For everyone who reads manga as well as novels/ light novels, do you find you get more from the manga while reading extensively or more from the novels/ light novels?
I know it might seem like a strange question when looking just at word count between them but I’m wondering if I’m going about reading the wrong way and if I should maybe be looking at reading manga more often than I do currently to help increase my vocabulary/ grammar recognition and understanding.
I’ve mostly focused on children’s books this year (with the exception of finishing Flying Witch and Ruri dragon so far), partly because I don’t have a lot of manga and partly because I just prefer reading books and letting my mind come up with the images. However I do feel like this is a very slow process and like I’m not actually taking in much except the kanji readings or occasional word meaning that I guess from context.
There are still parts that I miss completely while reading extensively and atm unless it’s textbook stuff I have very little tolerance for intensive reading so I’m not looking up everything I’m missing.
I know I keep cycling back to my progress not being where I want it to be but just wondered if others had a better experience of this or if it is normal
I don’t read manga extensively at all, I look everything up. I feel like because there’s a lot less text it’s easier to miss stuff. I also don’t think it would teach you any more words, since there’s less text.
If the question is “how do I learn more words,” I don’t think the answer is “read manga instead,” I think it’s just “look up more words.” If you have no patience for intensive reading, maybe more vocabulary study outside of reading?
I suppose it kind of depends by what you mean by “get more from”; there are certainly particular benefits of reading manga vs novels and vice versa, and how generally beneficial to learning each might be will depend on your goals.
I personally have found more benefit for my Japanese from reading novels, and while my ultimate goal for Japanese was to read novels anyway, it carried with it the bonus effect of making manga generally non-issues to read. I also personally find novels to (in a general sense) be easier to read than manga, since there’s typically more context to things, and I remember the lack of context and lack of having a good sense of how Japanese writing should be interpreted early blockers in reading manga more extensively. (That’s like a whole other can of worms, though, and many people on both sides of that coin.)
Honestly, I wouldn’t look at it that way. No reading is bad reading (unless you’re completely making everything up as you go along or something, I guess), and striving for 100% efficiency is generally impossible. Honestly I would just say you need more pages and time, CatDQ; it takes a while and lots of practice for that stuff to settle and your brain to have to think less about it while processing the info. And when I say time and practice, I mean lots of time and practice; years of time, and tens of thousands of pages. Taking a quick peek at your stats, it looks like you’ve really only been logging pages since 2022. Assuming there’s not too much material you consumed before joining Natively, I’d say taking around 2.5 years to get to low L20 mostly novel material feels very reasonable. Are there people more advanced in a shorter amount of time? Sure. Are there people reading at a lower level in the same amount of time? Tons!
It seems to me, reading your study log and whatnot, that you’re actively concerned about improving your study process and being consistent with that, and I think that’s great! You’re so willing to learn and grow that I don’t think anyone could do anything more, and I believe that you will 100% achieve your Japanese goals. Some learners I look at what they say and kind of doubt they’ll make it to reading their goal manga/book/VN/whatever, but I’ve never felt that way about you. (Not to make you feel like you need to maintain any kind of imaginary standard set by a random unknown forum user, haha. I just wanted to say that even if you find you’re doing something “wrong” with your studying and reading, you seem like the type of person to look at any mistakes or flaws, reflect on them, and try something new. Iteration is key!)
Keep in mind that we have a tooon of high level readers on Natively in comparison to a lot of other JP learning communities, probably because of the site’s focus on reading, so it’s easy to see other people’s progress and feel like you’re slower than the average. I guarantee you’re not, you’re just hanging around a lot of people who have been studying and learning for 10+ years.
I think it’s only recently that you’ve really been joining/seriously considering joining book clubs, even informal ones, right? I personally have found joining book clubs eats up all my free time great for a) reading more, b) read something I wouldn’t normally have read, thereby reaping the benefits of something new while still reading mainly in my wheelhouse, and c) gaining confidence that I do indeed actually understand what I’m reading via chatting with fellow book club members, even though it all feels “flimsier” than what I’m used to experiencing reading in English. I’d love to see you around in some of the beginner clubs!
Something that has worked for me over the last few years is combining extensive reading with SRS prestudy of vocabulary. I was already able to extensively read a lot of books without too much lookup, but I notice these days when I read that I often run into words where I know them because I’ve seen them in SRS but which I think I would previously have guessed the meaning or skimmed over it.
My (unscientific) feeling is that extensive reading is great for solidifying your understanding of things you previously sort of knew, especially grammar, but that it isn’t so good for initial learning of words you don’t know at all, and in furigana-less texts it is obviously no good for learning readings. So it helps to have some other mechanism to supplement it.
