Now what? Needing of N3 Reading Advice

Japanese Language Reading
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Recently I felt my improvement decrease quite harshly (already considering the normal flattening of the learning curve). Normally a change of approach gets me back in a more effective loop, but at this point, I don’t know what I could do, or if I should just continue doing what I’m doing. So I’m asking the opinions of those who already passed through these issues.

With few exceptions, I have done all N3 points on Bunpro until Seasoned level, and I have 4k non-redundant known vocab on JPDB (total 5.5k cards), with kanji disabled. I’m confident I could pass N4, but probably would fail N3, with ~60% of the required points to pass, but take this with a grain of salt.

My current objetive is only reading. I can also engage listening and writing if it means I can improve reading as well. Kanji is not an issue to me. I normally read manga (N3-N2 level), with OCRs, Yomitan, translators. If it’s on my niche, I can read without any tools, up to a certain point, ignoring unintelligible stuff. I have read between 1000 to 2000 manga pages, probably closer to 1400.

My biggest problem right now is composed grammar/vocabulary.

I find a ton of N3 “grammar” with と言う、こと、わけ、もの、ところ、程、に◯◯て、して and their endless ramifications and fusions with だ、は、が、も、では、ない and they are ridiculously common. So I’m reading and I’m hit with わけがない and I have to ponder for several seconds if it means “It’s SO not ‘that’” or “it’s not necessary ‘that’” or something else I didn’t think of. Sometimes the actual meaning is basically the sum of it’s parts, literally or with a few liberties. But sometimes this liberty goes too far and I can’t derive it on my own, so I have to search it up. On their own, they’re not that hard, so searching individual explanations don’t help much, it’s the fact that there’s dozens of them that’s really the issue, I think.

Another issue of mine is “too common” words (mostly verbs). Sometimes, the material I pick to read have a surprisingly low amount of unique words. It normally would mean it’s easier, but it actually means that the same words are used again and again, each time with a considerably different meaning compared to the last time. Words used frequently have a wider range of potential meanings, which means that they’re more vague and harder to understand than if they had used more specific and unique vocabulary instead. These words often appear without kanji as well, making it even harder.

“Just” reading stuff is not helping much with these (although I feel some improvements each few days), so I’m encouraged to try something else, but I don’t know what. 先輩達, what could I do?

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I assume that your first question is that you’re struggling with grammar when there are multiple grammar points in a single sentence? The only real solution I have for this is more reading. In my own experience if a sentence has too many unknowns in regards to grammar and vocabulary then it becomes very easy to loose track, as the things you look up only stay in your mind temporarily. Getting the correct meaning behind a sentence this way works when there are a few unknowns, but anything more than “a few” unknowns quickly becomes excessive. With unknown I don’t just mean things you don’t know at all either, some things you have to get really used to for them to start clicking and really become “known”. Solidifying these concepts just takes a lot of exposure at times, especially the “basic” grammar they require in the first N levels with their many applications. If you give it a few more months I am sure that some of these things you’ve just listed start becoming natural, and that you can tackle more complicated sentences where these concepts are stacked. Don’t get too demotivated when you can’t read certain things, as long as you’re feeling like you’re improving and know more than the last month you’re in the clear.

I think the same goes for vocabulary. But I am a bit confused by which words you’re referring to which are apparently that broad in their applications. Could you give some examples? You do mention that you’re seeing improvement every few days, so at least that’s some evidence that your current strategy is working, and that you might be expecting improvement too quickly. If you want faster improvement I would suggest getting reading material that you can get really into; things that make you forget time and make you yearn to know the ending. I want to warn you to not conflate common and basic with “easy”, the most common and basic things in a language are also the most fundamental and are going to take the longest time to master.

I remember looking at the texts on the N3 practice exam online in the past and really struggling since the sentences seemed so long and there were so many grammar rules used at the same time, but nowadays those texts are almost trivial. The only thing I did to improve is reading more. There are still many sentences and texts I struggle with but I still feel myself improve and the texts which become trivial to read increases day per day. As long as you feel the same just keep on doing what you are doing. EDIT: I took a look at the N2 test as well now and even that reads fluently at this point. I also just completed a full visual novel that I couldn’t hook to and use any of my word look up tools on. As a result, I didn’t do any look ups and despite that I didn’t really struggle to get let’s say 95% comprehension or so. I just read and do my anki/wanikani/bunpro reviews on the side and that’s it.

Keep reading, if you want to improve faster read more, and don’t read for certain results but read to enjoy. Take improvements to your Japanese as a nice side effect. The people I have seen learn Japanese the quickest have taken that mantra to heart. That’s the best advice I can give.

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Everything Ciox said, plus I found listening and shadowing really helped grasp more complex sentences. My pet theory is that it’s because language is primarily a listening and speaking thing, and reading is secondary. But whatever the reason, it moved me through what felt like an endless grind of not getting anywhere.

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I also hit that N3 wall before and really the only thing that made me conquer it was just like Ciox said - to keep on reading. This stage is akward because progression becomes very blurry. But if you keep going, there will be a time of realization where you look back and can see how much you actually improved.
What i personally did was play lots of Visual Novels that had logs and/or easy switching between ENG and JP (e.g. Mhkana Fairy Bell). Like this, you will never lose your flow while stumbling over unfamiliar language. And if you want to go deep and really analyze a sentence you could do that with game2text or any text extractor.

頑張って

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One thing that I forgot to mention that Oian and Simian60 are alluding to is to maybe incorporate visual novels. They have spoken lines and if the voice acting is good you’ll be able to feel out grammar and phrasing more easily. Intonation and other elements encoded in human speech can help you feel out certain elements in texts, including grammar. TheMoeWay and Animecards have really good guides on how to get a setup for approaching visual novels.

I would argue a bit against the concept that language acquisition is particularly enhanced by more primary use cases, like listening and speaking. There are two particular case studies of Japanese immigrants in Hawaii who have been forced to speak and listen to English the bulk of their time, and their English skills after literal decades of doing the aforementioned were quite poor. Here’s a small video lecture on this matter. Even though humans haven’t evolved to read, it seems to build language skills like no other, at least under L1 (native) speakers according to the second linked lecture. The second lecture doesn’t give sources but it’s given by a person with decades of experience in both first and second language acquisition research, so I think it’s safe to take his word for it.

Language language allows for heuristic methods however and from my reading within the field of second language acquisition many things are far from being established, so don’t feel discouraged of trying Simian’s tactics as well if it work for you.

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On this point specifically, perhaps being more actively aware of the context in which words are used will be a help. Words may well have a wider range of potential meaning, but I find that common meanings will often change drastically depending on the contexts of use - whether that’s environmental context, being used in reader or in dialogue, what types of grammatical forms or vocabulary surrounds it etc.

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Most people reach a level of English speaking that meets their needs and don’t improve any more. English is quite forgiving, so that can be a pretty low level, although obviously plenty of people are motivated to be better.

What I found with shadowing is that I built up to longer and more involved sentences faster than just reading, and reading and listening to similar sentences became easier. It’s an extra channel, I read a lot too.

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I got some more responses in the Bunpro forums, and the opinions over there are pretty much the same, on par with what @Ciox said. I’ve decided to read some novels, to deduce reliance on visual cues, and focus even more on the text. This will also help with the context awareness. About visual novels, I’m very interested and I have some already, but I’ll take them on a little later; there’s a lot of inconveniences involved and I want to focus on the text more than anything at the moment. But well, the voice acting is very appealing, so I won’t take long to try it out, probably.

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