In August, I built my immersion momentum back up, and in September I was able to continue with it. I’m feeling good about what I accomplished this month, and hope it continues!
Time Spent
In September, I tracked 41 hours and 44 minutes of immersion time. In a surprising turn of events, I read more than I listened! In total, I read for 25.5 hours and listened for 12 hours. Looking back over my immersion logs, the last time this happened was in January when I logged 25 hours reading 撒哈拉的故事.
I spent a week in Toronto for TIFF this month, and pretty much didn’t immerse at all during that week, so I feel pretty good about my numbers in light of that.
Reading
The bulk of my reading time was spent reading 全职高手 (19 hours). I mentioned this webnovel in my August Recap, and I have more to say on it below. I’m really enjoying it!
Even though I included it as finished in my last update, I actually finished reading 活着 (2 hours) in September. That was the third Chinese book I’ve ever finished!
I also started into 黄金时代 by 王小波 (4 hours). I’m reading it with some folks from the Refold Mandarin server (you can find our discussions in the #books channel!) and we’re targeting to finish it by mid-November. It’s funny and interesting, and also a good challenge. So far, it’s not quite as linear as some books, so I’m more likely to get confused when I don’t understand a particular sentence.
Listening
Once again, 观篮高手 was my most listened podcast (4.5 hours). The NBA season is right around the corner, so I’m enjoying listening to their series where they project how each of the 30 teams in the league will perform next year.
打个电话给你 remained my second most-listened podcast (3 hours). I really enjoy this show, but I’m up-to-date on recent episodes so that limits how much of it I can listen to. I’m thinking it’s time to reach back into their archives and listen to some old episodes for more good immersion content!
I also listened to little bits of Steve说 (1.5 hours), 大叔中文 (2 hours), and 他们都说我遇到了未知生物 (1 hour) last month.
Reflections
I Can’t Put《全职高手》Down
全职高手 has become a large immersion success story for me. Like many, I don’t read as much as I used to as a child. But during the month of September, I found myself repeatedly reaching for my Kindle and wanting to dive back into 全职高手. It became my default activity whenever I had downtime. What’s more, it has just been plain, old fun!
I really enjoyed reading 活着 and 撒哈拉的故事, but there was also always a component that felt like work. In contrast, 全职高手 feels simpler and more approachable. I think a big part of that is because my reading level has gotten better, and so reading for pleasure is more possible now. But I also think it has to do with the webnovel format and the light tone of the book.
The chapters tend to be very short. As far as I can tell, this is because the author published as he wrote, often publishing multiple chapters per day. I’m not sure if this is common with webnovels, but at the end of each chapter there is a brief message from the author about the writing process, and an encouragement for readers to go upvote the book. I wasn’t sure if I’d like that style of writing, since I worry it might make the overall story feel not well thought out. But, so far it’s been working for me!
When I read books and watch movies in English, my favorites tend to be emotionally heavy-hitting works of art (truth be told, however, I just haven’t read much English fiction recently). 活着 definitely threw some emotional punches, and I liked it for that. But it also meant that I needed to take breaks from the book. So far, 全职高手 is light-hearted and easy-going. This is great for accumulating immersion hours, because I never feel like I have to get away from it. This makes me wonder if I should tend to save deeper and heavier books for later in my immersion journey.
The webnovel is massive. I’ve spent over 20 hours reading it now, and I’m only 2% of the way through the book on my Kindle. That means if my pace stayed the same, it would take me over 1000 hours to finish the whole book! Because of this, I’m not going to commit to finishing the book. I’m just going to keep reading it and using it for immersion until I get bored of it, and then I’ll move on to something else. But for now, it’s serving me very well, and who knows, maybe I’ll never get bored of it!
Here’s to more reading in October. Thanks for reading!