Almost one year ago, I decided to learn Japanese because I wanted to know why it was such a hard language to learn. I actually started with Chinese since I’ve heard it’s the hardest language for native English speakers to learn, but I switched to Japanese because I play a lot of Nintendo games, and it has more utility for someone who spends as much time in those online communities as I do. I also wanted a cheap, “productive” hobby, and I’m slightly jealous of people who can speak more than one language. I don’t really have any ties to Japan, and I wasn’t all that interested in its culture until recently, but I like a good challenge, and I’m too proud to quit now.
After one year of using WaniKani, I feel like I’m ready to start reading real Japanese daily, but I wanted some advice on what to read.
I tried reading Yotsubato, and I can follow what they’re saying well enough not to be completely lost, but I have to look up a ton of words. At first, I basically translated everything in every speech bubble and didn’t move on until I knew what every symbol was there for. It was weirdly fun, but it takes forever, and I don’t think I want to continue that. After that, I only spent a minute or two trying to understand everything and only looked up words if it would clear any confusion or if it appeared multiple times. With that approach, I felt like I could understand enough of their dialog to know what was happening in each scene and what each character was trying to say, even if I didn’t fully comprehend every word.
My main takeaways from Volume 1 of Yotsubato:
- It’s annoying how little kanji there is. I find it hard to “guess” the meaning of a word without it.
- There are huge differences in the way each character speaks. I can easily understand Yotsuba’s dialog because she speaks like a toddler and her language is very direct. Everyone else speaks very casually, and that’s difficult for me.
- Since WaniKani mainly teaches vocabulary as a way to memorize kanji, I feel like I’ve missed out on lots of very common words and kana-only phrases.
That being said, I still love Yotsuba so far, and I’m a huge fan of Azumanga Daioh (Azuma Kiyohiko’s previous series), so I’ll definitely read the rest of it and buy it physically one day.
I also tried reading Japanese Wikipedia, since reading a full article is one of my goals for 2026. I chose to read about Scott Joplin, a pianist who composed the Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer. I chose this article because I know a lot of things about him already and I should be able to understand any musical terms the article might use. This might sound weird, but I also think the article being about a westerner would mean there would be fewer confusing Japanese-specific terms. The names of places, people, titles, etc. are also written in Katakana, which helps a lot.
I haven’t read the whole article, but here are my takeaways from reading the header and the first part of section 1:
- It felt great to know the meaning of some words without looking it up. One example was 作曲家, meaning “composer” (the symbols basically say ‘one who makes music’).
- I feel like I’m almost able to read it, but a lot of it passes me by. Basically, I can figure out what a paragraph is trying to convey, but taking individual words or a full sentence and coming up with an exact meaning is not really possible for me right now.
- This article is a little too far beyond my level to enjoy reading. Right now, it’s more of a benchmark than something I actually want to spend time doing every day.
With all that in mind, does anybody have any advice on where I should go from here? I love reading manga because I can get a lot of context from the art, but sometimes it can be a little too casual and use a lot of contractions. I also like the idea of reading Japanese articles, but Wikipedia is just too complicated for me to get much out of it right now. What else should I be doing besides that + WaniKani?
