atejapan: How I Study Japanese Texts Right now I’m mainly reading Level 1 books of the Japanes
atejapan: How I Study Japanese Texts Right now I’m mainly reading Level 1 books of the Japanese Graded Readers series (which I talk a little about in this post). It’s fairly easy for me to understand, so rather than just reading it, I go through a few more steps to learn from what I read. Read without looking up words. The first time I read a book, I avoid the dictionary and just try to get the gist of what it’s saying through what I already know and the pictures provided, if there are any. This is a good way of measuring your level. Transcribe the text line by line while looking up words you don’t know and looking out for grammar points. On the second read, I write down a line of text after I read it. I’m not too nitpicky about my stroke order because it’s not too hard to guess a kanji’s stroke order. I bought a notebook with squared boxes for this since I believe it helps with handwriting and spacing, but regular notebooks are fine. After writing down a line, I look up words I don’t know from that line, if any. I write the reading and definition on the side. For grammar, I take note on grammar points I’m currently studying by circling it. If there are any particle usages that I don’t understand, I look it up and jot down the usage on the side. Write a translation. After I finish transcribing the entire book, I write a little summary of translation on the bottom. It isn’t really necessary, but it’s helpful for me to write out exact translations rather than just having it in my head. Have a space to practice kanji characters. I always pick out ten or so kanji characters or compound words to practice my writing. It helps with memorizing the vocabulary as well as what exactly the kanji looks like so I have better recall when I reencounter it. Read the book a third time, out loud. This time, I know pretty much exactly what every line is saying, so it’s just a final review. Reading it out loud is just helpful for speaking. I hope this was helpful! I feel like I’m getting a lot more out of these books through this process. What do you do when you read a Japanese book? -- source link