I do use Yomichan, but in cases where I canāt use it directly on the text, I typically just type the word/sentence I want to look up into some blank text field, then mouse over it with Yomichan in order to decipher it haha rather than using a different dictionary. I prefer my Yomichan setup to other dictionaries because it gives me several different dictionary definitions, including one monolingual one, and it also tells me if a word/kanji is in WK or not.
Plus it gives me the ability to instantly create an Anki flashcard from the word and import in the surrounding sentence, though Iām not at a point where Iām really bothering to mine words from print books. My Yomichan flash cards have all come from digital text. But in the future, I anticipate using it to mine words from print books as well.
My main concern is that I donāt want to become too tied down to relying on a reading format thatās compatible with Yomichan if I want to read. I want to be able to buy print books, for example, even though the format is perhaps less conducive to convenient learning. I own plenty of ebooks, but I also enjoy books as physical objects, and some books are only accessible in print form. When reading something, I want my focus to stay on enjoying content that I want to read and not trying to optimize it for learning. I donāt want to get to a point where Iām passing up things that I genuinely want to read because theyād be harder to use Yomichan with.
Itās not too different from how I read in Spanish, honestly, which I do mainly by reading print books and then looking up definitions on my phone or computer.
@Belerith I hadnāt considered the possibility the kanji was only used for its reading. I remember wondering if it was ćććµć, but when I was thinking that I wasnāt putting together most anything of the note, so I abandoned the idea. (Only after that did I figure out that the typography seemed to change when a new word began.) Thanks!
So yesterday (April 15) I ended up only read like a paragraph of Japanese to be able to get the tick. Waited waaaay too late in the day to do. It is nice to be home and Iām falling back into bad habits at an alarming rate.
Anyway, today I started with Japanese instead (April 16) so now I finished the first story in the current booklet. I will see if I will read more later.
While I was traveling I spent less time in front of screens, so my eyes are so tired, especially my left eye is like āwhy you looking at screens so much, stop itā. Also, Iāve decided to try and get up one hour earlier (something I did while traveling) but Iāve been going to bed really late, so today I have shadows under my eyes. If I donāt start getting to bed at a good time for the new wake up time, I guess Iām going back to what I did before travels. Meh.
Thatās interesting. If you want to send a ransom note or something in English, itās easy enough to find all the letters you need in a newspaper or magazine. Not necessarily so for all necessary kanji. I guess they could have used kana, but a kanji with the same reading might work as well in a pinch. Surprised to see that in a graded reader though.
Am I really the first one who clicked yes? Was not expecting that haha
I use yomichan on my laptop as well as on my tablet. Sometimes I also read on my kindle, but definitely a lot less often overall. A kindle (or paperback) is definitely nicer in terms of eye strain but as long as I still have to look up as much as I do now yomichanās A+ dictionary functionality is just worth it for me (+ I like using it for mining). The whole reading/look-up process is just a bit faster and more comfortable with yomichan compared to a kindle, IMO. I especially like being able to see a bunch of entries from different dictionaries at once without having to click buttons all the time
Maybe Iām just lazy (who am I kidding, I definitely am) but I really like the convenience
I think I will probably read more on paper in the future, once vocab isnāt as much of a struggle anymore. So far I donāt really have any books in mind that donāt also have a digital version so I donāt have a reason to switch yet
I was showing my friend a site that estimates how many kanji you know earlier and left it up in chrome. Just came back and realized the one I stopped on was the one in ēē
Yeah I was pretty surprised too. But I guess the vibe I get from this thread is a lot of people are trying to just get some reading done rather than people who do their studying through books, so I guess it makes sense. People who study intensively with books as their main source of new knowledge probably would answer yes more often.
My only studying at the moment is reading. It may not be especially structured study, but it has helped me see unexpected progress in a relatively short time, much more than actual studying has ever done. I look up every unknown word and every unknown grammar, but I also get much enjoyment from the reading itself. Not sure if others would see it as studying as I donāt actually srs anything (yet?), but I know from experience this is the way I learn languages best.
Why do you think so? Because one can add words from Yomichan to Anki with one click?
All my vocab comes from books, and I use Anki; still I add my cards manually (for one because my card layout is a bit special, and also because adding a word feels like the first review already).
For your other question, I do own a laptop and I use it a lot, but somehow I prefer reading on my phone. Sometimes I use my laptop to look up stuff while reading on my phone
It just makes sense, really, but the one click is a part of it.
