What I mean is that I just read an article and did not actually have to look up anything to read it and I’m quite confident. I did not misunderstand the meaning at any point. One could thus argue that I “read” the article and that I can thus read Japanese of that level.
However, this feels a very strange thing to say for me because it does not feel that way. Reading other languages is a very different experience to me. For instance in English, which is not my native language, reading goes considerably faster. Furthermore my mind would either notice every single little grammatical error, or in fact not notice it and subconsciously correct it to what I expect it to be. It feels as though my mind anticipates the way the sentence goes before I even read it and it feels very natural and quick to read it and a very subconscious experience. I need only steer my eyes towards the sentence and I read it whether I want to or not effortlessly. — I cannot at all claim to have that experience with Japanese.
It does not feel as though I “read Japanese” in the same way I do English. It feels as though I read parts of the sentence and then construct the meaning on a semi-conscious level, recognizing verbal conjugations and words almost consciously and often remembering the first place I encountered them as I read them.
2 comments
I find that I read Japanese fairly quickly because sentences are so information dense with clear meanings packed closely together that it just flows really well. It took me a long time to get here though.
How many hours of reading have you done in Japanese total? This is usually just a symptom of not enough time spent in the language.