Reading for Beginners and Text Generator

Japanese Language Reading
#1

Hello! I started studying Japanese about two months ago and as for many: I’m kind of struggling on my kanji saga. Just like someone that does an exchange program in Japan and dive into infinite possibilities which force them to learn the language, I noticed that I have to live the language (to an extent) in order to my brain to retain all of the information thrown at my direction everyday here in Wanikani and on my JP Class.

1. What materials do you guys recommend me to start reading as a very beginner, even though I won’t understand many things, to help me familiarize with the grammar itself? Like for example books or anything for children with very simple texts that use everyday words talking about things surrounding them, like school and stuff.

2. Is Text Generating actually a thing among students of any language? Like if I pick all the words (that means kana and kanji) that I’m presented by Wanikani and my JP Class, throw them at a text generating software or website and it builds texts for me to read, using this limited range of words.

I tried but I was not able to find anything related to text generating as a form of studying a limited set of words in Japanese.
Thank you in advance.

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#2

Not sure if I’ve ever hear about text generation as a way of producing reading materials but here are some suggestions

  • NHK News Easy - This has furigana but if you’ve only just started it will take a while to get the grammar
  • Tango Risto - Does NHK News Easy and Japanese fairy tales in app form with furigana selectable by JLPT level
  • Graded Readers - Search for threads on them here, I’ve never used them but they are popular
  • Children’s books - Easier to do if in Japan, but I picked up a few second hand children’s picture books and these are a great place to start, often all in hiragana. My favourite is called ひくまのあき. It’s about bears in autumn (no surprises) and has beautiful woodcut illustration. I picked this, and a few others up, a a second hand bookstall in 駅前通り in Sapporo, which may not be the most convenient for you.
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#3

Also could try

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#4

Thank you for pointing at the right direction for me. I’ll start today.

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#5

Graded readers are the closest thing to auto generated texts that I can think of, as they use vocab, kanji a grammar limited to a level. You won’t be able to chose the exact items though.

Some websites like www.japanese.io also have a search function with very specific parameters, so you can find low level texts. Good luck!

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#6

It won’t write a book for you but if you have some shows with subtitles this set up in Anki can pick up sentences that are within your known words to practice reading and listening of known vocab. Also can search for sentences with your knowledge +1 new word to progressively increase your vocab using sentences.

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#7

This creates sentences based on your WK level. It’s been so long since I’ve tried it so I forget what type of features it has but at least it’s something you could try.

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#9

Guys sorry for the late response and also for bringing up this topic again. But I couldn’t keep myself from thanking every one of you for giving me those tips. They’ll be very useful for me to trace a route for my studies. Thanks.

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#10

This comic is perfect as a first reading material. It’s cute and very simple, and since each chapter is only 1 page long, not too exhausting.

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#11

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