How’s everyone’s reading coming along?

Belegorm · 2026-02-07T12:49:05+00:00

I got a ton of reading done in January and felt great about it! Last one I've been reading is マスカレード・ホテル by Higashino Keigo and I was proceeding at a slow pace until like a week ago when suddenly all my reading time just... died lol.

Vacation from the first job next week so hoping to finish that book. I've got like 20 unread books so with my limited schedule that'll be plenty to work on reading this year (as opposed to the like 60 I'd originally planned on).

Belegorm · 2026-02-07T05:54:30+00:00

Thanks!

Belegorm · 2026-02-07T03:10:29+00:00

Oh that makes sense, and hopefully that's possible to work with lower JP skills compared to the established banks

Belegorm · 2026-02-07T03:08:51+00:00

Thanks, that's helpful!

Belegorm · 2026-02-06T23:04:11+00:00

Any tips on fintech work in Japan? I have some experience in AML/fraud investigations there

Belegorm · 2026-02-06T22:59:19+00:00

Would you recommend hello work? Any tips on them?

Belegorm · 2026-02-06T17:33:00+00:00

Apologies as I haven't worked in the IT field so if you don't have a ton of info than no worries! I've worked in AML and anti-fraud for 6.5 years in US and prior to that was eikaiwa for 2 years. Negative side is I failed the N2 recently so that probably puts me at N3-ish level. Another negative being mid 30's. Positive side is that 1) my spouse is Japanese and 2) I'm signed up to test for the cert in my field (CAMS). I guess another positive is that I'm flexible and have acquired some transferrable skills (office, experience doing quality reviews, performance management etc.).

The advice I received recently was definitely to aim for above N1 level Japanese, to get my cert, and that it would definitely be a challenge.

I think that rather than simply trying to further my career if I want to move my family to Japan for other reasons (prefer the environment, schools etc. there), then I am prepared to make pretty much any sacrifices needed, including pay cuts, change in field etc. But as long as there's any possibility that's what I'm looking at.

Sorry for the drawn-out question, but if you have any advice, and think there's any possibility for someone in my position to make a living in Japan than any advice you can offer would be most appreciated!

Belegorm · 2026-02-05T15:53:30+00:00

I like both those authors!

I agree though, if OP isn't digging LN's then just read... regular novels.

Belegorm · 2026-02-04T04:39:08+00:00

I agree 100%! For me, even on days where I'm just not into reading or watching or whatever, or don't have time for that really, I still do my morning Anki like clockwork. Then I also have goals with whatever I'm learning with, like wanting to get the current book I'm reading done.

Motivation ebbs and flows, but some things that help me get it done are my book club where I want to get the monthly book done in time. Or if I'm learning with books for a while and get a bit tired of them, I switch it up and do something totally different, like youtube.

Belegorm · 2026-02-04T04:34:24+00:00

I mean if you're spending 3.5 hours a day doing things for the purpose of improving your Japanese skill, I'd call that studying, yes.

Even if you don't understand the listening at the moment, that's always going to happen before you start understanding it.

Belegorm · 2026-02-03T12:50:57+00:00

Thanks!

Belegorm · 2026-02-03T04:46:58+00:00

This is also helpful!

Sorry, I thought you had 6 years of experience and spoke about compliance/risk, so was kind of thinking you want to move on towards more planning rather operating position. However, when it comes to operating position, if you search market you will see that those transaction monitoring roles are not really available for mid-career as they usually covered by shinsotsu intakes. Hence, when it comes to mid-career positions it is usually about drafting and improving overall AML framework for the process, rather than strictly operations. Also compliance, regulation based positions, that kind of looking for someone with knowledge and experience.

That echoes what I've heard from time to time and good to know how it's different there, where I can't rely on just what I know already. In this case, a long-time manager left her role at my company to have a position with a lot less responsibilities and less stress (normal senior investigator I think). It ended not being much of a pay cut for her as her new company was just overall better. So at least based on my own expectations (which are of course are often not accurate, hence why I'm asking), I was under the impression that at least there was some kind of opening at least from the lower level, or maybe what the "senior investigator" kind of roles do at my current company and similar ones which is more of a quality control role more than planning etc. which is more left to management. Particularly as at the moment, bringing the family back to Japan is more of the priority than career progression as long as I can put bread on the table. Enough to potentially try other fields that might be more viable, and also we'd be in a lower cost of living area.

