Learning Japanese takes time and patience! Some people resort to means such as watching anime and doramas or reading manga to learn Japanese. These 2 topics have already been addressed on the site, and we recommend that you read them as a complement to this article. In today’s article, we will give you another tip for studying Japanese, this time using a Light Novel.
Light Novel is a Japanese book that follows light stories in the style of manga, most containing romance or a very engaging plot. Many Light Novels end up becoming anime, attracting people’s interest.
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How to get a Light Novel?
One of the biggest difficulties in using a Light Novel for studying is having one. If you do not live in Japan, it is necessary to order through some websites. Even at Anime Events in Brazil, it is not easy to find Light Novels in Japanese.
Another alternative is to read online the free web novels that are made available by some authors, but this brings many limitations. It is worth remembering that Light Novels are books written for young adults, so most of them have little furigana and are full of kanji (ideograms). So we make it clear that to study Japanese using light novels, it is necessary to have a basic knowledge of the language and a lot of patience.
Choosing and getting familiar with the light novel
A large number of light novels depict stories full of fiction, magic, or quite complex themes. However, the best stories for studying Japanese are always those that present something everyday. So prefer works that portray the daily life of certain characters.
Do not look for works like: Monogatari Series, Durarara, and Sword Art Online. This is because they have a theme very distant from everyday things and besides that, they present complex language.
We also recommend that you choose short Light Novels, or those that are already complete. You will take a long time to read and study them, and you may feel uncomfortable waiting 6 months for a new volume to come out. You may also end up rushing to finish the story quickly, hindering your study results.
There is an infinite number of Light Novels for you to choose from, try to choose something that suits you. Perhaps choosing a work that you have already watched the anime may make it easier to understand the story and the dialogues of the book.
Studying light novel
A chapter of a Light Novel usually has around 5000 to 7000 words. A complete volume (book) usually has 40,000 words and is generally divided into 5 chapters of about 200 pages.
Light Novels have simple and short dialogues; they usually do not have very long dialogues, and there are few exceptions of light novels that use complex speech.
Light Novels, for the most part, use more hiragana and katakana; kanji make up about 30% of a Light Novel. And about 5% of these kanji have furigana. Light Novels are not like in manga, where the “shounen” genre always has furigana. But even so, the reading is quite simple.
When reading a Light Novel, aim to have fun and not to learn. You should learn Japanese in a natural and automatic way; reading light novels will help you do that.
Below are some tips for you to study in the right way:
Do not read what you do not know. – If you start a Light Novel and spend all the time chasing meanings in the dictionary, we recommend that you choose another Light Novel at your level. You will only delay your learning and will not be able to memorize anything.
Read again. – If you find any word or phrase that you know, read it again. The more you repeat, the harder it will be to forget, and the faster your reading will be.
Make the reading short and fun. – You will only benefit from reading the Light Novel if you find it enjoyable. Many have difficulty or laziness to read; for such people, it is recommended to read little so as not to get nauseous or to avoid straining the mind.
Copy Phrases. – If you use Anki or another memorization tool, copy the phrases and meanings that you find interesting into the app. Also, use a notebook to write the phrases if you intend to practice writing.
Problems when studying using Light Novel
You can use Light Novels to improve your learning in Japanese, but we do not recommend using these books as the main tool for studying the language. See why studying Light Novels can be dangerous for your learning if done the wrong way:
- The Light Novel is filled with slang and abbreviations. The authors also write as they wish, using kanji in wrong or unnecessary places. Some even swallow particles and completely disregard the rules of Japanese. So be careful when using it as a study source;
- A Japanese student should focus on maintaining dialogues, listening to audio, and learning simple phrases. Using book reading can become a very slow and arduous process. So if you want to reach fluency quickly, Light Novel is not the best option;
- As mentioned in the article, a light novel contains many new and unknown kanji. It is recommended to have at least an N4 to understand 40% of the book. Some students spent about half a year to understand a volume of a Light Novel;
What should I do to study Light Novel?
Despite the difficulties, do not get discouraged. I did not find it that difficult to study a Light Novel. I have already done this here on the site using a passage from the Web Novel of Re:Zero.
Using the web novel, I selected and copied the passage I wanted to study, separated all the phrases and sentences leaving a large space between them. In this space, I put the reading in romaji or hiragana.
I select word by word from the sentence and research its meaning using various online dictionaries like Jisho, Google. In addition, I search for the word on Google Images to gain a better understanding. Then I put all the meanings of the words and try to understand the meaning of the sentence.
I hope these tips help you Japanese students!
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