After many months of lurking on these forums, and reading some very interesting and useful advice, I feel like it's time for me to stop lurking, and start participating. 皆さんよろしくお願いします。
This month I joined the Read More or Die challenge, and have been LOVING it. For some reason, tracking my reading has been a huge motivator to turn the TV off, put the computer away, grab a manga, and READ. Reading without trying to understand everything, but to try to just get a feel for phrasing, and to get the gist has been wonderful, and it seems like when you stop worrying about understanding everything, you begin to understand more.
However, I've been studying Japanese for 1 1/2 years, and feel like my skills are very much lacking. (Especially when I see some other members of this forum who are incredibly proficient in Japanese after only 2 years. Seeing your progress is very motivating!) One of my end goals is to start reading novels. However, I can't even read novels written for grade school kids yet, so I need to start building up my novel reading skills.
With that in mind, I'm thinking that once the Tadoku challenge ends, I'd really like to start doing some more intensive reading. I have a copy of Anne of Green Gables in Japanese and English, and would like to spend some time going over it with a fine tooth comb.
Ideally, I'd like to limit my use of Anki, as I'm having a hard enough time just going over my KO2001 books with it. An 1 1/2 is the maximum amount of time I'd like to spend with Anki per day, as my attention starts to wander if I spend any longer than that.

I was thinking that my intensive reading program should be broken down like this:
1. Read one or two pages of text, without a dictionary.
2. Re-read the pages, this time looking up any unknown words, and writing them down for later review
3. Proceed onto the next one or two pages
4. The next day, go back and re-read the pages that I've looked up the vocabulary for, and see how much I remember/understand
5. Read the same pages in English, and if necessary, compare with the Japanese
6. Look up the words for the second set of pages read
7. Rinse and repeat
To me the idea of alternating new pages of text with picked over pages of text would reduce any boredom that might result from reading the same pages over and over again.

Sorry if this was a bit long winded, and thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this. Any advice offered on my plan, or ideas on how I can make the process more efficient (ideally without Anki, but if there are any ideas on how to use Anki for this process without me getting burnt out, I'd love to hear them) would be very much appreciated.
I look forward to continuing to learn with all of you, this time as a participant, and not just a lurker.

Like you, I'm also experimenting with extensive reading. I find that it is great for reinforcing my knowledge of the kanji - after all, what else are they for : ) and on a good day I quite enjoy stepping from sentence to sentence in Japanese. Text books also do my head in... I haven't found anything I can get into yet, (apart from RTK) so that leaves native material.

I am still experimenting, but one thing I find incredibly useful is to have an audio copy to listen to before, during, and after reading. It seems there are a number of advantages in doing this. 1) I get to do some listening along with the reading. 2) I learn some of the not so obvious kanji readings naturally. 3) My reading picks up a natural Japanese rhythm; the little voice inside my head is Japanese, rather than a heavily accented foreign one. 4) I think I retain things better when I listen to them as well. 5) I can listen to the material at times when reading is impractical.

The only problem is getting hold of literature in an audio book format. If you are interested in this approach, Anne of Green Gables may be difficult to find, as there seems to be a very small pool of material to draw from. I am wondering if, in the future, I may end up commissioning someone to read material for me to study

I am interested in how quickly people's reading ability improved over time. If anyone has any success stories, I would love to hear them (even if you feel like you might be bragging) and if there was there anything that worked for you, I would like to hear about that as well.

EDIT: Added link and further comment about paper based systems

I notice that you are thinking of stepping away from Anki and using a paper based system to learn vocabulary. You have probably seen it, but if not, then nadiatims's system, described in the linked thread below, is worth considering.
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=8466&page=1

Me... I need to get the computer up and running.

hiya... yeah, read more or die is great, i'm really enjoying it too!!!

It's difficult to know exactly what stage of japanese you're at from the post you made, so, i'll just point you to a few ideas it might be worth you considering...

1stly, i'd suggest prioritising what it is you want from learning Japanese. For example, you say you're doing KO2001, but imo, that isn't the best setup if you want to be able to read novels. KO2001 is much more directed towards being able to read news and so on. So, if this isn't your priority, you might want to put KO2001 to one side and concentrate on using the SRS for whatever it is you're prioritising.

