That’s definitely true and I know some people do that, however I prefer more personalized cards, because I often add notes on する compounds, な-adjectives, etc.
I do use yomichan when reading online, however 
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At the beginning, I was mostly just powering through stuff that was way too hard for me (like Lvl 30-34). I’d manually translate it and color code things in a Google doc. My reading pace was slow, and I don’t recommend this. It can work well for learning songs though, since they’re smaller. As songs go, I really got into Yuki Kajiura’s music (Kalafina, FictionJunction, etc). There’s a fan site with all her song lyrics in JP, Romaji, and English: canta-per-me.net - A Yuki Kajiura Fansite » Lyrics & Song Info
For reading easier stuff, I already mentioned Crystal Hunters (use the free guides on their website, they explain vocab and grammar). At some point I started reading on Satori Reader, and that was really what made the bridge for me. If you try it out, I recommend Hole in the Wall or Kiki-Mimi Radio - possibly the “easy” edition of Kona’s Big Adventure as well. Also someone made some RPG style graded readers, which might be a good thing to try: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/x9nrdu/i_have_made_a_third_rpg_inspired_graded_reader_n4/
Ironically now I stick to stuff that’s Lvl 26 and below, bc I got tired of looking stuff up constantly, and the grammar’s usually more accessible. I still use Satori Reader as well, but a bit less since I’m finally at a point where I can read easier manga (JP alongside translation), without being overwhelmed.
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Btw one thing that can make life easier is taking a screenshot, extracting the text via Google Lens, and then pasting that into ichi.moe or a dictionary (Jisho, Akebi, etc). Neither will get everything right, but it makes looking up words way easier. Yomichan is also great for this. Also manga with furigana can definitely help as well (tho it doesn’t always mean they’re easier)
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Sounds like it’s either power through stuff I’m interested in at high levels or power through the motivation lag at lower levels to get where I want to be.
Maybe try a little bit of both. Think of the harder stuff as more of an exercise. The point isn’t for you to read and fully comprehend (yet). The point is to absorb whatever parts are accessible, gain some new words and grammar, and reinforce ones you already know. Read the JP alongside a translation, so you’ll still know what’s going on, even when you can’t understand the sentence.
My process there is: read JP, try to process meaning (or at least get how the sentences breaks down grammatically), compare to translation, reread the sentence and see if you can identify the vocab or patterns more (now that you know the meaning). If not, then just move on from it, and you’ll eventually come across ones you can work out.
One challenge with manga is figuring out who’s saying what. Sometimes I’ll read a bubble, be totally lost, then look at the translation, and realize it was the other character. Suddenly it makes way more sense.
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Yeah, I think the manual translation and slow reading has been ok for me with some things, same with ambiguity. But there are quite a few books where I don’t really know if I want to re read them once I start if I’m only understanding a small percentage of the story but don’t want to read it at such a slow pace so was hoping there might be an easier way to help me read it extensively that didn’t involve trying to learn vocabulary and kanji with flash cards. Think to do that I’ll need to read intensively first before trying to read it extensively so will need to choose something of a lower level to read during breaks and downtime at work.
I do have crystal hunters so should probably try reading that. I tried satori reader but I don’t like having to pay extra for stuff that I’ll probably only use once unless it’s a physical copy I can pass on to others learning Japanese once I’m done with it. The RPG graded reader could be quite good, I’ll check it out, thanks 
I use an iPhone or iPad and haven’t yet figured out how to use browser plug ins 
I do have apps and such I can use to translate paragraphs of text but have to hand write on the screen or type them in character by character. Furigana helps but I prefer if it only shows you it the first time so that I won’t use it as a crutch. Most of my stuff doesn’t seem to have furigana on kanji below a certain school grade just a pity none of my textbooks teach it the same way.
Most of the stuff I have doesn’t have English translations unless it’s graded readers. Even the short stories and any of the lower intermediate or above stuff doesn’t have it, just the occasional vocab list or minimal grammar explanations. Might go back and re read a few of my guided readers to help with that.
