I’ve wanted to start engaging in natuve material for a while now, but my vocabulary just isn’t there (that, or I’m really bad at finding good materials). But, I think I figured something that worked fir me, so I wanted to ask if anyone more experienced thought it’s a good method to keep up or if I should change it to be more beneficial.
Basically, I picked up a book that fit my interest, has furigana, and was on jpdb, and what I’ve been doing is just going through my cards on jpdb daily and maybe once a week or so, open the book and try reading it.
I’ve found it makes it less overwhelming and more enjoyable to read and understand, and I’ve only relied on the furigana a couple times when I completely blank. I just don’t know if this is the best approach or if I should be trying something else.
2 comments
That sounds good, but I’d also say you shouldn’t worry about your vocabulary not being there. You learn vocabulary from the material itself! It’s grammar that more needs to be learnt on its own–words you don’t recognize can simply be dictionary’d and then they’re ones you know.
Starting native reading is very painful. I think if you accept the pain as part of the process and realize that it’s temporary that mindset helps. My first book (the famous Kiki’s Delivery Service) took me 3 months to get through and I had to put every other sentence into DeepL. Reading is still hard for sure but I can now read a novel in a couple weeks and rarely have to translate sentences.
I also cannot emphasize enough how great Satori Reader is as a transition. The grammar explanations are fantastic and the difficulty level of some of the harder passages isn’t too different from native material.