Intermediate Japanese Book Club // Now Reading: セーラー服と機関銃

just wondering. Is amazon prime Japan give me free delivery or not. I don’t think so but just wondering cause the delivery price is half the book price.

Pretty sure it would not be free international shipping.

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At least I tried. Thx

Edit: The fun part is that even though the shipping is high the cost is significantly lower than if I had bought it on my country’s amazon ha ha

It’s almost like you think I’d be willing to part with a book I’ve lovingly and painstakingly annotated!!! :joy:

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That makes even more interesting actually. I like the film a lot, but I’m also really intrigued by the underlying idea and how it was handled, so reading the book should be interesting. Another take to consider I suppose. But thanks for the heads up, I shall keep an open mind when we do start reading.

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But I read slowly in my native language. :slight_smile: I can’t tell you how much slower, but it’s certainly not a few minutes out of 3 hours (< 2% slower). It could be more like 20-50% slower (to give a guess). So sure, the average is the average. But that doesn’t help the slower readers like me.

As for the 多読 proposal in general, personally I’m not interested. It may work for some people, but my vocabulary is still lacking so much that I wouldn’t be able to understand enough to get any enjoyment out of reading (Floflo could help, but I’m not sure it would be enough). It would get to a point that I’m just reading words and not making sense of the story because I lack so much context. While I don’t feel the need to understand the story perfectly (that would be very painful at this point), I do still want to understand most of it. At my current level, that means looking up a lot of words and occasional grammar. Perhaps that just means I still have a while to go before being considered an intermediate reader, but I wanted to give my viewpoint anyway. :man_shrugging:

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Okay, I was just trying to think of a way to remove the ‘slog’ people go through when reading in a new language. I think that is what causes people to trail off, fall behind and quit. (At least in my case)

Also, you’re free to read however you wish, but is the focus of this to read for enjoyment or for the learning experience? Not saying tadoku is the best learning method, but it is certainly not fun and you do miss a lot in the beginning but after a couple books you really get into the momentum of reading and start to pick things up in context. And I also believe that while learning the related vocabulary before and on the side, you’ll only improve down the the line, understanding more and more while keeping momentum without quitting.

But that’s just my opinion I guess.

I think that’s a reasonable argument. Many people probably do give up because of the slog of reading content too far above their level. I’m just not convinced this would be any better (but to be fair, I’ve never tried it).

I’d say both, within reason. I’m more likely to keep reading (and learning) if I enjoy what I’m reading. And I certainly can’t enjoy what I’m reading if I can’t understand a decent amount of it.

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I guess my argument as to why this method might work is that assuming ppl here know up to N3 grammar the only thing holding them back from understanding is not knowing enough words, or knowing the words but not being able to make sense of them. Constantly searching up every other word or double checking your self or rereading one sentence to understand is creating the slog.

But, altertantly when you don’t understand you could keep reading and ignore these parts you don’t understand and keep going you’ll eventually be able to understand the sentences as you read them( this happened for me) and as for vocabulary if you’re studying it then eventually you’ll start to comprehend more as you get farther in the book and in the deck. Like if you start off with 60% comprehension then by the end of the book you have 90% then it was worth the initial pain right ?

But I’m not trying to shove this method down your throat to convince you to do it or anything, I’m just trying to explain my reasoning to anyone considering it.

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Also I want to note that if you do have extra time and wish to, after your session do go back and search up things you don’t understand and ask on the forum. So you could still spend a lot of time looking things up as you would with out the tadoku, but the most important thing is that the hard part is done first(with tadoku). You’ve done the reading, you’re on the move, and there’s not reason to stop. If you have the time anyways then you can do extra searching.

And you’re like actually practiceing what it’s like to read instead of doing this jerky reading thing where you pull over every minute to search something.

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I wonder if this approach might work better when the book is more episodic. My concern in general stems from missing so much information early on that later (even if you understand more words) you can no longer follow the story because you’re missing so much context. But when the chapters are very loosely related that may not be as much of an issue.