(I use jpdb, but anything where you can either get or create premade decks for the books you’re reading would have the same effect. My electronic dictionary also has a history of words I’ve looked up, so it’s also easy to add to a jpdb deck the words I did need to look up during extensive reading.)
They both have their own challenges and benefits, but I think manga - particularly with furigana - can be great for this. Especially if you can read within a series, genre, or setting (high school, romance, office, general SoL, etc - fantasy too, but a lot of that stuff gets hard, fast, and is not really extensive material unless you’re like 2/3rds through a long series like Inuyasha).
As others have said, each word is a higher proportion of the text. Meaning you’re seeing repeated words more frequently. The downside is that individual words are more important than in a light novel. The other downside is that there is a ton of vocab you’ll never see in manga, bc there’s no use for it (since description is largely replaced with images).
Like @pm215 I have also found the pre-studying (ie studying decks for specific books or series) thing beneficial (within reason). But I know not everyone does.
I think there’s been a lot of really good things said in here by more advanced readers, but I want to chime in with one more thing of manga vs novels.
With my experience over the course of this year, I think I’d be confident to say that the two mediums use different reading skills. They are incredibly interrelated, but they are different. (Not that anyone needs to) but if you look at my reading history for the year, I spent a good 3-5 months reading manga extensively “below” my reading level. Except that at the time, that wasn’t really true. Despite being able to read prose comfortably up to level 24, a level 24 manga would throw me for a loop. After reading a couple thousand manga pages, I’m more comfortable with reading manga closer to the level of prose I’m comfortable reading.
Funnily enough, I had come to Natively with probably 5-10 average length manga series read and exactly two children’s books, so when I first got here I thought manga was easy peasy and prose was neigh impossible. And after about a year of focusing on prose, my opinion of difficulty had flipped.
So my takeaway for you actually kinda turns your question in its head: what do you want to be able to read? If you focus on reading manga (either intensively or extensively), you’ll get better at reading manga. Sames goes for novels. You will 100% improve in both skills by solely working on one, but you’ll probably be better at one vs the other based on what you spend your time doing.
This was how I started with Manga but then because I was mostly reading at work or not up for intensive reading, I flipped to reading extensively so maybe that’s part of the issue I’m having. I think a lot of my manga is either furigana-less or much higher than the children’s books I’ve been reading.
Because I don’t get on well with SRS, this was partly what the textbooks were being used for (alongside explaining new grammar rules). Maybe I do need to add in something with short chapters for intensive reading and see how that goes.
The Anki cards I mine from manga are a lot prettier and more memorable than cards mined from prose.
It takes me a half a second from quickly glancing at the embedded manga image crop in my Anki card to immediately remember where I mined this from, how I felt while reading the manga, who the characters are, and the full context of how and why that particular word was used.
Whereas it often takes some guesswork to figure out what the source of my novel cards is. Even if I do remember (or, more often, manually check the source in one of the many JPMN fields,) the full context of the scene is at best fuzzy. I might not even remember who said that line, in case of dialogue.
PS: I am saying that as someone who’s read 80+ volumes of manga and only 7 novels (more precisely, a mix of children’s book + non-fiction + novel + light novel).
Thanks for everyone’s input, I really do appreciate it. I’m also grateful for everyone for putting up with my stupid questions
This is a long one, apologies in advance
Yeah, I was a bit vague, partly because I’m not sure how to explain it mostly meaning in comparison to full on studying. Obviously with reading it’s more enjoyable than active study (and apparently while enjoying something you’re more likely to absorb it in a learning sense), you get more exposure to natural language (mostly) etc. Reading through some of the other comments I think I’m comparing the wrong things and I think both have their strengths and weaknesses so focusing on one will help strengthen some parts and focusing on the other will help strengthen other parts of reading skill.
Reading novels is much higher on my list than reading Manga, purely because reading novels is what I enjoy most in English (I can let myself see the images in my head and it activates the creative part of my brain to then run riot ). So far I have been finding the children’s books to be easier than the Manga I was reading and most of the vocabulary in the manga that I didn’t know, context didn’t really help much.
I did notice after I wrote this when I was reading through some of the other posts that a lot of the higher level readers on here have been reading a lot longer than me and although sometimes even Lv24 is a struggle for me, I think you’re right. I need to read more and get through a lot more pages.
Before natively the only thing, other than textbooks, I had tried to read (and failed) was a few chapters of the first MNN ミラーさん novel. The Tadoku graded readers and such were all after I joined.
