This website has really helped a lot to advance my Japanese learning and I thought I’d like to share some of my experiences so far. I really like seeing what other people on here are up to so I am making an effort to start sharing.
Background and how I got here
I liked anime as a kid but didn’t really get that much exposure to it outside of the really popular ones like Pokemon or DBZ. In recent years I have slowly gotten back into the medium. In April, I decided to start learning Japanese for basically no reason other than it seemed interesting.
I had dabbled in different learning methods and noticed a lot of recommendations to try reading manga or watching anime. I was surprised by this but as I learned more it started to seem like a good idea. So I started reading よつばと! and watching Sailor Moon with JP subs (I had no idea this was way above my level at the time lol). It was difficult but I was making my way through it and then I heard about this website and it totally solved my problem of finding materials more suited to my level.
Since then I have pretty much read every day. It has become a hobby in and of itself regardless of the language. I am starting to get comfortable reading content at around level 19-20. My long term goal is to be able to read whatever or watch whatever I want without worrying too much about difficulty.
Tools and Resources that I have used
Genki 1:
I read like 5 chapters and then got bored.
Anki:
Started with a couple of premade decks. They were really helpful in the beginning but now I would prefer to have more time for reading. By this point I have dropped all of them except my personally made Kanji deck.
Jlab anime deck
Basically takes sentences from anime and gradually introduces grammar and vocab through the examples. This was a great jump start but I eventually moved from this to bunpro.
Kaishi 1.5k vocab deck
This was great for getting early vocab but it was taking too much time so I stopped after like 800 words.
Personalized kanji deck
I made a deck where I get an English word, number of strokes, and the readings and from that info I have to physically write the kanji and check my work (including correct stroke order).
I started with the kanji for each school grade but by grade 3 they were getting a little too random so now I just add them individually from reading. I can write about 500 now and my knowledge of radicals has gone way up.
I have always been the type of person who remembers stuff really well by the action of writing stuff down so this helps me a lot to differentiate similar kanji.
Bunpro:
I started using this because my lack of grammar was slowing down my reading. At this point I have cleared the N5 deck and I am about 75% through N4. I also have manually added like 30 points so far in (N3, N2, N1) because they keep coming up in reading and JLPT level doesn’t matter to me.
Yomichan:
I use this sometimes. Depends on the format of the material but I am starting to like manual typing in dictionary lookups because taking the extra time and attention helps me learn it better.
What I have read / watched so far
This section and the next will contain what I think a more normal update post would look after this intro post.
Here is a list of some of the things I have read since I joined in May. I’m not sure how to format them with hyperlinks yet but maybe next time!
Manga:
よつばと! (15/15)- Classic learning pick. It really like it but I started getting tired of it towards the later volumes. The lack of normal Kanji usage eventually got annoying too.
ハピネス (10/10) - Another popular read due to its level. It is great for it’s low level, but I am not a big fan of gore and horror as a genre.
ギャルと恐竜 (7/7) - Cute comedy slice of life about a girl who wakes up after a night of drinking to find that a silly looking dinosaur has moved into her apartment. Really short episodic chapters.
姫乃ちゃんに恋はまだ早い (7/7) - Comedy slice of life about a school girl who is trying too hard to be a grown up. Despite it’s low level, this manga taught me that “no furigana” is hard.
レンタルおにいちゃん (4/4) - Popular on the site and good for language learning but I didn’t really like this one.
ふらいんぐうぃっち (4/13) - I thought it was interesting but It was feeling a little too random and aimless so I am paused after 4 volumes. I know this opinion is silly after saying that I read all of the dinosaur roommate manga.
黒 (3/3) - Another “no furigana” pick. The mysterious world building was really cool. I don’t think I was completely satisfied by it though.
はなにあらし (13/13) - My first yuri manga. Overall it was a great experience. I learned a lot of high school and romance language. I’ll probably never forget the word 秘密 after reading this.
もし、恋が見えたなら (3/3) - Yuri love triangle where the MC has the power to see love. This one felt more immature but I still had a good time. The art was cool, especially the dynamics of the pink 矢印 that only the MC can see.