I’m impatient to start reading native level content and get stuck into all the books I’ve got but even the manga I’ve got are over lv 25 yet my reading level is probably around lv18-19 approx. I think I just need more practice using the language/ grammar I know then trying to build on that unless I want to read one book intensively and one extensively.
Thanks for all the links, hints and tips, I’ll check those out and see what happens
If you haven’t asked here yet, you might want to try it - if just because you can ask for recommendations in a certain level range, because we’re really used to that here.
I too am finding it a bit hard to find content I’m really interested in in the lower levels. The stuff I’m really looking forward is L29+ (like you, I have been wanting to a read a certain traveler’s story for a long time), but I don’t have your stomach for graded readers, so I’m tiding myself over with manga, children’s books and light novels that at least look kind of like they might be my taste. Apart from ごんぎつね (おはなし名作絵本 1) | L23 I didn’t find anything that I really really liked so far, but it was certainly much more enjoyable than my graded reader experiences.
It might also be a good idea to check WK book club threads from time to time to see if there’s anything you like in the next reading batch (the Absolute Beginner Book Club is finishing up voting in a few hours, and the Beginner Book Club is just starting a new manga today). Book Clubs helped me a lot getting ready for reading ~L24 on my own (with heavy Yomichan vocab assistance 
), and reading in company always makes it more interesting and engaging.
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Thanks, I might ask for recommendations in a few months if I’m still struggling (once bills have gone down so I’ve some money for books 
).
For me, reading the free graded readers were a means to an end. Short sentences and later short paragraphs that I could use to build reading speed and kanji recognition (with the help of furigana). The short story books were for helping me jump to higher beginner level content and get the gist of lower intermediate level stuff when I could understand it.
Even my manga are all lv 25+ or I’d start on those. The wanikani book clubs are where some of my recommendations came from. Still not entirely sure how to navigate those coming along after it’s been finished (unless I’m wanting to read through many comments to find questions and answers ) thought about reading along with them but haven’t done so since I usually don’t have the books already. Might try that too though. Thanks gor the suggestions 
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i used one of those reshipping services to give me a physical address in japan, and with that i had no problem opening an account on amazon.co.jp. making an account with the reshipping service was free, any fees would only apply if i were to actually use them for physical goods. i forget which one i used though, and can’t find it in my notes.
on topic: i pretty much just jumped in. i’d tried reading a bit of NHK Easy News, but didn’t stick with it because it was boring. the graded readers i’d seen didn’t catch my attention either. but i’d loved the やが君/Bloom into You anime, and when someone on WK suggested a bookclub for the manga, i decided to go for it.
i was not ready! with maybe 400 kanji (being generous there) and grammar maybe at N4, i was looking up almost everything. it wasn’t only a question of copying it out into google translate or deepl or ichi.moe, it was learning how to look up kanji, how to recognize furigana when they’re just to small and blurry, how to interpet kanji which have so many strokes that it all blurs, and so on and so forth.
the bookclub was only marginally useful. my speed rarely matched that of the club, and most of the discussions on grammar went way over my head. but it was a good place to gush about the story and how it was hitting me emotionally (someone mentioned that much earlier in this thread, that the stories seemed to have much more emotional impact, perhaps because they were so much more difficult to read).
i got through the first two volumes then (spring 2021), and finished the series that autumn (with much improved kanji and grammar knowledge). and have been reading on and off since then.
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This is off topic, but what’s your profile picture from?
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it’s from ユリ熊嵐/Yuri Kuma Arashi ^^
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Thanks for the insight
I may look into that in the future. I do prefer physical books (I have issues with my eyes which are aggravated by screen use and I use screens daily for work so try to limit my screen use at home and breaks) but do have a few e-books which I want but can’t get on my country’s amazon.
I don’t even know how to gauge exactly how many kanji I know (I should know by sight at least all N5/N4 and some N3, can only write around 200 though) but know a lot more through the vocabulary.
From what yourself and others have written, it seems like my best bet is to just dive in and try to power through something that I really want to read while trying to figure out the grammar as best I can and ask questions if I’m needing clarification. I think my tolerance for powering through higher level stuff is just low because it’s not a short story I can just power through then try to translate before rereading all within a few days, so although I’m ok with ambiguity, it’s still going to be a long struggle and hope I come out the other end less frustrated than when I started. It’s also not something I can sit reading at for 20-30 minutes a day and make much progress.
