Hi, I’m very keen in regards to reading light novels, I’d like to know- at around where in WK level should I generally try to start reading LN? I’m already immersing myself by reading manga, but I noticed the level is much higher (naturally, as it depicts descriptions and thoughts and etc, aside from only conversations in manga.)
I know there’s no “clear consensus” but a general guideline would be appreciated :>>
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It’s less about WK level and more about grammar level. Light novels will be pretty hard unless you’re at a generally intermediate level with grammar study (around N3). Reading prose is different than reading manga because there are a lot more words/variety of vocabulary, long sentences, etc.
For kanji, a lot of light novels don’t use furigana so technically a higher WK level would be useful, but it depends on how you’re reading it. Right now I’m reading the first 本好き in paperback but I bought the junior edition that has full furigana so kanji isn’t an issue, just grammar and vocabulary. Some people also de-drm their digital copies and read them with ttsu + yomitan popup dictionaries, but I haven’t done that myself.
With regards to jumping into reading prose, you have a couple options:
Option 1: Gradually work up to the difficulty by starting with learner resources (Satori Reader and that kind of thing), children’s novels, etc. This is a little easier but may be more boring if you aren’t interested in what you’re reading.
Option 2: Jump in as soon as you want to and look up everything as you go. If you have a high motivation this way works but will be very difficult and slow.
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hmm, I suppose that makes total sense,
About that, I’m pretty okay with grammar I think, but yeah obviously it’s really difficult and I get what you mean.
The yomitan approach is interesting, I do mining myself, so I don’t rule out the possibilty, because it’s also a great way to improve vocab, which leads to my next point, I believe I might go with the approach of option 2, I personally don’t mind it, I find it to increase my retention (slightly, not by a lot), but it also makes my interest go up, like I’m deciphering a puzzle or something xd.
I’m asking because I picked up “泣きたい私は猫をかぶる” which seemed interesting to me.
I hope I’ll be able to read it at some point in time comfortably
My concern with WK like you said is purely the issue of text with no furigana, but yeah I guess the higher you are regardless, is always better 
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I think the other thing to note is that difficulty can vary quite a lot between LNs – learnnatively.com has light novels that have been graded at everything from L21 up to L38. Different authors have more or less flowery descriptive styles, some series have lots of technical or historical vocabulary where others are more ordinary world slice of life, some have more furigana than others, and so on. Looking up a series on Natively can help with giving an idea of how hard it might be, and if there are user reviews they may talk about where the difficulty lies.
For 泣きたい私は猫をかぶるthe full furigana Tsubasa Bunko edition 泣きたい私は猫をかぶる | L25 has been graded at L25, which is fairly easy as LNs go. The original version at 泣きたい私は猫をかぶる | L30?? hasn’t had any gradings, so harder to say what level that is at. (I don’t know if the Tsubasa Bunko edition is the exact same text as the original just with furigana, or if it has been simplified also.)
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If you have high motivation option 2 is totally fine! Some people just find it discouraging when reading is very hard at first. But it’ll get easier as long as you work at it.
Yeah, that’s the reason I mentioned yomitan, if you’re using that then you won’t need furigana because the dictionary will supply it for you!
PM’s advice to check Natively for levels is good too. I would guess that L25 is about the easiest any given LN is, any lower than that is generally the level of children’s novels.
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Absolutely, @pm215’s advice is very good, and that’s how I came to know 泣きたい私は猫をかぶる, I update my stats there daily, so I’m already doing that, but still, it’s a great advice!
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Sounds like you’ve got it covered then!
Oh, one more thing- check out the light novels club/beginner light novels club on the Natively forums. There might be some good options there as well, and if you choose a past pick you can read the book club threads 
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By the way I think (appropriately leveled ) short story collections are a good starting point because you can get a good sense of completing something relatively quickly which is extremely motivating even if you’re only eg 20% through a book
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it saves so much time spent on lookups when you really want to focus on the grammar if you’re reading something harder and don’t know much of the vocab
it really does feel like that, sometimes i read 3 pages not entirely understanding the whole picture until it just clicks with a sentence that clears things up or even randomly in the back of your mind
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I think for the first dozen of books it’s more productive to read in ttsu + your favorite dictionary. I’m partial to jpdb reader, because it’s customizable and you can SRS vocab inline while reading.
As for level, I’d cautiously say that knowing ~5k words is advisable before starting reading in earnest. You don’t necessarily need to know how to read them in kanji form if you have furigana. But you just want to limit unknown words to some manageable amount, or reading turns into constant lookups.
For some books, JPDB can give a idea of how much unique vocabulary there is: Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu – Statistics – jpdb
It can also map that to WK levels, but that’s a paid feature.
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oh boy I’ve been breaking my head for a while the past day, do you know how I can de-drm my stuff?? I’m so tired I couldn’t find a way to do it
What marketplace are you using to buy the books? If it’s Kobo, I think @Akashelia knows how to de-drm. Not sure how much we are supposed to discuss this on the forums though.
I haven’t tried myself (too lazy) so I can’t personally help, haha.
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Yes it’s a secret but I’m not the only one who knows it! If you search well you can find it. If you don’t find it click here.
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I think I found the issue. My account is based in Japan (for some reason), and its impossible to download books in japan apparently?
Ah sorry it’s an old post I’ve linked. They have removed the Download button since (for everyone) 
. But you can still get where you want to be. After you have bought the book, the steps are:
- Open the Kobo App on your PC and sync with your library
- Open Calibre and see if the secret plugin automatically detects your book. Sometimes mine doesn’t but after a restart of the PC it does
- That’s it, the plugin will make you an .epub file, that you can now load in ttsu
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It doesn’t detect the book for some reason, do you mean the “DeDRM_plugin” plugin? or there’s a different one.
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That’s the one. Have you tried restarting the computer?
Yeah… Idk why for some reason it wont show up? I have the rakuten kobo dekstop, and its set up(says KOBO EPUB) as well. Perhaps its in the configuration of calibre? I pressed “kobo and kobo readers” on installation.
Close the Rakuten Kobo program first before opening calibre
idk… still wont show up for some reason 