Is 読解 (dokkai; reading comprehension) workbooks even necessary?

10 comments

1. I found it useful to do a 読解 workbook when I was studying for N1 because it gives you a good sample of the kinds of texts and writing styles that show up in N1, and because it gives you a good idea of what kinds of questions you’ll be asked about those texts and how to think about how they want you to answer. I would say they’re not necessary as long as you’re reading a wide variety of different texts, but make sure that you’re reading essays/literary nonfiction because you are going to see different styles than you would see in novels, for example.

2. I reached a point where I decided that no amount of studying, given the amount of time I have to put in, was ever going to get me to “can just read.” So I just jumped straight to books and mine them for new words and characters. It’s slow going, but it goes.

3. reading comprehension tests are very different from just reading a book.

   if you read a book or some other generic test it doesn’t matter if you get some nuance wrong, you probably won’t even notice it and can continue reading. in a reading comprehension test, you’ll be asked tricky questions and some of the answers will sound right but aren’t. you’ll have to have a much deeper understanding of nuance and a bigger vocabulary than when you’re reading casually (if you just want to follow a story you can usually understand words from context but that’s often not enough in a reading comprehension test as words can still have various nuances even if you get the gist of it from context).

   imo the 読解 books are good for learning how to achieve that deeper level of understanding various kinds of texts, and to learn to read text quickly with the specific intention of answering questions about it (which you obviously won’t have with casual reading).

   you may not need the books in the early levels as reading comprehension at that level is often quite simple, but i do recommend you at least check the books out once you get to higher levels.

   i only have N1 so i can’t speak for lower levels than that though but the N1 book is very useful in my opinion.

4. Is it necessary? No. If you are going to take the test then it provides excellent example questions and passages like what you would find on test day. It is also generally helpful as it gives a variety of reading material curated for a specific level that you can self test your understanding with. But just reading books will eventually get you there.

5. reading native material is always good practise

   but finding native material that restricts itself to grammar and vocab within a particular jlpt study range is virtually nonexistant

   so sure go ahead and read native material, but you’ll be taking on grammar outside the focus of any particular level, and vocab above any level, if you do so

   if that’s fine with you and doesn’t dilute your studies with excess material to learn, great

   if it isn’t, then consider some workbooks

   or do both

6. I have the Shinkanzen Master (reading comprehension) books; I think only the N2/N1 ones are really worth it. I only do a couple pages per day- I’ve find that most of the time it’s pretty easy to solve the questions since it’s usually:

   1. Search for specific information in the text

   2. Grasp the entire meaning/purpose of the text.

   They have lots of practice problems w/ an answer book that explains why each answer is correct, and why others are wrong which I find helpful to check my work after I solve each problem.

   I maybe do the above analytic reading books for ~15-20 minutes/day. Most of my reading is LNs or VNs since those are more fun. Occasionally read the news or history articles for a wider variety of content and get used to each media source.

   For grammar I recommend just working through https://nihongokyoshi-net.com/jlpt-grammars/ and making Anki flashcards for new patterns/words.

   For listening I just listen to YouTube, anime, podcasts, and audiobooks.

7. If you gonna take a JLPT Test, then by all means, do yourself a favor and train with dokkai workbooks. Else, don’t bother.

   With such textbooks you aren’t all that much working on your *reading* ability as much as you are working on your *test solving* abilities. Answering dokkai questions is an art in itself, and training with solving such kind of exercises will make the test easier and actually enjoyable.

8. I found the N1 読解 book to be the most useful of all of them.

   > It seems that these 読解 books primarily show you a passage, teach you some vocab in that passage and then maybe some grammar points and then quiz you on what you understood from it.

   This is the opposite of what they do. At no point does it teach you words or Grammar (Though it’ll define rare words or idioms sometimes)

   It’s all about stuff like “Patterns for recognizing metaphor in writing”, or “Detailling the Author’s Key Points”, or just “Common writing patterns and how to recognize them.”

9. Yes

10. Reading is the single most important skill. I have only studied 読解through N2 (would like to test N1 but COVID has interfered for last two years). If you study reading carefully you can learn kanji, reading, 語彙　(vocab) and grammar at once.

    This leaves only 聴解 to be covered separately. Unfortunately Japanese podcast and YouTube offerings at upper intermediate level are relatively weak if compared to other popular languages like Spanish and French, but you have to work with what’s available🫤

    That being said Shinkansen master is well done but native materials are more fun. From personal experience I can say it is possible to pass N2 by carefully studying the novels of Miyabi Miyuki, Murakami, Keigo higashino etc, looking up unknown grammar and words only using textbooks as a reference for native materials.