(no subject)
Some notes on reading:
1. Reading in Japanese is hard not just simply because there are a lot of words I still don’t know but because even for the words I do know, I am not familiar with the nuances. The text reads very flat and dry to me, which makes reading a chore. Whereas if I’m reading in English, the choice of words tells me about the personality and social status of the character, and certain phrases will stand out to be as particularly apt or clever. I guess this is the difference between text and subtext? I’ve been reading in English for so long that I no longer register the difference, but I can’t read the subtext in Japanese and the difference in the experience is rather glaring.
2. I suppose the only solution to this is to read more, not just quantity-wise but also in variety - different authors, genres etc, to see if I can spot the difference in writing styles. And something like simple short stories would probably be a better starting point than historical novels.
3. The above has the effect of making it much more enjoyable to read in English haha. It’s like, now I really notice how the author uses the language to describe the situation indirectly and how much you can know about a character just by the way he speaks. I guess this is what it means to read critically.
4. When I read in Japanese, I try to always look up the words I don’t understand. Now I find myself doing the same for English, whereas in the past I would just try to infer the meaning from context and move on rather than halt my reading to look up definitions. Which is a good thing since I’m more likely to remember the word this way.
Currently reading:
1. 一夢庵風流記 aka That Keiji Book, which I’m reading veeeeeeery slowly. The good thing about this book is that it is primarily about Keiji so the timeline and plot is very linear. It’s easy to pick up again from where I stopped. In comparison, Sekigahara had a very large cast of characters, and most of them only play a major role in one chapter before where the timeline would jump all over the place before the narrative finally explains their significance in the main timeline.
2. Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay. This is probably my favourite GGK book so far because I find it far easier to get hooked on the story than the others. The first few chapters of his books are usually from different viewpoints, different parts of the puzzle, and it can be a little hard to keep all the names and background straight until the puzzle starts to come together. So I need to invest some time and patience into the story before it gets really good though the investment usually pay offs. It occurred to me that this whole ‘investing time and patience’ wasn’t really an issue before, but there are just so many distractions now.
2a. Okay, having finished the book now, I can say that it was good but kinda left me wanting more. I feel like there was a lot of buildup and hints at intrigue to come and then it just... ended.
Started DWJ's Charmed Life because I felt like reading DWJ again not that one ever needs a reason to read DWJ.
3. Tales of Old Japan In Ghostly Japan (whoops) by Lefcadio Hearn. Okay, usually I don’t read more than one book per language at the same time because inevitably I will ignore the one I enjoy less but this one is an ebook I’m reading on my phone during the times when I’m out and unexpectedly stuck waiting. It’s probably slow of me, but I recently realised that the iBooks app comes with an online store. The selection on offer is small (I can’t seem to buy stuff on it?) and it mostly has biographies and classics, but what they do have are all free. There are also some books by Chinese authors but I can’t seem to open the page for them so I don’t know what they’re about. I didn’t expect to find this book in between all the classics so I got it out of curiosity. I thought it would be all folk tales with some supernatural twists but it doesn’t seem to be that. It's more like a collection of essays touching on history, religion, culture, philosophy etc told in an anecdotal way. (Also I get the feeling I'm seeing the results of 'mis-entered but accepted' captcha.)
3a. Now that I’ve gotten rather obsessive over looking up words I don’t fully understand, the biggest upside to reading on my phone is that it’s so much easier to look up words. So I guess the solution to ‘reading more in Japanese’ is that I should read Japanese on my phone (looking up kanji can be a pain). I’m pretty sure there should be a way to connect to the Japanese iBooks store if I really want to but I could also download stuff from Aozora Bunko and convert to pdfs.
1. Reading in Japanese is hard not just simply because there are a lot of words I still don’t know but because even for the words I do know, I am not familiar with the nuances. The text reads very flat and dry to me, which makes reading a chore. Whereas if I’m reading in English, the choice of words tells me about the personality and social status of the character, and certain phrases will stand out to be as particularly apt or clever. I guess this is the difference between text and subtext? I’ve been reading in English for so long that I no longer register the difference, but I can’t read the subtext in Japanese and the difference in the experience is rather glaring.
2. I suppose the only solution to this is to read more, not just quantity-wise but also in variety - different authors, genres etc, to see if I can spot the difference in writing styles. And something like simple short stories would probably be a better starting point than historical novels.
3. The above has the effect of making it much more enjoyable to read in English haha. It’s like, now I really notice how the author uses the language to describe the situation indirectly and how much you can know about a character just by the way he speaks. I guess this is what it means to read critically.
4. When I read in Japanese, I try to always look up the words I don’t understand. Now I find myself doing the same for English, whereas in the past I would just try to infer the meaning from context and move on rather than halt my reading to look up definitions. Which is a good thing since I’m more likely to remember the word this way.
Currently reading:
1. 一夢庵風流記 aka That Keiji Book, which I’m reading veeeeeeery slowly. The good thing about this book is that it is primarily about Keiji so the timeline and plot is very linear. It’s easy to pick up again from where I stopped. In comparison, Sekigahara had a very large cast of characters, and most of them only play a major role in one chapter before where the timeline would jump all over the place before the narrative finally explains their significance in the main timeline.
2. Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay. This is probably my favourite GGK book so far because I find it far easier to get hooked on the story than the others. The first few chapters of his books are usually from different viewpoints, different parts of the puzzle, and it can be a little hard to keep all the names and background straight until the puzzle starts to come together. So I need to invest some time and patience into the story before it gets really good though the investment usually pay offs. It occurred to me that this whole ‘investing time and patience’ wasn’t really an issue before, but there are just so many distractions now.
2a. Okay, having finished the book now, I can say that it was good but kinda left me wanting more. I feel like there was a lot of buildup and hints at intrigue to come and then it just... ended.
Started DWJ's Charmed Life because I felt like reading DWJ again not that one ever needs a reason to read DWJ.
3. Tales of Old Japan In Ghostly Japan (whoops) by Lefcadio Hearn. Okay, usually I don’t read more than one book per language at the same time because inevitably I will ignore the one I enjoy less but this one is an ebook I’m reading on my phone during the times when I’m out and unexpectedly stuck waiting. It’s probably slow of me, but I recently realised that the iBooks app comes with an online store. The selection on offer is small (I can’t seem to buy stuff on it?) and it mostly has biographies and classics, but what they do have are all free. There are also some books by Chinese authors but I can’t seem to open the page for them so I don’t know what they’re about. I didn’t expect to find this book in between all the classics so I got it out of curiosity. I thought it would be all folk tales with some supernatural twists but it doesn’t seem to be that. It's more like a collection of essays touching on history, religion, culture, philosophy etc told in an anecdotal way. (Also I get the feeling I'm seeing the results of 'mis-entered but accepted' captcha.)
3a. Now that I’ve gotten rather obsessive over looking up words I don’t fully understand, the biggest upside to reading on my phone is that it’s so much easier to look up words. So I guess the solution to ‘reading more in Japanese’ is that I should read Japanese on my phone (looking up kanji can be a pain). I’m pretty sure there should be a way to connect to the Japanese iBooks store if I really want to but I could also download stuff from Aozora Bunko and convert to pdfs.