[Realism]

Let me ask you a serious question.

Let me just ask you.

How many hours are "exposed" to Japanese a day?

And by exposed I don't mean reading a grammar textbook.

I mean:

How many hours do you LISTEN to Japanese a day? And by listen, I mean listen to ANYTHING, whether it'd be anime, Japanese drama, news, random variety shows, documentaries, music. ANYTHING in Japanese.

Do you write in Japanese?? And I don't mean stupid textbook questions. I mean writing whether online or by hand, Japanese forums, a diary, write in Japanese. ANYTHING, just write. Hell, copy sentences from novels, manga, write down the dialogue from anime, just write all day everyday as much as you can.

Do you look at English websites, or Japanese websites?? This is one of the hardest things to do, you HAVE to force yourself to look at Japanese websites AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. 90% of the time. Anything that you have interest in, you have to find the Japanese version instead of the English version.

Do you THINK in Japanese?? Let me ask you, do you have to memorize English vocab? You don't...you know why? It's not because you know a lot of vocab...that has nothing to do with it. It's because your BRAIN is so used to the English language that it doesn't even need to remember vocab. It just picks it up. You have to start letting your brain become USED to the Japanese language.


And Japanese novels are easy. Most Japanese novels I can finish in a week or 2 if I go fast. They're not any harder than your average manga, at least I don't think so.

Look, once your brain gets used to Japanese, once it automatically starts thinking in Japanese.....

Everything becomes a piece of cake. Remembering vocab or kanji would be like drinking water. It becomes ridiculously easy.

And hell, you don't even have to read Kokoro...

I read it and it was boring in my opinion. I'd just find something you're interested in. You know, a murder mystery, a horror, a detective novel, a samurai novel, baseball, soccer...WHATEVER interests you. You know Japan have novels on EVERYTHING, even 17th century British Knights going to war with each other. It doesn't even have to do with Japan, it just has to be in Japanese.