Light Novel Recommendations

[larethian]

Originally Posted by stuopidget

Vol 4's this month (Fantasia Bunko this month's line-up's super awesome) .



Might as well put this here too

yeah! though my backlog of unread books can only increase between Jan to Sep.

[BladeEntity]

I honestly a huge fan of Light Novels, always loved books but I'm not to sure what level of Japanese I need to be at the read one. Any useful tips or easy books.

BTW I'm about to take the next JLPT 5 test almost been studying for 2 years.

[apr]

Originally Posted by BladeEntity

I honestly a huge fan of Light Novels, always loved books but I'm not to sure what level of Japanese I need to be at the read one. Any useful tips or easy books.

BTW I'm about to take the next JLPT 5 test almost been studying for 2 years.

http://ranobe.muri.se/reading.html

[larethian]

Originally Posted by BladeEntity

I honestly a huge fan of Light Novels, always loved books but I'm not to sure what level of Japanese I need to be at the read one. Any useful tips or easy books.

BTW I'm about to take the next JLPT 5 test almost been studying for 2 years.

If you want to use JLPT as a yardstick:
At N5, your grammar is too weak and will cause you to misunderstand a lot of stuff. You should be at least N4 level with a denshi jisho (more convenient than a traditional dictionary, I find). This is really minimum wage but will give you basic grammar foundation, including sonkeigo, but you will have difficulty with combination particles / fixed expressions, and your vocab will be insufficient. But if you're still actively studying then, this will help you improve by leaps and bounds, since it exposes you to contextual usage of different vocabulary. Go for simple novels with lots of dialogue and furigana. It may be slow going, since you need to look up words, but not impossible. Avoid novels with a lot of narration, especially with very bombastic adjectives, few furigana, and a lot of cultural references and zokugo (this is actually debatable, since you don't really learn zokugo in academic classes). Particularly, you should avoid Shakugan no Shana, Chrome Shelled Regios, Monogatari series, Rental Magica. Baka test, Infinite Stratos, Denyuuden, Itsuten, are the considerably easy ones.

If you want to read LNs comfortably, you should be preferably at N2 and up levels

[karice67]

Originally Posted by larethian

If you want to read LNs comfortably, you should be preferably at N2 and up levels

I'd recommend N1 (or at least, passing N2 without doing any extra study/enjoyment of Japanese beyond what you already do).

I'd also recommend using a flashcard program like Anki to learn kanji in a systematic way - it's time consuming at first, but totally worth it because you really don't want to be looking up every third word when reading. For data, I personally used a set of kanji books directed at Japanese students, but if you take Patrick(apr)'s recommendation of starting with easy manga, you can add common kanji compounds as you encounter them.

[BladeEntity]

So is that a give an easier one a try or wait until I improve... Anyway I have began learning some of the N4 stuff since I should have been able to take N5 last year. I was thinking I might be able to improve my reading and vocab.

Like my signature says I'll make it possible. And give it a shot. Another question, do you need to learn cultural references for JLPT

[larethian]

Originally Posted by BladeEntity

So is that a give an easier one a try or wait until I improve... Anyway I have began learning some of the N4 stuff since I should have been able to take N5 last year. I was thinking I might be able to improve my reading and vocab.

Like my signature says I'll make it possible. And give it a shot. Another question, do you need to learn cultural references for JLPT

No one can stop you if you want to try. To be honest, if you are fanatic about Japanese, it could be more of a boon than a bane (I know some like that). And besides, you don't need to ask, you'll know once you try whether it's possible or not. In fact, if you spend a few hours every day to study, you can make it for N4 this year. though you have to put in the time consistently.

you're not tested on cultural references. only vocab, kanji, grammar, listening, and reading comprehension, the later which will increase tenfold at the higher levels. all are MCQs. though some of the courses I have attended in the past have short essay writing and speaking components. you can purchase past year papers at major bookstores or online to get a feel of the format.

[Athena]

BTW, Lare, is it normal that I find Japanese easier to learn than Chinese? Cause Chinese is my mother language...I still remember these days of agony...

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by stuopidget

Vol 4's this month (Fantasia Bunko this month's line-up's super awesome) .



Might as well put this here too

What's the first one about? Chaika the Coffin Princess....Looks pretty awesome...

Yeah I find Japanese much easier than mandarin too....I have yet to take the N2 exam and I find that I can still get by the reading of LNs without too much severe diffculty...

[kuroishinigami]

Well, Japanese grammar is much more difficult than Chinese, but mastery wise, I also think Chinese is more difficult(especially when you learn to speak ><). Unless you decide to learn ancient Japanese form and speak every variety of keigo that is.

