How do you even read a Japanese book?

[inastudious]

Wow! I’m getting a lot of responses! Thanks, guys! I’m gonna try to reply to your answers one by one.

@kenbongort

What I’m guessing you really want is to understand all the nuances in Japanese . Translating to another language can be a useful tool for documenting your work and helping you hold a whole complex sentence in your head. But I wouldn’t say it’s necessary, and as you know some nuances don’t translate very well.

You’re right. I think I’m forcing myself to understand the Japanese nuances as if they’re written in English, which, in most cases, is a bad thing to do. Different languages have different nuances. Even when I’m learning English, I never really force myself to understand it in Indonesian because sometimes there just isn’t anything equivalent.

@Myria

Sometimes I get the urge and start thinking about how I would express a sentence in my native language, but then I stop myself and think: „Why? Why waste time on trying to craft a natural sounding sentence when I understand the Japanese just fine?“

Oof. This hits me the hardest. Whenever I was trying to translate a book, I had such a hard time trying to craft a beautifully written sentence in English. It just took too much of my time and I think the book I was using was actually WAY beyond my level (I had to ask a lot of help from my Japanese friend to know the meaning of some of the sentences and even words because they don’t exist in the dictionary). To be honest, it’s really satisfying and I really want to become a translator at some point in the future, so it might be a good practice for when that time comes. But yeah, maybe I should just differentiate my “serious” reading time and my “just for fun” reading time.

@rodan

Keep in mind it’s not the end of the world if you don’t understand a passage fully. Especially since in this case it’s a book you know already. You can always come back to reread it later, and some of my favorite Japanese reading experiences are from rereading something I read a year earlier and realizing “oh huh, I really have improved after all!”

Oh yeah! I definitely have experienced this. It really is one of the most eye-opening and satisfying experiences in my Japanese studies haha.

@rodan

Like, I noticed a shift after a while. At first starting out, I would have to pick apart a sentence to even figure out where the words began and ended, or I wouldn’t spot conjugations of words I knew at first, or I’d be confused by contractions.
Whereas now after a lot of practice, I can immediately spot which words I don’t know and look them up, which makes reading a lot more practical.
If your experience sounds more like the former, that’s where it’s going to take a lot more time to work out the sentence, and practice will really help.

Oh, I’d say I’m more like the latter! I can differentiate parts of a sentence just fine. It’s just that most of the time (depending on the difficulty of the book) I need to look up words. But I don’t think it’s such a big problem tbh. I use electronic devices to do all of my reading (kindle, iphone, ipad) and they all come with built-in dictionaries and even built-in wikipedia searches. But still, sometimes I would find words that I can’t find anywhere in any dictionaries and I’d have to ask my Japanese friend for the meaning.

@rodan

Oh! One last thing - it’s also very mood dependent!
If you hit a sentence that’s going to take a lot of thinking and trial and error to piece together, it’s going to be a lot easier to do that if you’re in a good mood and not too tired.
So, if you are tired and that happens… don’t worry about it! Move on or leave it for when you’re more in the mood for it.

Ooh, thank you! I’m definitely gonna remember this!

@Vanilla

I think you should try to read it in japanese and only start breaking stuff down when you know theres something in a sentence you’re not getting. If theres something you just dont get or need to break down, taking time to do so isn’t a bad idea. Otherwise if you can process it in japanese in your head, then do so.

I see. It really is better to just read it and not worry so much about the details, then. But sometimes I’m kinda in between those two areas of “fully understanding” and “not understanding” which makes me confused because I’m worried that I might’ve misunderstood the sentence and it might ruin the story later on. I had this experience when I was still learning English and was reading Catching Fire. I totally misunderstood some parts, therefore the picture I had in my mind when I was reading it was totally different to what the author had intended, and I only noticed it when I was reading the Indonesian version haha. But I guess it’s just how it’s gonna be when I’m still learning.

@Vanilla

If I’m interpreting this right, you may have a bit of a misunderstanding. Personally, I never read something “as if” I could understand it. I always make sure I DO understand it, its just that some sentences can be understood naturally while some take some more effort when you’re earlier on in your studies.

Hmm, you’re right. That’s exactly what I meant. But understanding things in Japanese is just different, I guess.

@Abstormal

I basically never look up. Keep telling myself I’ll do it more later, when there are just a few words I don’t get. Honestly, it isn’t my style. I rarely look up anything in English either. Keep on reading and you catch so many words, and when you do see it in a study book or SRS you instantly “Oh I remember that word” and it is so much faster to set a meaning to it and just know it.

I think we’re pretty similar. But in my case, I keep putting off compiling the words into my SRS deck up until the point where I just don’t do it at all. But, sometimes, when I actually get around doing it, I end up not adding some words because I’ve seen them so many times when I was reading that I had the meaning memorized by then haha.