Most people who study intensively are going to care about efficiency and quality of their lookups more probably. The ratio of people who srs quite a bit and get nearly all or all their words from books is also probably higher. When youāre reading for 4+ hours a day and your entire studies revolve around it, youāre probably a lot more likely to wanna use yomichan compared to someone who reads less and does other stuff. Then you have the fact that kindle and stuff isnāt copy pastable.
Its also the fact thatā¦well, I browse communities of people who do that and from my experience a vast majority uses tools like that. Compared to the 1/11 here, it seems reasonable to think that they probably use those tools more despite the low sample size and nonrandom sampling.
It is, itās just incredibly limited. As opposed to kindle on PC, kindle on mobile doesnāt add the source to the copied part, so itās preferable for copying. Also thereās the limit they have on how much youāre allowed to copy.
That said, I donāt like reading on my phone, the screen feels too small. And I donāt like reading on PC, the screen is too big - and also I donāt usually feel like starting it up just to read something. So I use a kindle.
Anyway, I also get all of my new words from reading, and I add them to an srs. And since I like sentence mining I actually type out the example sentence, too! Since I add most of my cards on mobile, itās become great practice using kana swipe, haha. Itās not as efficient, sure. But like @NicoleIsEnough said (happy birthday!), that first step is a bit of review/study time for me.
Efficiency isnāt the goal, for me. I have fun reading, and fun learning new words. So I donāt mind spending the time.
I read multiple hours a day usually, but normally on the phone or tablet. (where lookups work fine). Though, probably over 50% physical now. Reading on the PC just feels uncomfortable; Iād rather do it on the sofa or bed. I add all the words through koohi or jpdb anyway to Anki, so I donāt need the added functionality.
Also I probably end up drifting to do other stuff too easily on the PC
Woooo, 54% ā 75% of åć声! With the first few pages of today, I was sort of lost with what was going on. I got the gist, but there was a sentence I couldnāt make sense of at all. The rest of the pages were a lot easier.
Actually, pretty much the entire panel confused me lol.
Bit of a rant about today's reading experience
Thereās a few pages of the manga after each chapter/section that are written in handwriting style, with a fair bit more kanji than the rest of the pages, with no furigana, unlike the rest of the pages! I can read a lot of them thanks to WK, and most are easy to look up because I know the readings, but thereās also a few unknown ones, or words I donāt know how to read.
I normally have no difficulty looking them up because I can just quickly handwrite them into google translate using the chinese handwriting input. But today, the input just would not work properly . I could write them using the trackpad and click on the right kanji, but then it wouldā¦ disappear. Nowhere to be seen in the search bar, in Notes, in DeepL, in Google Translateā¦
My laptop has a lot of problems.
I ended up quickly memorising the shape of the kanji in Bookwalker, double-clicking then writing them into DeepL on my phone. Very time-consuming, especially as I did that a bunch of times. Good thing itās holidays at the moment, or I would never be able to do so.
I read a lot lying down on the sofa, with my laptop on my bent knees and holding my phone in front of it. Itās quite comfortable. I use a MacBook Air though, not sure how that compares with other laptops
It is interesting, but I also feel like level 4 tries to be close to ānormalā Japanese, but with restrained vocabulary (and some restraint on grammar too, probably). Perhaps it isnāt as much ambiguity though. However, outside graded readers, Iāve mostly read manga, so I canāt really compare well.
In any case, it is interesting to introduce such a thing in a graded reader, perhaps they actually just followed how that letter was originally written? I havenāt looked into the case outside what was told in the booklet.
Some further rambles: I do find level 4 to be quite good for me at my level. Maybe a touch too easy, but if there is difficulty in a sentence it tends to be only +1, so I can really better understand something I wasnāt clear on. And/or I get enough from context that I can just roll with it. Both of those make the difficulty just right for me.
Im not sure if all these people replying to me think I said āallā and not āmore likelyā and are trying to disagree or just feel like sharing their routine all of a sudden lol
For my part I just felt like sharing. It sounded like you were assuming why we voted as we did, and it didnāt feel like your assumption applied to me. I assumed you were gathering info since you were interested in that sort of thing, so I guess I also wanted to provide some additional data.
Iām not exactly sure of what you are interested in knowing. I was writing a reply before you wrote this, but it also was me talking about my method of study without using yomichan. I thought youād find it interesting to know why exactly we donāt use yomichan. But then again, I donāt study for +4 hours a day so Iām not sure if I qualify .
Happy birthday!! 
Was one of the first things I read in Japanese I think. On some website though, not a book. Nostalgia.
. I could write them using the trackpad and click on the right kanji, but then it wouldā¦ disappear. Nowhere to be seen in the search bar, in Notes, in DeepL, in Google Translateā¦