Did you just use the grammar explanations on the bookclub or did you also use things like dictionary of Japanese grammar as you were reading to figure out stuff you weren’t sure of?
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confession: i still don’t really know how to look up grammar
(my grammar is a mess. my whole approach to learning japanese is a mess. i don’t have a single textbook…)
ichi.moe helped somewhat with understanding how sentences worked, i think?
i very much have learned to accept ambiguity in my understanding of the text. but that was kind of essential in my other languages too… i read Sartre and Camus in french without ever having learned the passe simple (verb conjugation used almost exclusively in literary texts). even in english (which i learned natively up to about 4 years old), when i started actually reading there was so much i didn’t understand. uhh, i guess i’m encouraging you to accept ambiguity
i’d also strongly recommend going for quantity rather than quality. i’m relatively sure that i learn more from reading a whole volume of manga and understanding maybe half of it, than i do from reading one chapter and making sure i understand every little grammar point. and i’m having a lot more fun doing so
and because i have no extrinsic motivation to learn japanese, it’s kind of important that it’s at least somewhat fun (or interesting or satisfying or whatever) at all stages. so i listen to a lot of japanese music, because i enjoy it (Ado has such an amazing voice!). and even though i’ve heard again and again that that’s not a good way to learn japanese, it’s definitely better than not listening to an educational podcast (which i tried, and found super boring, so stopped doing).
i tried reading よつばと!, which should have been much easier to read than やが君, but couldn’t stick with it because it didn’t speak to me at all. やが君 touched me at a very personal level. perhaps for you, よつばと! is much better, because it resonates with you? but yeah, read something you want to read!
(and like, i missed or misunderstood so much of やが君 in my first reading. but i just recently re-read the whole thing, and not only do i understand it so much better, it’s also a very affirming confirmation of how much progress i’ve made).
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That sounds kinda like my approach when I was reading all the free graded readers. I missed a lot of stuff but just tried to get the gist from the context then some we of the short stories I’ve re read so many times I can recite certain parts without looking at them now (but those were books I was interested in reading and enjoyed the stories in). I can deal with ambiguity as long as I’m still enjoying what I do understand though.
I tried よつばと but it didn’t grab my attention at all, though from what you’ve said if I take something I do want to read and just deal with the ambiguity (and reread it at a later date ) it might help me get to grips with it.
I totally get quantity over quality (my reading improved a hell of a lot after reading a stack of the short and free graded readers) but thought I should at least try to translate what I’m reading when it’s higher level stuff to make sure I get what’s going on. I have the みんなの日本語 novels which I did read the first one several times trying to get a better understanding of each chapter from context and what Japanese I knew as I was reading it.
Reading extensively for fun while reading intensively through my textbooks may actually be a better option for me though, thanks for the insight
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I started watching raw anime while understanding close to nothing and reading tae kim’s guide.
I did ~800 cards of kanjidamage on anki in about 2 months before I quit that. Then I tried reading https://learnnatively.com/book/1559816a07/ (LN) but it was too hard. Then I read the first volume of 黒 1 | L19 (manga) with a lot of effort.
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Splitting into another comment since there seems to be a 2 link limit on comments, at least for new accounts:
Then I did ~1 month of duolingo and watched the first 30 cure dolly videos, then JPDB flashcards from scratch for ~2 months while trying to read many things that I didn’t finish, either because they were boring or too hard (VNs like atri, heaven burns red, summer pockets, WNs like ncode syosetu com/n6790f and LNs like 境界の彼方 | L30??) until I reached ~2k known words, and then picked the book I had the highest coverage % for on JPDB: また、同じ夢を見ていた | L25
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Took me 5 months but I managed to finish it, I mostly read it as an ebook on my phone with single-tap dictionary lookups. Then I read ちょっと今から仕事やめてくる | L27 in ~1 month. Then I re-read vol.1 of 黒 1 | L19 and then vol.2 and vol.3 all in 1 day. Next I read learnnatively com/book/6baaa12b46/ which was super easy. Then learnnatively com/book/0c9adce943/ . Now I’m reading learnnatively com/book/78b9715c1b/
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Thanks for taking the time to post those and for the insight into your journey.
