Reading Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood In Japanese

How Books Have Motivated Me To Learn Languages

My copies of Norwegian Wood and Kafka On The Shore

Hello, my lovely bookish friend!!!

Welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet where I talk all things books. Have you been reading this week?

Right now I'm re-reading Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood. It was my first Murakami novel, I’ve read it twice. So this is my third time reading it. 

Back when I read it for the first time in 2016, I was in college, pursuing my Microbiology degree. I was only starting to get familiar with the Japanese language. I was binge watching movies and dramas and starting to pick a few Japanese words here and there. I thought I was cool whenever I could understand one Japanese word in a whole conversation. And I thought it'd be even cooler if someday I could read the book in its original Japanese version. That used to be a dream of mine. And that is exactly what I'm doing now.

This year I started my job as a Japanese content executive, having earned my Japanese certification. One of the first things I bought after getting my job was Norwegian Wood and Kafka On The Shore, two of my favourite Murakami novels in Japanese. 

The reading isn’t going uninterrupted, I stumble here and there, I need to look up a few words in the dictionary. But I understand most of it, and I can hardly believe it myself. I have actually learned Japanese well enough to be reading novels in it. I think young me would be pretty impressed to learn that.

It reminds me of when I read Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, back when I was in school. My English wasn't as smooth as it is now. My English teacher had tried again and again, to make me read English books, without success. But I was so invested in the story that I just had to know how it ends. So, I pestered my father to get me the book. And it was quite a chonky book, probably not the best choice for someone trying to read an English book for the first time. And it wasn't an easy read either, I had to keep a dictionary ready at hand which back then meant an actual physical dictionary. I had to stop often, to look up words and expressions I didn't know the meanings of. But I didn't give up reading. 

I still have some other languages I want to learn. French and Russian among others, because I want to read Camus, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy’s works in their original versions. 

I'm not sharing any of this to brag or to sound smart. I don't think it's smartness that decides if you'll be able to learn a language. It's mostly persistence. Back when I used to say I'd learn Japanese and read Haruki Murakami's novels in their original, most people didn't think I was serious. In fact, I myself didn't believe it entirely. At best I was trying to convince myself. So I'm glad I managed it. I get obsessed with things pretty easily and once I do I make them my entire personality. It's not a quality many think as positive. But I'm glad I was able to get something positive at least out of this one obsession of mine. 

What about you? Do you also get obsessed with things easily? I'd love to hear about it!!!

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That’s it for today, I'll be back in your inbox next week.

Until then,

Joyie 🌻