Hi! Loving Your Meta On Suibian :)) Just Wondering What Were Your Frustrations With Cql, Especially Considered

please wait outside the one meter line

eat when you need, but don’t waste the food

please don’t bring in any external food

works/construction in progress

sichuan style hot&spicy chicken dish

marinated wheat gluten with peanuts and black fungus

watch your step/be careful not to slip

ethnic park

please contact with our salesperson before trying it on

detection dog/sniffer dog

i can’t say this one is wrong……

made a picker wheel for basically zhou shen's entire discography!

tag yourself, i'm 风筝是风的信

Xiao Zhan & Yibo // Wei Ying & Lan Zhan

hello there, hope you're having a nice day <3

so i've been reading a lot of fics lately, uk for sanity's sake, and i've noticed that in most of them, lwj doesn't use contractions (eg., says do not instead of don't)?? and i think he doesn't in the novel either but i don't remember lol so i can't be sure but anyway that made me curious - does chinese have contractions as well? does he not use it bc it's informal?

hello there! I’m doing all right, i started to answer this ask while waiting for a jingyeast loaf to come out of the oven 😊 many thanks to @bookofstars for helping me look over/edit/correct this post!! :D

anyways! the answer to your questions are complicated (of course it is when is anything simple with me), so let’s see if I can break it down--you’re asking a) whether chinese has contractions, b) if it does, how does they change the tone of the sentence--is it similar to english or no?, and c) how does this all end up with lan wangji pretty much never using contractions in english fic/translation?

I’m gonna start by talking about how formality is (generally) expressed in each language, and hopefully, by the end of this post, all the questions will have been answered in one way or another. so: chinese and english express variations in formality/register differently, oftentimes in ways that run contrary to one another. I am, as always, neither a linguist nor an expert in chinese and english uhhh sociological grammar? for lack of a better word. I’m speaking from my own experience and knowledge :D

so with a character like lan wangji, it makes perfect sense in english to write his dialogue without contractions, as contractions are considered informal or colloquial. I don’t know if this has changed in recent years, but I was always taught in school to never use contractions in my academic papers.

However! not using contractions necessarily extends the length of the sentence: “do not” takes longer to say than “don’t”, “cannot” is longer than “can’t” etc. in english, formality is often correlated with sentence length: the longest way you can say something ends up sounding the most formal. for a very simplified example, take this progression from least formal to absurdly formal:

whatcha doin’?

what’re you doing?

what are you doing? [standard colloquial]

may I ask what you are doing?

might I inquire as to what you are doing?

excuse me, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

pardon my intrusion, but might I inquire as to what you are doing?

please pardon my intrusion, but might inquire as to the nature of your current actions?

this is obviously a somewhat overwrought example, but you get the point. oftentimes, the longer, more complex, more indirect sentence constructions indicate a greater formality, often because there is a simultaneous decreasing of certainty. downplaying the speaker’s certainty can show deference (or weakness) in english, while certainty tends to show authority/confidence (or aggression/rudeness).

different words also carry different implications of formality—in the example, I switched “excuse me” to “pardon me” during one of the step ups. pardon (to me at least) feels like a more formal word than “excuse”. Similarly, “inquire” is more formal than “ask” etc. I suspect that at least some of what makes one word seem more formal than one of its synonyms has to do with etymology. many of english’s most formal/academic words come from latin (which also tends to have longer words generally!), while our personal/colloquial words tend to have germanic origins (inquire [latin] vs ask [germanic]).

you’ll also notice that changing a more direct sentence structure (“may I ask what”) to a more indirect one (“might I inquire as to”) also jumps a register. a lot of english is like this — you can complicate simple direct sentences by switching the way you use the verbs/how many auxiliaries you use etc.