Your journey seems a lot more intensive in such a short space of time compared to mine (not that that’s a bad thing) though I feel like I took the long road considering where I am only now looking at trying to read native level content.
I’m a little further on trying to read キノの旅 for a second time since I posted this originally (I think I had only recently ordered it and was waiting for it arriving).
I’ve still not fully progressed onto native content of any level and キノの旅 is my first proper venture into this (I’m not counting the ミラーさん novels as those follow the みんなの日本語 textbooks). I’ve only really started properly this week and it’s taken me since Sunday to read a chapter which isn’t bad for me considering.
I’ve heard some people find that each book is like starting fresh because you need to get used to the author’s style and vocabulary pool.
Did you find your understanding increased with each book you tried or did you feel like you were almost starting again each time?
Other than the flashcard sets, did you use anything else to help you keep vocabulary in your head or did you just use reading to help cement the vocabulary?
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Just JPDB flashcards every day, watching anime (More or less an average of like 0.9 episodes a day) without subs, and smashing my head against ebooks with yomichan.
I found that at some point between 30% and 60% of a book it starts to feel easier, but I’m not entirely sure if that’s a language thing or a matter of the book becoming more interesting over time which makes it more bearable. I did feel myself improving with each book, but in terms of how many lookups I had to do, the first 2 books (L25 and L27) felt more or less the same, the third was way easier (L23), and the fourth one might have been the hardest so far (an L29).
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The first manga I actually read was the manga 少女終末旅行. I had just learned what ‘Anki’ was and found out Wanikani has a vocab list for the manga, and created an anki deck off of that and then studied the vocabulary before reading the chapter. So I’d study the 20-50 words I didn’t know, then read the chaper wth the vocabulary fresh in my mind. 10/10 would recommend.
I think that after reading 少女終末旅行 volumes 1-6, I tried out 夏目友人帳 8 which I found at goodwill, and I read through it pretty easily. I then tried Volume 22 and then put it back on the shelf cuz it was…harder, and instead tried out a novel.
I then tried a couple of different books as part of a translation practice group (Black Cat Cafe) and I figured out that I…Do not enjoy translation… I’d get a couple of lines in and be like ‘English!? Why do you sound bad?! English!?!??!’
The first novel-book I really started to read was ミュウツーの逆襲, for which I created a discussion group around it (It was origonally a translation and a discussion group, and then the translation aspect was droped). This helped force me to actually commit to the book, and 10/10 would recommend doing something like that. Its also really helpful if you happen to get stuck to discuss with others what they think certain lines mean.
After a couple of months, I started a second discussion group with とっとこハム太郎 大ぼうけんでちゅ, which was a significantly easier read. (So I was running both clubs at the same time).
At some point, before I finished the pokemon novel, and before I finished the Hamtaro group, I started and finished reading 約束のネバーランド
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That sounds similar to me with the first ミラーさん novel. Found it started to get easier as I learned more of the vocabulary and understood more without looking up as much. Think it was my third read through before I understood one chapter was about him going for a hair cut 
for me, I’m not sure it was more interesting, just a case of me becoming more interested because I could understand what I was reading.
Great advice, it does help for reading comprehension and speed. For me I just struggle to absorb any vocabulary out of context unless I’m copying it out multiple times a day as well. But I have seen others learn a hell of a lot of words in a really short period of time that way which have helped them then read through with much fewer look ups.
Discussion groups seem like a good idea and I have tried the book clubs on wanikani and Journaly before but I always either fall behind because of my schedules and how difficult the book is or I end up being clueless with where to find the answers (I still can’t figure out how to wade through the book club questions to find what I’m looking for if I’m coming in after the book club has finished 
). Having others to discuss possible solutions to grammar/vocabulary problems is great though and it helps keep you motivated if there’s other people you’re being held accountable to.
Did you ever re-read any of these to see any improvement? If so, was there anything different you did between readings or did you just re-read it after reading other stuff first?
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