I have decided recently to gradually introduce native-content immersion into my study routine, and since reading seems to be such an OP force multiplier (source: all the N1-passers who succeeded by crushing tons of VNs), I too would like to spend more time reading actual Japanese. My vocabulary is decent (I would say about 6k mature on Anki, with about 1k words remaining on the N2 list) and my solidly-understood grammar is probably between N3 and N2. In other words, I am pretty solidly 'intermediate,' which is I think when immersion in native content should pay the biggest dividends.
Unfortunately for me, I have no interest in VNs, or anything otaku-adjacent for that matter. I do have an interest in getting a job in corporate Japan (and therefore, an interest in someday taking the BJT), so I have been studying 'business Japanese' from a this NHK textbook called 「MBAベーシックス」which is designed to teach MBA English to Japanese people, but I've been using it in reverse to learn all the Japanese MBA-speak. I can get by pretty well on my existing vocabulary, but have still managed to mine some financial words which are not necessarily included in the JLPT list. However, I find when I read long sentences in Japanese, I have a problem:
I find myself reading word by word, and can make it to the very end of most sentences without needing to use a dictionary or grammar guide. "Hooray!" I say to myself—"I understand everything in this sentence!" However, upon further reflection, I realize that while I understand its components, I don't understand the actual sentence.
This is confounding to me since there is no knowledge gap. I know all the words and all the grammar, and can read it end-to-end, kanji and all, but by the time I get to the end, I have already forgotten what the whole sentence was even about. It's almost like my brain is scanning the sentence to check if there are any words I don't know, and when there aren't, it just says "OK! satisfied—on to the next!" but without understanding the sentence as a whole. It's like I am reading for word-comprehension, not sentence-level comprehension. This is especially true of super long sentences with lots of 〇〇ですが・・・〇〇であり・・・clauses strung together for lines upon lines. Do Japanese people really hate using periods or something?!
Is this normal? I can't have this happen during a JLPT where I have to both speed-read something and understand it quickly enough to answer questions during the time limit!
by Deer_Door