And likewise I’m not trying to convince anyone else to avoid this approach. I think discussing the pros and cons of various learning methods is really valuable.

That is a valid concern but as I added in the post above yours you can ask the forum for context you don’t understand.(That’s what we’re here for anyways) and if you always had the time to look things up then after tadoku session go a ahead and do all the same. At least with doing tadoku first, if it turns out you actually don’t have the time, you won’t fall so far behind or halt your reading process until it’s helpless that you can’t catch up.

Like if you spend 1 hour reading and stopping to look up words. Then spend 30 minutes on tadoku reading, then 15 minutes on searching unknown words and 15 on studying new ones. And the benefit is that you keep reading, you don’t fall so far behind, and you practice what it’s like to actually read not stoping every minute to disect things (because that way you hardly learn how to keep memetumn and understand the Japanese as you see it) like if you just tell yourself to oh I’ll just draw this picture and give yourself no restrictions you could like take forever on an eye. But if you restrict yourself to a time limit you say okay no messing around let’s prioritize the slitoute and the big shapes so that my drawing is readable, then you learn what details are important and what Can be left out. I think in this same way you can limit yourself and learn the most important details to understand (like context) and when some details are not as vital to understanding( like a word that will only be used once)

Also if there are people who a very slow readers we can think of something. We can stick to the page goal or have different teirs of speeds.

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just replying here to get notifs

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I’m not for that technique as well. I learned best if I stop at each sentence to try to understand it then just skipping it or guessing it. after a while, it won’t be useful because you start to skip more and more part thinking that someone will just explain it. Everyone as a reading speed we should just respect it. We are all on a different level. When I started reading in the book club, I was soooo far behind because was reading speed was slow. However, I was still asking questions and reading what other people posted to help me. I finished months after everyone else by I was happy to have finished it. It probably wouldn’t have been an accomplishment If people just told me the story. Let’s be honest here I was pretty weak in Japanese. I would have had to have people resume me the ENTIRE BOOK literally(took 9 months reading it). The second book took me half that time. I do understand that in a group dynamic it will be more efficient to all be at the same place but it’s not as great for the person learning it. If you are in a hurry to read you will just not learn. We must not push those under to keep up. We must help them and encourage them to continue no matter what. Then again it’s my opinion. It’s worth what it’s worth. Draggin them with a rope instead of helping them to walk will only hinder them in long therm when we won’t be there.

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for that you can also look under the sliding bar to the right. There should be a button to choose the “level” of notification you want.

P.S the blue/white circle

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Well everyone learns differently I suppose but for me stopping at every word before I even make it to the end of the sentence makes for very stiff reading. Even stopping at every sentence, just finish the paragraph at least. I find that more often than not if I don’t understand something, like what one charter meant by what they said, or if I have the right meaning for a word in my head, that I’ll find the answer confirmed within the next few sentences. Ideally though you should only be skipping maybe 3 words for every 4 sentences. And out of 4 sentences skip 1 sentence that doesn’t make sense. If you skip 5 sentences in a row, then the book is probably not the right level for you and you need way more grammar and vocabulary knowledge.

I just feel like you never really give yourself a chance to understand what you’re reading or test/challenge your self to actually read in Japanese if you stop every time you don’t understand. It feels like trying to learn to drive a car by stopping after every two feet to check your mirrors adjust your seat, and see if you’ve hit something. Over and over again until you make if to the finish line. When maybe it’s better to drive down the street and then check everything. If you keep stopping are you every really learning how to drive? Or to just press the gas and break petals?

Tadoku is not really trying to drag people with a rope so that they finish, really it’s just to teach people better reading habits, and push them to take off their training wheels. It’s like everyone is so afraid of falling they won’t ride their bike. They keep stopping as soon as they feel they’re slanting. You can only really learn by riding down the street.