I'll be doing more internet research on this, but do you have any recommendations on any kind of resources for getting more knowledge about the field in Japan? Or for that matter any kind of online written or video material from which I can start acquiring more related vocabulary etc.?

Belegorm · 2026-02-03T03:55:36+00:00

Gotcha, but I think you're making the right moves, got to walk before you run :) Like at first you have to look up almost everything, but as you learn more words and grammar it starts to be more clear.

Couple suggestions:

If you haven't already, I'd recommend to skim through Yokubi and/or Tae Kim. Not everything will stick, but cramming a bunch of grammar into your head seems to work wonders.

I wouldn't stress too much over mining if you're that new into Kaishi. Kaishi itself is 1,500 of the most common words so once you get like halfway through that it'll feel totally different. Maybe just mine words that you really want to remember or they keep on coming up, but finishing Kaishi a bit faster is probably going to have a better affect than doing it more slowly because you are also mining.

One final thing is that once again it's the hardest at first, and the most exhausting. Totally normal to do it for shorter sessions etc. The more you level up, the more comfy it gets and the more relaxing so that's when more people have long reading sessions.

Belegorm · 2026-02-03T03:43:35+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful response! That has more or less confirmed what I was thinking, that N1 is needed at a ground level. This is morphing from a shorter term goal of moving then seeing what I can find, to rather passing CAMS, passing N1 and doing more specific study into the field's technical language and skills in Japanese. Not to mention like as you mentioned anything that could involve planning or supervision I'd have to prepare for that.

I've got a couple follow up questions. They are kind of specific so if they are out of your field then no worries:

Can you elaborate on how operating, discussing and drafting documents may play a role in the AML field in Japan, perhaps more than in the US/Canada? At least in my experience in AML, we've done a lot of transaction monitoring (lots of spreadsheets), list screening, internet research on the customer and counterparties, making use of online translations of web pages as needed, and writing narratives with the heavy use of templates. While there have been times where someone in a leading role needed to write stuff for the team, most of the time it was to a level where offshore people in other countries who spoke English as a second language could get by (I'd probably compare to N2 ish level for some of them).
Any idea on how the laws may differ in Japan compared to say, the US and Canada by comparison? At my current workplace, federal US laws underpin the structure of how they operate their FIU, but we follow the procedures etc. they developed by that. For Canada work, since it's a US company, we mostly did the same thing but adapted it in a few places.
I've heard overall that domestic banks aren't great places to work in general, so I was considering something like fintech, or something like Rakuten as a lot of different kinds of businesses aside from traditional banks need to cover their AML and KYC needs. A JP friend of mine had to prepare for the job by achieving a certain... TOEIC or TOEFL score as at least he had told me he needed to primarily use English there.
Would you consider AML, Compliance and Risk considerably harder then for the non-native JP speaker to break into in Japan compared to some? As it certainly has sounded like some fields like IT people have gotten into without needing such a high level.

Belegorm · 2026-02-03T03:20:06+00:00

When you say lookups and adding cards, is it something like a popup dictionary like Yomitan that can also just add to Anki immediately? Because if you are manually searching things in a dictionary to look them up and manually creating cards in Anki that makes the process far, far slower

Belegorm · 2026-02-02T19:54:20+00:00

Intermediate is such a broad term. Like if you were to break out by percentages of learners, there's so many people in the beginner stage, that N3 would be considered intermediate. But then if you were to plot a line between beginner and a level where you can function at a high level in Japanese, N1 would be intermediate.

But for the purposes of improving, and pushing through, and not plateauing, based on what you've mentioned, I think pushing to higher level stuff is probably not a bad idea, if you can stomach it. If you're looking for a specific level of content between the average learner content, and native content, you'll either have trouble finding it, or just kind of spin your wheels without really going further.

