Japanese with Manga is a project of mine to explain Japanese with annotated examples from manga.
The site provides explanations with examples from manga for various aspects of Japanese:
Grammar
Grammar explanation pages give basic information on the grammar. Nothing too thorough, and it won’t replace using a dedicated grammar resource. The page’s goal here is to have at least the minimal amount of information necessary for the grammar.
Then examples from manga show the various situations where the grammar is used:
Vocabulary
I’m still working out what I want the vocabulary pages to be, but for now they focus on various individual vocabulary words or groups of related words.
Kanji
These explanation give basic meaning information, then arrange words using the kanji into categories, with manga examples.
Idioms
This section is my favorite, although it has the least content. The idiom explanation page explains the idiom, as it often means more than the sum of its words, and gives one or more examples from manga.
The manga examples are the star of the site, and the reason I created it.
Resources for learning Japanese tend to give examples in the form of single sentences with no greater context and no visual aid. Incorporating a manga panel helps work around this for me.
Panel
The core of the example page is a manga panel:
Explanation Link
The panel includes a lot of information to learn and know, but each example was added to the site for a specifc explanantion page, linked to here.
Context
The context gives the relevant background necessary to know what’s going on in the panel.
Dialogue
Even though you can click/tap on the panel image to see it at full size, sometimes furigana is still too small to read, or maybe not present at all. A transcript of the dialogue is provided, with full furigana. (A site-wide option lets you hide furigana until you hover/tap the text.) English translaitons are also available, although they require a click/tap to reveal them.
Challenge
Every example comes with an optional challenge. Before revealing the English translation, challenge yourself first to see if you can understand the Japanese dialogue. Clues are available, and the answering is via a sparse multiple choice, so it’s not too difficult.
The purpose of the challenge to get you to focus on the different parts of the dialogue that make up the whole, and think about what they convey. It’s the thinking part that helps make the material more memorable, versus simply clicking a button, reading a translation, moving on, and forgetting it.
Key Points
These further break down the dialogue, covering different aspects. This helps give exposure to the various grammar appearing in the dialogue, as well as tricky things not covered in traditional education material (such as dropped particles).
Vocabulary
Most examples don’t have this yet, but I’m working to build up a vocabulary list for each example:
See Also
Each page ends with links to any grammar, vocabulary, kanji, or idiom explanation pages that help explain parts of the dialogue.
Hopefully there are others out there who can benefit from this format as much as I do!
Repeat for anyone scrolling on a smartphone:
I am also not among the people who use Discord and would contact you for more details that way.
