Different ways to improve my reading?

Japanese
#1

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.

Thanks!

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#2

What books have you read? I’d hazard a guess that if you don’t enjoy any books its probably because you’ve never read a really good book, sorry if that sounds infantilising! Think about the manga you like, the authors you like, the types of stories, the characters that you find interesting, and then ask for recommendations for books that fit that mould. Without wanting to bang on manga too much (again), it is not uniquely special in its storytelling. You can find plenty of stories in literature that are just as interesting and engaging.

I’m not naturally a keen reader of fiction either, and as you say the news is especially difficult. I force myself to read regularly though, and perhaps this is probably something you will just have to suck up and accept needs to be done. Not every part of studying is fun, for some poor people none of it is fun!

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#3

A lot of people will give you a lot of different ideas for this. I am sorry, but I will give you the advice that I think you need. Suck it up. Even if you don’t enjoy it, suck it up.

If you are a native English speaker, you probably know quite a bit of very obscure English simply through exposure here and there throughout your life. The problem with assuming that the same will happen in Japanese is that you don’t have a lifetime. If you are specifically studying for a test, read the type of documents that contain that particular grammar frequently, even if it’s not your thing.

I was always a terrible student, didn’t achieve anything at school, then when I was about 19, my coach (gymnastics coach) of all people gave me the best advice I have ever received. He used to frequently tell me that I needed to get better, wasn’t good enough, etc, etc. I was weak, not improving, not becoming a better athlete, and he said to me. ‘Kidd, (cause my first name was hard to pronounce for him). Kidd, look… The more shit you put on a plant, the more it grow.’

After that I suddenly had a realization that my shortcomings were because I couldn’t just get under the damn barbell for 20 minutes without complaining like a spoiled child. Some things you need to earn through sweat and effort.

Sorry, this definitely isn’t the advice you were after. But remember that every second you are reading in Japanese is an improvement. I recommend the app ‘smartnews’. As it is for Japanese people and does not pull any punches in terms of grammar/language.

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#4

Initially reading a wall of text in Japanese is not easy compared to reading manga and or playing games in Japanese… After all its a wall of text compared to a few sentences in a manga with images. Also games are just fun in general. The only way to improve reading is by reading.

You could try N2 Reading Test books or e.g Kanzen Master N2 Reading or SouMatome N2 Reading.
Or just N2 Drill books which would have a little bit of everything.

Magazines like Famitsu are available online on BookWalker JP. On Bookwalker, there are samples of most manga / light novels / books / magazines.

Other ideas are: Light Novels and Web Novels. Eg Re:Zero and Shield Hero.

For normal books: 世界から猫が消えたなら was a lot of fun. Also you could try Murakami and other famous Japanese writers.

Experiment and try different things. Try to find reading material in Japanese about stuff that is interesting to you at first and branch out from there.

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#5

I used to like reading books, Fantasy, Horror etc different kinds. But nowadays I don’t have the right mindset to just sit down and read a book even in English. I think maybe the length is the thing. Add in another language and it just becomes a long read lol.

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#6

I think that is something I am just gonna have to do. Just read things like the news to get that sort of formal exposure. It won’t be as fun, but it’s something that I have to do. Especially as I want to learn that kind of language.

Thanks!

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#7

Smart news is a really good app. There are many different tabs that you can browse based on the type of news that you want to read. The only thing I recommend is that you ignore names (for the most part). All the names of people and places will be in Japanese with no furigana, so reading some of them will be very very difficult.

If you dont care about being able to read the names of people (apart from common ones), just skip the names when you read.

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#8

Thanks! I’ll have a look today! I’m not sure how many news articles I should read every day, but I think I will 2 or 3 every day.

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#9

2 or 3 is probably fine. On average they are maybe 500 words absolute maximum on smartnews. I read maybe 4 or 5 a day (and read the headlines or 30 or so more trying to find something interesting). Try to jump into some uncommon categories like family or economics sometimes. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that Japanese in those fields is usually not too bad, as the words are combinations of kanji your probably already know.

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#10

I’ll definitely try. I’ll see what interests me and go from there. Who knows I might read even more now!

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#11

Something that may help is to have dedicated 15min or so of “reading time” every day or so… with no distractions! hehe
Eg in the morning or before bed

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#12

I wonder if visual novels such as Higurashi or Umineko might be more to your tastes? They’re basically books with added imagery/music/sfx/interactivity, which might help keep them more engaging.

#13

I have looked them up and they seem really interesting, especially Umineko! I’ll give it a go!

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#14

Personally, after reading the source light novels for mangas I was interested in and then going back to read the mangas as new chapters came out, I found that the mangas generally pale in comparison to their source material. Due to the limitations of manga, they remove tons of detail from the story and the characters thoughts and feelings and stip everything down to just bare essentials, they feel like a shadow of the originals a lot of the time. So, if you have a manga you like, try reading the light novel and you might find that you end up preferring it more than continuing the manga. A lot of the stories are written to be page turners with cliff hangers and fast moving plots and they are exceptionally long, so if you can manage to get sucked into one of them and you read with something that makes lookups easy like yomichan, you can end up spending a lot of time reading Japanese and improve your reading speed a lot.

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#15

You really need to practice reading N2 reading passages to pass the N2 reading.

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#16

You have to read to improve reading. The same as you won’t notably improve your running by walking for a similar amount of time. So please excuse me also recommending the route you likely least want to consider.

My advice would be to take the route of least resistance. In other words, elect to use specific N2 prep books where everything will be “relevant” and you will not have to fuss over a legion of vocabulary and grammar currently beyond your comprehension. You have until winter, potentially, so just do one or two exercises a day, and if you are in the ballpark of the level you wish to attain, you should attain some growth.

I actually enjoy reading the Shin kanzen master books. And while not directly “reading” related the soumatome 500 question books aren’t terrible for highlighting weakpoints and giving you a small amount of sentences to read daily.

Beyond the “relevance” factor, the books have a clear “end point” and format, so you can budget the amount of time based on your tolerance a lot more predictably (In visual novels, I tend to get stuck in a horrific loop of “I am fed up with this shit, but I am halfway through a monologue and do not wish to drop midway”).

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#17

Keeping it simple but, try setting a goal to read a certain amount each day. 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever feels like a small chunk that isn’t too daunting but will help you improve. I agree with the other responses that if this is in preparation for the exam, stick with reading from N2 prep materials. That will get you the most mileage in a short time. That said, once you’re done with the test, that doesn’t mean you’re done reading in Japanese. Making a habit out of it is what will get you to improve.

I’m in a situation where reading in Japanese is my best option for keeping up what I have learned and to keep on learning. I feel your frustration about reading, but that’s about reading. I don’t feel comfortable reading unless I have the time to finish something. Figure out what environment helps you do your best reading and set that up. Lastly, for a recommendation of material, look up Japanese graded readers, they’re pretty quick reads that are enjoyable and good practice. Good luck!

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