I am finishing up my first adult novel. I am curious to see the experience of others as they advanced from novitiate to first-time bookworm. I just read an article on pinyin.info in which the author said it took him three years to read his first, while somebody he studied with allegedly could not read more than two or three pages in a couple hours, even after 10 years of study. Is this the case for other people? I\'m 11 months and a few days into my study of Chinese, which for the first few months saw most of my waking hours being involved in cultivating my knowledge thereof. If I\'d spent even three hours a day during those introductory months, I\'d probably still be a year away from where I am now.

How much difficulty did this journey entail? Did you look up words on every page? Every paragraph?