I’m kind of old school in that there weren’t graded readers when I was moving into intermediate Japanese. (Or maybe there were, I just didn’t know about them?)
I realised “I should be about N2 level but I’ve never read a book from start to finish before”, so just decided to do it. Took a few tries stopping and starting but ended up reading 魔女の宅急便 1 | L26 in about two months. I picked it because I really like the anime and was always curious about the novels.
My advice is to start reading novels if it’s what you want to do. Not because you feel like you should or have to, butwant to.
Thanks
I’ve been reading bilingual guided short story collections aimed at learners but I also have Zoo 1 & 2 as well as 神様 which are all native level short story collections. I’ve a few others as well that are short story collections at native level.
I’ve a few manga (Naruto, Dragon eye, Legend of Zelda, Tales of Vesperia etc), some I’ve read in English and some are just ones I’ve got an interest in the games or anime etc. Reading novels in Japanese is part of my overall goal though I do want to read the manga and light novels I’ve got as well.
Thanks
I’ve got a fair few audio books (around 50 iirc) some of translations, some native level and some beginner to intermediate learning level. I just feel that my mind wanders when reading and listening so I’m not actually focusing on either. It seems to be ok if I read it separately before I listen but just listening while reading seems to distract me from what I’m doing so I end up day dreaming and can’t focus on it. I have heard that it’s a good way to learn the kanji though and does help with pacing etc.
Thanks You started around the same time I did, I just got hung up on Genki and couldn’t understand the grammar properly til I switched to MNN in late Dec 2020 I’m going back to Genki once I’ve compl MNN though, using it for review.
I started reading graded readers about a year later while going back over the MNN stuff again and boosting my listening skills.
I’ve had a lot of recommendations of よつばと! And it’s great for beginners but I just couldn’t get into it from the preview I read https://learnnatively.com/book/6baaa12b46/ is another one recommended but I couldn’t get into it either.
That’s how I’ve felt with some of the short stories I’ve been reading, especially the ones which are more than a few pages long. But some parts I’m reading and some parts I’m decoding. Wasn’t sure if it was because I’m self studying or because it’s just the process but I’ve heard a few people say that as well.
Thanks banging my head against a wall is how I felt when trying to tackle a few of the books I’ve got, hence why I’ve stuck with graded readers and guided short stories so far.
I’ve got novels and light novels to read but know if I attempt it and can’t at least understand some of it then it’ll get me down and put me off my studying. It’s also difficult to understand a book if I’ve not read it in my native tongue and I’ve not got anyone who can tell me if my translation is correct or not so I’m kinda also using the guided short stories to test that I’m understanding it correctly if that makes sense.
Thanks I read your study post and a lot of it makes perfect sense. The Kanji Kentei 3DS is a good shout and that might actually be part of my problem since I’m using Wanikani to learn kanji along side MNN though I am picking up some Kanji recognition from the short stories (since they phase out the furigana as each story progresses).
I’ve used My Japanese coach for DS before which I felt was decent enough but I didn’t get far enough in it to learn the kanji. I’m adding kanji kentei to my list
Totally get where you’re coming from with graded readers. I’ve only read the free ones or my guided short story books so I don’t spend loads of money in things I’m most likely not going to use much. The short story books were on offer at the time and I’ve a friend who I’m passing them onto once they start but they don’t really hold the attention a light novel or novel would if I had the skill to read it as I do the short story books.
I remember how I felt after completing one of the longer short stories with chapters in it and how I felt about completing one of the highest level free graded readers and understood most of it. It was an awesome feeling, one I’m hoping will translate to when I finish my first light novel snd first novel
Thanks I think I’m partly scared of just diving straight in because I know I’m not good enough yet and there’s a lot that I don’t know which will only cause me to stumble along and misunderstand what I’m reading.
I’ve tried before about 6 months after I started MNN and joined a multilingual journaling website (journaly.com). They did a multilingual book club (they’ve done a few now) of La Sombra Del Viento (Shadow of the Wind iirc) and I picked up a Japanese copy of it. Managed about 5 pages across 5hours approx (one page a day reading for about an hour), it’s a paperback bunko so very small pages, and I understood very little but also it had No furigana so I wasn’t just looking up grammar and vocabulary but also trying to look up the readings of the kanji as well. Needless to say, I shelved it after the first week because I wasn’t getting far and I wasn’t quite sure I was understanding it correctly even though I was checking my translation in the English translation. It made me take a step back from studying and brought me down quite a bit which is why I’m hesitant to jump in the deep end again.
Novels and light novels are what I want to read along side the manga I do have. But my ultimate goal is to understand and be able to communicate in Japanese. Reading goal is to be able to read native novels in the same way I can read an English novel.
