Hey fellow WaniKani-ites, termites, crabigatormites, hell, カニによる死, 僕の 死亡－ Sorry, too much caffeine and not enough sleep this morning.
I’m looking to significantly improve my Japanese reading and comprehension. I have around 200 kanji down and am working my way through Genki 1 atm. Katakana is still the bane of my life, unfortunately.
What resources would you guys suggest? Any vaguely interesting reading material that isn’t the same old textbook drivel I encounter in Genki 1 would be super helpful! Tips and advice are welcome too.
I would say graded readers are the most appropriate at your level.
If you can’t stand them and really want native material, maybe buckle up and tried to at least finish genki 1 quickly, otherwise it’s going to be almost impossible.
These KLC readers are really, really well done. There are other graded readers people use and hopefully they can recommend some. 200 Kanji won’t get you very far, unfortunately. At that level I really enjoyed reading kids’ picture books. They help give you a feel for the language without burying you in incomprehensible text. Got some Eric Carle books in Japanese from the public library, and kids’ books from Japan have some gorgeous art.
I see. Thanks for the resource link, I’ll be sure to visit once I’m off work tonight. I’m in Japan for the foreseeable future, so I’ve no excuse to not make the most of Japanese childrens’ books. Illuminating advice, cheers
Jealous! Since you’re in Japan, pick up some glossy magazines with lots of pictures (I liked Casa Brutus and browsing the photo books upstairs at Osaka’s Athens bookstore). Try reading short articles, or even just sidebars to the photos. When it’s a topical magazine (about art or architecture or cars or fashion or whatever interests you) you’ll start to see the same vocab over and over and really cement those kanji.
I went through that one at level 10 and I recognized a lot of the kanji. It has audio too that you can put on your phone and listen to when you’re not on the computer.
