This post has been a very long time coming. It’s about how we approach reading Japanese. It’s about expectancy versus expectation.
Expectations are what happens in a perfect world. The ideal. What’s supposed to happen. It’s a list of vocabulary or kanji we’re supposed to know when we see them.
Expectancy is anticipating and dealing with what actually happens. It doesn’t work with what should be, only what is. It either recognizes the kanji on the page or not and moves from there. It didn’t expect to recognize the character, only that there would be a character to be recognized.
Confused yet? Lemme ’splain.
Most of the advice I’ve encountered for reading Japanese is about expectations. You are at a certain “reading level”, therefore you can only expect to understand certain words and certain grammar patterns. And to move your Japanese forward as quickly as possible, you should avoid material that is above your “level”.
The idea is that in a perfect world, there is a perfect sequence of material you could read that would introduce each new word, tense, pattern, postposition, and idiom at the perfect time for your current level to propel your understanding forward.
While this perfect world doesn’t exist, we use it to model our approach in the real world. It’s one of those all-things-being-equal, educated-guess, best-approximation type things.
But what about reality?
In the real world, this ideal is preposterous, impractical and laughable. And I’ll tell you why.
First. The human mind is not organized like a database. You don’t save data to it with explicit links to other data that your consciousness queries for language recognition and production. There is no ideal sequence of input. There is no standard mindmap for each language that you can build in your mind to construct fluency.
Second. Language is not logical. Double negatives, changing meanings - How else could “I could care less” mean the same thing as “I couldn’t care less”? For much of language, asking why words are ordered the way they are, or why native speakers use one word versus another is pointless. Ask a native why they speak or write the way they do and they’ll respond with something along the lines of “It sounds right”.
Third. You learn the most when you’re most interested. Any method that reins in a learner based on their level will eventually run against what actually stimulates the learner’s mind. To master the first level before moving to the second level is to become bored with the first level. Life and language cannot be organized into discrete bins - they are always fluid.
Slow Down
Maybe I’m being too harsh. If you only know a little bit of Japanese or only know a hundred kanji, how much reading can you really do outside of children’s books and beginner level readers? Reading is hard and to keep up motivation, you introduce new material in small bites that you can handle.
This is logical, this is reasonable…but it has a serious hidden contradiction. Because despite how practical this approach is, the exact opposite is presented as the ideal form of learning language. I’m speaking of Immersion, of course.
Go to Japan with 20 phrases memorized and make your way around, either on vacation, work, or school exchange. You’ll be able to pick up listening, speaking, reading and writing much more quickly because you have to. You need to function, you need to find your way, buy food, buy clothing, find a place to live - and all of these will force your mind to absorb Japanese as fast as it can.
The Difference Illuminated
There is a critical difference between how we approach reading and what we know about immersion and it’s the difference between expectation and expectancy.
The prevailing approach to reading is guided by what you don’t understand. And based on your ignorance, this is what you should read.
Immersion is about the reality that you can only use what you do understand. And whatever input comes your way, you squeeze out every drop of understanding you can.
Expectation looks at a difficult book and says, you won’t understand this.
Expectancy looks at any book and wonders how much you will understand.
Expectation beats you down by focusing on what you can’t do.
Expectancy cherishes everything you can do and looks for more.
Think about it.
Plan a trip to Japan to immerse yourself in the language and seek advice before you go. Will anyone tell you to spend most of your time with children so you don’t hear too much vocabulary you don’t know? No! They’ll tell you to take bold strides with your new language. To try and fail and try again. Explore, play, interact - don’t worry about embarrassing yourself because it’s inevitable. Just stumble forward as a child would and bask in your new surroundings.
Oh…but you’re still in some English speaking country. Well, don’t get too bold with your reading material. Try these graded readers. Try this children’s website. You can look at the news if you really want to but you won’t get it, so I wouldn’t bother.
When outside of an immersive environment, it’s as if we run even further away from the language. We find academic justifications for avoiding language because it’s above our level instead of reaching out of our comfort zone and clawing our way up.
Don’t wait.
Take a topic that interests you in English and hunt it down in Japanese. Read the news even if you only know 50 kanji. Dig around and see what you can figure out, what you can understand.
With expectations, you carry a mental list of kanji and vocab you expect to know and ding yourself with guilt every time you make a mistake. But read with a sense of expectancy, accepting whatever words come your way and enjoying what you understand, you will feed your desire to read and learn more.
Throw out your expectations of what you should be able to understand. Turn off your mental reviewer that counts every mistake, every missed word, every forgotten kanji, and read. The more you enjoy what you do understand, the better prepared your mind is to understand more.
