. (Then again I have no qualms about adding near-to-useless-to-me things like many kinds of fish and birds and flowers, just because I enjoy learning them.)
Me: All right, finally finished Bungou Stray Dogs’ Beast! Now, I’m not starting any new novels until the release of (also BSD) Storm Bringer.
Storm Bringer will be long (484 pages, is it even light novel anymore?), and I want to read it fast both to avoid spoilers from Twitter accounts I’m following, and because it’s centered on my fav character. So I need to have a proper rest beforehand. And anyway I’m also playing Disgaea 6 now, and I want to finish it before Storm Bringer too.
(I’m playing Disgaea games for the main plot, which is commonly considered weird.)
Also me: But Sayaka Murata’s 丸の内魔法少女ミラクリーナ has a pink cover… And it’s only 216 pages and short stories collection so stopping points available
@Naphthalene, can I ask you about how assault scene problem has been resolved in the next 薬屋 volume? I’m not planning to read the series itself, but after your description (and after seeing the included art) I became intrigued what was the author intent i.e. was it supposed to be romantic or creepy.
(I’m probably being overly cautious with blur here, but just in case.)
One explanation may be a difference in added words. Like some people may not add words like 自問 because its like once you see it…you’re kinda just like yeah thats the exact meaning and reading I expected. Other people, however, may add that word. In both cases, both people may know the word after a month but only one had it count towards their wordcount when looking at srs stats.
Oh yes, that makes sense. I also tend to add kanji variants if I see them enough in books and such and my brain isn’t picking them up naturally, so I wouldn’t say I know 22k+ words, exactly, either~
Yes, my numbers are pre-WK. My last attempt before WK was with an RTK-like deck (although I ignored the mnemonics) and the kanji readings. I considered it okay if I could remember the meaning and at least one reading (usually ON). Using the number of cards in that deck is a bit arbitrary, since I had used another app before to learn (in a similar fashion) all joyo kanji.
Actually, I just realized that I also used a bit the beyond WK deck on kitsun, so I studied even more than that. I also stopped using it when I reached the end of WK.
Ah, yes, obviously, I mentioned that there’s a bunch of words I have only seen or learned through exposure. There are some words that I never learned but make immediately sense due to their kanji (e.g. 吐血, that one immediately stuck too )
I was not saying that I know 13k passively (it’s merely where I stopped tracking). However, the test I tried above gave words out of context and removed kanji on purpose. So obviously the number of words I know under those conditions is reduced.
… oh. Back in the days, I read up to volume 4 or so and dropped that series. I guess I should have pushed a bit.
Sure, do you mind if I rescind my rule not to count light novels?
So, I’m still conflicted about that part, but she decided that it would be safer to take control of the situation, so she used her training (if you do not know the background, she was raised in a top class brothel, and has err related skills).
Once the situation is resolved (there’s no details beyond the fact that she started by kissing him and, through a natation from his point of view, that he “lost”; I have my own idea about what it means but it’s not made explicit), she goes back to her room and stays in bed for 24h. She also removes the 簪 he gave her before, but doesn’t throw it away like is her first impulse. She then avoids him for a couple months, then their relation progressively goes back to normal, including romance, although when they are just the two of them for the first time, her first thought is “if I screamed would anyone notice?”.
Overall, I feel it’s acknowledged that he did a bad thing. Sadly, he is also shown (at least just after) to not realize it was bad.
What about those that BookLive list under 小説・文芸 instead of ライトノベル?
(That only gives me one extra, but I’ll take it)
More seriously, that’s something I’ve been wondering about after @Ditto20 mentioned the following:
In particular, 紅霞後宮物語 is extremely similar to 薬屋のひとりごと in terms of writing, yet the latter is considered ライトノベル. I could say the same about a few other books in there, like ビブリア, 万能鑑定士Q or 図書館戦争. In fact, at my local library, 図書館戦争 is the “young adult” section, which is their category for light novels. (ビブリア and 万能鑑定士Q are in the regular novel section, though )
@Ditto20 I remember you nominated ポーション頼みで生き延びます！for the intermediate book club.
I noticed that the first 6 volumes are discounted until tomorrow on BookLive (probably other places as well). Have you by any chance read it? (I’m not planning to scroll through your ~250 read books on Bookmeter to find out by myself )
If so, what did you think of it?
On the one hand, I’d say it was indeed a masterpiece (not that I have the expertise to really judge that myself). In particular, the work has a very surreal feel, almost like a dream sequence, brought from the very beginning through the scene with the window and maintained by the ruthless time skips. Those time skips also felt like they removed the existence of the “real” world, Tokyo, where the protagonist’s wife and kids are, thus making it feel like only the “snow country” mattered.
In terms of difficulty, the book is full of outdated kanji (坐る, 辷る, …) and elements (山袴, 内湯, 自在鍵, … I had to google image search that last one), which, well, were not (so) outdated at the time of writing. It’s really an interesting peak into the past, but it does make it much harder to read than most of the things I’m used to.
Honestly, the only problem I had with the book was the plot. From week 1 of the book club, I felt the main character was garbage and I hated his guts. Well, that feeling didn’t go away.
This is the first book that I’ve felt fairly comfortable reading. I’m tempted to get the other books in the series for that reason. But it doesn’t look like many people continue after the first one. Anyone here read past the first book? Is it worth doing so?
I haven’t, mostly because the end of the first book was satisfying. There’s also the fact that it’s targeted at a younger audience, so it did not exactly match my interests. I actually liked the book, but I don’t need more of it.
In terms of language learning, though, if you like it and find it a comfortable read, there’s no reason not to keep going!
I got the impression there was a number of people who want to continue the series, just not immediately. Maybe it’s worth asking in the home thread in case you are interested in continuing?
. If we talk about mostly passive understanding in context. Several friends who tracked their known words from the start (of course not that accurate, I know), said that at 12k words they really started to have a lot easier time in reading, and you are both well past that point. I didn’t track everything as accurately but had a similar hunch.
, but at least “know” it at some level. Especially since these are all words I’ve seen in context, in books. Of course there’s the problem of defining ‘a word’ so everything is highly inaccurate.
By volume 10 I was sold. I think around that time the motivating forces behind some characters began to become clearer, and everyone gained much more depth as the story went on.
)
)