Yeah, I feel if I was more consistent and able to put the time and effort to more efficient use, then I will improve more. Before coming to natively I found several sites/ Vlogs and blogs which all said that the people who always managed to succeed with their language learning were the ones who continually put in the effort and even if they missed days or had issues, the ones who always came back to it and didn’t quit, those where the ones who succeeded, so that’s why I’m trying to keep at it no matter what. I also won’t give it up as I do enjoy interacting with Japanese.
Yeah, partly because when I’ve tried to join them, even to lurk and glean what I can, the books have been too high level for me (even the Zenitendo books are still a bit above my level which I think is comfortable around Lv19-Lv21 for children’s books). I have seen benefit from the book clubs, even after the fact. And I do intend to read the books for ones I have joined then had to drop temporarily due to difficulty.
I wonder if maybe I need to increase my reading level first then before the pre-made vocab decks will be of use. I have tried them before for both キノの旅, Zoo and for 本好き but they didn’t seem to help me much and I wasn’t keeping the info in my head long enough for it to be useful.
Yeah, that seems to be what I’ve found too though with most of the books I’ve read having Furigana on the first time you see the Kanji word on that page, that has also helped me with the readings even if the meanings have been unclear.
It was jpdb I used before, and I’ve tried making my own (both physical and digital). What electronic dictionary do you have? I’ve been trying to find one at a decent price that does Japanese as well (anything to get me off my phone during study time ).
Maybe I’m just not reading enough and need to get more exposure to native materials. Fantasy is more the genre I tend to go for since it is the most interesting for me to read. Not that I mind school, office etc but usually SoL or romance stuff is not my go to, but maybe I need to read ,ore of that to get to the point I can read the common everyday stuff easily, paving the way for the more difficult fantasy vocab since I should already know the grammar if I get plenty of exposure to it in SoL.
Yeah, that makes sense. I think that is also why I feel like I’m getting more from the images rather than the text in Manga whereas in novels, I get the images from the text and I do feel like the descriptions have way more impact than the dialogue for me.
That does make sense now I think about it. And if my goal is mostly swinging towards Novels and light novels then that should be what I focus more on. I have noticed that for me the Manga I’ve read do seem to be higher levels than the equivalent level of light novel etc. But I’m unsure if this is due to my lacking vocab or if it’s something else.
Natively was how I found out that trying to read native content was doable even at the level I was when I first started on here as I didn’t know about the Tadoku stuff or even the books with furigana in them until I started looking at the site and posting for recommendations
Novels and light novels are what I have been ultimately working towards so in that frame, it should be those that I continue to focus most of my energy on.
Very true, learning a language is a slow process but I do think that learning can be sped up (not in the frame of be fluent in 15 days or 3 months or such though, but more in a being more efficient with my time appoach) but I feel like as an adult, I should be able to be more effective with my learning. Yet I feel like I’ve been learning like a child would learn it (slightly backwards as my reading progressed before my speaking or listening did ). But maybe that is just how I need to learn and I should stop trying to streamline it. Maybe if it’s not broke, I shouldn’t be trying to fix it?
I think maybe my process for making cards was not as good as this since almost all of my books are physical and I didn’t have a way to add images to the cards (at least not images over a certain Mb). Maybe that’s something I should look at in the future
I am aware that some of my questions sometimes seem like stupid things to ask or seem like the obvious (this is not a reflection on any replies btw, just my own thoughts on my own thought process). The only real guidance I have with learning languages is the guidance I’ve picked up from the people here or in the language learning videos/ blogs etc that I’ve watched/ read and the only experience I have of learning languages (that I can remember) is the stuff in high school - which I failed - or the short time I’ve been studying Japanese. Although I think I really do need to remember that I have only been learning it for a short time in the scheme of things and as long as I’m progressing, it’s still in the right direction.
I don’t think this is true at all. I think all of us have different goals, tastes, study methods, time to study, native languages, etc etc. To me it’s always interesting to see what kinds of things people are thinking about while they learn, whether or not it applies to me. Speaking for myself at least, if any of my incredibly long and inefficient path through the Japanese language can be any help I’m happy to share. Especially if it keeps people from banging their heads against the wall and then burning out on the language for years at a time like me.
I had been reading almost exclusively novels and children’s books in Korean, and more recently started to read some mangas and webtoons. After much thought, I’ve decided that the best strategy for me would be to continue dedicating most of my reading time to prose, but still get some exposure to mangas/webtoons as well.