THE POINT IS: with regards to english, more formal sentence structures are often (not always) longer and more indirect than informal ones. this leads us to a problem with a character like lan wangji.

lan wangji is canonically very taciturn. if he can express his meaning in two words rather than three, then he will. and chinese allows for this—in extreme ways. if you haven’t already read @hunxi-guilai’s post on linguistic register (in CQL only, but it’s applicable across the board), I would start there because haha! I certainly do Not have a degree in Classical Chinese lit and she does a great job. :D

you can see from the examples that hunxi chose that often, longer sentences tend to be more informal in chinese (not always, which I’ll circle back to at the end lol). Colloquial chinese makes use of helping particles to indicate tone and meaning, as is shown in wei wuxian’s dialogue. and, as hunxi explained, those particles are largely absent from lan wangji’s speech pattern. chinese isn’t built of “words” in the way English is—each character is less a word and more a morpheme—and the language allows for a lot of information to be encoded in one character. a single character can often stand for a phrase within a sentence without sacrificing either meaning or formality. lan wangji makes ample use of this in order to express himself in the fewest syllables possible.

so this obviously leads to an incongruity when trying to translate his dialogue or capture his voice in English: shorter sentences are usually more direct by nature, and directness/certainty is often construed as rudeness -- but it might seem strange to see lan wangji’s dialogue full of longer sentences while the narration explicitly says that he uses very short sentences. so what happens is that many english fic writers extrapolated this into creating an english speech pattern for lan wangji that reads oddly. they’ll have lan wangji speak in grammatically incoherent fragments that distill his intended thought because they’re trying to recreate his succinctness. unfortunately, English doesn’t have as much freedom as Chinese does in this way, and it results in lan wangji sounding as if he has some kind of linguistic impediment and/or as if he’s being unspeakably rude in certain situations. In reality, lan wangji’s speech is perfectly polite for a young member of the gentry (though he’s still terribly rude in other ways lol). he speaks in full, and honestly, quite eloquent sentences.

hunxi’s post already has a lot of examples, but I figure I’ll do one as well focused on the specifics of this post.

I’m going to use this exchange from chapter 63 between the twin jades because I think it’s a pretty simple way to illustrate what I’m talking about:

蓝曦臣道：“你亲眼所见？”

蓝忘机道：“他亲眼所见。”

蓝曦臣道：“你相信他？”

蓝忘机道：“信。”

[...] 蓝曦臣道：“那么金光瑶呢？”

蓝忘机道：“不可信。”

my translation:

Lan Xichen said, “You saw it with your own eyes?”

Lan Wangji said, “He saw it with his own eyes.”

Lan Xichen said, “You believe him?”

Lan Wangji said, “I believe him.”

[...] Lan Xichen said, “Then what about Jin Guangyao?”

Lan Wangji said, “He cannot be believed.”

you can see how much longer the (pretty literal) english translations are! every single line of dialogue is expanded because things that can be omitted in chinese cannot be omitted in english without losing grammatical coherency. i‘ll break a few of them down:

Lan Xichen’s first line:

你 (you) 亲眼 (with one’s own eyes) 所 (literary auxiliary) 见 (met/saw)？

idk but i love this line a lot lmao. it just has such an elegant feel to me, probably because I am an uncultured rube. anyways, you see here that he expressed his full thought in five characters.

if I were to rewrite this sentence into something much less formal/much more modern, I might have it become something like this:

你是自己看见的吗？

你 (you) 是 (to be) 自己 (oneself) 看见 (see) 的 (auxiliary) 吗 (interrogative particle)？

i suspect that this construction might even be somewhat childish? I’ve replaced every single formal part of the sentence with a more colloquial one. instead of 亲眼 i’ve used 自己, instead of 所见 i’ve used 看见的 and then also added an interrogative particle at the end for good measure (吗). To translate this, I would probably go with “Did you see it yourself?”

contained in this is also an example of how one character can represent a whole concept that can also be represented with two characters: 见 vs 看见. in this example, both mean “to see”. we’ll see it again in the next example as well:

in response to lan xichen’s, “you believe him?” --> 你 (you) 相信 (believe) 他 (him)? lan wangji answers with, “信” (believe).

chinese does not do yes or no questions in the same way that english does. there is no catch-all for yes or no, though there are general affirmative (是／有) and negative (不／没) characters. there are other affirmative/negative characters, but these are the ones that I believe are the most common and also the ones that you may see in response to yes or no questions on their own. (don’t quote me on that lol)

regardless, the way you respond to a yes or no question is often by repeating the verb phrase either in affirmative or negative. so here, when lan xichen asks if lan wangji believes wei wuxian, lan wangji responds “believe”. once again, you can see that one character can stand in for a concept that may also be expressed in two characters: 信 takes the place of 相信. lan wangji could have responded with “相信” just as well, but, true to his character, he didn’t because he didn’t need to. this is still a complete sentence. lan wangji has discarded the subject (I), the object (him), and also half the verb (相), and lost no meaning whatsoever. you can’t do this in english!

