Thank you for this wonderful topic. I have read everyone’s responses with great care.
There is a lot to take a way.
But couple things that stand out to me:
I should embrace my effort especially I am reading Japanese.
Lately I have been dismissive about my ability to read Japanese as there is always something that makes you feel you have not progressed as much as you think especially when reading native text.
And the fact that I am reading satori reader most of my time (actually capped at 2 new stories a day) and reading some other digital books. Makes my doubt.
But now I will say that I am reading Japanese no matter what and not that I am trying to read Japanese.
The great thing about embracing this I do of instead of I try is that it can be applied to other areas where you study Japanese. So instead of think I try to speak Japanese, I am speaking Japanese. Especially if you speak Japanese quite regularly (thanks to Italki)
Other important things for me personally is to celebrate my small wins and restart my study log writing. Even participating in the read every day challenge. This for the obvious reasons.
I should not forget to reflect that when December comes the end of year post.
@mitrac thank you for your m: my identity shift and reading journey post. Wonderful as always
I am sorry, I always want to discuss people’s posts, and never know where :'). I hope they see it in a positive outlook, that what they said resonated.
I dont have more to say, your replies said it all, and I think they give a detailed experience feedback to some of @Malinkal points . I also intuitively followed some of these, without reading these posts or your experiments, and then noticing they kinda mimick my experience organically
Doable I think is a very important word as well to put in emphasis. For me, after watching dozens of videos about japanese learning, all I heard about was immersion, and so I tried to watch a small amount of anime daily (like my reading currently), but absolutely failed: why ? Because I never really liked most animes.
Reading mangas/ anything everyday though? Much easier to immerse that way.
Not shocking at all once you start reading everyday, I say many times in the ABBC that even a page a day, I learn so much I am actually amazed.
Thanks a lot everyone for your feedbacks and experience posts! unsung heroes of japanese learning.
If I ever get lvl 60, my credit list will be so long…
I’m so glad what I wrote resonated with both of you
Absolutely! I spend a lot of time writing here, as does Malinkal and many others, and I’m pretty sure we would all be in agreement it’s because we learn so much ourselves through these discussions and it’s very satisfying to see people moving forward and finding a positive path for themselves as a result.
That was a great post, a lot of useful information. I admire how you managed to reach such a high level in everything so quickly. I understand that you have more free time than many people, but you managed to use efficiently!
I’m a bit envy, but also inspired. I hope to reach my 50 books soon
A little hypocrite of me, that I not only speedran WK, but also used Anki Core 10k sorted by Kanji levels and Anki least amount of extra vocab from Goo JE dictionary to support WK Kanji + remaining in wkstats. In short, I did frontload with 10k, with the support of Kanji. Assuming forgetting 30%, I still had 7k.
After finished drilling Kanji by vocabularies, I eventually stopped doing Anki.
But then, I have never SRS vocabularies before starting textbook chapters or reading materials, just look up as I go.
Then, I noticed that I didn’t retain vocab well, I returned to Anki and eventually reset WK.
And then I stopped SRS Japanese. I have mixed feelings about SRS vocab meanings, but not as much for readings, just too めんどくさい. Maybe the vocabs are really too random for relevance.
Anyway, spurts of SRS, rather than SRS forever. Streaks are OK, but I can’t promise anything over a year.
My reading is primarily intensive, but it’s also supported by some listening-like flow if I need to loosen intensiveness a little. But ofc there was time that my listening was a little less than half-good.
Wow, that was a very informative read! Even at my level I feel like I can use a tip or two from here, but also I will definitely save this post as a guide for when I finally get to a level where I can take on reading novels. Thanks for everything! Good luck on future endeavors!
Thanks for this post, it inspired me to add reading back in to my practice. I’m on lvl 9 WK and haven’t been in a hurry as I live in Japan and I started to improve my kanji/vocab/reading.
I read my first Japanese novel probably in 2009/10, did zero study for 13 years and started back up again a couple years ago when I moved back to Japan. I passed N2 barely in 2010 and I’m not back to that level yet. I’ve probably read around 10-12 books total so I’ve taken even longer than you! I enjoyed 奇譚ルーム when I read in a couple years ago. I should give it a re-read.
I’ll read through a few more posts in this thread to see what other interesting tidbits I can find. I do prefer physical books & I really don’t like SRS cards, so I’ll try going without this time.
I have a Kobo color - I should try to figure out how to configure it to read novels w/dictionary.
A bit late to the party but thank you for the post (and for the many good comments it sparkled). Definitely a bookmark for when the motivation ebb and flows.
Thank you! Glad to hear that you enjoyed it, and hoping that we both manage to keep going with this reading journey.
I think 変な家 is definitely good for being something that’s quite easy by novel standards, but also is very gripping and gives you that sense of getting kind of lost in “reading”, and forgetting that you’re doing it in a foreign language in the first place, which is a really nice sensation.