First of all, I want to be able to read novels, that’s my primary goal. I do also want to be able to read webtoons though if I feel like it, so it wouldn’t make sense to stop that completely. Another thing is that I realized vocabulary in novels and mangas can be extremely different. I’d tried reading a webtoon, Lookism, and couldn’t get past the first couple pages a few months ago. It was better than shortly after I started Korean, but still not great. Recently, I tried reading it again, and I realized I was tripping up on the exact same words as before. In all those months, my reading level had gotten a lot better, and yet, my ability to read this webtoon wasn’t improving! And there’s a simple explanation for that: novels often don’t use any slang. Now in webtoons and mangas on the other hand… Seeing slang is quite common.
So there’s some manga specific vocab. Another one is grammar! I’ve gone around most intermediate grammar points, the new ones that I encounter these days are advanced. But not in mangas? And the simple reason for that is that it has more speaking specific grammar points. Now, I do admit that I don’t do a lot of listening, and this could indeed be solved instead by watching more content. But the simple fact is that I don’t, and I won’t, not as much as I’m willing to spend time reading mangas/webtoons either way, so the better option is for me to read them from time to time, to get that exposure.
I will stick to reading more novels however, because there is that richness in grammar and description vocabulary that you just don’t get in manga.
Mine is a Casio XD-GP9700. It was pretty pricy, but it’s lasted me the best part of a decade now. I’m tempted to get a new one when I’m in Japan next spring, but that’s more because I’m tempted by a new gadget than because it would would honestly be a major upgrade
I personally am a dictionary snob, which means I insist on a model with the Kenkyusha 新和英大辞典 JE dictionary (a.k.a. the “green goddess”). Unfortunately only the top end of the range has that. If you only care about JJ dictionaries then you can get much cheaper models. There’s also a secondhand market – I think I’ve seen at least one person either here or on the WK forum get a cheap one second hand from Japanese Amazon or ebay + one of the drop shipping services.
The one thing I’ll add is that manga are great bc they’re fast(er than novels). So if it’s painful, it’s over quickly, and overall you can cram more similar content (ie vocab). At least for me, if I have to drop or pause a manga, it feels like a much smaller setback than pausing an LN.
Two fantasy tips (for later?)
For fantasy I would absolutely go with manga over novels at first. It greatly reduces the complexity, while still giving you the essential/interesting bits. Especially when it comes to having magic and mechanics explained, that can get really painful in novels. Same issue with battles, at least for me.
Fantasy is really domain specific. The stuff that makes 犬夜叉 | L25 hard vs all the “reincarnated into an aristocratic life” vs サルビアのブーケ(上) | L24 or しかばね少女と愛が重い聖騎士の討伐学園ライフ | L22 , etc, can all be pretty different. Of all the stuff I’ve tried, I’d consider the aristocratic and the borderline sci-fi stuff to be hardest, most of the time.
I feel like I get a lot more learning out of reading light novels than manga. Purely from a time efficiency standpoint, I am actively interpreting more words per minute and in more contexts. Manga can sometimes feel more limited to dialogue while novels tend to make wider use of descriptive language.
The main benefit I could see to manga is dealing with less words at a time and that it has pictures that can help with understanding word meaning. Maybe dealing with less words can help them sink in better? As for the pictures part, I would make the argument that coming up with your own mental visualizations while reading a novel can be just as beneficial for retaining vocab.
This is only my opinion and everyone has different preferences and learning styles. I read like 100 vols of manga when I was first learning the language but I have barely touched any manga since I built up the confidence to start reading light novels. It just feels more efficient/enjoyable for me.
I think this is the best answer. Catering your language learning routine to you goals should probably be more important than coming up with an optimal learning program.
My suggestion is to just start reading fantasy and don’t worry about optimizing your path to get there! There might be some overlap from other genres but not enough to delay reading what you are interested in.
So I’m a little bit confused on your process. Right now, you’re reading everything extensively (no lookups), except for textbooks, do I have that right?
I think if you want to broaden your vocab you will need to look words up when you read. Maybe not 100% of the time, but you’ll have to figure out a way to fit it into your habits. It’s pretty tough to pick up words purely with context (need to have that perfect level of understanding all the words around it) and would take much longer.
If you really dislike reading with lookups, probably alternating extensive and intensive is the best idea. Short sessions of intensive reading (maybe at the beginning of the study session when you’re fresh) and then longer sessions of “for fun” extensive reading might help.
Also, re:book clubs, you could try joining one of the children’s book clubs and making that an intensive, with lookups read. It’s only 10-15 pages a week so would not be 100% of your reading time.
