Comment by gs17
2 days ago
> 1. Buy a book you genuinely want to read (if not genuinely interested, you will lose motivation).
This has been my issue. There's a really small set of novels I enjoy. The better (but not good) recommendations have been to re-read something I've already read as a translation. I have never re-read a novel in my life and I'm not sure it being a frustrating experience would make it more appealing.
There's probably a market for something that helps connect people to books/stories/media they would actually like in other languages, ideally that isn't already commonly available translated.
If you ever get a chance to go into a book store in China and see the books printed, I think this might help with motivation. To me, going in these stores and holding a physical Chinese book with all the characters printed is so cool. The first book I read in Chinese was 卖血记 by 许三观。It's a good book by itself, but the main motivation that got me to finish it was the feeling that I was able to understand this classic Chinese literature and read it exactly as the author intended, rather than reading a translation.
After a few books, just the excitement of being able to read novels in Chinese is probably not enough though. At that point, it needs to be a book you genuinely like. I'm lucky that the 三体 books are interesting to me, they will keep me busy for a while.
Connecting people to media they like in other languages is a good idea though. Maybe I'll try sharing more about the best novels to read in Chinese as some point.
> 卖血记 by 许三观
The book is called 《许三观卖血记》, and its author is 余华.
许三观 is not the author's name.
oh lol, I read it early on in my Chinese learning journey so I just googled trying to find what its name was again, thats embarrassing. Thanks for the clarification though.