Finally, I clicked the purchase button after going back and forth. The book that I somehow always type “haruki running book” into the search bar to find. Since the Korean translation left a good impression on me, it was quite natural for me to choose the book “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” by Haruki Murakami.
I have intentionally avoided reading Japanese kanji (Chinese characters) so far – and the feeling is likely mutual, so it is almost impossible for me to read books in Japanese. Still, if I listen to it as an audiobook, I can pick up the meaning from time to time. It’s been some time since I added it to my Audible wishlist, and now I surrender to the urge to have my first Japanese book experience.
Of course, I can’t just listen to the audiobook without a translation, so I purchased the English translation as well. Although the Korean translation would be much easier for parallel reading due to the similar sentence structures of Korean and Japanese, I ended up choosing the English version because I don’t have much trouble reading it and I can improve my English along the way. So I am thinking of reading the English translation first and then listening to the Japanese audiobook (maybe a few sentences at a time).
As I tried the first few pages, I found the narrator’s voice very calm and smooth, while my brain was nowhere near as calm, but rather a in chaos.
I think it is gonna be a very interesting reading (and language-learning experience).
So exciting.