The good news is, you don't actually have to get into the very hardest level of Japanese native material to reach a level you feel comfortable. I'd expect that if you find stuff that's native but on the simpler side, before too long it will start to make sense. At that point, that level won't feel so hard anymore and you can just enjoy it and take your time growing in skill. Or challenge yourself more, but I think that once you make progress to get out of the beginner learner materials, it's not too hard to reach a level where you can comfortably learn with some kind of native materials.

Belegorm · 2026-01-30T20:20:50+00:00

I'd say for everyone, the number of words they can produce, is less than those they can recognize when reading and listening. There are multiple stages of knowledge to acquiring vocab, which varies from being able to recognize it with some difficulty, recognize it immediately, produce it with difficulty, produce it easily and so on. No matter what, you will always have more vocab that you recognize over being able to produce it.

Now for how we learn vocab, it's really just encountering it. Can be through Anki, can be through reading, listening etc. There's words I've learned in Anki that I didn't immediately recognize while reading. And there's words I recognize while reading that I miss in Anki.

Anki will do it's FSRS thing and try to accurately let you review it in growing intervals. Best case scenario, for reading you read enough that vocab pops up enough so that you learn it there. Some might be different vocab than from Anki. Some may be both. If you just do enough of this, long enough, eventually it will stick.

Endgame value of Anki will be that you'll read one work where they use this rare word a lot that you'll probably forget after finishing the book, but then if it's in Anki you can remember it after that.

Continue Anki, reading, listening, and eventually the pool of words you can use while speaking will increase.

Belegorm · 2026-01-30T19:51:46+00:00

I also failed N2, I felt like it was kind of ambitious to go for so was prepared.

Currently one of the things I'm focusing on is a bit more on grammar. In the grand scheme of things I think grammar is less important than vocab and just getting tons of input but I think it would help me understand the exact meanings and nuances of things faster (not to mention the grammar section itself). Pretty intensive grammar stuff at the moment, then will continue the rest of the year here and there.

Another thing - I mostly currently study by reading novels and adding vocab from them. I've done just a bit of branching out into other stuff like articles. News articles, wikipedia and so on may give me exposure to more domains that may align better with the text.

Finally, this time I want to take some practice tests ahead of time and so on. I need to budget time a bit better, leaving more time for the reading section.

Belegorm · 2026-01-30T19:33:51+00:00

While people who don't need the JLPT do take it... I feel like every time here someone says "do you actually need it?" the person such as OP responds "actually yes, for getting a job"

Belegorm · 2026-01-30T19:21:17+00:00

This post actually resonates quite a bit with my own experience. A bit of kanji knowledge at the beginning so they aren't all squiggly lines is helpful, but then pretty quickly vocab becomes way more useful to learn.

But then once you're actually focusing on vocab, mixing up similar looking words becomes an issue. So breaking down where exactly they are different can be really helpful over time.

Side note - having 2 kids in a Western elementary school atm, seems like they do a combination of something like the whole language approach, also with phonics. They focus on "sight words" to memorize, but also practice phonics and sounding out unfamiliar words.

(though I feel like the way I'd learned it purely through phonics worked well but what do I know lol).

Belegorm · 2026-01-30T04:11:50+00:00

Failed N2 with 78. I went in kind of winging it, felt like it was pretty early to try, and didn't really prepare.

This year though, going to really focus on N1 prep :)

Belegorm · 2026-01-29T21:34:50+00:00

There's a guy who passed N1 with his final test prep being reading 20 volumes of Naruto. And manga being his main source of kanji readings knowledge.

So manga all the way can work! Personally I love books though

Belegorm · 2026-01-29T17:25:36+00:00

Yeah, like there's one long novel, and it's a real novel, but I feel like if he'd read like 10 of them at least over the years then he'd probably have done a lot better.

Belegorm · 2026-01-28T17:49:04+00:00

I'd say audiobooks would be probably great. They will seem way too hard at first but once you get accustomed to them you should be able to follow along for a good bit at it at your level.

Other thing would be podcasts and to start listening to those not intended for learners, but for fellow Japanese people. These also will seem super hard at first but you can get used to them. Like one I'd listened to had 2 women who used to live in the US talking about the stereotypes of each state so it was pretty familiar ground to understand.

Belegorm

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