2ndly, do some searching on the "reading listening method"... i'm not altogether clear on exactly what you have to do, but it sounds like something you might enjoy.

3rdly, hmmm, i'm not saying you shouldn't read translated novels at all, by any means!! But one thing you should be aware of is that translated Japanese is not generally what would come out of a Japanese mouth, it's what would come out of a English mouth, in Japanese. It's not that the grammar is wrong or the translation is bad, but it's still different. Because of this different word usage, reading translated novels can actually be harder than reading a Japanese 小説 or whatever, if you get what i mean... so try both, and see what you think.

4. The way i used to deal with books that were too hard for me was this:
* On the first day, pick up the book, don't bother trying to read it, just go and pick up all the words i didn't know.
* Anki them.
* A week or so later, read that chapter.
it worked pretty nicely.

Now i'm not reading books with soooo many new words (i had been reading science books), just reading on the computer with rikaisama is enough to pick up a significant number of words over the course of a book. So, i think once you know the core words novels use, it'll make things much easier. Every page that you read and learn from makes the next page easier. So, have fun!!

(if you haven't already seen a thread about how not to obtain Japanese books on the computer, i suggest you continue to not look for it )

Just to be clear, this is the thread IceCream mentioned that's not worth looking for. If you do decide to waste you're time reading it you definitely wont find anything worthwile.

I don't know if your plan is a good one or not, but I think it might be a good idea to let yourself read some of the book without forcing yourself to study and re-read everything. In my experience a mixture of approaches usually yields the best results and that will also allow you to make better progress through the book.

P.s. You'll love what reading does to your Japanese, even if it does do it slower than you'd like.

IceCream Wrote:Advice

Ooh, thanks for the good advice! I always notice your name at the top of the Tadoku ranking, which is impressive considering how much some people have read already. My goal is to get into the top 50, which is so close, yet so far.

I guess I didn't give enough information about where I'm at. I've finished Japanese for Everyone, and have finished the first K0 2001 book, and am right now reading through Tae Kim to help re-enforce my grammar. Once I'm done the second KO 2001 book, I'll either move onto the とびら textbook, or read the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar.
Reading novels is one of my main goals in Japanese, however, I want to be all around proficient. I look at Rocket News Japan everyday and at the very least skim over the articles. If I have time, I do try to read them, and KO 2001 has been fantastic for that. I started reading manga about 6 months into my study, and KO 2001 has helped me a TON even with reading manga.
As for reading a book that's been translated to Japanese, what you're saying definitely has a ring of truth to it. This is why I've been leery of reading Harry Potter in Japanese (that, and the different names and terms would be strange to read) However, whenever I try to read some of my kids novels like 魔法少女が通る I understand very little, even after looking up words, so I end up being discouraged. That was why I was looking at my copy of Anne of Green Gables - I would have the English has a back-up to let me know that I'm on the right track. But what you've said has got me thinking - I could go through a native Japanese kids novel, write out any parts I don't understand, and ask my Japanese friends for help. After all, they do the same with English novels.
Your suggestion to use the "reading listening method" sounds interesting, especially considering how many people here use it, and seem to gain success with it. Maybe what I should be doing is bridge the gap between manga and novels and use http://hukumusume.com/douwa/ The stories are short, they're not too easy, but not so hard that I'll feel lost, don't use furigana, and have audio. They also have familiar stories like Beauty and the Beast, or the Little Mermaid, so I'll know I'm on the right track regarding the story. Also, since the stories seem to have about 10-20 unknown words, I can easily add them to my notebook and Anki, and won't significantly increase my review time.

