Weekly Update #10: Thoughts on the new bunch of extensive readers
I’m posting a day late since I was out of town, but as of Saturday I was at 220,526 words. Didn’t read quite as much as I wanted to during the week, but made up for it on the weekend. Haven’t updated my book lists or sidebar either…. Well, that can wait.
I’m excited that this blog has been getting some attention recently! I think the most logical way to promote extensive reading among Japanese learners would be to try to reach Japanese teachers, since they’re in a better position to create libraries available to multiple students and those of us studying on our own have to fend for ourselves. Still, I get the sense that many of the people who have found this blog through Twitter should do even better with extensive reading than I have, provided they can find enough of the right kind of material. I wish I had discovered extensive reading earlier and spent less time puzzling out texts above my level, but that did mean I was exposed to a lot of words, and although most of them didn’t sink too deeply into my mind at the time, many of them were then later reinforced by extensive reading. My impression is that many other people studying on their own have also immersed themselves into listening, reading and so on, and I bet they have their own stores of latent vocabulary that will be brought to the forefront and strengthened through extensive reading.
I hope I’m doing a good job explaining what exactly I’m getting at… I was mostly writing this blog for my own reference, and it shows, so I should do more to make it useful to other people. I was rather enjoying having a blog that no one read, though. My paperdoll page gets about fifty times the traffic this one does… Not that I am complaining!
Update (June 28): Hey, they’re starting to confirm my theory! ^^ Check out Operation Subarashii: Read More and Extensive Reading meet Incremental Reading, or How to (多読)tadoku without a 日本語 library.
2 Responses to Weekly Update #10: Thoughts on the new bunch of extensive readers
- Extensive reading is known as 多読, or tadoku in Japanese. To try it, start with very easy books (ones with no more than two or three unknown words per page), and follow these principles:
1. Don’t look up words in the dictionary while reading.
2. Skip over parts you don’t understand.
3. If you aren’t enjoying one book, toss it aside and get another.
Find something to read!
Hundreds of free books and stories online
Local bookstores and libraries
Buying new and used books online
For more information, read "What Is Extensive Reading?" and "Classification System."
To learn more about Kunihide Sakai, who developed the three principles of tadoku and has worked to popularize it in Japan for years, read this interview with him.
Finally, for more than you ever wanted to know about why I believe extensive reading is worth your time, read my tadoku manifesto. Currently reading:
Superfluous Stats
Books read: 303
Word count (since starting the blog): 380,500Categories
- About Myself
- Adventure
- Books from my own collection
- Classification System
- Detailed Reviews of Graded Readers
- Detailed Reviews of Level 2 Books
- Detailed Reviews of Level 3 Books
- Detailed Reviews of Level 4 Books
- Detailed Reviews of Level 5 Books
- EhonNavi Books
- Extensive Reading Basics
- Extensive Reading Materials Online
- Extensive Reading Paper Summaries and Notes
- Extensive Reading Resources
- Illustrated Reference Books
- Interviews
- Japanese Language Learning Resources
- Mini Reviews of Level 1 Books
- Mini Reviews of Level 2 Books
- Mini Reviews of Level 3 Books
- Mini Reviews of Level 4 Books
- Mini Reviews of Level 5 Books
- Mini-Reviews of Level 6 Books
- Nikkei Bunko Library Books
- Non-Fiction
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- Pierce County Library Books
- Reading in a Foreign Language
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- Society and Culture
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- Weekly Updates
- 多読材料
Extensive Reading
- Extensive Reading group
- Goodreads Tadoku Group
- Overview of the "Start with Simple Stories" method
- Read More or Die
- Reading in a Foreign Language
- Tadoku Livejournal Community
- tadoku.org (in Japanese)
- Talk to the Clouds
- The Extensive Reading Foundation
- The Extensive Reading Pages
- 日本多読研究会 (Japanese Graded Readers Research Group)
Japanese Language Learning Resources
I can’t imagine trying to read in Japanese. I learned very little of the language to try to talk to a Japanese exchange student at my high school. Which kind of worked I guess, since we’re still friends, although she laughed whenever I said anything in Japanese. Not sure that’s a good sign XD I’ve forgotten a lot of what I learned, and I never understood the sentence structure in the first place. I’m more interested in learning Mandarin now, because I intend to adopt a baby from China.
That was sweet of you to learn some things to try to talk to her — even if she did laugh ^^
If I ever wanted to try to tackle another language, Mandarin would be a very attractive candidate, because Japanese uses Chinese characters in its writing system and Chinese loanwords, and I’ve long been fascinated with how they were adapted. I spent about a week looking into learning Chinese, and I spent the whole time thinking things like “Wow! “Chair” in Chinese is “isu” too?” (The characters are 椅子, and sometimes I see them used in Japanese too, but at the time I’d only seen “isu” written in hiragana: いす.) But I think Japanese will keep me busy until I die, so ^^;;