and onto the last exchange:

lan xichen: 那么 (then) 金光瑶 (jin guangyao) 呢 (what about)？

lan wangji: 不可 (cannot) 信 (believe)

you can actually see the contrast between the two brothers’ speech patterns even in this. lan xichen’s question is not quite as pared down as it could be. if it were wangji’s line instead, I would expect it to read simply “金光瑶呢？” which would just be “what about jin guangyao?” 那么 isn’t necessary to convey the core thought -- it’s just as how “then what about” is different than “what about”, but “then” is not necessary to the central question. if we wanted to keep the “then” aspect, you could still cut out 么 and it would be the same meaning as well.

a FINAL example of how something can be cut down just because I think examples are helpful:

“I don’t know” is usually given as 我不知道. (this is what nie huaisang says lol) It contains subject (我) and full verb (知道). you can pare this straight down to just 不知 and it would mean the same thing in the correct context. i think most of the characters do this at least once? it sounds more literary -- i don’t know that i would ever use it in everyday speech, but the fact remains that it’s a possibility. both could be translated as “I do not know” and it would be accurate.

ANYWAYS, getting all the way back to one of your original questions: does chinese have contractions? and the answer is like... kind of...?? but not really. there’s certainly slang/dialect variants that can be used in ways that are reminiscent of english contractions. the example I’m thinking of is the character 啥 (sha2) which can be used as slang in place of 什么 (shen2 me). (which means “what”)

so for a standard sentence of, 你在做什么? (what are you doing), you could shorten down to just 做啥? and the second construction is less formal than the first, but they mean the same thing.

other slang i can think of off the top of my head: 干嘛 (gan4 ma2) is also informal slang for “what are you doing”. and i think this is a regional thing, but you can also use 搞 (gao3) and 整 (zheng3) to mean “do” as well.

so in the same way that you can replace 什么 with 啥, you can replace 做 as well to get constructions like 搞啥 (gao3 sha2) and 整啥 (zheng3 sha2).

these are all different ways to say “what are you doing” lmao, and in this case, shorter is not, in fact, more formal.

woo! we made it to the end! I hope it was informative and helpful to you anon. :D

this is where I would normally throw my ko-fi, but instead, I’m actually going to link you to this fundraising post for an old fandom friend of mine. her house burned down mid-september and they could still use help if anyone can spare it! if this post would have moved you to buy me a ko-fi, please send that money to her family instead. :) rbs are also appreciated on the post itself. (* ´▽` *)

anyways, here’s the loaf jingyeast made :3 it was very tasty.

You have questions! We might have answers.

What is this collection?

As Maria puts it: this collection is a critical look at some of the things that we, the editors, think have made CQL such a hit around the world. Of course, part of that success comes from the webnovel MDZS and the show CQL themselves—we love the characters, the mystery, and the drama, who doesn’t?! However, the authors in our book also look at topics like translating danmei (both officially and unofficially), adapting danmei for new audiences, and interacting with fandoms and fanworks. The larger argument of the book is that all of these things played a huge role in CQL’s visibility and success, and we wanted to start making those moving pieces visible, especially for audiences who mainly watched CQL in translation.

You keep using the word “academic”—what does that mean, exactly? 

Maria: Ok, not to get pedantic here, but this actually touches on some things that I’m really excited about for the book. Traditionally, academic work is written by people who have a deep expertise in the subject (signified by having a PhD and doing specific kinds of research), and then the work itself is peer-reviewed (i.e., sent to other experts in the field for them to evaluate whether it’s sound, original, and interesting enough to publish, without knowing who wrote it). And both of these things are true about our book—our authors have deep knowledge and the book was peer reviewed—but also. We specifically asked for chapters from younger scholars and from fans who also have deep knowledge about topics that academia doesn’t always know or value enough, and we include an interview from the fan-translator K. who did the Exiled Rebels translation. So the hope is that: this book is academic, and also—more!

Who are you? 

Yue studies adaptation, fantasy, and popular culture texts using a feminist lens. She wrote an early, influential article about danmei adaptations and also has a book about feminist adaptations of Chinese fantasy.

Maria studies fanworks, contemporary fantasy, and genre literature. She’s scrambling to finish her dissertation right now.

How were the chapter spotlights chosen?