Anyway, finished reading the first volume or Rakuin no Monsho. I recommend this for people who like story about medieval fantasy adventure story. Protagonist got bone, unlike many other light novel protagonist, and he also uses his brain. Main heroine is likable too, but that's subjective I guess.

[larethian]

Originally Posted by kira0802

BTW, Lare, is it normal that I find Japanese easier to learn than Chinese? Cause Chinese is my mother language...I still remember these days of agony...

for me, in the first place, Japanese is easier in a sense because I already know Chinese; it saves me all the time in kanji recognition. Japanese has 5 fixed vowels and thus easier to pronounce. and yeah, like Kuro said, Chinese grammar is much easier, because the ordering is stricter (though not so strict colloquially), and there's no tenses. The flexibility of Japanese ordering makes it more difficult to understand long sentences. You need to have a large buffer memory in your brain and read it all the way to the end. And thus it is more common to find very long sentences in Japanese than Chinese in literature. I'm already past the Chinese learning stage. We learn Chinese since young till high school. Even though I'd have problem making bombastic sentences, but I can recognize the words if shown to me. After all, I used to read a lot of Chinese martial arts novels and the Four Great Works of China many times over.

and finally, interest plays a part too.

[BladeEntity]

... I can't tell which is easier, I think grammer wise Chinese is much more straightforward far less strings attached. However I suck at chinese even though its my mother-tougue. So my vocabulary level is sort of even but in terms of listening and speaking I'm much better in Chinese. This is making me wish I was originally good at chinese, although it helps in recognize alot of words, I don't know the kana for the word which i find makes it hard to find in a dictionary.

[Kunagisa]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

What's the first one about? Chaika the Coffin Princess....Looks pretty awesome...

I have no idea (no time to read these days, so lame).

My reason for interest is purely from this post. Supposedly the main guy has 中二病, and the little sister isn't blood related (not spoiler cause it's in the character's introduction anyway) and


are my most recent favorite and most wanted to read, so you can probably guess why I'm interested in the first place (besides the points mentioned).

Yes, I read all genres ... some are less refined than the others <__<.

[Cosmic Eagle]

I'm interested because she wields a bloody anti-materiel rifle....

The site page is extremely skimpy on plot details and we all know how most LN look uninspiring on website reviews anyway....

[Kunagisa]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

I'm interested because she wields a bloody anti-materiel rifle....

Death Gun was pretty interesting if you're into guns/sniping in the last SAO arc (don't really have much experience in this genre otherwise).

[larethian]

Originally Posted by stuopidget

I have no idea (no time to read these days, so lame).

My reason for interest is purely from this post. Supposedly the main guy has 中二病, and the little sister isn't blood related (not spoiler cause it's in the character's introduction anyway) and


are my most recent favorite and most wanted to read, so you can probably guess why I'm interested in the first place (besides the points mentioned).

Yes, I read all genres ... some are less refined than the others <__<.

eh? imouto-phile? I've read a few chapters of Onii-Ai (it's being translated on zgmfx09a's blog, which is where I read it); too weird for my personal taste, but have never read the second one. I hope it's not about sibling romance as well? >_<

[Kunagisa]

Originally Posted by larethian

eh? imouto-phile? I've read a few chapters of Onii-Ai (it's being translated on zgmfx09a's blog, which is where I read it); too weird for my personal taste, but have never read the second one. I hope it's not about sibling romance as well? >_<

I'm more of an onee-con than imouto-con, but that genre's almost non-existent (closest thing I have is Yuno from Kurenai ...). As for my imouto-phillic tendencies, most of the time the sibling for some reasons I don't consider incest (either the brother or sister are inhuman, not actually blood related, or it's just one sided affection from one party to the other).

Now that I finally finished all my finals, I have the choices of marathoning Itsuka Tenma, DRRR (season 2 where?), Bacanno, Dai Denyuuden, Rakuin no Monsho, Misumaruka Koukoku Monogatari (why is manga sooo slowwww), IS, Haganai, actually finishing Kabuki/Hanamonogatari, Hitsugi no Chayka, or read Mahou Shoujo Risuka among my huge backlog anime, manga, and mystery novels (Souji Shimada ftw).

Life is good .

[apr]

Hooray! My books arrived!

Golden Time vol 2
Hanamonogatari
Ben-to vol 7
Denpa-onna vol 2

*bounces away happily*

[Athena]

Originally Posted by stuopidget

Do you know what's the novel on the right? I know about the one on the left, but...

[Kunagisa]

Originally Posted by kira0802

Do you know what's the novel on the right? I know about the one on the left, but...

Title of the vid.