三白眼ちゃんは伝えたい (4/5) - Overly cute high school romance. This one felt really lacking for me and I eventually dropped it. (side note: I am too much of a completionist and should drop things more)
Anime:
Sailor Moon S1 -
I watched this before I found this site and I was probably getting less than 50% comprehension at the beginning. But it didn’t really matter because the show is really repetitive and easy to follow. I also firmly believe that even if you don’t understand everything, you still get to have a very real experience with the content.
Certain words and phrases really stuck out though and I still remember the context when I encountered them in. For example, I had Usagi’s episode intro memorized fairly quickly because she says it every episode and sometimes when I see the word みつけた I read it in Zoisite’s voice because his VA was great.
This experience led me to finding this website and finding easier material. It also inspired me to focus more on reading because then I would have the option to fall back on the subtitles if I got lost in the plot.
のんのんびより - Slow paced CGDCT in the countryside. Good for language learning and some scenes were really beautiful.
Games:
I tried playing Tales of Destiny DC in JP and I was quickly humbled after 3 hours of not understanding what was going on. I should probably try replaying Tales of Symphonia in JP instead because I know that game like the back of my hand. I really like the series and have played a lot of the games but some are JP exclusive. Although, Destiny DC has an English patch out there somewhere, I was just testing the waters.
What I am currently reading / watching this week
Manga:
先輩はおとこのこ
About halfway through the series and I am blown away. Easily my favorite manga so far. The artwork is amazing, the little details are amazing, and its a lot more traumatic and emotional than I was expecting. I’ll probably make an actual review for this one when I am done.
It doesn’t have furigana which is tough but I’m a lot better at looking things up by radicals now and I don’t have to look up that much.
ルリドラゴン - I started reading this when I needed emotional breaks from Otokonoko but I still had time available for reading. So far it is an interesting premise but I nothing special.
Anime:
けいおん! - Light music club at school that spends most of their time not playing music lol. Its cute and I am understanding a lot but I’m getting a little burnt out on slice of life.
I am really excited to continue reading and hopefully I can increase my level a bit so that I can have a wider range of material to choose from. I have stayed in the level 16-19 range for manga but I plan to push that up soon. I also hope to be able to read a book or light novel soon.
I also wanted to pose some discussion questions that I am interested in hearing from the community about:
Discussion Questions:
Have you used music in your language learning journey? What techniques do you use to better understand the lyrics and meaning of the song?
I can tell there is a lot of potential for music to be like natural SRS (if it gets stuck in your head) but I haven’t figured out how to efficiently learn the lyrics of songs I like without taking too much time upfront.
How do you balance reading multiple manga or books at the same time?
I have a hard time with this especially if they are the same genre. But I realize I could cover more ground if I spread out my reading better.
How important is Natively level to you when deciding what to read?
There are times when I am really interested in something and want to read it but I am trying to be realistic about my abilities and not jump up in level too fast.
I don’t have a set interval in mind for updating this log but I will try to update when noteworthy learning progress has been made.
I have listened to a lot of Japanese music over the years and it has certainly helped my vocabulary. In the past I would look up words I didn’t understand and learn that way. I have never put song lyrics or the vocabulary from them into anki but still learned them from the repetition of listening to the song over and over again. Another helpful thing I can recommend is learning songs for karaoke or just singing along to songs when in the car, at home, etc. If I have the song lyrics memorized then you can bet I understand 100% of the meaning!
I don’t really know…Reading a bunch of books at once is just a lifestyle. But thinking back, I only read a single book at a time when I started reading Japanese since it took so long to even finish one.
At this point it is not important at all because I am comfortable reading whatever I want and know what my limits are pretty well. have been reading for a while, though, and have several hundred books under my belt so I think my input here is kind of not valuable. In the past I tried to stick to things I mostly understood and could have fun reading, because hard things are a slog and I wanted to have fun. I think that’s been a big contribution to my overall literacy - reading easy, wide, and following my intellectual curiosity through different genres.