If anything I think it’s actually very impressive that you’ve managed to do so much and get through so much even without feeling a strong sense of connection to it. Despite that you’ve managed to read a ton, and hopefully you’ve got a lot out of it still! Here’s to both of us continuing on.
I also get sucked into short-form video spirals, but now not as much as I used to. As reading/watching Japanese has gotten easier, it feels better to put Japanese TV on in the background and pay 60% attention while zoning out a bit, rather than watching Youtube shorts about whatever flavor of the day. Although now I’m starting to get sucked into Japanese short-form videos a bit recently, which I’m not sure whether to take as a good sign about progress, or a bad sign about life.
Thank you! Glad to hear that you feel like you’re making progress, and to hear yet another example of Satori working well. If I was starting from an earlier level again now and circumstances were a little different, I think using Satori definitely would have been the way to go
So glad to hear it! I feel like it makes it so much easier to put in the effort and enjoy the process if you manage to think positively about it, in terms of the benefits you’re getting, the progress you’re making, the books that you’ve wanted to read for ages which now feel approachable, all the good parts. Maybe it doesn’t work for everyone, and it’s not just as easy as flicking a switch in your head, but if you can manage, it just makes it easier to stick with it and put more time in. And those are really the only two important inputs towards getting better
And this part, I should also take my own advice and stop downplaying my own speaking ability.
Please do it as much as you want! There’s not much I enjoy more than talking for extended periods about reading Japanese
Thank you! I have good circumstances (maybe almost perfect circumstances for getting better at reading specifically), but yes, it still involved lots of effort. If I remember correctly, I think you’re not so far away from 50 yourself!
Thank you! Unfortunately I don’t have so much useful advice for that middle stage, because I kind of just brute forced through it. But at least there’s people like Mitrac, bookclubs, so many people with actual experience and advice and resources for that stage. I think the getting into novels part specifically is the part which has less information out there, hence why I wanted to write this.
It must be a very different experience getting into reading now like me, compared to back 15 years ago. There’s so many more resources and so much more information, it probably feels a lot more manageable of a jump. But if you managed to get through it back then, I’m sure it’s probably easier to get back to it now, rather than starting from scratch.
I also definitely prefer physical books, but due to limited shelf-space and ease of portability etc, I do find that having a bit on e-reader and a bit physical is a good split for me, plus taking advantage of libraries. Although I grew up reading a mix of kindle/paper in English depending on whether I was travelling or at home as well, so I’m just used to having it set up like this
When you get through all of ひぐらし eventually I’d sure like to read how you’d found the experience! I know your approach is different, but you seem to be consistently making progress, and I’m sure you’ll get there
detour
I hinted above, but after writing that out before and thinking more about it as a result, it’s actually quite obvious that I have never really identified as someone who “speaks” Japanese. I’ve had a strong sense of connection to reading throughout, and it’s gone pretty great. I’ve struggled with identity w/r to speaking since the start (due to underlying reasons, circumstances etc. but still), and that’s in part prevented me from putting myself out there to the extent necessary to get good at it. Identifying with it and having it being deeply intertwined with what you do just makes everything easy. Since I made the jump to novels, I don’t think I’ve ever thought reading Japanese is “hard” as in hard for me to make myself do, it’s always been fun and something I feel passionate about (with minor down periods when I’m not enjoying a book), but speaking, there’s always resistance at every stage. So basically, yet more evidence. Although it’s not just as simple as flicking a switch and saying “I choose to be someone who thinks of themself as a Japanese reader/speaker”, and it might be more of a symptom rather than a cause sometimes, you can choose to try and rethink your approach, to try to look for the positives, figure out how to enjoy the process, celebrate the little milestones, etc. And all that just makes it easier to then put the necessary time in with the necessary consistency.
I notice that lots of people who are learning Japanese (here and in real life, and me included) tend to have very high standards for the level they need to reach before they feel like they’ve “made it”. Which is understandable in the context of Japanese being a hard language to learn, but also just doesn’t match up with how people approach other languages. I know people who’d classify themselves as “speaking” a language when they’re at an A2-B1 level, because they can have conversations about themselves and other people, which is perfectly fine. Meanwhile I’m probably getting towards C1 reading level, B2-ish listening, and still would struggle to identify as someone who can “speak” Japanese. Even though I can navigate daily life in Japanese perfectly acceptably! I will never be able to suddenly make myself more outgoing, but I can try and remove the barriers which I put up between myself and speaking more Japanese, which in and of themselves are contributing to preventing me getting better.
Obviously, it’s possible to get better at reading even if you’re always thinking negatively about your own progress, even if you never think you’re good enough, but the reality is that sticking with something like that consistently, long term, while not enjoying the process is just really hard. It’s better to just approach it with a sense of purpose, a sense of identity (I know that what I mean by this isn’t really so clear), while maintaining the drive to get better. Hopefully I can take my own advice!