They aren’t really important in the grand scheme of things which is why I didn’t list them out. They are: 空中ブランコ | L31 - bought randomly off ebay, didn’t like it, but grew my vocab a ton 怪人二十面相 | L28 - also bought randomly off ebay, but a wonderful book that got me into 江戸川乱歩 (author) https://learnnatively.com/book/dc838454ca/ - bought because I’d seen it mentioned a ton online. I was already comfortable in the books around 30 though, so I think I missed the boat on truly enjoying it 夜警 | L31 - bought randomly off ebay. Got me into 赤川次郎 刑事の子 | L35 - bought randomly off ebay (do you sense a theme?). It was pretty challenging for me at the time, but having read another one of the authors (宮部みゆき) books I suspect it was one of her easier ones I’m too far removed from it to say whether 35 is apt, but it’s probably somewhere in the 30-35 range.
I didn’t join WK forums until after Natively started and brandon invited me to go there. I didn’t join a book club until a random impromptu one a few months back for 三毛猫ホームズの推理 | L32 inside the Read Everyday thread on WK.
That’s a really strong sign that you’re ready to try some native material, I think. You’ll at least skip the awkward stage I went through where every single sentence was agonized decoding — I jumped into native material waaaay too early. I don’t regret it, but it only worked because I’m a masochist when it comes to books.
I see you added 動物と話せる少女リリアーネはじめてのものがたり しあわせの黒いねこ | L17 to your wishlist. If you end up reading it, let us know how it goes. Heck, I could send you my copy, it’s just gathering dust on a shelf now.
The BEST feeling, omg. Seeing how what I had to study applied to real world material totally reinvigorated my studies. It shifted my mindset from “random crap I have to memorize for some goddamned reason” over to “I need this so I can understand what character A said to character B in that scene I just read.” It’s so much more motivating. Reading makes me want to study more, because studying enables me to read more.
I do have some grammar dictionaries, which I honestly don’t use as often as I should. I also like using Grammar Points - Japanese Grammar Explained | Bunpro as an easy way to look up grammar points (as long as you realize that what you encountered is a grammar point that is). I don’t remember what I actually used/did at the time though, since it was several years ago at this point.
Yep, it’s the first Warrior cats book. The story actually held up better than I expected it to, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it to anyone who doesn’t have the nostalgia for it. And I’m glad to hear from another physical book enjoyer too, ebooks just don’t feel the same to me (especially on a traditional screen).
I know a lot of learners read Harry Potter in Japanese, so that could be a good option if you’re interested in reading that story again. If not though, I wouldn’t worry about it. Reading a familiar book is nice, but I think reading a book you care about is way more important.
I also think manga are a good starting point because the images offer context to all the text, making it easier to know what’s going on. It seems like most people here read a few (or a lot of) manga before diving into books, so that might be worth a try.
This is so true. I read a couple really dumb manga when I first got comfortable with reading manga, and I thoroughly enjoyed them even though they were objectively mediocre. Especially puns, the first few Japanese puns I actually understood on my own made me literally laugh out loud when reading. Somehow it felt like I was reading as a kid again. I think this might be why a lot of people don’t enjoy reading as much when they get older, as the novelty wears off, but that’s just my totally unfounded conjecture
Both definitely. I find that as I get used to a certain author or novel I can really speed along (compared to the first few pages/chapters anyway) after I get my footing. This really helped boost my confidence with some of the first things I read since they were so long (visual novels to start, and then a longer LN series later) and I was really able to get used to the style over the length of the work. Overall progress is much slower though yeah, and it just takes time and more reading
I saw further down that you mentioned being ~N4 in grammar and I’d say one thing that I really thought helped me was to quickly read through one of those online grammar guides front to back (Tae Kim in my case) before I just jumped in to native content. Later on, I did something similar where I just quickly skimmed through a list of grammar points over a few days or so (Bunpro’s). Obviously, on a quick pass I didn’t thoroughly learn that stuff, but it really helped me to “know what I don’t know” so that I might think to look something up I might not have otherwise.
I remember buying the Read Real Japanese book after finishing 4 semesters of college-level Japanese. At the time, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the language, I sort of just jumped onto the process without a goal so it didn’t bother as much when I realized that the book was too difficult for me at the time. I think I attempted one story before I left the book sitting on my shelf. It’s still there.
Years would go by before I suddenly decided that I wanted to read two books based on movies, 100回泣くこと and 世界から猫が消えたなら. At that time though, I had already passed N3 and was also taking Japanese lessons with a focus on being able to read and understand the news. My teacher at the time was really into intensive reading so that’s what we did with news articles and editorials. Lots and lots of practice. We started off with NHK Easy News and eventually moved onto more difficult articles. Deconstructing every sentence really helped me understand grammar better and reading became easier that way. After a while, like 6 months after, sentences just started to make more sense and didn’t have me wondering what the heck was I reading. A lot of the material was really DRY but I’m glad she gave me that over a novel because it’s better to resent news articles than a novel that I had intended to read.