I barely pay attention to lyrics in English songs, and often realize certain verses I don’t even know what words are being said. As such, while I can sometimes pick out what is being said in Japanese songs, I consider it random fun bonus rather than a study tool.
Do what feels right to you. When I started out reading Japanese I was strictly one book at a time. Now I’m like… 13 books at a time, give or take. So long as I’m enjoying myself and I can keep track of the plots it doesn’t phase me. I also think some books just lend themselves naturally to chunked out reading (I have a book of essays I’ve been idly putzing through since last year)
I’m also in the camp of “I’m probably not a good person to ask” because by the time Natively was a thing I was already reading books in the 30s, and once you hit the 40s you’re typically outside the realm of casual literature.
I do think that reading something hard which you enjoy is better than reading something comfortable and boring, though.
I think this sounds like a good approach. I listen to music a lot when I exercise so I can’t really sing along but singing in the car is a great idea.
It probably just takes practice and experience and I am just not there yet.
I am trying to find that balance between easy and fun, and it seems to be getting easier as time goes on. It’s also part of the reason I have been trying out different genres I wouldn’t normally seek out.
That’s a good way of looking at it. I’m not trying too hard to force it but I like Japanese music a lot and felt it had some untapped learning potential. On the other hand, it can be really obscure and metaphorical, so yeah probably not the best direct study tool.
Impressive, I can’t even imagine that at this point.
For me a book is easy if I do not have to look up many words. This does in general not correspond well with LN levels, but more with the age of the protagonists. I assume LN levels are more about complexity of the grammar. My comfort zone at the moment is for protagonists in elementary school.
E.g. また、同じ夢を見ていた is for me far easier than クラスで2番目に可愛い女の子と友だちになった, though both are at L26. At the former I had about 17% of the pages with no look-ups at all, at the latter I have no such no-look-up pages, so far.
That is a really interesting perspective. Part of why I posed that question was because I felt like there were some fairly obvious extra factors that affect a work’s actual difficulty relative to it’s Natively level. You explain it well how two books at the same level can feel very different.
At my lower level, I have had that experience with “no furigana” texts. I kind of just add 2 or 3 levels to the Natively level to account for it. But then again, part of that is kind of a specific to one’s own experience. For example, if you read a lot of romance, you could probably go higher in level for romance novels without taking a huge hit on lookups, etc.
In less than 4 months from the start you got comfortable with N4 material and read 60+ volumes of manga? That’s impressive.
Reading without furigana is definitely more difficult. 姫乃ちゃんに恋はまだ早い was the first “no furigana” manga that I read and I definitely struggled through the first volume or two even though I was able to easily read manga 5-6 levels higher with furigana.
It does get easier. The more you read without furigana the more kanji you will recognize and the fewer words you will have to look up.
あっと先生 is truly a fantastic artist. I remember being blown away with the art when I first started reading the series.
How do you balance reading multiple manga or books at the same time?
This has become the default for me. I was reading one series at a time for a few months, but any time I didn’t want to read that specific series I ended up barely reading anything.
Now I have a lot of different series going in parallel and just read whatever I feel like reading on a given day. It’s a lot easier to find something to read when I have 5-10 choices instead of just 1.
How important is Natively level to you when deciding what to read?
It’s very important for me. In reading and watching I try to balance easier content with content that is manageable but more difficult. I almost always look at the Natively level before I start consuming something to see where it falls on that spectrum, or if it’s outright too difficult for me.
Of course, Natively levels aren’t perfect, but they are the best estimation of difficulty that I have before I start reading/watching something myself.
I am excited to eventually get to the point where I don’t need to worry about how difficult something is, but until then I will keep using Natively levels as a filter for what to consume.
Thanks. It sounds like a lot but they were pretty much all under level 20. When I step out of my current difficulty bubble I am constantly humbled with how much I don’t know and my pace slows down immensely.
To me, the only reason I have been able to achieve this progression is because I found this site and I have been consistently reading things. It was just an amazing coincidence that this happened so shortly after I started learning.
