Is there a "Level 3" for Paul Noble or a bridge to native content?

Japanese Language
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Hey everyone, I’ve been studying Japanese for 2 years and I’m hitting a massive wall.

Paul Noble’s Learn Japanese is the only thing that ever really clicked for me, but he only has two books and then you’re on your own. I’ve tried Pimsleur (too slow), WaniKani, and even children’s stories, but the leap from “tourist phrases” to “children’s books” feels impossible. Every AI tool I try (like Jumpspeak) assumes I already know more than I do.

Does anyone else feel like there’s a missing “Bridge” for people who are past the tourist phase but aren’t ready for native content? What are you guys using to fill that gap?

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If you want to get into reading, I highly recommend

It’s not free, but it does have some free contents too, so you can try and see for yourself if you want it.

There is also a free app

Also, there is

and

In any case, best of luck with your studies! wricat

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Have a look at the “Tadoku graded readers”. They are very simple stories with various “levels”, that build up little by little. And lots of them are available for free in pdf

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There’s also plenty of other graded readers apart from the ones already mentioned, e.g. the ones listed on Natively, ordered by difficulty: Japanese Graded Readers Difficulty List | Natively

And once you’re at the point where you want to tackle your first native content manga, I recommend doing it together with the Absolute Beginner Book Club. You can ask questions, get corrections for translations and read the answers to other people’s questions, all of which massively helps. I don’t think there’s a better way to take the leap into native content, and you’ll find lots of people on these forums who’ve started the “native media” part of their journey there.

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I think there’s already some good answers in here, but the big thing for me was changing the way I looked at reading - I was too focused on "solving’ what I was reading by making sure I understood all of it, looking up anything I was uncertain on, and while I occasionally also got to practice figuring out things by context, it was a lot of work and not sure how helpful that was - I was learning to use a dictionary and to overstress every detail.

Coming into this year, I decided that I was going to try to read and watch/listen and accept and even embrace uncertainty. If something comes up frequently, or if it’s something I feel like is critical, I might look it up, but otherwise I’m just going to enjoy the story as best I can and if I miss some nuance, I can live with that.

Once I decided that perfection wasn’t required, it became a lot easier to read stuff, and I didn’t have to feel like I had to limit myself to things primarily made for language learners/beginners/children. It doesn’t mean I can just read anything - I’ve got a hockey manga for example that I put a couple of days into and realized I am mot prepared for yet - but it does let me read and listen to things more for enjoyment and less because it’s easy enough to understand 90% of or more.

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