Tool for Tracking Pages/Books Read/Reading

[Megumin]

@zerohbeat

I also really really considered doing something like this too due to Anilist and MyAnimeList not being that satisfactory (for my needs hehe).

The thing is I keep track of absolutely everything Japanese related.
So I can’t settle with one site exclusively on the stats offered by learnnatively, bunpro, bookmeter, etc…

I have also integrated the tool into various things such as a Streamdeck and a Discord bot, and technically since you are in control, the possibilities are endless. You could even integrate it with the API of the websites and get the data automatically and things like that… but that might be outside of my knowledge scope.

I have recently come across a tool that helps that is open source that I have added to my report workflow, I’ll write about it soon in more detail as I finish tinkering with it along with the other changes I have made since the initial post. This tool is more designed towards software development but it works as well for other things such as Language learning tasks.

[Lock]

Ahh I see!
Btw out of curiosity do you buy them online or physical?
Hmm has your reading speed also improved kinda, progressively? Sometimes I debate tracking my reading speed but it’s prolly only worth it if there’s a change of some kind

Do you know if there’s a guide to how to add the page count to bookmeter?
Edit: Found 【読書データ・グラフの管理】ページ数を修正する - 読書メーター

Ahh I see, I see
I will! Although I think I’ll make a new bookmeter profile cause my old one has only one book

[Lock]

Ahh interesting!

Do you have pics? I kinda wonder what that looks like

I’ve started something like that multiple times in the past but I always forget about it

[Megumin]

@Lock

Btw out of curiosity do you buy them online or physical?
Hmm has your reading speed also improved kinda, progressively? Sometimes I debate tracking my reading speed but it’s prolly only worth it if there’s a change of some kind

Both, physical and online. It depends on the title. The easier titles like Tsubasa Bunko I tend to buy physical. Also the series I like I often buy physical. The good side of digital is easier dictionary lookups, but I think it’s also part of the charm to look up the word/kanji manually.

I try not to invest too much in digital since it scares me that I might get locked out of the content I paid for. That’s why Bookwalker is a big no, as I can not keep access if something happened to my account for example.

@Lock

I will! Although I think I’ll make a new bookmeter profile cause my old one has only one book

If you end up doing, please share or send a follow!

[Lock]

Ooh I see!
That’s very convenient I guess since I already have a ranking system to go off of

Also whoa to be able to talk to the founder of a website o.o I’m kinda honored
Man internet forums are amazing

Do you have experience in CS (cause website)? I’m thinking of majoring in it but I’m not sure what it’s like. I think the other CS student I talked to said it was frustrating how much her code affected her mood but aside from that very interesting.

Ahh stats though
Man that sounds so epic
Like imagine having access to as many data points as there are users
I wonder what kind of interesting conclusions might arise

[Lock]

Ahh whoa
Is that in the thread you made? I should prolly bookmark that sounds fascinating

[Megumin]

@Lock

Is that in the thread you made?

This is the thread I made back in the day:

My 300+ day streak of doing Japanese daily

Objectives of this long post: Get feedback, share the methods, and maybe get new ideas. Background: What I’ve been doing since a bit earlier of new year, as the usual new year self-objectives, is a set of exercises/tasks to help me on my quest to learn enough Japanese where I can confidently read and enjoy Japanese media. Note that my main objective currently is reading, so it might not be the best for everyone. I do have N5, N4 and N3 certificates, although this last one I feel a bit like…

I intend to update it soon, when a year is over since I started.
As for reading speed, which I forgot to answer. Short answer yes, the speed is getting better.

The long answer is I’m not sure if it’s because of skill, or because I’m able to focus more on getting the context than getting stuck in X specific kanji/word. That’s why I intend a revisit.

Also now that comes to mind the revisit, @sweetbeems I don’t think there’s a current way to add multiple reads of the same book on learnatively right now, or I’m missing something?

[Lock]

@sweetbeems

But you know, I don’t want to take over this thread too much! It is @Lock’s thread after all and we really should be discussing his awesome spreadsheet (I may be stealing some of those graphs… especially difficulty vs enjoyment). If anyone wants to discuss a lot, please come over to this wanikani thread (open development thread)

Ahh it’s cool!

Also feel free to steal some graphs lol
Prolly don’t take how I’ve added random linear functions tho cause I don’t think those end up being very representative of the data

[Megumin]

What I find problematic of your approach, regarding difficulty is that you have it in a variable form.

While learnatively uses “Level” based, your difficulty % is going to change over time. Hopefully to the better, but that means you will have to constantly revisit to get accurate results

Maybe you should pair your grading/enjoyment with the date you did the read to get an idea in the future, as you add more data to it, you might forget when you have read and how far you have advanced since then.