Voluntarily! The concept of a small social media promo was kicked around by some of the contributors and those interested in the idea filled out a short interview with what they wanted to share. We'll be posting about 2 introductions and 2 spotlights a day for the next week or so!

Are you making any money off of royalties from this book? 

LOL not even remotely

Where can I find this book? 

You can find our listing on Peter Lang’s website here. As for other retailers, a quick search should turn us up!  

How can I access this book if I cannot buy it from Peter Lang / [book retailer of choice]?

As collection editors and contributors who signed a legal agreement with Peter Lang, we have granted Peter Lang exclusive right and license to edit, adapt, publish, reproduce, distribute, display, and store our contributions, and we must cooperate fully with the Publisher if the Publisher believes a third party is infringing or is likely to infringe copyright in the contribution. 

That being said, these are academic papers, which means that contributors may make copies of the contribution for classroom teaching use! (These copies may not be included in course pack material for onward sale by libraries and institutions). Of course, any linking, collection or aggregation of chapters from the same volume is strictly prohibited.

(FAQ may be updated periodically!) (all posts on Catching Chen Qing Ling)

how lan xichen says lan zhan’s name: ʷᵃⁿᵍʲⁱ

how wei wuxian says lan zhan’s name: 𝙇𝘼𝙉 𝙕𝙃𝘼𝙉

how lan zhan says wei wuxian’s name: 𝔀𝓮𝓲 𝔂𝓲𝓷𝓰

how jiang cheng says wei wuxian’s name: ẅ̷̛͚͔̟͓̜̯̮̹̞̊̌̏̍́̏̐e̴̢̜͎͚̝̘̿͛͒̔̏̈́͑̏̊͜i̴̩͎͓͒̐̔̍͌̀͌͝ ̸̘̳̀̈̈́w̶̧̻͑̅͂̇ù̸̡̝͖̤̙̯͍̾̂̈́͜ẋ̴̢̡̛̰̥̳̱̯̠͕̀i̶̺̟̒̊̕à̶̛̗͓̋̑̏̿̃͗͌n̴͙͇͍̯̂̕

some baby kermit gifs to brighten your day 💚

I love Priest's supporting characters. I love how she started Stars of Chaos from supporting characters' POV, and then she keeps dropping in on them and making us love them more and more.

My one complaint is: why doesn't she write more (even more) Extras featuring her supporting characters? We care!

Brief Character Analyses and Spoilers for Stars of Chaos below...

Cao Chunhua 曹春花 / 曹娘子 Cao Niangzi:

曹春花， I love you! How did you get so good at languages and disguise and acting? Did you ever get to catch a nice young man? Or are you constantly catching nice young men in a serial fashion? Ahhh, our little 娘子 <3 I definitely want to read more about you and your adventures.

Li Feng 李丰, "Long An" Emperor, Chang Geng's unfortunate half-brother:

You tried so hard. I don't actually want to read more about you, but I want you to know that I appreciate that you did your best, and validate that you really were a lot better than your dad -- you were just unlucky, and, sadly, you had to die for it. Life is hard. And short, for you.

Fang Qin 方钦

Yah, life is unfair. I don't want to read more about you, either -- I just want to ruminate on how you were a fancy rich popular kid, but all you really wanted was to hang out with the nerds. The nerds were smart and fun and honest and doing cool things, but your fancy rich popular old-money family held you back. Too bad you didn't have any backbone.

Chen QingXu 陈轻絮 and Shen Yi 沈易

What an amazing couple. I feel like Chen QingXu is barely in the book at all, but every time she is mentioned it is with reverence and awe. My favorite scene with Chen QingXu is when she's chaining together Pipa melodies while a battle is literally going on in front of her, then elegantly floats away when her part of the battle is concluded...

And! And! When she figures out that the Spirit Mannequin is actually a "book" and clutches it "like she's never seen wood before," I swooned -- Chen QingXu is a scientist, through and through <3

Every time Shen Yi is mentioned, I know I'm going to have a good time, too. It is through his near-constant consternation at Gu Yun that we see how terribly fun (emphasis on the "terrible") Gu Yun is.

Poor Shen Yi, putting up with his crazy best friend. Accidentally rising to one of the highest positions in the land just because he doesn't want to go home and instead follows his best friend out to the far remote edges of the empire; and is totally willing to give it all up to be a house-husband for the girl he likes, once he gets up the courage to tell her he likes her. What a sweet guy <3

Yah, I want more Chen QingXu and more Shen Yi and more ChenYi.