I am starting to feel this sense of improvement as I go through 先輩はおとこのこ. It is still slower than a furigana text, but I don’t have to look up nearly as much as I used to and I can pick out kanji radicals really fast for lookups.
In the rare cases I listen to songs with lyrics, I do my best to whitenoise them as much as possible. Noticing and understanding the lyrics has a horrible tendency to get the song stuck in my head and I hate it when that happens. This problem is not present in totally foreign lyrics so that’s why I like occasionally listening to music like Swedish hip-hop or Mongolian metal.
At the level I’m at, I only catch a handful of words in Japanese songs so I’m safe from earworms. I had a phase where I explored Japanese music but I’ve only found a few rock bands like BAND-MAID, 9mm Parabellum Bullet, and そこに鳴る that I could vibe with. Useful language learning potential is not that high in music — especially in my case — so I didn’t push the exploration further.
My reading pile is categorized by mood. I keep a hard book that is at the limits of my current knowledge for times when I feel like reading something more challenging to really push myself, but I also have easy light-hearted comedies and more serious tragedies or dramas on the side that I alternate based on my mood. I typically focus my attention on one thing, get tired of it, briefly try a few different things to find something that matches what I want and then focus exclusively on that, and repeat the cycle.
Very important I’d say. If something is way out of my league, I know that I won’t enjoy it, no matter how interesting the premise is. If I find an interesting-looking book and I discover that its level is ≥34, I just immediately close the tab and promptly forget about it.
On top of filtering candidate books and animes, the Natively levels also guide me in the approach to adopt when reading or watching a certain work. If X is around my level, I can expect to find lots of i+1 sentences so I tend to read/watch something like X in an intensive manner with dictionary look-ups on every unknown word and many new mined Anki cards.
If on the other hand, X is quite hard but I really want to try watching it anyways, I don’t bother looking up every single unknown word because I know that this will take forever so I just catch what I can and use my intuition for the rest.
Generally, pasting the link of a book page (e.g. https://learnnatively.com/book/1a0babe9b5/) should magically transform into something like: 黒 1 | L19 (you might need to add and erase spaces after the link after pasting it before the transformation happens)
It’s funny to me how we are so different. If I like the song then I want it stuck in my head.
I need to do this more. A lot of my reading picks are similar genres because they are low level and I think that has discouraged me from reading simultaneously so far. Like for some reason I don’t want to read two Yuri mangas at the same time. But categorizing things more based on mood and varying difficulty sounds like a great idea to fix that.
Thanks for the tip! I was surprised when I wrote this learning log that I could not find an instruction manual for the post formatting anywhere on the Natively site. Figuring out how to make the different sections into a dropdown was quite challenging lol. Maybe there is one and I just don’t know where to look yet.
Natively is running forum software called Discourse, so if you’re interested you can Google “discourse + thing you want to do”. The nice thing is that if you come across other communities also on Discourse (it’s fairly popular) the knowledge transfers
@ 2: I have several manga series where from time to time I read one cycle I.e. one volume of each series. If there is no reason to do otherwise, like e.g. several volumes are free to read for some limited period of time, I will definitely not binge read a series. For me binge reading feels like wasting the series. If on the contrary I read like just one volume per season I have the series for much longer of a time.
In between I might read novels if I am in the mood, or test read some new manga series, or read some free to read examples.
I tend to read different things in different places. E.g. an easier one for extensive reading at work, and more difficult ones for intensive reading at home.
At the moment I have several books on the go, although only 3 of them are non textbooks. One I’m reading at work on breaks and between calls with no look ups, just figuring it out from context and knowledge of the book (since I’ve read it before). The other two I am reading at home, looking up every unknown word or grammar point to understand structure as well as vocabulary.
I do tend to focus more on short stories or shorter novels and children’s books than manga though (only because I feel I get more out of it).
Now, I tend to stick at or slightly above my natively level.
Previously though, I was following a recommended reading guide for learners using native materials after tadoko books and graded readers so have read a few books well above my level, but there were entire paragraphs and chapters where I understood very little so now I tend to stick to things around my natively level. I have noticed that my vocabulary tends to be where I fall down, so 2 books of the same natively level can be vastly different in terms of difficulty for me even if in the same genre. I think it depends on how much ambiguity bothers you and how much of the vocabulary you know for the genre.
