The Joys of reading ; 読書の楽しみ

最近、時間があったから、前より日本語でよく読書できたんだ。英語では読書は楽しい。ところが日本語が下手なので、日本語で読書するのが本当に怖かった。だって、外語で読むのも体験はほぼないもんだよ。でも、先週、読んでみた！溺れた気がしたんだ。知る言葉でも、パニックして覚えていない言葉が多いから、何も知らなかった感じがした。でも、諦めないで、読み続けた。少しずつ、読書できてくるんだ。先週は、１時間に２０２１字を読めた。だが、今や１時間に９０５８字を読める！「と？遅いじゃない？」ってそう思ってる人には、僕の言うことを的外れである！自分の昔のままじゃなくて嬉しくなってはダメ？ネイティブじゃないにもかかわらず、自分の努力だけでここまで来られるのを認めてはダメ？僕の視線はなりたい自分に集中しているから、それだけでいい。確かに、僕はネイティブの程度に全然足りないのに、続ければいつか達成するだろう。理想はバカらしかってもいいんだ。ないよりましだと思うから。

Lately, since I've had the time, I've been able to read in Japanese more often than before. I find reading in English to be quite enjoyable. On the contrary, however, because I'm not that great at Japanese, I found reading in Japanese to be really scary. After all, my reading experience in a foreign language was essentially non existent. But, Last week, I bit the bullet and tried reading! I thought I was drowning. Even though there were words I did know, because of the fact that I didn't remember a lot of them due to me panicking, I felt like I didn't know anything. But, without giving up, I kept on reading. Little by little, I've been able to read! Last week, I read at a speed of 2021 characters/hour. But now, I can read at a pace of 9058 characters/hour! "So? Isn't that slow?" For those of you that think like that, you've missed my point entirely! Shouldn't I be glad that I'm not the way I used to be? Despite not being a native, can I not recognize that through my efforts alone, I made it this far? Since my sights are only focused on who I want to be, I think that's fine by me. Sure, I may not be anywhere close to native level, but if I continue down this road someday I will achieve that! Even if my dream is lofty, that's fine by me. It's better than nothing, after all.