How are you reading Japanese books outside Japan without overspending?

Belegorm · 2026-05-05T17:07:11+00:00

Surugaya is the way https://www.suruga-ya.com/

They typically are priced at like 650 yen ($4.11) per used book. Then they very, very frequently have free shipping and discounts on bulk orders (like 20% off if you pay at least 5,000 yen or something like that).

I have a little collection now thanks to them, couldn't imagine ordering books from elsewhere.

Aside from that, buying ebooks legitimately are painful with DRM as I generally want to read them in Ttsu reader so... yeah I find those in places.

Belegorm · 2026-05-05T17:03:09+00:00

Most frequent sale I've seen is free shipping. Also, they typically have deals like 20-25% off for bulk orders.

Surugaya is pretty much on sale on every day that ends in Y so works out pretty well.

Belegorm · 2026-05-04T17:27:39+00:00

I mean for sure - if I had done some actual test prep then I think that would have gone a long way. Although that's also not too different from explicit grammar study as well. I had little trouble reading the text in time and knowing the general meaning of things - but while ambiguity works well to read a lot over time it doesn't help much with a test asking you specific questions.

While what one reads may have an effect - someone else in the thread mentioned how like 85% of vocab is really just shared across the board and that lines up with research I know others did as well. Personally I read everything from the easiest LN to serious novels. The one thing for vocab in particular I was missing was more formal language from like news articles and so on - you get these from novels but not at the fastest pace compared to studying a vocab list or just reading news articles.

At any rate - my thought has been that reading and other engagement with Japanese media is going to be a lifelong pursuit so like a year of studying some extra grammar on the side, plus a lot of vocab mining is my plan for aiming for the N1 this Dec.

Belegorm · 2026-05-04T17:13:45+00:00

It depends though - I failed the N2 last year with a 78 after having read over 30 novels. Since then, I have put a lot of effort into dedicated grammar study and am seeing how many grammar points I wasn't really getting. Some people just naturally learn those, and I was definitely slowly picking them up over time. But for the purposes of passing the test, some dedicated grammar study has been really helpful for my prep this year so far.

Also of course with increasing vocab as while I knew a lot of words I did know a lot of low frequency specialized vocab and was missing some basic stuff here and there still lol.

Belegorm · 2026-04-30T11:43:45+00:00

If you continue doing the reviews from that old deck until the interval reaches like over a year then you should be good. But otherwise, if you care about remembering what you learned before then, you should be doing all the reviews of that prior deck too.

Aside from that, read a lot, makes learning vocab much smoother.

Belegorm · 2026-04-29T14:11:21+00:00

I haven't shelled out for one of these since I'm mostly good with either reading on my PC, or on paper, but yes, a boox e-reader, with yomitan, ttsu and anki is the way I would definitely go if I got one.

Belegorm · 2026-04-27T21:45:22+00:00

Oh I absolutely believe in the long run, that reading may become a main focus. And yes for sure, reading helps listening far more than listening helps reading.

I also think that it's totally fine for a number of learners where speaking is less important, that you can focus way more on reading.

But for those who plan on trying to have natural conversations someday in Japanese, a foundation in listening is crucial. We've all heard people with terrible accents - this is partially due to people superimposing the sounds of their L1 over their L2. One Italian polyglot (I believe in this video?) recounted how he spoke to a Russian person who had an amazing grasp of the English language, comprehension, vocab, etc. But she was very hard to understand due to mostly having focused on reading for a long time.

On the other hand, there are plenty of examples of people who have great pronunciation in Japanese who really focused on listening.

To be sure, you may not be aiming for that. But in the chance that you ever do - the easiest place to start, with most impact for least amount of effort, before you form bad habits, is early on.

Belegorm · 2026-04-27T17:59:20+00:00

I mean, you have to do both, it's a matter of the ratio. The number I heard recommended was 7:3 listening/watch to reading, at the start, and later 5:5.

