I feel like I’ve been realllly bad at properly replying to people on this thread lately and now it feels too late but I have learned so much from yall FR… and I’m so motivated seeing how much people read. I’m so glad I started this thread and thank you everyone who updates ;-; it’s so nice to have a little community like this!
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I dunno, I’d be happy to go back to previous comments/conversation branches if you have thoughts, lol. The chatty midwestern blood is strong in me.
It’s really helped me out a lot too, for sure! I still have literally hundreds of manga to get through, sure, but I’ve done way more actual reading since I started updating here than I had beforehand. Even if I am perhaps a bad influence re: NOT buying more books 笑
So こちらこそ！！！
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I thought it was a good idea to buy the whole collection of Billy Bat to help me progress in japanese (JLPT N5–)… I switched back to おじさまと猫 
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I always see ads for this! What do you think of it?
I’m too disorganised to track them RIP… one of the downsides of forum chats I think!
TBH lol this thread has not reduced my book buying AT ALL rly… maybe it has actually increased it… bUT it has also increased my book reading so that’s a win
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Story wise it’s not super deep but the japanese level is fairly easy (especially when the cat is talking) and it just feel good to be able to read a few bubble without translating everything tbh! I think it’s a great manga for N5-N4
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Well, if there’s anything you’re dying to track down, you could use the search in the top? But yeah, it is one of the downside’s to forum-style organization 
Oh I had absolutely no expectation that this thread would reduce my buying habits… I just hoped it would improve my actual reading habits, which thankfully has worked out great! The reading is the real win, ever-ominous pile of books ready to topple and bury us alive at any moment aside.
And I’ve never read おじさまと猫 myself, since I think I need a little more plot to really enjoy something, but it does look quite cute.
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Speaking of, how long does it take everyone here to read books?
Im aiming for n1 this December (not necessarily passing it mind you, just surviving it), and something that really hampered me in n2 was my reading speed. I used to read p fast compared to my peers, but as the levels go up it seems they’ve caught up and I haven’t really improved… I’m wondering how long it took before people noticed a decent improvement in reading speed.
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I burned through the rest of 恐怖コレクター 7 yesterday. I’ve fallen behind on manga, so I’d really like to push myself to catch up this week. Been working hard on my anki deck too. It maxes out at 1000 reviews a day, every day. 
I don’t get through all 1000, but I’m trying to get in about 500 a day until it calms down and gets back to a normal amount.
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I got the same issue. Bought Shin Kanzen Master N4 and N3 and struggled my way through the N4 ones only to figure out a lot of the vocabulary and grammar I thought I knew, I didn’t. I could recognize it in context but not use it in practice. So that was back to the drawing board for me
Thoughts like this are why I have several series with 10-15+ volumes in light novels (Honzuki, silent witch, greatest water mage etc) and manga (Jujutsu Kaizen, Frieren, adventures of Dai, Solo Leveling, Demon Slayer etc).
They’re on my to read list though it is a little long 
おじさまと猫 is in my list but I need to reduce my current shelf buddies before I can buy new books since I currently need space for SAO and the other books I have on the way
Depends on the book type and level for me
Manga that I know the story of, has furigana and I know or can guess a lot of the vocab: about 2- 2.5hrs per volume (approx 60-80 pages an hour even if the text is dense). For a kids novel about the same level, about an hour for approx 30 pages.
For something more complex like Kino’s Journey or Zoo (乙一) it’s about 10-20 pages an hour.
I struggle without furigana except on the most common words and my vocabulary level is probably only around 3000-4000 words, possibly slightly higher.
My first noticeable leap in reading speed/ comprehension was after spending 2 days straight reading through around 100 or so Tadoku graded readers back when I first started reading in July 2022. I went back and re-read ミラーさん (MNN red novel) and understood about 60% compared to the 30% ish before.
I read stuff on and off from 2022-2025 but didn’t notice much improvement (even though my level did improve since I went from reading にゃんにゃん探偵団 to reading Ruri Dragon manga and some ふたご or twin series children’s books).
My next noticeable jump was last year after attempting to read higher level books (坊っちん) before switching back to lower level books (ふしぎ駄菓子屋銭天堂 series), then again the beginning of this year after finishing the full Demon Slayer manga series (approx 4-5 hours per volume iirc).
Most recently though I’ve been working through various manga series for learning more vocab and better understanding of the grammar I do know. Improving reading speed wasn’t my goal but has been a happy side effect of consuming more content to the point if I can understand the majority of the vocab/grammar without look ups, my reading speed has essentially doubled in the last few months.
When I see my biggest improvement is when I re-read something that I’ve read a while back and can compare reading times but I tend to track these through a tracking app.
I will say that all of my reading is done through physical books so look ups are pretty time consuming for me.
Honestly, I don’t have a particularly good sense of this at the moment. Partly because I don’t pay very good attention to when I start/finish, and partly because everything I’m reading right now is manga so it’s not the most accurate comparison either way.
(I know non-manga would likely be better actual test practice, but I’d rather be doing the fun reading that I know I’ll actually do than try to force myself to do other readings that I’m less interested in, since my ultimate goal is the learning not the test score.)
I do think that my speed has picked up a bit just in span of this thread, but at least part of that is just training myself back into reading paper books instead of letting my phone eat my brain.
I did take Bunpro’s mock-N2 a few weeks ago and did well on the reading speed/scoring for that, but I know from some forum-diving that bp’s N3 and up aren’t truly accurate so I’m taking that with a hefty chunk of salt.
You have better studying stamina than I do, that’s for sure! I get frustrated if my bp/wk reviews get above 200 in a day, let alone 500 or 1000.
