So I am looking at taking the N2 this summer or winter depending on how confident I feel. I want to improve my reading but I am at a struggle. N2 has a lot of grammar that are formal and the only way that I feel I can experience this is to read news articles or certain types of books. The thing is I don’t like to read books or read the news, even in English. I get bored so easily. It’s something I really enjoy doing.
However, manga, or a game in Japanese I can do much easily (such as Persona 5). So my question, does anyone have any other resources that I can use to improve my reading? I’ve heard of visual novels but not sure how to use it on my Mac.
for visual novels, perhaps you could start looking on steam? that’s where i’ve found my visual novels, and i’m on a mac. though i haven’t done any in japanese yet…
Oh we can get visual novels on steam? I didn’t know that we could find them on steam as well. Did you have to download bootcamp to use steam well on Mac? I read that it is kinda essential if you wanna do stuff like that. Then again it’s not really a game per say or an intense one.
lots of games on steam are mac-compatible, just check that they say that they are before you buy them. no extra steps needed.
with visual novels, they will often say that they might not work on current versions of macos. but at least for me they’ve all worked so far, despite the warning. it’s something to be aware of though…
This is completely the opposite of what you’re asking, but… hear me out for a sec!
I feel like I am in exactly the same boat. I have taken the N2 before and failed to pass and the two things I felt were missing were kanji (which I turned to Wanikani for) and reading comprehension, especially of formal / news type readings.
I am constantly reading fun things like manga, and watching Anime that I understand >90% of even without subtitles (though I often watch with Japanese subtitles just to expose myself to more reading) and barely learning anything new.
To that end, I am trying to make myself to read short news articles in a few different ways:
Reading articles from a book I bought called “新聞で学ぶ日本語” which has short one-paragraph articles taken from old Japan Times articles and also includes vocabulary lists as well as a CD with TV/radio-style audio of the same topics as the articles.
Occasionally checking NHK easy news for any articles on subjects that might interest me, and if I find one reading it and then trying to read the linked original article or watch the news video.
Taking a Japanese class (on Zoom) focused on Kanji and reading, where every other week the teacher gives us 5-10 abbreviated articles on current events to read.
The last one works the most reliably (since we read them in class, and so I can’t avoid them), but it’s also the most expensive.
So, I know this answer isn’t at all what you asked for, but…
If you would be interested in trying something similar, I would be happy to be your accountability partner. We could set up weekly meetings on Discord or something and do an article or two each week? If we got a group together (maybe from the JLPT Accountability Partners thread?) we could probably do it more often or have different people find the articles each week.