[Lock]

Ahh I see

Lol I did actually see the Tsubasa Bunko books you bought in your thread. How are they? I read a different book by the author of 怪盗レッド and that one was pretty good albeit kinda formulaic. Is 星にねがいを！ that one about the girl who has a one-sided crush and then something or other magical happens?

Speaking of dictionaries
Do you know about Shirabe Jisho? The kanji handwriting recognition feels really good (even for someone like me who accidentally writes everything wrong). Sometimes you can legit just vaguely scribble part of a kanji (like if you saw it on say a ds game font) and it still gets it somehow. Makes manual lookups a breeze

Hmm I guess that makes sense. It’s pretty unlikely to happen but it would really suck if it did

Digital is really good for prices though tbh. I wanted to send one of my best friends a book and shipping would have cost upwards of 150 bucks. Made the like 17 dollar ebook seem reasonable (also thank goodness Honto has gifting and allows foreign cards)

Ahh I will! Neither of my accounts are at all filled out but I think I’ve followed on 1/2 hang on

[Megumin]

@Lock

Shirabe Jisho

I don’t have an Apple device and seems like an Apple thing only.

@Lock

星にねがいを！

Utterly boring sadly, I had to drop it. It felt like a card captor sakura knockoff.

[Lock]

Ooh I see hmm

I mean that’s kinda the point I think
Not really to measure the difficulty of an individual book so much as to measure my enjoyment of something in relation to how difficult I found it to be at the time, if that makes sense

It does mean the average difficulty measurements are kinda useless tho I think

What do you mean by difficulty percent tho? I feel like I might be misreading your comment lol

Ahh true though I should prolly add dates to things

[sweetbeems]

@Lock

Do you have experience in CS (cause website)? I’m thinking of majoring in it but I’m not sure what it’s like. I think the other CS student I talked to said it was frustrating how much her code affected her mood but aside from that very interesting.

I majored in physics but yes I did take some CS classes. CS really isn’t required though to build a website… most of the things you learn in CS aren’t that applicable to most websites. If you want to learn how to build websites, you just kinda have to start trying But if you are interested in coding, CS is of course a good degree!

@Megumin

Also now that comes to mind the revisit, @sweetbeems I don’t think there’s a current way to add multiple reads of the same book on learnatively right now, or I’m missing something?

No not yet . There’s a very long to do list and unfortunately I don’t think that one is terribly high on the list. It is on there though!

[Lock]

Ooh I see.
Although I do wonder if revisiting a book might add new factors into the mix? Cause it might go quicker just from already knowing what’s happening

Also I guess being focus on getting the context rather than getting suck on a word is also a skill

[Lock]

Ooh it might be. I looked and up and apparently there’s an APK but I have no idea what that means

Aww that’s too bad. The cover’s pretty

[Megumin]

@sweetbeems

No not yet . There’s a very long to do list and unfortunately I don’t think that one is terribly high on the list. It is on there though!

Thanks for letting me know, maybe by the time I revisit it’s implemented!

[zerohbeat]

Here you go. This is what my journal looks like:

SPOILERS ON THE RIGHT SIDE! I kinda wrote (in Japanese) what I think about stuff or I copied a few sentences !

Click me to see :D

As it is my first time doing something like this, I just went for it…

The stickers, I bought some of them in Japan, some of them from CDJapan. eg:
CDJapan : Sumikkogurashi 6th Sticker Book Shufutoseikatsusha BOOK

For uni, my advice would be to pick something that you enjoy (and finish the 3/4 years) and you think / know that you can get the best grade in. You can always start to code on the side and pick a few new skills / abilities.

[Megumin]

Love it.
I begun doing the notes in paper in the beginning and then copying to the computer, but ended doing digital only in the end.

Also I do it daily so I guess it makes sense it makes more sense that it’s like that.

Keep up the good work.

Also where I can buy the official art

[zerohbeat]

Thanks.
The art is one of kind you know while drinking a glass of wine in the evening. I would not be able to replicate it haha…

To keep this sort of on topic… @Lock , I have read a few light novel volumes twice and it can really help… I spent some time learning the vocab used in the story while reading other books to gain more reading experience.

After 4 months or so, the second time was a bit more fun as I could understand more, read faster and found things which I missed the first time. I would only re-read a volume if I feel like I can really benefit something from doing it. It really depends on the story and initial read.

[Lock]

Man I love seeing people’s handwriting!
I get the feeling of it sometimes taking a year to read a book (the March-April one)
I feel like some books (okay maybe most books) I read a couple pages then repeatedly forget about it

Ooh I see. I guess I need to find something I enjoy then
I wish there were a major in sleeping