TL:DR - Figure out why you’re studying and try to identify with it. Identify with it and you start to enjoy the process. If you enjoy the process then it gets easier. If the process gets easier you put more time in. If you put more time in you get better at Japanese. I should do the same.
Oof yeah. I don’t think I’ll be happy with my Japanese level until it’s C1/C2, but it’s becoming harder and harder everyday to make excuses why I say I don’t speak Japanese I mean, yeah, I spend 1-3 hours a day reading, and another 1-3 hours of listening to Japanese each day, but I wouldn’t call that fluent I don’t quite own the “Japanese speaker” label yet, but I’m trying.
So like you my reading outpaces my speaking ability, but I think for me the turning point of saying I was a Japanese speaker was in December of 2023 I did a 30 hour speaking challenge using italki and aiming to try as many new tutors as possible. I think I spoke to like 20 new tutors that month, as some people I did do repeat classes with. But there was something of a mental block that lifted by forcing myself to have spontaneous hour long conversations with a new person nearly every day for a month. No English. And it was totally fine. Like if you can do that in any language surely you get to claim you ‘speak’ it, right?!
And so now even though I have quibbles about my Japanese output I don’t hesitate to say I speak it because I have zero fear that if you dump a random Japanese person in front of me we’ll be able to talk.
It’s very different. I remember reading Harry Potter while listening to the audio at the same time and looking words on an old electronic dictionary. I probably bought it because I knew the story and they were at every Book Off in Japan for cheap. As much as I love Fantasy, it’s a horrible genre as a learning reader due to all the specific vocab. At least that was my experience.
Having people recommend all these different books and then being able to find them in whatever medium I want is quite useful. I can highlight a word in my Kobo and it give me the definition - though the default J-J dictionary seems to kind of suck, I should try to find a better one.
I’m reading through また、同じ夢を見ていた right now since you said it was easy and I’m finding it quite reasonable. Still quite a few words I don’t know but I can often read for a while and not run into anything I don’t know. Which is a cool feeling. I still struggle with the overall story since I miss parts as I’ve taken the “don’t look everything up” advice to heart, but I feel like I’m reading instead of studying. I’m hopeful that comprehension will come with time - perhaps a few books from now.
So true! Maybe for Japanese the problem is it takes so long and the language is so tough that perhaps we spend long enough at a level to identify with the level as a learner rather than our end goal.
Your point about this being a disadvantage is interesting, that we are effectively blocking ourselves from identifying ‘as someone who speaks Japanese’ while we are learners
That’s true! And for a direct exemple, my girlfriend is an immigrant, so she learned my language, and even though she can be conversational and to me have an “okay” level which is huge in my view, she probably doesnt think of herself as french speaker. But from an exterior POV I would definitely be more optimistic than she is about her level. And I am pretty sure that negativity isnt helping her improve for exemple .
Confidence can be key
This kinda gets at something I like to bring up a lot when it comes to language learning: the two most positively associated traits that people who tend to be successful at language learning have, before you look at anything like study methods or time investment or other stuff like natural language aptitude or memory abilities and energy and all that, are a) self-efficacy: they are people who believe that it is, in principle, possible for them to learn a language, and b) motivation: they are people who have something that makes them want to sit down and do studying, or at least engage with the language, on a daily basis.
But those are merely positively associated traits, plenty of people do and have managed to learn language to any number of degrees without those, but like you said it just makes it a lot less likely for them to be successful. If we’re trying to stack the deck in our favor and make sure we’re set up for the best chance of success, those are the two biggest places to start thinking about your mindset
This is a fantastic post and resource, thank you so much for making this!! Sorry I didn’t see it when it first appeared ahhh….
Also this is insane progress, seriously congrats on managing to keep up this reading habit and making it a part of your identity. That’s great advice, especially because I feel like half of the battle with Japanese is this constant feeling of there’s so much more to learn, there’s still so much to do and I don’t have a great understanding of xyz so I couldn’t possibly read/be fluent ish/etc etc. You’ve definitely pushed me into using a JP-JP dictionary far more often for grammar and vocabulary, which I really appreciate!
Thank you so much for your posts on this forum, I’ve been reading through your study log and loving the tips and explanations for how you’ve progressed more specifically. Best of luck with continuing Japanese and the continued reading journey!!
. I also intuitively followed some of these, without reading these posts or your experiments, and then noticing they kinda mimick my experience organically
unsung heroes of japanese learning.
I mean, yeah, I spend 1-3 hours a day reading, and another 1-3 hours of listening to Japanese each day, but I wouldn’t call that fluent 
I don’t quite own the “Japanese speaker” label yet, but I’m trying.