I can’t exactly tell you at which level you could or not because WaniKani is not the only things that counts in it. It is an advance novel so if you never read book before I reccomend not reading it now. You may be able to find the first few pages on the amazon. If you know very little kanji this is not a book for you.
You can always try though but it’s is recommended to have a advanced level.
As icefang97 already mentioned, WK only teaches kanji and some vocab to reinforce the kanji readings, it is by no means a comprehensive Japanese resource. If all you do is WK, at level 60 you’ll be able to recognize a lot of the most common kanji (but not all) and know some of the vocab that uses it (but not all, as that is not the purpose of this site. Words commonly written without kanji would also be quite difficult if you only ever learned the kanji variant).
As far as kanji go, as this is a novel intended for a mature audience, they’ll probably expect the reader to know the 2000+ kanji students learn through junior high school. Only uncommon/exceptional readings will likely be written with furigana the first time they appear.
Depending on how much having to look up unknown words/kanji bothers you, and how big your tolerance for understanding less than 100 percent is, the threshold varies of course.
You can start reading at any time. Depending on your knowledge of vocab, grammar and kanji, as well as your expectations regarding comprehension, the time it would take to read it will differ greatly, of course.
That said, unless you’re particularly stubborn in the face of difficulty, this should probably not be your first native reading material. Imo, of course.
Raionus helpfully put the amazon sample into this site that acts as a browser reader, letting you look up unknown words and kanji as you go. (As I understand it.) Might be useful in gauging the level of kanji and grammar needed to comfortably read this novel.
The first post in this topic says we’re reading “until part 4”, but I feel like I remember people saying we were going to read until the end of part 4 in the home thread(and I think that page count matches the amount better from what I remember?), so could someone give confirmation on how far we’re reading this week? Until part 4 or until the end of part 4?
I’ve read half of it but haven’t personally had anything I felt I needed to ask about yet. I’m not a genius though I’ll probably read the rest after I’ve finished this week’s reading for the other book clubs, since the deadline for those is earlier in the week. (So I guess a mix of not needing to ask and not having read yet for me)
I usually do not have questions. I can understand ~95% without a dictionary or a grammar book, so I just infer the rest. That can lead to completely wrong interpretations, though, but I won’t notice Except if it’s plot-relevant, of course, then I’ll notice the discrepancy.
Well w/e I’ll just go first. I’m probably one of the weaker readers in this thread since I haven’t done crap in the last year.
「もうちょっと福利厚生充実してないと、俺みたいなゆとりは納得できないよ?」
Last half I’m not solid on. I get he’s expressing his discontent but I’m not sure what 俺みたいなゆとり is supposed to mean. ゆとり means like “leeway” or something? I’m not sure how 俺みたい works with that and I don’t know how you 納得できない an 俺みたいなゆとり
To add to what @Vanilla said, the yutori education system had as one of its goals to raise children with critical thinking abilities, which is the point in that sentence.
(So someone with critical thinking skills such as “I” can’t agree with the proposed conditions)
I feel like knowing about the Japanese education system is crazy specific. Except if you are directly involved with it (kids, work), I don’t see it coming up too often…
By the way, the Yutori system is now over. The new system is actually called 脱ゆとり教育. Such naming skills. Much imagination. Very design.
You just need to read Japanese review on amazon and then you will be perfect in Japanese. You will be able to pass the famous JLPT 0. Don’t tell me you are one of the person that do not believe in reading amazon review in Japanese?
I thought I’d give this a go since I’ve owned the first book for a few years, but was never able to understand it.
I was surprised with how I didn’t find the prologue too impossible.
I’ll probably be pretty behind with this club, but at least I’m reading something that I’ve wanted to read in Japanese.
It’s probably extremely beyond my level of Japanese still, however.