Old Master Shen 沈老爷子

While we’re talking about the Shen family, I’d love to read more about Shen Laoyezi. He knows everything. His bird cusses out everyone. He’s pretty awesome.

Yao Zhen 姚镇 / 姚重泽 Yao ZhongZe (Chong Ze?) (I'm not so good when a word has multiple pronunciations)

I'm not super hungry for more Yao Zhen content, but I love every bit of Yao Zhen that I get to read. Poor man -- he just wants to hang out and enjoy life, but Gu Yun keeps giving him all these empire-critical, life-and-death-of-thousands responsibilities. The man knows what he wants! But Gu Yun just railroads past those clearly delineated desires and keeps raising him up to higher and higher positions of responsibility!

Living up to your true potential is overrated; sleeping 10 hours/day is the way to go :)

Huo Dan 霍郸

Oh, the stories that Huo Dan could tell... Poor man, having to put up with Gu Yun's peculiarities and Chang Geng's idiosyncrasies and I'm sure he learned very early on to always knock before entering any space that the two of them think they're alone in.

I want more Huo Dan stories ;)

That's pretty much it for me. I love Ge PangXiao 葛胖小 / 葛晨 Ge Chen, too, but I am satisfied with his story already. He's cool, he's sweet, but he's not mysterious like Cao ChunHua and Chen QingXu, or in an entertaining state of near-permanent exasperation because of Gu Yun's shenanigans like poor Shen Yi is. You do you, Ge Chen.

hey there!! hoping to get your input on this: ive seen plenty of fics where characters across the cql board will say just very openly "i love you." i don't know if this is a common way of expressing romantic love in ancient china? i could be wrong, but the FEELING i get is that it's more common to use gestures, or allude metaphorically to some poem/story instead of being so direct? i think theres an old-fashioned jpn phrase like "i'll make soup for u every day" to confess, anything similar here?

oof, so I’m going to go ahead and start by saying that I don’t know nearly enough to be make generalized statements about how romantic love is expressed in ancient/dynastic China or even in modern-day, because I’m just not widely-read/steeped in the culture enough. And even if I were, I still don’t know if I could make definitive statements on what can be considered a “common way of expressing love” because there are as many ways to express love as there are people and permutations of relationships on this planet. 

The renditions of love that tend to linger in our minds, however, tend to be defined by action: 梁山伯与祝英台 Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, the butterfly lovers inseparable by death; 牛郎织女 Niu Lang and Zhi Nv, a mortal man and celestial maiden, crossing to each other over a bridge over the Milky Way made of magpies; 孟姜女 Meng Qiangnv breaking open the Great Wall with the force of her tears. Just gonna... put that out there.

I did include a brief discussion of the character 爱 ai in this post, which is the character that’s pretty much translates to ‘love’ (and many of its complicated English valences) in modern Mandarin. Given an earlier reading of 爱 not as ‘love,’ but as ‘begrudging, cherishing’ makes the possibility of saying 我爱你 woaini rather...unlikely in ancient China (especially when you consider that 我 wo and 你 ni were different pronouns back then, too... what I’m trying to say is that a simple ctext search hasn’t been helping me here).

I am, however, willing to bet that writing/reciting poetry for your lover was a Thing, and it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t seize every possible opportunity to add gratuitous poetry to a post:

《上邪》/ Shangye

上邪！/ High Heaven!

我欲与君相知，/ I want for us both to know each other

长命无绝衰。/ as long as life, with no decline or end

山无陵，江水为竭，/ When mountains lose their peaks, when river waters dry up,

冬雷震震，夏雨雪 ，/ when thunder rumbles in winter; when rain and snow fall in summer

天地合，乃敢与君绝！/ when sky and earth seal back together, only then will I dare end things with you!

One of the shortest pieces in the Hanyuefu, which I mentioned briefly in this post, 《上邪》 is an incredibly powerful declaration of love, loyalty, and devotion without using any of the above words (it does, however, use 知 zhi / knowing). 

Oh! Both 《上邪》and《卜算子》use 君 jun, which you might recognize from ‘Hanguang-jun’ or ‘Zewu-jun.’ In addition to being an honorific, 君 also appears often in poetry as a respectful second-person pronoun. Again, it’s technically gender-neutral, though most of the time it’s assumed to refer to a man.

