Well I think you should also be sorta picky with the author. for me, there's japanese authors that write japanese that is really easy to read and fun to read. Some Japanese authors I can't stand them. For those I usually just end up reading only the dialogue because reading the description (byousha) just feels tedious/boring/confusing/etc/etc and then eventually give up on the book if it's really that incompatible with me.  for authors i am compatible with, reading the byousha doesn't feel tedious, i enjoy reading every word as well as the dialogue parts. This is just about my personal reading preference with the writing styles that makes reading japaanese enjoyable as opposed to the level of the difficulty of the japanese.  Anyways here's my recommendations!

乙一
森絵都 (some of her books for children are good too but don't force yourself to read the ones she wrote for children if you find it too lame)
本多孝好

just go for a book that you enjoy reading... that is worth your time.

by the way casual dialogue is in like every book lol unless you're reading some edo jidai thing (it is technically casual japanese but it's in that archaic style) or the person only writes about the person while they're at work but there's no reason for the character to not "think" in casual japanese. it's actually harder to find a book that has no casual spoken dialogue? lol

Last edited by howtwosavealif3 (2013 February 07, 8:08 am)

look for books that say 児童書版 on them if you want something a little easier to swallow.

You could also read Japanese subtitles for TV dramas.
It's almost entirely casual conversation.
If you're good enough to read novels in Japanese, I'm sure it'd be easy for you.

http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/subtitles.php#Japanese

Another possibility is to read light novels.

Last edited by chamcham (2013 February 07, 2:10 pm)