Another thing I want to point out is that you’re not supposed to be forever skipping things you don’t know. Like of course if you just keep looking at text you don’t understand there’s no way to understand it, but in the background you should be learning grammar, kanji and vocab, so that you’re closing the gap. Reading is a good time to discover grammar and vocab you don’t know, but reading time is reading time. Not learn a bunch of vocab and grammar time. ANd I think that’s just another thing tadoku is teaching you, to actually just learn how to read, to absorb a whole sentence and make sense of it the first time you read it. Also I don’t propose we strictly follow these rules, if you want to still look up words and grammar you don’t know, go ahead. But if you really want to learn to read and keep up, I suggest you start your session with tadoku, before you whip out your dictionary.

But I don’t truely know how well this will work with novels, I did this with graded readers and it’s not an overstatement so say it exponentially increased my reading ability the more I used it. But I don’t see why it wouldn’t work in theory.

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At first yeah it will be stiff but after a short while, it will get good a ta really good pace. You will learn a lot more vocab. I do understand what you don’t like about it. Then again you should at least know some vocab before trying to read. After, you should start with an easy book then go harder and harder again(i do say that but I got dragged into a hard book right off the bat so it’s only my opinion).

For the vocab, once you know how the sentence work you can just read it back to be sure. You do say that you get the answer 4 sentences after but I only find question and incomprehension 4 sentences aways because I skipped an important nuance. You say you’re not supposed to skip something forever but if you are used to skipping things you don’t understand you may do it without realizing it.

Not fan also of the fact that I would have to read the book twice(the 60% percent then the 90% if I understood correctly). It’s not as interesting and it’s time-consuming but it’s personal opinion. One thing that drives me to read is the story itself. If I already know what is going to happen it’s less interesting. Like @seanblue said: “I certainly can’t enjoy what I’m reading if I can’t understand a decent amount of it” And If it’s a long book then I don’t know how I could just read 60% and still have fun reading or even understand things at the end of the book.

When you say,

I just feel like you never really give yourself a chance to understand what you’re reading or test/challenge your self to actually read in Japanese if you stop every time you don’t understand.

I feel the same way with your method. You don’t let yourself learn you just skip what you don’t know. Then come back later hoping someone will tell you the answer. It’s easy to know the general structure when you know the answer but you don’t learn how to do it yourself.

Then again we prob could argue forever on this subject. Both techniques improved our reading capabilities by an enormous amount. I guess it’s up to everyone to choose what they prefer.

Sorry for the long text just found myself inspired for a moment. Btw I’m in no way angry or anything I just like to debate with people. I know it can be hard to convey emotion in huge ammount of text.

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No, you did not understand correctly. Those are rough estimates and I said at the begging of the book vs the end of the book not 1st read vs 2nd read.

Except you’re supposed to practice reading and understanding, not so much learning new vocab and grammar by dictionary. Ideally those are pluses you pick up from context, by drugging around with a dictionary really takes away from the main focus reading, testing, and understanding. But I already said if you wish, just read the passage, like four lines or a chapter, then right after you can look things up. It’s not so different from stopping mid sentence to do it, except you can benefit from not breaking the flow. It’s like breaking things up into parts. Like when cooking you can prepare your ingredients so that they are accessible and then put them in a pot. Or you can leave them in cabinets and search for each item at the time you need it. Both ways get the job done, but I think its more efficient and beneficial if you try to get through a passage before searching up definitions, for reasons I’ve already stated.

I never said you should wait for someone to tell you the answer though. I said you can search it or ask if you want to. And I have tried both methods. And I just feel like with one, yeah it would take you 9 months to get to smoother reading and the other will take you like 3.

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Thanks for the explanation but i wouldn’t force someone to use a technique just to follow the group. But, if they are all willing then there is not problem. I still prefer my technique but it’s nice of you to have explained it to me.

Btw is te me or are you often debating alearning techniques gainst someone else in the forum? I do have the impression seeing things like that somewhere(or i’m crazy which is possible)

No force, just a suggestion to prevent a ‘slog’ through the book which almost inevitably ends the person dropping out.

Really? Where else have I done this?