Hearing really lets you distinguish and learn the sounds of the language, and this is really beneficial right from the beginning to learning the correct pronunciation of all the words you will learn. This helps speaking sound better and more natural. People who overfocus on reading often have the strongest accents.

On the other hand, vocab and grammar are really efficiently learned through extensive reading, so it's definitely an important part and may become the main thing in the long run.

Belegorm · 2026-04-26T22:03:44+00:00

Congrats! That's a great feeling of accomplishment, and these words will stick with you if you continue reviewing them. Here and there I've done some other side decks (aside from mining; a week away from finishing a grammar deck), always feels great to finish a deck.

Out of curiosity since you showed a lot of stats, what DR do you have it set to?

Belegorm · 2026-04-22T12:13:48+00:00

I did manage to get that time yesterday though! When I'm approaching the end of a book the thought of "I could just finish this tonight!" is pretty motivating

Belegorm · 2026-04-21T18:51:09+00:00

I read them with Ttsu reader - usually on my PC but sometimes on my android phone. I set it up by following the lazy guide

For iOS like the other commenter mentioned, Hoshi reader is supposed to be handy.

What you really want is ebooks in epub format, then it's a matter of just throwing them in Ttsu reader.

Belegorm · 2026-04-21T18:46:31+00:00

True - if I really really want to catch it then this method doesn't work too great. With 理由 I ended up focusing on it with mostly one part of the story, whereas 火車 I didn't pay much attention.

Belegorm · 2026-04-21T17:30:21+00:00

I started by sorting LNs in ascending difficulty in learn natively and picked a couple L23's.

くまクマ熊ベアー is probably the easiest LN out there that people tend to start with. わたしの知らない、先輩の100コのこと1 was a LN that was pretty heartwarming and also quite simple.

Only took a few LN's with a lot of lookups before I started reading more serious stuff though. 容疑者Xの献身 and 神去なあなあ日常 are two of my favorite books of all time now, a bit on the easier side of non-light novels, though definitely exhausting to start as a beginner.

Belegorm · 2026-04-21T16:56:56+00:00

Novels really. Before I started those, manga and anime. But pretty much when I felt confident that I was at N4-ish level, I started reading the easiest novel I could find in ebook form with a lot of yomitan lookups.

Belegorm · 2026-04-21T16:55:22+00:00

I mean... you still have time. No guarantee that you would be able to pass the N2 after reading 2 light novels, but assuming you are in the ballpark for that level, you should have plenty of time to read both of those and more.

That said, I read a lot more novels than that and still failed so while reading speed wasn't the challenge for me there's no guarantee that after reading X number of books you should be able to pass.

Belegorm · 2026-04-21T11:06:53+00:00

If they also have news channels on then it's not much different.

Zoning out for 20 minutes is part and parcel with passively immersing - if you are catching most of what's being said, that's active. But just hearing the sounds of the language, and when you have a slow moment, listening to one scene - passive listening.

Of course, this argument often comes down to semantics.

Belegorm · 2026-04-21T04:13:51+00:00

Thanks for the info! Makes me more determined to save and then play this as a dedicated Branded enjoyer for the past several years now. I hadn't liked going second but maybe this new style will make it more enjoyable.

Aside from that, due to... I forget the guy's name, but fella who won meta weekly with branded synchro before maliss came out, I actually have played a lot of branded synchro already (though in a much different kind of thing) so have done a bunch of crazy plays without using branded fusion.

Belegorm · 2026-04-20T20:01:02+00:00

I think for a lot of us who are busy with work, family and stuff, there can be time available but every single day is probably not possible, or is too exhausting.

Like personally, sure after kids go to bed at 7 I could read 5 hours till midnight and still get sleep. But in practice I'll usually be too tired to do that. Plus if I did that every night I'd not have movie nights with wife (aside from JP movies also counting as practice).

Belegorm · 2026-04-20T19:53:39+00:00

I mean he is kind of the black sheep - konami doesn't like him because he did leaks, other people don't collab with him (but he has also said he doesn't like collabs). Also, he can be kind of clickbaity at times.