I feel like some of the questions I ask are stupid (especially when sometimes the answer seems so obvious once I get it ) but thank you. It does help me as well to see others thoughts and process etc for learning/ studying and also the pitfalls that others come across. I like reading through all the blogs and seeing others thoughts on their progress and process as well as what has helped or hindered.
That makes sense, I have a textbook on how to read Manga and it does cover differences in grammar etc compared with prose.
I think this is why I had been preferring the children’s books (as well as Zoo and キノの旅) because of the richness and the imagery it created for me.
Thank you, I will check these out. The only JE dictionary I have currently is the Kanji Learners dictionary, or the apps on my phone but having the e-dictionary might help me stop procrastinating every time I lift my phone I would get a physical JE dictionary but none of the ones I’ve found so far have been that comprehensive. If the Kenkyusha is the one I think it is, I would need a decent shelf to hold it
So although common grammar and vocab will be similar across the board, if I end up reading stuff like this, then each series can have vastly different vocabulary just due to the nature of Fantasy/ Sci-fi in general. That does make sense but I hadn’t thought too much into that. I get the feeling this is going to be more of a read what you enjoy and you start to understand the sub genre better but when you switch, I’ll either need lower level stuff to switch to or have a high difficulty curve, but manga can help bridge the gap a little.
Thanks for the suggestions, I’ve added them to my list, the shorter 2 series may be what I would go for first (my next order will be end of January I think).
That was similar to how I was thinking when I was reading Flying Witch. Mostly dialogue or thoughts and very little description. Not that that’s necessarily bad, just different.
I was wondering about this. There’s been some parts in novels, both in English and Japanese, where I’ve read something and had that image in my mind and things just kind of click. There was vocab from キノの旅 light novel that I remembered after only reading it once, even though it was different from what was in the anime, yet the stuff in the anime I don’t remember as vividly. And for Flying Witch, I remember the scenes, but not necessarily the words said.
Very true. I think with learning style I’m still finding that which is possibly part of my struggle. And even in English, I have some graphic novels and translated Manga but I rarely read it (my English manga/ graphic novel library is very small compared with English novels).
That does make sense. So if my goal is to read novels, I should be focusing more on novels and light novels.
This also makes a lot of sense. I think the reason I’ve stuck to the children’s books so far is because I don’t want to put myself off reading more difficult stuff that I actually want to read. Eg when I read キノの旅 early last year, parts were a struggle for me which slowed down my enjoyment of it and in turn made me want to increase my language skills so I could understand it a lot better. But if I keep thinking like that, it may cause me to stagnate and not actually reach for higher levels. Maybe I should look at trying to read something more difficult for when I’m at home and have uninterrupted time and then use the children’s books for when I’m at work and it’s not a major issue if I don’t fully get what’s happening.
Most of the time, yes. If it’s a textbook, or I’m reading at home or I’ve seen a word come up multiple times and it seems important (or I’m reading short passages from other text) then I look it up. Also for words that come up in my language exchanges and tutor lessons, I look up all words and grammar from those that I don’t know. We do review those regularly and refresh them in different scenarios too.
That does make sense. I need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable about it or find a better was of doing it. Most of the words I’ve picked up from context have been because I know the separate readings/ meanings of the kanji and worked it out within that context then looked it up to be sure if I was correct. Or I’ve already known the word but never seen the kanji form of it before.
Reading intensively at the start of a session might be the way to go with this that way I’m doing both, as that probably is what I’m lacking.
I haven’t joined any recently (other than the ongoing informal Zenitendo one) just because I’ve been trying not to encourage myself to buy more books but I have been voting on the books that I have, they’re just not popular enough compared to others atm.
I’ve still got ダンジョン飯, また、同じ夢を見ていた, and also 本好き bookclubs to go back to but atm all of those are harder than I can tolerate just now. I did try them at the time they went live. There are a few other bookclubs I will join later for some of the more difficult books I have as well.
Yeah, I think try this and then if you’re not feeling improvement you can reevaluate again. The problem with textbook vocabulary, or language exchange vocabulary, is that it may not be the same group of vocab that a novel would use. Like, Quartet recently assumed I knew something like ‘cost of living,’ but that hasn’t come up in Zenitendou The best way to get the type of vocab that novels use is to look them up when you’re reading novels imo!
Yeah, I think based on what you’re describing as your issues, those picks are probably too hard. If you dislike intensive reading already, but then immediately start doing it with something more difficult than what you’re used to reading, you’ll probably bounce off and get discouraged all over again.
