Hi! I have tried to search for this topic but can’t find it - but sorry if this is a duplicate!
I’m interested in reading manga to help my understanding of sentence structure, to pick up vocab, and to implement kanji I’ve already started learning here
I have had about a couple of years experience with Japanese but would still count myself as a beginner, maybe post-beginner.
Do you have any recommendations for mangas for that level? And perhaps a slightly higher level if I really want to push myself?
I plan to sit down with them and try and translate whatever I can
On top of this, Card Captor Sakura is nice reading and much better than the anime.
Pretty much most shounen or shoujo manga will be readable with a bit of patience and dictionary work as they tend to have furigana.
Some of the more “mature” stuff can be a little harder to read technically though, xxxHolic isn’t a walk in the park and I basically couldn’t be arsed trying to decipher all of the in-universe technical speak in Evangelion.
Edit:
Eva was a few years ago though, I might have more fun with it this time around but as I recall there were a lot of terms like 使徒 しと apostle and stuff like ABSOLUTE TERROR FIELD…
Thank you! I watched CCS when I was younger so that would be fun for me to be able to translate!
Have you read Boku No Hero Academia at all? I currently love that shounen so that may be an interest
It is very much a new little story in each chapter =)
But I would recommend picking up the first one too for context. We have a thread for Nr. 1 too, so can get some help and pointers =)
I have kind compilation of ドラえもん stories which are supposed to be 感動的.
The chapters are mostly short and the Japanese isn’t too difficult and has some nice colour to it.
Alot of them were written years ago and most of the characters are ojisan or grew up during the war, so their dialects reflect that.
ドラえもん was super difficult for me when I was starting to learn Japanese, but that might be just my case! I think it uses a lot of slang and casual Japanese when I only learned 敬語 at the time.
I think よつばと is the best manga for beginners/pre intermediate.
There are also good topics with reading clubs here in the forums!
I would say the best thing is to look around and search for stuff that interests you.
It seems you like shounen. They normally have furigana. But most shounen don’t use normal speech or day to day vocabulary. So maybe not the best for learning but still great to keep you engaged with the language.
As far as recommendations in that space go: スラムダンク hands down!
Shoujo is more down-to-earth usually as they tend to be daily life with fantastic mixed in.
Shounen tends to be fantastical with daily life mixed in to ground it.
I think the best example is probably something like Vampire Knight. I was hoping it would be about vampire knights, but actually it was just about a school with vampires in it who happen to have knighthoods or something.
I think in Card Captors, Sakura captures like 3 cards in the entire first 2 volumes.