The level 30 books I read, one was spooky short stories and I did enjoy the 3 I mostly understood (Otsuichi’s book “Zoo”) but had no clue about the other 2. The second book (キノの旅 book 1) I already knew what happened in the anime so I wasn’t too bothered by not understanding much as it was more a test of how much could I understand.
That makes a lot of sense to me. I have started to notice that with the current manga I am reading. I really like it and want to continue, but I also want it to last longer!
The underlying reason for why I have focused on binging so far is that I am still pretty early in my learning and it gives me the opportunity to get comfortable with the same author and fictional world. A huge observation in my journey so far was that if you learn the key grammar and vocab from volume 1, it often makes reading the rest of a series really smooth.
Based on what everyone has been saying though, I am going to try reading 3 or 4 series concurrently at a slower pace to see if I can manage it.
A bit late but I wanted to give my view as an intermediate learner who still struggles to read higher level material.
I frequently check out the lyrics and translation, but rarely save any vocab or kanji. Singing along with lyrics is a good exercise for faster reading I think!
Usually I try not to pile up too many at once since too many “todos” make me uncomfortable. I have 1-2 long term “projects” and then have occasional binges for easier stuffs where I just go by motivation. But really I just continue whatever I feel like most. I’m one of those readers who can stop in the middle of the sentence when they get bored/tired.
I consider the rating but it’s more like “omg I really want to read this AND it’s in a good level range, PERFECT”. Currently I’m reading a N2-ish novel which I consider above my level, and it’s a bit exhausting because slow and not always understanding everything is sometimes frustrating, so I’m not thinking about adding more difficult stuff at the moment (still goes in the wishlist pile though). But there are so many books in my level range already so it’s not really a hard decision.
Learning update! I have some new developments in my learning methods and thoughts on tools that I want to share/ be able to look back on.
Also, wanted to preface that I am going to try to keep my learning log about the language learning as much as possible and obviously avoid spoilers. I will probably make some vague comments about whether something is enjoyable, because I think that contributes to learning. But any specifics will get a spoiler tag.
What I read/watched recently
I took everyone’s suggestions about slowing down and reading multiple manga concurrently. This past week was mostly tested out series to see if I liked them.
Read 2 volumes and I am dropping it because I am not enjoying it.
The text bubbles rarely show which character is talking and the way it’s all formatted is rough. The language is probably a good level for me but it’s not worth the headache. I should have trusted 暁のルナ’s review and read some Yuri instead.
I was nervous to start this because it’s level 22 but it hasn’t been hard at all. It has furigana and there have only been a handful of unfamiliar grammar points in volume 1 so far. Probably keeping this on as a slow read romance slot.
Really pleasantly surprised with this one. I had no expectations going in, but the chaotic comedy style is hitting for me.
My favorite gag so far is when it cuts away to Chitoso shipping Ayano and Kyouko together, you would think it gets boring after like the 5th time they do it, but it gets me everytime. It also serves to recontextualize the previous dialogue in a simpler way, which I think is really good for language learning.
Only problem with the show is how fast paced it is. As a language learner, I just have to accept that certain bits are going to fly right by me.
Future plans/ thoughts:
I have been thinking a lot about starting a light novel so I can get exposure to higher text density and make mental images rather than rely on manga. Based on reviews, it seems like https://learnnatively.com/book/6baaa12b46/ might be the best place to start, as long as I keep my expectations of the story low lol.
I also have started to notice the book clubs, but I kind of just lurk to see if they choose a book that I could handle reading. Then again, they seem fairly slow paced so I could probably handle something above my level if it’s spaced out over time.
Kanji writing practice goes digital
Started practicing writing Kanji about 3 months ago. I am at about 540 Kanji that I have practiced drawing from my Anki deck.
