Starting to read a full-length fiction novel in a foreign language can be both an exciting milestone moment and perhaps also a rather nerve-wrecking one (with copious amounts of self-doubt). The completion of a novel will no doubt be an exhilarating moment for all 🙂

Sharing some tips and thoughts about when to start attempting to read fiction novels and how to choose a good one to start with!

When am I ready?

My advice over the past years has been consistent: You will never be ready unless you start. You are not going to wake up one day and feel “ready”. Nor is passing X level in a language proficiency test a good gauge – in fact, the process and progress you make in trying to read different types of texts will help you pass that proficiency test. Chicken and egg issue there 😛

That said, you will need some proficiency before you can attempt to read a novel. I would think a rough gauge will be when you are comfortable enough to read short articles in the target language. You need not be able to understand everything, but at least you can pinpoint what you don’t know – meaning you can parse the sentence and recognise where a word starts and end and what are grammatical structures/particles.

For example, you may not know the word in orange but you can recognise that it’s a word, and the character 을 next to it is a grammar particle. You may also not recognise the grammar point in green, but you kinda figure out that it looks like a grammar point.

늦잠을 자는 바람에 빵을 먹기는커녕 물 한 잔도 못 마셨어요.

Be prepared that you will be spending a long time with each sentence. I did and I enjoyed every moment though. I would probably highlight 5 words in one sentence and I’ll slowly search them up and write them down in my notebook. There’s no need to feel demoralised, it’s part of the learning 🙂

How to choose your first novel

Personally I’ll recommend an original novel in the target language which has been adapted for the big/small screen and you are familiar with the adaptation. This allows you to have some background when you first approached the novel and helps in the understanding too.

Choose a novel that deals with more generic topics – they could be easier than something more specialised such as a drama set in the courtroom.

One of the earliest (not the first) novels I’ve read was 우리들의 행복한 시간 (우행시). People who know me would know that the movie adaptation starring Kang Dong Won (my love) and Lee Na Young is one of my all-time fav movies.

I’m not too fond of reading translated novel (e.g. the Korean version of Harry Potter) as a start – although that might be quite intuitive to do so since you can reference the original work. I bought the Korean version of Twilight (LOOOL) and never managed to make any headway in it hahahha. Not all translated works are good and it’s also a bit strange to read about Edward and Bella in Korean?! Somehow I also think that if you know that you have the original work to refer to, it kinda creates a safety net and may make you too reliant on the original text.

Don’t be discouraged

I can’t emphasise how important this is. Especially if you know you are actually stepping out of your comfort zone to attempt reading a difficult material beyond your current proficiency. I love the challenge of searching up almost all the words in the novel when I first started – it’s a very slow process but it makes me happy. It’s important not to feel discouraged or feel that inadequate if you find it hard to read at the start – remember that you can only get better!

Share your experiences reading your first novel in a foreign language!

It’s easy to lose yourself in the midst of the daily grind and I admit that the negativity was seriously getting to me. It was always an exhausting race against time, although looking back things always seemed better. Hobbies, family, friends were sacrificed and I was permanently feeling exhausted and unhappy. While there were brief periods where I tried to pull myself up, I went back to the same cycle after a while.

We all know the need for work-life balance, but the exact formula is hard to work out. What exactly do I want to do in the “life” part? What is it that will provide me with the happiness and motivation I need. I know the answer lies with language learning, so I have been trying to conscientiously trying to carve out time to do so. I started Thai this year (unplanned!) and so far I have been loving the journey.

That said, sometimes I do feel that I’m adding to the unhappiness (lol) by not having time and energy for languages everyday. It’s like my happiness meter is being determined by whether I did any studying that day and it was sorta unhealthy.

After all these years, I’m still trying to find a formula that works for me. I’ve been working at home due to the COVID-19 situation and honestly I think it’s really a more suitable arrangement for me rather than commuting to and fro the office. hahaha such a homebody. It allows me to have a bit more time to work with to get the balance and I’m starting to incorporate morning reading time into the routine.

Not everyday, but a couple of days per week. To wake up earlier and have some quiet time with a good book.

Decided to pick up The Court Dancer again and despite being a re-read, I feel myself drawn to the narrative easily. I’m probably a better textbook reviewer, so forgive me if I can’t articulate my thoughts about fiction eloquently. What I loved about The Court Dancer is that it’s an amazing piece of translated work. Some translated works feels very stilted and that it’s a very obvious re-telling of the story in a different language. The Court Dancer is probably one of the most smooth and natural translated work I’ve read and honestly, beyond the story (which is already amazing), I’m very much drawn to the craft of translation.

I had borrowed the book from the local library but felt so compelled to own a copy that I went to buy one (hardcover books are so expensive omg!) and proceeded to buy the original work in Korean too. I don’t own many fiction books in English (oops!)

