At what level and can I start reading light/visual novels?

[anon70208943]

Thank you very much. I really do appreciate it

[Aggelitus]

I started reading visual novels at level 18.

Kanji and vocabulary are not a big problem because you can use mouseover dictionaries to simply hover any word you don’t know and see multiple definitions for it. Grammar is much harder because if you don’t know the basics, you won’t know how to break down the sentence so you won’t know what to look up.

Since I had below N5 grammar knowledge when I started reading, it was really hard, but it was also extremely satisfying when I came across sentences that I actually could read. It was a huge motivation boost that made me study grammar like mad.

There is no real minimum level that you should be before you start reading. You could start much earlier than I did. All you really need is knowledge of basic grammar and the right tools.

Here’s a guide that I threw together on how extract text from your VN and hover it for definitions.

[anon70208943]

I have seen people recommending to extract texts to read look up unknown words, but I feel like I would like to read things when I feel a lot more confident first and know the grammar, vocabs and kanji into at least intermediate level before I start reading things, because I would like to feel confident and comfortable first. But thank you though

[d34th4ck3r]

how do you know that level 60 might not be enough to read if you’re not on level 60 yet?

Well, as others have answered, reading Japanese is a lot more than just Kanji. It is vocabulary plus a lot of grammar not all of which is covered in WaniKani.

I heard that getting on N3 or level 51 is enough to read most novels, of course not newspaper, but maybe more casual novels?

It depends on your definition of “reading” if by reading you mean you are able to just call out loudly what is written without 100% understanding what it actually means, maybe you are correct. You might be able to read simple novels with furigana for Kanji(or at least for difficult Kanji). But if your definition is to read it with the same comfort level as your native language so that you don’t feel a difference, that’s a long long journey ahead, my friend.