@andymender

I would probably go with this. Just let yourself feel the words, the emotions behind them. Just “touch” them like you would do in English

Thank you for your advice. I really appreciate it!

@softlyraining

A lot of great points already in this thread! I also have a “perfectionist” mindset (which I’m trying to chip away at), so what I’ll do if I’m reading on my own is have one book I’m “studying” (keep track of new vocabulary/grammar) and one book for “fun” (just do my best to get the gist).

Ohh this is a great idea! I actually have some Japanese books right now that I haven’t read (manga, light novels, and novels). Maybe I’ll try reading several books with different purposes in mind!

@softlyraining

Maybe check out some options from this book club books comparison thread ?

Thank you! I checked it out and it was an interesting read. I’m actually thinking of joining the コンビニ人間 book club but it’s been a few weeks already that I’m not sure I can catch up. But I’m definitely thinking about it. I’ve even bought the book haha. Maybe you guys can nudge me a little?

@phyro

It sounds like you need more practice with it… if you imagine trying to translate everything you read in English into your native language, I’m sure you could see how tedious and stilted that would feel. Translating into your native language in your head instead of directly understanding a text is a language learning crutch, one which you’ve already discarded for English.

Hmm…you’re right. I think I just need more practice. Just read more and more. I’ll definitely keep this in mind.

@phyro

Also as someone who has passed the N3, I must warn you that the mock exams you find online are magnitudes easier than the actual JLPT test.

Ah, I see. I might need to exercise even more, then. Thank you for telling me this!

@mchinellato

I think it’s important to distinguish between “reading for fun” and “reading for deliberate practice”.

Yeah! I’m definitely gonna start distinguishing between the two. I’m probably gonna use two different books, too.

@mchinellato

As you progress, you should start using a JP-JP dictionary, this will also help your brain to get used to just thinking in Japanese and start assimilating larger vocabulary in context.

Oh, I’ve never thought about this. I usually just use a JP-EN dictionary. What JP-JP dictionary do you usually use?

@mchinellato

One other important thing I’ve noticed amongst the hypepolyglots is repetition.
…
I get a bit tired of this, but I do try to re-read the same chapter 4-5 times at least when I am on study (deliberate practice) time. I’ve just now started adding listening to the audio book (on top of reading it) to the mix and I like the results I am getting.

Oh wow. This is crazy but I can see why it works. I did this back when I was still learning English. I read the whole The Hunger Games series back to back so many times that I’d practically memorized the whole thing. I just loved that series so much (still do). It definitely helped me a lot and improved my vocabulary way more and faster than any other methods could’ve done. Reading my next books got a lot easier after that.

@Belthazar

I typically just read it and go for the gist. Sometimes I get it wrong, but the more reading I do, the less often that happens. I usually discover, when someone asks a question in the book club threads, that I’m skipping over the nitty-gritty of the grammar, but if I’m getting the gist correct, does that really matter?

I see! I should think more like you. I tend to care too much about the grammar whenever I read. Maybe it doesn’t matter so much as long as I can understand it. I mean, it’s not like native speakers actually nitpick every single grammar point in everything they’re reading.

@jels808

I really struggle with wanting to understand everything and I’m not that excited by really simple books, but at the rate I can read intensively it takes me so long i never get into the material “for pleasure” so I need to keep going with both to improve my level and I’ll move on to more complex material for extensive reading over time.

This sums up my experience perfectly. I tend to avoid books that are “too easy” for me because reading them is no challenge, but I spend way too much time whenever I read more challenging books. Balance is definitely the key.

@slerched

Graded readers are also pretty fantastic as are books geared toward helping you learn; the ones that give you a story with furigana, and English on the same page, followed by the same story without any of the training wheels.

I’ve never given graded readers a try. Maybe I should! Thank you for bringing it up

@slerched

As others have stated, don’t translate. If you do this and become accustomed to it, expect to have trouble when speaking in a real world situation as the extra seconds can feel like a lifetime in actual conversations as you try to translate back and forth.

You need to learn to think in Japanese so you can read and speak in Japanese.

Hahaha yeah I think I should stop translating it in my head. It’s a whole other story, though, if I really want to practice my translating skill by actually translating it and writing down the translation parallel to the Japanese version (which is what I’m doing with 余命10年).

@OneUp

What I would recommend is to start a book by reading intensively for a bit, in order to learn some of the vocabulary and writing style of the author. Then read the rest extensively.

Huh. This is interesting. So, you’re saying that I should read a book seriously at first (nitpick the vocabulary, grammar, etc.), then “for fun” after that?

@Jerred

I know when I have moved toward fluency in other languages, I tended to be more and more likely not to translate to my native language, and just allow my brain to understand it in it’s existing language.

I see. The lack of “translating inside my head” is what I should be aiming for. Thank you for the insight

Whew. That was a lot! Thank you guys for the responses! I’m sorry if I didn’t reply to yours