I’ve been meaning to pore over both versions and I think I would start doing that again. I had tried to do a one-page translation to compare it with Anton Hur (the translator)’s work and hahahaha needless to say mine was so woefully inadequate and clunky in comparison.

Hopefully I can keep this up.

Till next post.

Notetaking is one of my favourite topics of language learning and I can go on and on about this (if anyone wants to hear). Thought to share my two cents on the topic today – I probably have written on this before, but my views may have changed with experience (I mean age).

Purpose of Notetaking

One very important question to ask yourself – why are you taking notes and how would you use them? To answer this question, you must understand your own learning style. Personally, language notetaking to me is a process and hence I feel that the learning comes from the act of processing and organising the information as I write the notes. Hence, I have almost never flipped through / reviewed my language notes after I’m done writing them. A lot of my language notes is actually writing down vocabulary and it’s meaning and sample sentence. I have no use for reviewing what would essentially be random vocabulary lists – the learning comes when I’m actually writing them down and internalising and remember the words in the process.

Hence, I have no qualms throwing away years of notes (which I did). I still recalled the outrage (?) and shock when I posted online that I was doing so haha, and received so many comments that it’s a waste to do that and people even asked me why I didn’t sell my notes. ;;; hahaha what would people want to do with a random vocabulary lists? Even for the part of my notes when I was writing down grammar points etc, I see them as only useful if you are the person writing them (and learning through the process). I see language notes as different from those organised notes I did on subjects like Chemistry / Economics back in school – those I admit would be useful to review and pass on to others (I kept them until now!).

Notetaking is a trial and error process

Not everyone will face this issue, but as someone who prefers structure and neatness, I admit that I struggled with language notetaking at first. I had (rather) frivolous concerns like – should I have separate notebooks for grammar / vocabulary? / how do I organise the information? etc. My piece of advice? – Don’t think, just start writing. Just like how you can never be fluent at day 1, there is no reason to expect yourself to be able to organise your notes properly at day 1. It’s through a trial and error process that you learn how best to organise the information for yourself.

I’ve developed a system which I am comfortable over the years and will use it when I learn new languages. I use one notebook at one time, and even though I may be learning from several books at one time, I will just continue writing in the same notebook without going to a new page. So a single page in my notebook can contain my notes from two different textbooks I’m using.

Never re-write notes

This brings me to this point. Neverrrrrrr re-write notes. Sorry this is such a waste of time and there’s minimal value in the process. You will be better off using this time to read a new chapter, or something.

Aesthetics – do just “enough”

Uh. So… I realised that “aesthetic notetaking” has become a thing on social media. On one hand, I’m very impressed at how pretty people can make their notes – the colours, the doodles, the perfect handwriting, the use of washi tapes and dunno what other things.. On the other hand… I DUN GEDDIT. I’m all for do-whatever-makes-you-happy but I do sometimes question if the time and effort that went into those notes is considered well-spent and effective for learning?

As someone who is aesthetically challenged, I honestly think that notetaking to that level is very time-consuming (correct me if there are people who can do their notes reasonably fast and maintain that level of aesthetics) and I won’t do it. And I don’t recommend it. Honestly (this might be an unpopular opinion), I feel like sometimes it’s veering into arts and craft rather than learning. hahaha sorry if I offend anyone. /looks around/ I just hope it doesn’t set some form of unrealistic expectations for learners/students to deliberately try to follow those notetaking style and feel that that is how good notetaking should be.

I recalled how back in school days, I have friends who will also take time to beautify their notes with like a whole pencil case of colour markers (hahaha) and write their notes in a certain font (dunno if anyone gets it? hahaha). But honestly, students these days have levelled up so much in the aesthetics department. I feel like I’m looking at art pieces 🙂

(yes I secretly have a lot to say on this topic)

I used to colour-code my notes (sticking to max about 5 colours) for ease of reference but I have settled into a comfortable routine of using mostly pencil for my Korean and Japanese notes (mostly vocab these days), but I do use a couple of colours for Thai/Russian, where I am just starting out and I find a couple of colours useful.

On aesthetics – I do admit that when I take photos for social media / this blog, I do (pretentiously) find some props and arrange my stationery neatly. (duh, I don’t actually study with random props like my camera lying flat next to my book, with dried flowers and dunno what other rubbish). I don’t think anyone will deliberately spend effort on their notes for the gram (and not just due to personal style), cos that’s really another level.

So if you are wondering why I haven’t exactly shared how I take notes, it’s because the gist of this post is find a method that you are comfortable with and fits your objectives. 🙂

hahahaha ok I will write a separate post on how I do language notetaking.

Till next time!