I mean, I’d say it sounds like you just need more shelves, but… 
I think this is kinda what I’m doing, too? Like I said, I know manga isn’t the best practice for long-form reading, but it’s more to get exposure to natural vocabulary use and to just get used to reading and absorbing Japanese as I go through a sentence.
I realized a little while back that while my listening skills are definitely weaker than my reading skills, I may also be struggling simply because I don’t have enough vocabulary that I genuinely confidently know (as opposed to the like, “I’ve studied this but when I hear it used naturally my brain has to pause and think for a second to recall it and therefore falls behind in a conversation” sort of level.) So I started trying to focus more on bunpro’s vocab reviews (relatively speaking, since I can’t do too many reviews in a day or it makes me want to tear my hair out) and trying to get better exposure through more immersion - aka reading and listening.
I also do all my reading with physical copies, so yeah look-ups definitely impact my progression speed.
Reading update: Finished volume 9 of メガネくん yesterday and got a little over halfway through volume 10 as well.
Wound up finishing volume 10 of メガネくん yesterday, but I won’t be able to get to anything today - class prep has officially begun, so I’m going to be tied up making and revising materials for the next little while. How’s everyone else faring?
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yeah, i’ve been trying to catch back up with the kiki’s book club, but you lose a lot of reading time when you need to spend hours laminating new vocabulary flashcards. such is life
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Someday I’ll escape the grasp of powerpoints and canva presentations…someday…
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This sounds like hell and some type of weird thing to keep you busy. Also, this year is a bit odd for me since my school has only received brand new teachers. All three new teachers to my school are also fresh outta College so they are 奴隷。
I havnt been reading between the school semesters because I leave school at noon and go fuck off so my studying has taken a but of a hit as well but Im getting the essentials and reviews done in the morning so thats that.
I think it’s kind of the opposite and that’s why I ended up in this situation in the first place.
I’ll take that compliment and run with it though. Anything to help power through reviews.
Back, demon!
Ngl I kind of agree with this. Like when you have ADHD and do another task that’s really just a form of petty procrastination from what you’re really supposed to be doing. I don’t mean that in a way to be rude or anything, I just have ADHD and have done things like that before. 
If you enjoy making flashcards for a hobby, then by all means do it. Sounds worse than just doing Anki or Wanikani or something though imo.
Finished 骨ドラゴンのマナ娘 1 from the book club yesterday. It was good, but a little hard to follow at times. They do that thing a lot where the furigana next to kanji is actually just a completely different word, that’s supposed to give more context for the kanji they chose, and not the actual reading for the kanji. Like a proper noun for a place name and next to it is just ここ. Yes, I get that you’re telling me that place is where are characters are at right now but WHAT IS IT ACTUALLY CALLED?! 
I’ve never had a volume of manga do that nonsense so much. It’s only 186 pages and I swear it happens at least 10 times.
Otherwise, seems like a cute series and I might continue it. I find that I’m not a big medieval fantasy kind of person. I notice I tend to like fantasy series more like Kino no Tabi and Mushishi. (if anyone has any other series recommendations like those let me know)
Not flashcards for me, my school switched English textbooks so I’m making cards for all the vocab to put up on the board. Trying to get through all the units before school actually starts back up, and I’m just about done.
Also worth noting that I’m also neurodivergent and the other teachers know I enjoy repetitive tasks like that, so I tend to get handed anything along the lines of “laminate these flashcards!” or “cut out these cards for a game!”
This is the opposite of a problem, I just don’t have as much time to read though
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Man, I would run out of nenkyuu so fast if I did that. I hoard mine like gold so that I can use it for trips or entrance exam days, because not being able to use internet all day when they don’t have any work for me is it’s own unique flavor of boredom.
I mean sure, but when I get buried that bad it always takes me ages to dig my way out because I get frustrated by like the 300s or so. So still, kudos!
Oh man. I’m always torn when I see stuff like that, because it’s fascinating… But also dear god plz I just need to know the reading 
Vanitas does this a ton too, and it’s even worse because half the time it’s katakana French. I had a couple that I straight up went to a French-speaking friend of mine going “hey what kinda word sounds like [insert katakana here].” Which, again, added some fascinating additional context! But also. I cri.
I did usually look up the kanji itself, so it’s not like I couldn’t figure out what was being said, but it does certainly take longer when I need to break out the handwriting keyboard and not just the kana.
I was gonna say, I figured you meant for the kids, not yourself! Tbh there’s some materials I wish I could laminate, but the last time I laminated something I had to go to the jimuin ladies for the laminate? I dunno if that was just because of the size I was laminating or what, but it’s kinda awkward to have to do if I need to do it every time.
Also, fun fact that I only discovered yesterday, in case anyone is like me and didn’t know this - if you use canva to make materials, they do accept documents in Japanese as proof that you’re a teacher and can use their free educator-upgrade version!
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Im pretty lucky and my school is chill, so on certain days, ie students dont come in in, I often dont have to come in either. I do as a courtesy in the morning though because Im technically supposed too. However I have some friends who are are required to go into the BOE and just… sit there. Not even allowed to study from what ive heard.
However last year the school did take my school owned laptop and I had to kinda fight to get something back because I hated feeling like I was on my phone all day.
I was actually talking to someone about this because I cant see a school changing. I was thinking like if the entire English department changed lol. What was the purpose? Also what books yall using now?
Sunshine, they came out with a new edition in like 2025 and we just updated everything to the new version. There are a lot of similarities to the old one, but the vocab is different enough to warrant updating my materials
Oh hell yea, thats the book Ive been using for the past few years. I like it, although the VAs they used(Probably AI in this day and age) are wacky and make me cringe. But im sure its the same for people listening to my japanese exercises.
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