That is the problem. Read the journal breaks the immersion, we should be able to follow the conversation real-time, by reading the lines above the head of the characters or the combat log. Except that the combat log doesn't include lines from the other playable character and show too much information (the lines from the NPC not talking with us).
I would like to add that MonarchX is right about the other player responsing real-time. His choices should be more visible and of top of the following answers from a NPC because :
1 - The lines from the playable character (and the NPC's too) speaking disappear too quickly for the player whose the character only listens.
2 - The lines sometimes come of top of other ones (they are superimposed) when a playable character and a non-playable character are close. Thus, it becomes impossible to know who said what and when.