《卜算子》李之仪， Busuanzi by Li Zhiyi (Northern Song Dynasty)

我住长江头，君住长江尾。/ I live at the head of the Yangtze; you live at the tail of the Yangtze,

日日思君不见君，共饮长江水。/ Day after day, I think of you but do not see you; we drink from the same river’s waters

此水几时休，此恨何时已。/ When will these waters rest? When will these feelings stop?

只愿君心似我心，定不负相思意。/ I only hope that your heart is similar to mine; I would not let down the intent of our mutual love.*

*note: this entire last line is rough, but I spent more time than I’d like banging my head against 相思, which I translated as ‘mutual love.’ It’s glossed in Pleco as ‘pining, lovesickness’ but literally means ‘mutual thought.’ 

The language of thought, of mutual thought, of the sentiment behind the phrase thinking of you, is something that goes way, way back. It’s in 《饮马长城窟行》, from the poetry post I linked earlier; it’s also referenced in the last line of 《楚辞·山鬼》Mountain Ghost from the Songs of the South: 思公子兮徒离忧 / only in thinking of you can I depart from sorrows.

Oh! Here’s a classic declaration of love -- literally, from the 《诗经》 Shijing / Classic of Poetry: 

[...]

执子之手，与子偕老 / I’ll hold your hand, and with you grow old...

[...]

It’s the most famous line from 《国风·邶风·击鼓》which I think is actually a... war poem? So a poem that’s primarily all about that Mutual Loyalty and Manly Camaraderie, but one that has had its most iconic line co-opted for the sheer romance of it all.

I’m not going to translate《击鼓》 fully because trying to read the 《诗经》is one of my personal nightmares, but you can find it here on ctext with the James Legge translation, which, admittedly, takes some liberties with the text.

One last poem, because the last line is peak pining:

《越人歌》 Yuerenge

今夕何夕兮 搴洲中流，/ What evening is this evening? Drifting in the river current.*

今日何日兮 得与王子同舟。/ What day is today? That I can travel in the same boat as you, prince

蒙羞被好兮 不訾诟耻，/ I hide my shyness, cover my fondness; there will be no slander or gossip or shame*

心几烦而不绝兮 得知王子。/ My heart is troubled, unending -- to come to know you, prince

山有木兮木有枝，心说君兮君不知。/ On mountains, there are trees; on trees, there are branches -- my heart delights in you, and you do not know.

*leaning heavily on the baidu-baike glosses

The story I’ve always been told about 《越人歌》 is that a prince of Chu, fleeing political strife in his state, crosses a river in a boat poled by a young woman of the state of Yue. She recognizes the fleeing prince and sings this song to him as she poles across the river. The catch is that she sings it in the language of the state of Yue, so he has absolutely no idea that she’s confessing her admiration and love for him.

This story, according to my Google searches, is inaccurate, but OH WELL, the last line is still peak pining regardless.

I'm linking some of MoonIvy's reddit posts, in case you'd like to read about their language learning journey. They are awesome! They're one of the authors of the Heavenly Path Reading Guide! That guide is super helpful, and I followed a lot of it's advice (and Heavenly Path's recommendations) once I was starting to read more. Heavenly Path also has a ton of recommendations of things you can read that are different difficulty levels, so I suggest browsing their suggestions if you have no idea what to read.

Also, if you use Readibu app, the app can give you a rough estimate of the HSK level of the chapter you're reading (you'll just open the chapter you're reading, click the book icon in lower middle of screen, then click Stats. You'll see a Comprehension % by reader's HSK level). For beginners, I suggest you try to find novels that say 90% or more over the HSK 4 level, or at least 80% and up if you can't find anything easy at first. Once you've moved from graded readers to simpler kids novels like 秃秃大王, novels with a 90%+ comprehension at HSK 4 level above will be the next easiest for you to read. (Later on: if you're looking to extensively read and barely look words up, look for 95-98% comprehension at the HSK level you think you're roughly at). For example, I'm reading 盗墓笔记 and it's 93% comprehensible for HSK 5 level, 98% comprehensible at HSK 6 level, and my vocabulary range is between HSK 5-6 roughly so it makes sense I can read dmbj extensively if I want (without word lookups and still understand it), but still have several unknown words I could look up if desired.

