Thanks, I’ll check those links out.
I think my biggest goals when starting were listening comprehension with anime and games. I like Playstation, so games that comes to mind are like Nioh and Ghost of Tsushima.
Just starting will be key, whatever it is. Looking forward to looking through those book club links.
True! I’ll take a look at that. Thanks!!
Thanks for your reply. It’s helpful hearing how others are tackling it. And thinking of them as little projects is a good way to look at it.
It’s a form of interactive fiction that usually supplements a text based narrative with audio and visual media. Some are basically books as computer programs, most have background art, music, sound effects, character portraits, and the occasional illustration. Many have partial voiceovers in key moments. There are VNs with linear narratives, or some that follow more choose your own adventure style plots. There are also quite a few that get into a solid hybrid between narrative and incorporation of game elements.
I’d say the most common is the type that starts with common exposition and branches into one of several (mostly linear) “routes” based on a character selection. Romance/smut is super common, but there are lot of other genres as well. In a VN the text is usually the bulk of the game with shorter VNs being less than 10 hours or so, but I’ve seen long ones reported at 100+ depending on reading speed.
This site is kind of annoying to use, but if you want see how deep the rabbit hole goes https://vndb.org/
A lot of anime comes from VNs, but if we want to get into memes Nekopara, Fate, Stein’s Gate, Ace Attourney, Danganronpa, ect. are all big names you might have heard of that are or originated from VNs. I hope this cover the basics well enough. I feel like someone more into the genre could write an essay here.
Edit: I recently played VA-11 HALL-A which was an absolute joy
I agree with others that using Bunpro more could be beneficial. And, obviously, reading.
Only thing I can add is: Ditch the owl.
Level 48 and haven’t really gotten into reading yet, yikes. Ditch Duolingo, pound vocab with a different SRS and start reading. I’d recommend Satori reader.
Duolingo is honestly garbage. The only thing that app is good at is making you think that you’re productive.
Reading is the fastest way to aquire a language. Once you’ve read as much as you can be bothered with, get onto listening (each day). Whenever you have downtime listen to japanese.
It’s like that “choose your own adventure” books, but in video game form…
Are those still a thing? Or am I just old?
Are you really doing all the Genki exercises in the workbook? Specially the ones in which you have to compose your own sentences. Are you using the last part of Genki main book in which you have additional readings? In Genki 2, there are lots of long texts to read there. When I reached WK level 60, I could read almost nothing even after finishing Genki 1. When I finished Genki 2, I could read more material but not the stuff I really wanted to read. Now, at Tobira chapter 11, reading is becoming more pleasurable. If you are using Genki at its fullest, my only other suggestion is for you to start reading every context sentence in WK when you do your reviews. I think there is a script to hide the English translation…
Haha I know it does next to nothing for me, but that streak is addicting! The good thing is, I only use it for a bout 3 minutes a day (literally a single exercise). Going to check out Satori reader! Thanks for the reply.
I’ve just never enjoyed reading in any language, so I haven’t gotten around to it. This post was to get some tips on starting.
And I know Duolingo is not great. I don’t invest much stock into at all (1 exercise a day that takes all of 2-3 minutes). Thanks for the reply!
Interesting. Thanks for elaborating!
For the most part, yes. With the exception of some of the ones that require a partner. Sometimes I do them verbally and just play both sides.
I have not done the last part of the Genki book with the additional readings. I will need to check that out. Could be really great. Thanks for the suggestions!
Ah, sorry, I misunderstood. ^^
That was my experience, at least. 
You need vocab and grammar to read, but you also need to read to actually be able to cement and retain vocab and grammar. I think it all needs to be grown in tandem.
I saw that @ccookf already went into it, but the games that I played were indeed Ace Attorney games. They are more “involved” than the average visual novel. Rather than just reading a story while making a few choices that funnel you towards a specific ending, there is more to it. You have to pay attention, know what evidence you have, and catch out mistakes during witness interrogations.
I had played the game before in English, which was my saving grace. If I had known absolutely nothing, I would not have been able to play that as my first Japanese game. Especially since there was no furigana, and I didn’t have anything like a text-hooker.
Knowing the major plot points (I didn’t remember most details, since I hadn’t played it in years) meant that I had enough knowledge to progress the game while understanding about 5-10% of what I read during the first few cases.
It was most certainly a grind, but by the final case, I understood 80-90+% of what I was reading at any given time, since I had kept up with WK and Bunpro throughout those 9 months.
I wonder what that would have been like if you had only done WK during that time.
I would have been relying solely on my recollection of playing it in English, I guess. I started with low, maybe mid N4 grammar, and I was already struggling hugely at the start. If I had no grammar under my belt, or hadn’t bothered advancing it on the side, I’m guessing I wouldn’t have had the patience to go through the entire game understanding only loose words in a sea of confusion.
One of the big motivators while I was reading was the fact that I was doing BunPro, since I had a lot of moments of “Oh, I learned that yesterday! I totally understand what they’re saying here!” Even though I often struggled with accuracy on BunPro reviews, I was very motivated to continue since I saw that it was helping where it mattered to me: being able to engage with Japanese. ^^
Excellent! Thanks! What level would you say you were at to understand as much as you did by the end?
Edit: @Omun - adding this tag in case you saw my answer before my edit.
Very cool!
The GREATEST key to learning a language is through input, and this is backed by science. Don’t worry about what you don’t understand. Just listen the language as much as possible and read the language as much as possible. You don’t realize as it’s happening, but your brain is actually working very hard to recognize and decode the patterns of the language. Just have fun with native content that you enjoy and don’t worry about it too much, it takes time. Watch your favorite anime, Japanese movies, and tv dramas without subtitles and read your favorite manga in Japanese. Personally, I like using Satori Reader for reading practice because they offer point by point grammar explanations for every sentence (so you can get an immediate understanding of a grammar item instead of just through sheer pattern recognition exposure, I think it’s a nice resource which speeds the process up a bit).
Satori Reader is one of the best things ever invented.
Agreed! I try to read at least one full article on there each day and I feel guilty when I don’t get to it.