I eventually moved to the extensive reading method for those two aforementioned books since I was feeling confident. When I finished them, I felt super proud of myself. I didn’t understand everything in them, but that’s also the case when I read in English so I didn’t feel too bad. And I really think having the intensive reading practice really helped. Even when I didn’t fully understand a sentence, at least recognizing the grammar structure helped so I got the gist of it.
I did buy one of the Read Real Japanese books fairly early into my studies, and soon decided it was way too advanced for me. Later I tried Satori reader, and again it felt too advanced, so I put it off for later.
Then I noticed a new Absolute Beginners Book Club starting on WK, and I joined on a whim. It was https://learnnatively.com/book/9e1edcb4ba/. I found the first few chapters very hard, and would almost certainly have given up on my own, but the support of the club made all the difference. Very soon I felt confident enough to join another book club, for a novel this time. That was コーヒーが冷めないうちに | L29. I was lucky in that it was a relatively easy novel grammar-wise (vocabulary made no difference, as my working vocabulary was non-existent at the time).
So all in all I didn’t so much transition as jumped into reading. I would probably still hesitate to start reading on my own if I hadn’t had the support of that first book club. Having a safe space to ask all the silly questions I didn’t yet know how to answer myself, and helpful people who patiently explained things to me and others, was invaluable.
After that, I just read anything I choose. I’m okay with constantly looking up things if need be, so I’m not too concerned about difficulty levels as long as the content interests me.
I found reading practice with a teacher to be invaluable too! It really helps you pick up Japanese used outside of textbooks, or rather, how textbook Japanese is used in different situations. Highly recommend working with teachers if that’s how you like to learn.
Thanks, I’ve got (時をかける少女 | L25) on my list but wasn’t aware of the other ones. Will check those out
I’ve a fair few books I bought randomly after seeing the cover or reading a short review on Amazon (where all my books have come from, mostly second hand). If I had an ebay account, I’d be bankrupt between that and Amazon
Hopefully I’ll do better than I think when I switch over then. I’ve a few guided short story books to finish then I’ve got Zoo 1 & 2 and キノの旅 to read (light novel version) as I like the concept and enjoyed the preview I read on Amazon.
It had a cat on the cover and it looked like it might be interesting. Might be a while til I get it (will need to wait til February at the earliest) but will hopefully be a nice one to read if I’m looking for something a bit easier than Zoo and キノの旅. Will let you know what I think once I’ve read it
You might actually come out ahead using ebay compared to Amazon. People often sell things for quite cheap in bundles, ie, like this posting where there are 3 books for ~$7 including shipping. Note I don’t know anything about those books, I just did a quick search for book bundles. There are also sellers who sell individual books but on their page they say they’ll bundle the shipping cost if you buy multiple and I’ve taken advantage of that before too.
I might pick it up just to read it. I heard about Warrior cats a few years ago but I’ve never actually read any or know anyone who has read them but knowing the sort of stuff I used to read as a kid, it might actually be alright. I am curious
E-books just aren’t the same. Yeah there are pros and cons to them just like physical books but I much prefer physical books for the weight, the feel and the fact I can see them on the shelf. Whereas e-books seem to disappear into the ether until I remember I have a reader and then go looking for them in the clutter that is my e-book collection. I also can’t be bothered now to sort them into folders so it’s more difficult to find an e-book when I’m looking for it.
I’ve read Harry Potter books so many times I know them well enough to know exactly what’s about to happen just by hearing the dialogue sections or who is in the conversation I’ve also listened to them in Japanese even when I wasn’t understanding anything but could still pick out the dialogue and know where in the story I was.
I do have a few manga to read so that might be a decent starting point or something to read for fun (assuming I know enough to read it without looking much up).
You started around the same time I did, I just got hung up on Genki and couldn’t understand the grammar properly til I switched to MNN in late Dec 2020 
I’m going back to Genki once I’ve compl MNN though, using it for review.
I’m too far removed from it to say whether 35 is apt, but it’s probably somewhere in the 30-35 range.
If you end up reading it, let us know how it goes. Heck, I could send you my copy, it’s just gathering dust on a shelf now.
Seeing how what I had to study applied to real world material totally reinvigorated my studies. It shifted my mindset from “random crap I have to memorize for some goddamned reason” over to “I need this so I can understand what character A said to character B in that scene I just read.” It’s so much more motivating. Reading makes me want to study more, because studying enables me to read more.
