Tonight, I'm trying to figure out where I should head with my studies. I've finished adding new words to Core 6000 (via iKnow!) and am in review mode. I've also almost finished Genki I & 2 and have done the exercises in the workbooks (except the listening comprehension ones whch I have to go back to). I plan to go through Tae Kim's Guide to learn the grammar not in Genki I & II. It doesn't look too hard to go through since I already completed the Genki series. But then I took a look at my Kanzen Master 2kyuu book which I bought a while ago. That looks like some pretty hardcore studying with 173 grammar points and they don't look like they will be memorized easily.
My first goal is to be able to read some light novels. I might try an easier one like Zero no Tsukaima but, in general, do light novels have tons of N2 grammar points in them? I want to read ones like "Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai" and maybe a few others. After I finish Tae Kim, should I start the N2 grammar studying immediately? Also how are you memorizing the grammar points? Should I make a Anki deck of the grammar points on use a sentence deck from Kazen Master 2kyuu?

I'm not sure anyone can tell you what you "should" do but I can share my personal experience from the same point at which you find yourself now!

First I want to answer this question, "do light novels have tons of N2 grammar points in them?" ---- Any grammar point from any level of the JLPT, including things possibly not included in study guides, is going to be fair game if you're reading something aimed at a Japanese native speaker above the age of ~16. ><;

When I read my first novel (Murakami Haruki's "A Wild Sheep Chase") in Japanese I had finished Genki 1 and 2 + extra vocab from various sources, done all of Tae Kim, all of Heisig 1, and a little book on particles called "All About Particles." At first it took approximately 15+ minutes to read one (small) page and I'll admit- it was frustrating. But I don't think anything will prepare you for the Japanese on the pages of light novels/novels/newspapers and etc. Just do it! (I had also read that novel in English before. This probably helped a bit when I got lost from time to time.) Kanji readings I also learned one by one as I went through reading novels and etc. It's a slow and painful- but ultimately rewarding- process. ><

The grammar not found in Tae Kim, etc. came to make sense through continued reading. I'm not sure you need to hammer out all of the N2 grammar via study materials before diving into a novel. In fact it would probably be most helpful to do both at once so that you experience a lot of them in practical use as you go.

I did later purchase a book with explanations of N1 grammar in Japanese in order to take the N1 (because I wasn't sure that I would run across all those points in daily life before the test rolled around) and it turned out to be surprisingly useful for further reading of novels and news (and, of course, probably for the N1 as well ). I just made Anki decks with example sentences along with the explanations and let the program work its magic.
Mmm magic.

Hope my experience helps you! Good luck! The road from here is steep but fun!

I'm not yet at the stage where I can read a novel (Kara no Kyoukai; Toradora) without a dictionary or tons of furigana; hence, I stay away. I find it far easier to read manga - the pictures help with the occasional word gap, progress feels faster due to less text (there's no drain on my motivation at all; in fact I can't wait for the next commute, as I read on the way to school), and I doubt that tackling something so far above my level as to need to refer to a dictionary ten times per page would significantly increase my learning speed.

"Fun" is also why I put my visual novel playthroughs on hold. The reading process itself was enjoyable, but I could only spend two or three hours per day on them before getting bored, I kept referring to jisho, and I never felt a burning desire to sit down and play. At some point it started feeling like a chore (doesn't help that Clannad is so long it feels like it's endless; I made a bad choice for my first raw VN there), so I shelved it until my command of the language was better.

If there isn't a particular reason you want your first step to be a LN, you might want to consider manga instead. Good luck whatever you decide!

Fadeway Wrote:I'm not yet at the stage where I can read a novel (Kara no Kyoukai; Toradora) without a dictionary or tons of furigana; hence, I stay away. I find it far easier to read manga - the pictures help with the occasional word gap, progress feels faster due to less text (there's no drain on my motivation at all; in fact I can't wait for the next commute, as I read on the way to school), and I doubt that tackling something so far above my level as to need to refer to a dictionary ten times per page would significantly increase my learning speed.

Referring to dictionaries is an important part of any language learners journey, and 10 look-ups a page for a Light Novel is fairly light dictionary usage to begin with.

Thanks for the replies. I guess I'll go through some of the N2 Grammar points in Kazen Master 2kyuu and then try to do both the N2 grammar studying and light novel reading concurrently. Besides Kanzen Master 2kyuu, I also own "Tobira" and "Japanese the Manga Way". I may do some passage reading in Tobira before I jump to the light novels. Although I thought Tobira leads you towards N2 material, I've read recently its really only N3 so it probably won't be enough preparation. I'm not really into manga right now but I will eventually go over "Japanese the Manga Way" to see what it offers.
For the light novels, I rhink I'll start with Zero no Tsukaima since people have stated on this boards it is one of the easier ones to begin with. I've gone through Core 6000 and I guess Rikaisama can be used to easily add Anki cards for words I don't know. What's the best way to look up grammar points you don't know online? Just google them or maybe jgram.org?

Read Novels while learning grammar. Its better reinforcement and the important stuff is more likely to stick. That said, you won't be running into anything overly difficult. After all most light novels are aimed at middle schooler level so the writing isn't very literary, its more straight forward speech. Be prepared to be assaulted by words using bizarre kanji compounds though, you will be looking up a lot of stuff this way. You can memorize these words if you want, but I wouldn't fret over it. Its better to memorize the most common reading of the word (which may be in hiragana), as this is how readers/kids are reading the books. Trust me, no kid has probably ever seen stuff like 躊躇 or 雫 before, but they know what hiragana probably means.

For stuff you don't understand. Post in the "What's this word/phrase?" thread. Either that, or use the translations at http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index....o_Tsukaima to get an idea. But most people here are helpful and will help you understand if you show you'd tried to make sense on your own. We're not here to be your translators for the novel after all.
TIP: Post context! Nothing annoys people more than a small fragment with no idea on the context.

Good luck.

There are actually digital light novel magazines.
I haven't tried them, but maybe you'll be able to directly copy/paste kanji and words.

Online light novel magazine (FREE)
http://rkmg.jp/

Digital light novel magazine
http://ga.sbcr.jp/bunko_blog/denshi/magazine.html

A more comprehensive list of magazines is here:
http://www.lightnovel.org/magazines

Also, here's more light novel info:
http://comipedia.com/light-novel-label

I can't look at those magazines since I'm at work, but those appear to be the serialization outlets for light novels. (If you weren't aware, light novel chapters are often serialized as well just like manga.)

Something to also pay attention to. Some of the pay magazines, digital or not, may have region restrictions and/or require a Japanese credit card.