I wanted to share a small milestone and also get some thoughts from others who are reading manga in Japanese. I am N2 aiming for N1 in the summer.
I started reading Berserk back in December, and I’ve just made it to Volume 6. Overall, I’m really happy I stuck with it, but it definitely hasn’t been smooth the whole way through.
Volume 3 was probably the hardest for me so far. The whole talk about causality and stuff had me looking up things for the entire hour block I would set aside for reading Berserk. Some days I might only have progressed 2 or 3 pages in just that hour.
There were moments where I just didn’t feel like continuing and ended up putting it down for a while. Sometimes it wasn’t even that I couldn’t understand things it was more like mental fatigue or just not being in the mood to push through difficult sections or a certain situation in the plot. But whenever I came back to it things felt fresh again.
What’s interesting is that even when I take breaks, coming back feels a little easier each time. I’m starting to recognize more patterns, vocabulary, and sentence structures without needing to stop as much.
I am pretty much using Berserk as my deep dive. Everything I don't understand I am looking up and making Anki cards for it.
Others who have read long manga series, have you felt the same way about having to take breaks but come back feeling a sense of new understanding? I have felt that way when it comes to understanding rough masculine slang and contractions.
by AdUnfair558