From intermediate to native webnovels in 18 months (Some wonderful mentions of what MoonIvy read. I also read 秃秃大王, 大林和小林, and 笑猫日记 by 杨红樱 and felt they were really good novels to read after graded readers but before novels like 盗墓笔记 and 撒野).

21 months of reading native books, and breaking into native platforms

Learn Mandarin Chinese to read danmei — it will be challenging but worth it

I can read novels without a dictionary after 3 years of reading danmei (Chinese boy love)

I reached 3,000 unique character knowledge by reading children's books and danmei (Chinese boy love) 

Some little notes of my own experience, I guess in relating to the journey others took. So: for me, I read stuff WAY harder than graded readers, when I initially tried to read webnovels. It was hard, and it probably made me feel more exhausted than I needed to feel. But it was motivating. So if you really enjoy X difficult novel, you can try to read it whenever, and keep reading it as long as you feel the desire to.

There was one person who shared their reading experience on the chineselanguage subreddit (I'm trying to find the post again) who read 撒野 after like 3 months of initial study. That's way faster than I would've tried! That's a huge spike in difficulty from knowing nothing to reading a novel with thousands of unique words in a few months! But some people just will find that they enjoy doing that, and it works for them, so don't be afraid to just TRY doing what you want to do and see how it goes. It might go awesome. And if it's so hard it's demotivating, you can always go look for something easier for a while.

I tried to read 镇魂 from pretty much my first month, and never got farther than a couple paragraphs until over a year of study. I'd take a glance at it once in a while, and see if it was easier to read, until one day it was 'doable' to actually try reading (while looking unknown words up). I tried reading 默读 from like month 5 onward, usually using a parallel mtl text and only picking up a few words, it was not doable to read until maybe 1.5-2 years into learning. I was already reading the mtl of 默读 because the english translation only had like 20 chapters back then, so I just would try to read the chinese original in small sentence pieces at times. Around 8-10 months I started trying to read 天涯客, and it kind of was doable in Pleco app's Reader as long as I looked up a lot of words. It used to take me 1.5-2 hours to get through a chapter, then over the next 6 months things got better and it'd take 1 hour then 40 minutes then finally 20-30 minutes per chapter. At the same time as reading 天涯客, I also read 小王子 around month 12 extensively (looking no words up) because I had the print book and wanted to practice reading extensively, I read 笑猫日记 by 杨红樱 read in Pleco while looking up words (which was easier for me to read than 天涯客 and helped me build up reading stamina and basic vocabulary a bit), and I read a pingxie fanfic called 寒舍 by 夏灬安兰. I read around 60 chapters of that fanfic, and 30 chapters of 天涯客, over those 6 months. 寒舍 was harder to read than 笑猫日记, but easier than 天涯客, so I would switch between all 3 stories depending on how hard/easy I wanted my reading to be. Eventually 笑猫日记 felt readable without word lookups, so I used 寒舍 as my 'easier' read and 天涯客 (and added 镇魂) as my harder reads. Then 寒舍 became readable without word lookups if I wanted (still had unknown words but they no longer affected my ability to follow the plot and most important details), so 镇魂 became my harder novel to read.

And that's pretty much the strategy I continued to use: I would bounce between a 'easier' novel I could read extensively, a medium difficulty novel I could just look keywords up with (if I didn't feel like looking up a ton of words) to understand, and a 'harder' novel I had to look up words in order to read. Maybe 2 years in (I don't quite remember now), I picked some 'easier' novels from Heavenly Path's recommendations with only 1000-2000 unique words, and read some of them to fill in gaps in my basic vocabulary (so looking up unknown words) and practice extensive reading with some of them. I think that was a really helpful decision, and improved my reading comprehension and stamina a LOT. If I could go back, I would've read a lot more 'easier' 1000-2000 unique word novels before trying to push right into the novels I did. But then, on the other hand? I think pushing right into 'difficult' novels helped me learn vocabulary to read priest's writing in particular, much faster, which was rough going at the start but now pays off because I find that author's stories have more words/phrases/sentence structures I'm comfortable with, and also a decent murder mystery/investigative vocabulary base which is helpful since it's a genre I like reading. Without all the 镇魂 reading I did in the past, I think 破云 would be almost incomprehensible to me. But instead, since I did read those investigative words a lot early on, novels like 默读 and SCI are now 'medium' feeling novels to me, and 破云 is harder but readable if I look words up.