I know writing is the least popular aspect of language learning but I think it’s fun and more useful than people think. I can write the Kanji that I have practiced really fast now and because I have used almost all of the radicals by now, I can recreate any Kanji I see in the wild.
I bought a cheap drawing tablet last week, so that I could rely less on pen and paper. Taking some getting used to and my digital handwriting is less neat. I have since shifted my Kanji writing practice to a digital format and it’s really fun and actually kind of useful? (more on that later)
My goal is to create mental maps in my brain and develop muscle memory, so I pretty much only focus on recall and stroke order. I don’t worry about making it pretty or the really specific brush stroke methods. I write fast during reps so sometimes it comes out like the scribbles you see on the side of a manga panel.
Basically, the game is to use any of the information provided on the left to recall and write the Kanji correctly. Then I check the answer and practice as many times as I want.
It’s kind of shocking to me how much better I am at reading Kanji that I have practiced writing. I feel like the ambiguity completely goes away. No mixing up things like 探 and 深 because the details are in my mind and muscle memory.
Ramblings about lookup efficiency
So this part is a potentially embarrassing but maybe it will help other new learners. Or maybe some veterans can jump in and give even better suggestions.
Basically, I didn’t know the Japanese IME existed until like a week ago. I was just typing things into the dictionary phonetically. Which led to various nightmares surrounding double inputs of う, small っ, etc.
To my amazement, all I had to do was adjust a setting on my computer and I can type any Kanji that I know the reading for. To any new learners who haven’t heard about this, give it a try. It’s great.
To take this a step further, the Windows IME has a pad that can recognize handwriting input. If you read the previous section, you might be realizing where I am going with this. “No furigana” texts just got way easier for me, because I can just handwrite the Kanji directly into the dictionary from my drawing pad.
You might be thinking “isn’t that slower than radicals?”, and for me the answer is no. Even after tons of reps it can be hard to find the exact radical I want when looking at the grid. Just staring at the grid gives me brain fog. I can just take the 5-10 seconds to write the kanji instead.
There is also the method of shuffling together two kanji from words you do know to make a word you don’t know. Like you need to look up 作戦 so you search for 作る and 戦士 and then kind of smash them together. Not bad, but I think I could still just handwrite the original Kanji faster than that.
Obviously, knowing the ON readings and directly using the IME will be fastest, the problem is being a beginner trying to read stuff without furigana. So this problem should eventually just go away on it’s own with increased vocab exposure.
New question:
Do you practice handwriting at all in your language learning journey?
I personally, could not with that series. If you’re willing to bump up one more difficulty level, I really enjoyed this book when I read it: 少女マンガじゃない! 1 下駄箱からラブレター...じゃなくて果たし状!? | L23
I formally studied Japanese in university, so I had to. Plus I spent a year doing an online tweak of Heisig’s rtk. I don’t remember much anymore and my current feeling is that it doesn’t make a lot of sense to be able to write in Japanese if I still can’t formulate sentences to write.
Unless you mean, did you practice having aesthetically pleasing handwriting, and no. I have not.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll keep that one in mind.
The more I think about it, my anki deck is basically just the RTK method but with the emphasis on writing.
Also, the way you feel about the usefulness of writing is how I currently feel about speaking. I prioritize input above all but being able to write the characters feels like a power up that I can use to enhance my reading ability.
Everyone’s different. I was the type of student to take notes not for the sake of coming back to review, but for the action of writing itself making an impression in my mind.
I do it for the textbook kanji, I can write the Genki ones and am learning the RW suggested Tobira ones, so a few hundred. Like you said, it helps me to recall more “actively” by internalizing the radicals, which also helps me study new kanji. Sometimes I just passively absorb the overall appearance of a kanji so situations happen where I * feel * like I know a Kanji but can’t put my finger on it - handwriting helps me in that.
But thinking back, I only read a single book at a time when I started reading Japanese since it took so long to even finish one.
In the past I tried to stick to things I mostly understood and could have fun reading, because hard things are a slog and I wanted to have fun. I think that’s been a big contribution to my overall literacy - reading easy, wide, and following my intellectual curiosity through different genres.