Oh, and your suggestion to go back and re-read the picked-apart pages a week later is a good idea. You don't get bogged down with pages to read, and at the same time, really test yourself on whether you've learned the vocab or not.
I won't look up those books that aren't on the computer, thanks!

edit: Just want to mention - I still plan on doing extensive reading, as it's really enjoyable. I would just like to supplement my extensive reading with something more in-depth.

quark Wrote:As for reading a book that's been translated to Japanese, what you're saying definitely has a ring of truth to it. This is why I've been leery of reading Harry Potter in Japanese (that, and the different names and terms would be strange to read) However, whenever I try to read some of my kids novels like 魔法少女が通る I understand very little, even after looking up words, so I end up being discouraged. That was why I was looking at my copy of Anne of Green Gables - I would have the English has a back-up to let me know that I'm on the right track. But what you've said has got me thinking - I could go through a native Japanese kids novel, write out any parts I don't understand, and ask my Japanese friends for help. After all, they do the same with English novels.

I have a possible solution to this. If you think fully knowing the material ahead of time will help you understand the Japanese better, read the English version of Japanese books that have been translated into English. Then when you read the Japanese, you'll be reading it in its original language! I would suggest as a starting point staying away from the more literary authors, though. How about Murakami Haruki? His books are famous enough that a ton have been translated into English, and many are not terribly heavy reading either (though you'd still learn a lot!).

As for intensive reading, it's definitely not 100% necessary to do at all. If you really want to, I won't stop you, but I have learned a lot of vocabulary through pure exposure. If you consider that the average Japanese speaker has a vocabulary of 40,000+ words and probably learned very few of them via a dictionary, to me, at least, it makes the most sense to just do extensive reading. You might not realize you're figuring out as many words as you are, but the more you expose yourself, the more it just starts to click. Taking an hour to read 2 pages intensively where you might learn 50 words really well is not in the long run as effective a skill as reading 20 pages extensively and learning how to guess words from context even without specifically focusing on learning them. This works because the really common words that keep showing up again and again, you will start to learn them naturally through repeated exposure, even without an SRS, because you're going through so MUCH material via extensive reading, and the rarer words that might only show up once per novel or so, you might be able to guess from context. And extensive reading gets even more effective if you couple it with a lot of oral exposure, like watching drama, anime, the news, etc., because then you might be hearing similar words as well which helps further reinforce them.

That being said, if you really ENJOY intensive reading, I'd go for it. But if it starts feeling like a chore at all, realize you don't have to do it. Do what's fun! Getting good at guessing what you don't know is just as useful as knowing it in the first place.

For me, I only do extensive reading, but I do rely on a dictionary in the following cases:
1) A word shows up several times while I am reading and I have no idea what it means.
2) A particular word just sticks out at me, just makes me think, "Hey, I want to know this word!"
3) I am guessing at the reading of a word via the kanji and am not sure if I'm right or not; I just look up the word briefly to check on the reading and maybe glance at the meaning

It's worked well for me so far, but everyone learns differently, so you have to do what works for you. If you do want to go the intensive reading route, I do recommend reading Japanese books translated into English and then reading the original Japanese, though.

For doing what you're talking about, this: http://amzn.com/4770030584 or this: http://amzn.com/4770030576 would save a you a ton of time. I have the non fiction one and it was kinda good although the essays were pretty hit and miss.

I'm doing the extensive reading comp at the mo, but with a dictionary and anki. There are definitely some parts of the manga I wanna come back to, to go over in detail.

caivano Wrote:I have the non fiction one and it was kinda good ...

I have the fiction one, and I think it's great! Not all of the stories were exactly to my tastes, but they were well written and could hold my attention even if they were on topics that wouldn't normally get me to read them. Anyway, the great thing about it is how much it improved my reading comprehension. It's an enjoyable way to learn a lot about how to read the slightly odd grammars of written fiction.

A whole lot of information packed into it, but of course, the very things that make it enjoyable to go through and not-textbook-like make it not useable as a reference work when you half-remember a point...

Maybe the fiction one is better. With the one I read there was one essay I thought was kinda stupid, and then one I found boring, so it I kind of lost interest about half way through. Of course it depends on taste, and tbh I don't really like short essays or short stories in my native language. I'd much rather read a full length novel or non fiction book.

But having said that the general idea and structure of the book is really good, and whether someone likes the stories/essays is a personal opinion