So i want to ask a question here to all the people here who have read a Visual novel. We all know reading books gives a lot of great benefits to the people who read it like improved reading capability and better memory. But do you all think Visual novels give the same kind of benefits? I am talking about stuff like increased reading capability and improved memory that you get from reading real novels. I believe they certainly do since a Visual novel is basically just a book but with music, voices and Visuals.
Call me old fashion but I prefer the silent paper novel or book, Wifey on the other hand loves Audio/Visual books. I prefer a regular novel for several reasons, first is the feeling of nostalgia ( smell, feel ) when “curling up with a good book”. Second is the mental benefits you gain ( spelling, grammar, memory, deduction). Third and most important to me is …I want the characters of the book or novel in reading to sound a certain way ( I want my Lower East side Cockney to sound like Dick Van Dyke, and my oriental detective to sound like Hiroyuki Tagawa, and my cowboys to sound like Sam Elliott) sry that’s just my preference
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Kind of need to understand the mechanism by which reading improves memory and reading capability to provide an informed answer. Based on assumption alone, I don’t think visual novels would have as great of an impact as reading books, especially on memory.
Visual novels take away some of the need to form memories from the text. When a character is in a scene, the image of the character is generally shown; the brain doesn’t need to recall a memory of which character it is and how the reader previously interpreted their description. And, related to descriptions, visual novels don’t need to give detailed character descriptions because there is (or will be) an image. The reader’s cognitive abilities aren’t flexed nearly as much as if they have to form an image from the text themselves.
Psychological benefits like improved memory or the like, I dont know, because (in theory), that could be the result of creating mental images as a result of reading which is somewhat removed with VN’s. That being said, there can still be alot of imagining how characters are acting specifically in VN’s, so I just have to end on “I dont know.”
I do think VN’s are basically just books though and can have more or less depth to them depending on what it is you’re reading. Maybe VN’s are closer to Light Novels in terms of diction or the like but I still wanna believe there’s benefits to reading VN’s over just…not reading anything at all.
Yes, there are plenty of works which are on the harder side of japanese prose when it comes to vocab and kanji usage. So they can be pretty good to learn something new, too.
For a native English speaker reading translated visual novels (VNs), I’m not really sure if the benefits would be comparable to reading more long form text like an actual novel.
That said, VNs are often brought up as a really good option for people studying Japanese to practice reading. It’s a nice middle option between manga, which is 90% pictures with 10% dialogue, and novels, which give you no additional context to help you figure out what a text is saying. They also vary in difficulty depending on the game. Some are only dialogue, while others are full of descriptive text (there’s even some that will cover the entire screen with text lmao). I think for a Japanese learner, VNs provide a lot of benefits when it comes to improving your reading skills.
But that’s reading native content. Translated VNs tend to have a lot of errors and awkward language even when translated professionally.
There are VNs produced in English (often called OELVNs), and those might be a valuable resource for people who struggle to read English. Whether or not you can gain anything more than entertainment from it just depends on your current skill level imo.