Yeah, I’d say so. Again, I don’t remember the details, but I do remember liking book 11 (last one by Robert Jordan before he died) and books 12-14 (written by Brandon Sanderson using Robert Jordan’s notes and getting advice from Robert Jordan’s editor/wife).
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Three reading sessions into the book, and I’m at page 50. Having a word list available through FloFlo makes life much, much easier, so I’m very glad I bought it.
It’s simultaneously going better and worse than expected. I’m very much reminded of my middling vocab knowledge, but when those vocab blanks are filled in, I do find it easier to follow along than I thought I would. Luckily the grammar used seems pretty simple so far, but I’m only at chapter two.
I do still struggle sometimes to follow along with the longer sentences. I’m sure they’re not that long by novel standards, but they’re still longer than I’m used to after reading through two VNs and a bunch of manga.
「あーッ、コカキぃー」
アンジェリカが嬉しそうな声を上げて、ふらふらと老人の側に寄っていき、猫がなついている主人に甘えるときのようにその身体にしなだれかかりながら彼の腿のあたりに顔を擦りつける。
For me, that’s a sentence that I can’t read in one pass. 
Especially with a few terms unknown to me in there, I can’t keep the whole sentence in mind as I read it. So then I have to reread it a few times.
I’m really hoping this will improve as I stick with the book. A quicker and more intuitive understanding of longer sentences, because that’s certainly not my forté.
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So far about 1/4 into “きらきらひかる”. I think is pretty similar in difficulty to コンビニ人間. So for anyone looking for a novel more or less with the same length to jump into novels I would add it to the list of recommendations.
The novel is about a sexless-cover up marriage between a gay doctor and an alcoholic woman; the routine they go through to fit into their roles in society and how much they put up to keep the status quo.
It feels a nice novel to read after コンビニ人間, sort of in the same line of characters searching a place to belong to and ways to fit in. I think I will change subjects with my next one, but for now the novel is giving me enough food for though.
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I’m planning to read a couple magazines this year, and I’m not quite sure what would be the correct category to put them in. I’m leaning towards ‘other’ but that category has been used mostly for games so far. There was one person recording their progress through ‘いろいろな新聞’ last year though…
I figured I’d put this out here and see if anyone else has maybe already thought about this. 
Noted. 
コンビニ was a very nice reading experience, so a novel of roughly the same difficulty sounds good. The subject matter sounds interesting too, and I assume you wouldn’t recommend it no matter the language difficulty if it was bad.
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That’s my motto for the year: “will only read stuff that I care for”. So the only gamble here is assuming my taste for novels ain’t utter garbage. 
…
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I’m now reading 西の魔女が死んだ, which I got as a gift from a friend who said it was her favorite book. That’s also why I’m extra motivated to finish it! Am now at page 154! The level of the book is really nice, I’d recommend it for the book club as well, or anyone at N3 N2 level! It’s originally a book for youth I guess, it’s very cute and feel good about a young girl who starts to live with her grandma who turns out to be a witch.
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いや〜変な話… this is technically off topic in this thread, but I still wanted to report on that anime.
I just finished watching it. It was pretty amazing! Thank you and @sigolino for the recommendation.
I feel I can’t really judge the originality or quality, though, since I lack experience with the medium, but all the character were really interesting. Even 太郎 got his moments toward the end. (Well, the 変な話 guy did not, but he got what was coming, so it’s all good).
In terms of learning, I feel I did well for the first half, watching the episode without subtitles first and then checking my understanding. I definitely improved over that time too, going from 60% understanding (that’s 2~3 words per sentence not catched) to something like 80% (1~2 word per sentence). A lot of the improvement comes from getting used to the story, the voices, etc. Still a long way to go.
Then I got caught off-guard by the fact that it went beyond 13 episodes (and the end of the first plotline) and went ahead a bit more aggressively, with subs only. It’s Japanese only, so I don’t feel too bad about it, but I relied way too much on the text, so I feel it wasn’t really that successful (from the study point of view). 
Not sure what to do about that; maybe it’s still good enough? I guess I’ll try to focus more on podcasts for now.
I’m still on the fence about making a thread about 「多聞」(to contrast 多読, too bad that word has a loaded meaning :p). I don’t really know if there’s any point in making that, since I don’t really see how to keep track of the different media one can listen too (by length? audio only versus image + audio?) and there’s no bookmeter equivalent I guess. While this thread can also serves as a way to recommend books and discuss them, there’s already a bunch of other threads about anime and podcasts, so I feel it’s all inconvenient or redundant 
At the same time, I like updating numbers…
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Wow, some people have some pretty scary goals this year.
I set 10 books and 24 manga for myself (trying to get to 24 books when including English/Spanish books) which seems like a lot considering I’ve only finished 4 books in Japanese (it feels like more somehow) up until now. But I have a few half-read (キッチン、魔法少女育成計画) so I hope it’s not too much.
By the way there seems to be some alphabetical chaos going on in the table but I didn’t dare fix it.
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I hadn’t noticed, but after you said it, I had to fix it. Done. 
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You’re so much more ambitious than I am. I don’t have a goal, but I guarantee you it’ll be less than that.
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Don’t they? 
