This hit me when I was replying to a post on reading Japanese Literature that I have somewhat of a method down whenever I read short stories and novels. I mostly use 青空文庫. I’ll put my method down below and I’m interested in knowing how you guys read and what tools you use. This’ll help me tons as well, so please put your suggestions down below.
**My Method**
This was mostly achieved through trial and error and is what has worked best for me until now. Basically I open 6 tabs on my browser (phone or laptop).
* Tab 1 is the story itself on 青空文庫. Say I decided to read 刺青 by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, I’ll open the story on Aozora.
* Tab 2, now this is mainly required when I read on my phone for the lack of a pop up dictionary, I open the story on [Japanese.io](https://Japanese.io) (tap on a word see its reading and kanji but don’t over rely on this as it takes away the fun of reading)
* Tab 3 is for the audio of the story, usually 青空文庫朗読 otherwise yt.
* Tab 4 is just Jisho as I need a dictionary
* Tab 5 is Google for searching up words that have a cultural reference or history. I mostly search in Google Images cause a visual image is 10x more helpful and less bothersome than reading an entire article or some other shit
* Tab 6 is simply a translation of the work in English which I use as a reference when I feel I grasped the meaning all wrong. I basically see this at the end or a last ditch effort when the build up part is getting too confusing.
* Bonus : Maybe a video explaining the historical background, themes and the authors history etc etc.
I read the story slow at first picking up the pace later on as the story builds, plus audio gets played bunch of times and I usually end up reading a para or part multiple times, so its basically the rinse and repeat until it all flows and makes sense. I just wanted to highlight the setup, it might look a little tedious but works wonders for me.