Japanese Extensive Reading?

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mjb1971
White Belt
Posts: 28
Joined: Sun Apr 26, 2020 9:28 am
Languages: English (N), French (B1 Reading), Spanish (B1 Reading), German (A1 Reading), Korean (B2 Reading), Chinese (A1 Reading), Japanese (B1 Reading), Turkish (something), Russian (something), Amharic (ohhhh Amharic)
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Japanese Extensive Reading?

Postby mjb1971 » Thu Mar 09, 2023 10:57 pm

I am currently doing some focused Japanese reading, I think it is more extensive than intensive. I have a tutor and we are working through Easy NHK articles. Then we turn to the corresponding original piece and read through it.

I can read the Easy NHK article with about 70-90% known words. I keep the furigana turned on for the first pass or so. The original article is much more challenging.

I wonder what the best strategy for the Easy NHK reading should be. Should I write down the article as I read it, in order to gain the physical input of the Kanji? Should I just read for volume, given that I can comprehend a great deal of the article? Is the writing of the article pushing me into "intensive" reading rather than the volume of reading which is more "extensive"?

Greatest fear of this language learner is that I find myself in an unproductive habit!!!
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Picaboo
Orange Belt
Posts: 122
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2022 4:06 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: English (native). Korean (upper intermediate). French (early intermediate), Japanese (early beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19516
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Re: Japanese Extensive Reading?

Postby Picaboo » Fri Mar 10, 2023 3:29 am

mjb1971 wrote:
Greatest fear of this language learner is that I find myself in an unproductive habit!!!


I doubt anyone has the answer. Personally, I hedge my bets and do a little bit of both intensive and extensive. With some materials I do as much as I can with them, cross translating, shadowing, writing them out etc... until I'm bored.

Others I just leave behind as soon as I read them once or twice.

I have no idea what the "perfect ratio" should be, but the activities seem to reinforce slightly different things. Extensive seems to be reinforcing (making more fluent) what you can understand. Intensive seems to help with what you don't understand. But of course, both activities do both things to some extent.
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