I definitely think my goal is a bit scary. I was originally going to go for one/month, but then 20/20 seemed appropriate for 2020 because of this:
Thanks. 
I figure if I read enough kids’ books and count magazines as well I should be able to make it?
And then you see people with goals of 40 books, haha.
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Schweet, a reading challenge! I am going be reading my first book in Japanese this year. Its on its way to me as I type. It will be なぜ?どうして?科学のお話 2年生 and I’l be reading that with Absolute Beginner Book Club starting in February. I will do my best to keep to the page day goal. after getting through that book book, I will start another one. I just don’t know what it is yet.
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I sure wonder which people that could be referring to
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Well I decided to sign up this year! Currently shooting for 5 manga and 1 book. I suppose it’s up for debate whether that qualifies as 多読 ;). But after all, I’m the guy that wrote the slow-goer post, so even this goal won’t necessarily be easy for me.
I’ve never been a big reader in English, let alone Japanese, but I’m really hoping to get into it this year. So far the only other JP things I’ve read are volumes 1-12 of よつばと.
I had baby #2 in the middle of last year and have barely had free time to do anything, but towards the end of last year I did get through 3 manga completely and read bits and pieces of several more. I’m not planning for any other huge life changes in 2020 so I’m hoping I can reach and surpass my goal!
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I got to page 190 today! I am very obviously still counting my progress in pages every time I read even the tiniest bit. I think that alone already shows that I still haven’t gotten used to reading in Japanese at all. I have to put in so much effort that I wonder when it will be as comfortable as reading in English! I remember the first time I read in English, the difference between then in English compared to now in Japanese is EXTREME. If I keep reading regularly, I really hope it pays off. I’d be so happy if I could look back on this post in one year and think “wow I couldn’t even really enjoy the novel at that time, but look at me now!”
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I’m looking forward to reading more this year with you all! I read 22 manga and 6 books (5 with book clubs, 1 without) over the past year, which all varied in difficulty. I’m so grateful to have found the Wanikani forums and all you wonderful people last year, since it encouraged me to start reading books in Japanese. キノの旅 was my first!
Unfortunately, I hardly read at all from mid-November to mid-December. I ended up reading キッチン week 6 to week 13 over the last two weeks of December in a more 多読 fashion thanks to several days off. This year I’m hoping to read 10 books and 20 manga. I have some easier books to read as well as some that are more challenging, so hopefully that goal will be attainable.
よろしく！
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Yay! @quadban! Welcome.
By the rules the originators of the concept defined, probably not. But screw the rules, we have money Japanese media!
It did for me, at least. Speaking of which, I’m quite excited about the 獣の奏者 group starting soon! The first (half of the first) part was the first book I ever read in Japanese, 5 7.5 years ago (where did all that time go). 56 full-fledged books (and a lot of study) later, I really want to see how far I have come…
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I’m equally excited because it’ll be my first true fantasy book in Japanese. As long as I stay disciplined, I think I’ll do fine. Ideally I want to stay disciplined on both the “read consistently” front as well as the “learn new words” front. If I keep up with the latter, it should make the second book easier.
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My book reading progress so far has been inconsistent due to some hard days. I learned that Japan had flush toilets in the early 700s though so that’s something. I’ve been finding myself reading more and more visual novels though, flying through scenes way faster than I normally would.
I find it interesting that different people here have different takes on tadoku. For some it’s about the volume of reading material and for others it’s more about the reading with ease without looking things up. It’s cool that everyone can find an approach that works for them
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Joined up, yay! As long as I read about half an hour every day I’l be happy, but more is better. I’d love to read more this year than last year, and the idea of checking in every once in a while might keep me going a few more pages some sessions.
I’m reading a few different things and about to start a couple of others.
Books:
- (paper, from the library) ブリジット・ジョーンズの日記 (p.365/410)
- (on my kindle) ぽっぺん先生の日曜日 (21%; taking a bit of a backseat since I’m close to finishing #1)
- (on the computer when I have snatches of time at work) ハリー・ポッターと不死鳥の騎士団 (0%; I just finished the fourth one today)
- (on my kindle) starting 氷菓 on Jan.11th
- (on my kindle) starting 獣の奏者 on Jan. 25th
I’m reading #1 at a quick pace (for me), #2 at a slow pace, #3 (the entire HP series, really) at a super super slow pace because I almost never have uninterrupted reading time at work because work, #4 and #5 at the book club’s pace, which I don’t know if I’ll find slow or fast. I’m definitely hoping to have #1 done before starting 氷菓, perhaps #2 as well.
Manga:
- (paper, my copy) 花ざかりの君たちへ (3) (not far in)
- (on my tablet) よつばと! (6) (perhaps a third through)
- (on my tablet) 美少女戦士セーラームーン (1) (finished act one)
- (on my computer) 名探偵コナン (1) (64%)
I’m reading #1 at no pace (haven’t touched it in ages but want to finish it so here it is for motivation), #2 at a quick pace, #3 with the book club, so at a very controlled pace, #4 was started because it was temporarily free on amazon and I tried to read quickly because I thought it would disappear but it hasn’t disappeared (yet?) so my pace has slowed back down.
Goal #1 is to finish ブリジット・ジョーンズの日記. Hopefully I can check back in soon to say I accomplished it!
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