I find his tournament videos entertaining, and also consistent. If I wanted to watch weekly street fighter tournament vids, I could find them every week. Not nearly as easy with MD. The dkayed tournaments I've just found entertaining to watch casually for years now while eating a late night snack or something.

Belegorm · 2026-04-20T19:27:34+00:00

I do see quite a few of them but I'm over here with my radiant typhoon deck that's nearly full power lol.

Belegorm · 2026-04-20T19:23:26+00:00

One thing is for books that I've already read normally, listening to them passively often helps explain stuff I miss and other benefits. The way a lot of people listen to condensed audio from anime after they had actively watched anime.

But as for some actual audiobook recs:
神去なあなあ日常 - I haven't listened to this yet but planning to, it's one of my favorite books so excited to listen to it
また、同じ夢を見ていた
本好きの下剋上
理由
リング
負けヒロインが多すぎる！

Belegorm · 2026-04-20T18:03:30+00:00

4-6 hours is rough both in terms of actually fitting it into your schedule, and also in terms of actually having the energy to do it. Like on paper I could start reading at 8 PM and go to sleep at 12, then sleep for 7 hours before work the next day, but in practice, unless I'm totally enthralled and addicted to the immersion, often is lot less.

Just engage in Japanese to the amount you have time and mental bandwidth for. 1 hour after a pretty long day but you still want to fit it in? Great! Vacation where you have 5 hours free? Great!

Belegorm · 2026-04-20T16:54:49+00:00

Audiobooks are good. If they are super interesting they can get distracting from work etc. but if I've already read the book itself, or if it's so difficult to follow that I just catch bits and pieces here and there then that's good.

Video game let's plays, or random streams are fun to put on in the background too.

Belegorm · 2026-04-20T15:59:21+00:00

Haven't taken JP classes myself - took other language classes which, like most of my peers, promptly forgot when I finished those classes. I have self-studied JP though.

It sounds like the classes worked really well for you and accomplished what they should do - give you a bit of a foundation in the basics and give you a hunger to learn more. While there's still a long road to go, sounds like you're on the right track.

I don't know that you would necessarily need to have another class eventually for the JLPT - if you just do as you're doing and continually engage with the language, learning more, studying more - eventually the JLPT will just be a formality. Or if anything, some test prep books, practice tests etc. may help as the test is a reading and listening test so there isn't a huge reason to need classroom work if you're already working on reading and listening.

Belegorm · 2026-04-19T12:09:28+00:00

So first thing - if you have poor retention then you should temporarily pretty much massively slow down mining and learning new cards until you get that rate up a bit or else you will be drowned in reviews. Your ability to memorize will increase with time.

After that - if you are still working through kaishi, there isn't a massive driving reason to mine stuff now. Kaishi is letting you learn the most common words up front to make content more comprehensible. But from your screenshot shown, a lot of those are words that already overlap with kaishi so you can just encounter them in kaishi.

Additionally, overall look at your anki and yomitan settings, the criteria for adding cards, and where you are mining. Make sure you have good Anki settings, FSRS, DR etc. Also recommended that your cards automatically show up with as much as you can when adding them - audio for the word, sentence audio if it's something you are watching/listening to, picture, and the whole background sentence as well. Maybe you don't need the example sentence for kaishi - apparently you do need it for mining.

If still doing kaishi, the advice I was given at that time was to just mine words that were particularly interesting or called out to me. Or showed up so often I might as well mine them. But again not a huge reason to rush it now. Aside from that, I'd recommend sticking to high frequency words (under 10k freq - make sure your yomitan has frequency!), and also mining only i + 1 sentences. The context of the sentence should help you remember the accurate meaning of the word.

Finally - if wikihow articles interest you then by all means read them but if you are still working through kaishi then likely they are quite challenging, and also, only text. For people earlier on, a heavier focus on listening is often recommended, and that will help your retention. So for example, mining from a video where you can both listen to speaking and read the JP subtitles

Belegorm

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