How do you make something a wiki post?
If you’re at the Regular forum level, there’s an option in the post’s more options menu:
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Ah, I see! Thanks for explaining it to me.
Commas in Japanese are like:
いいんですけど、ちょっと待って下さい。
そう言ったら、怒るでしょう。
Like, when something becomes another part of the sentence, like clauses (?):
If I wanted to do it, I would’ve done it already.
When you say that you will change, do you really mean it?
Something like that?
I would need some examples for the other question, since I remember seeing something similar, but it’s usually either a weird contraction, slang, or something like that.
You’d have to know a lot of vocab to know where something starts and ends, even more so if they’re speaking in 平仮名 instead of 漢字.
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What do you mean with start and stop? Do you mean where one words starts and ends? Where one clause starts and ends? When one sentence starts and ends (I assume not this one since 。is similar enough to . to be recognizable and you’d read some grammar)?
If you want to know where one word stops and another begin, start by learning the particles, they will usually mark where one word ends and another begins (although they aren’t always between words, for example when verbs modify nouns there is usually no particle (aka a noun phrase)). In my experience there aren’t that many words that have both katakana and hiragana together, they do exist and since katakana is used for emphasis (and a couple of other uses), words that normally don’t have katakana might have it (in native material).
But @Kazzeon is right, a bigger vocabulary will probably be the most helpful tool, as well as texts with a lot of kanji.
I’m not sure at all what you are talking about here, unless you are talking about the space between words.
When it comes to commas, there are certain places where it is common to put commas, such as the places @Kazzeon mentioned. But when reading native material they might be put in the middle of clauses to break up the sentence or put in a bit of emphasis. So when reading be aware that they can come right in the middle of something and you can’t read the two parts of the sentence separately. For using them yourself, it is easiest to just use the normal place of putting them after but/because/if and those kinds of words (から、ので、けど、たら、なら, etc.).
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Well, I notice some words that I know, however, I’ve noticed in another post about the katakana w/ hiragana in it and wasn’t sure how to read it.
It’s also hard to read knowing what affects what. I think I just need more knowledge about grammar and vocabulary.
I’m also not trained to hot=switch between readings even though I know that if it has ofurigana that it’s usually kun-yomi and kanji strings are usually onyomi.
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@MissDagger Sometimes the particles are not easy to see since there is no word spacing.
I know of the basic ones: か、と、の、and も。And が to some extent.
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I totally get that. In the beginning it is really hard to separate out each part.
One way to make it easier quicker is to learn more of the particles because they are a fairly easy way to pick out words, especially in easier texts. (Aka texts either aimed at beginners or low JLPT level or similar.) Almost every word ends with a particle, and if you know them, then you’ll be able to break up the Japanese into different words.
Otherwise it is just to mostly soldier on and learn more grammar and vocabulary. (Particles are grammar, but you could if you wanted to focus on just them for a bit, so you can start dividing Japanese easier.)
https://ichi.moe is a good site for putting in a whole sentence and it will help break it up into its component parts and also mark different conjugations. Obviously, it won’t always get things right, but it can be a good start. 
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ありがとうございます。
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Calling all eBook readers
I’ve got quite a few eBook purchasing options listed, and I’d really like to garner some opinions from those who’ve tried out several, on which are better than others, whether they’re all much of a muchness, and so on.
So, if you’ve tried any of them, please do chime in!
- eBook Japan
- Book Walker
- BookLive
- Honto
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I’ve used both eBook Japan and Bookwalker (mobile mainly for both) and between the two I prefer Bookwalker for a few reasons:
- Easier to sign up for an account. eBookJapan recently became Yahoo!Japan and the signup process for a Y!J account is cumbersome–I think I recall having to input a JP address because I had to look up my Tenso one. Someone in the forum wrote a guide for it, but I don’t have the link. I think it was in one of the Absolute Beginner bookclubs.
- Has an app in the NA Google play store. When eBookJP merged with Y!JP the NA app is no longer available, and the new app is JP region only. You would need to either be in Japan, use a VPN, or other way to spoof the region. For me in NA, this was too bothersome.
- Bookwalker has both an english-translated-book site (global.bookwalker.jp) and the japanese site (bookwalker.jp). Your one account works for both, and both types of books will show in the NA app for reading, which is nice.
- If you highlight a word and hit translate it will pull up Google translate for whatever that’s worth. It’s also fairly configurable for font size and spacing.
- Price wise I think they’re generally about the same?
Right now there are a few books free to read you could test out if you wanted to.
I was using AmazonJP on my kindle until it started yelling about regions as well and liked it quite a bit.
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Thank you! I was aware of the switch to Yahoo, but wasn’t sure whether it had shaken out as better in the end.
This might not be best placed in ‘Starting to Read’, but at some point I will write a detailed guide to extracting free stuff from Bookwalker - it is an almost limitless source of free manga with a few early volumes often being put up for free when a new one is released - for example, the first volume of ふらいんぐうぃっち was 100% off in early November, the first volume of BLAME! is free at the moment, and there’s a bunch of 進撃の巨人 up now for people who are into it.
While you can register in English (skipping the hardest part), one gotcha is that the free manga section also contains 試し読み (trial read) books that expire from your account after a while. If you’re slow like me, this can be a problem. (Although a good incentive to buy the books!)
If you’re on a budget, the trick is to find books that have been given a time limited discount to zero yen - start from the free manga section, but then apply a further filter on the left hand side for 期間限定価格, “limited time pricing”. The link for “all free manga with limited time pricing, in order of release” looks something like this. Of course, if you find something in a series you like, you can always drill in on that book to review the rest of it.
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Oooh, thank you for the link! It’s not in there, no 
I had a look at the About section and so on but couldn’t see anything addressing the, er, legality of the site! Do you happen to know how it works? They seem to be paying a translator, but I can’t see anything to suggest they have a licence to distribute these manga (and in fact they seem willing to put anything up if you just email them a transcription in two languages).
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Yeah, as far as I can see it doesn’t really look like legal stuff 
Seems like it works just as other unofficial scanlators from what I can see
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Ah, I don’t think I can add it then, sorry - you might want to delete your post as it’s against the forum rules and you’ll get a rap on the knuckles from the mods.
Oh God, I definetly wasn’t aware! Sorry and thank you!
It’s not a problem, don’t worry 
better to hear about stuff and filter it out if needed.
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What’s the site that showed some example sentences from a text and assesses the difficulty of it for you? I forgot what was it called and it doesn’t appear on the resource master list.
As noted above, I troll through Bookwalker occasionally looking for stuff I am familiar with even if I’m not ready to start reading it. Remember to check the series view down the bottom of the page to see if any additional volumes are free that I overlooked.
Notable free-to-keep books on Bookwalker, 2/1/2020:
- 無限の住人 aka, “Blade of the Immortal”, a 1,172 page compilation of the first five volumes.
- ああっ女神さまっ aka, “Oh My Goddess!”, another compilation, running 729 pages.
-
はたらく細菌 aka, “
CellsBacteria at Work!”, a “Cells at Work!” spinoff (thank you @DollyDaydream for picking this up, I need to pay more attention!) - はたらく細胞フレンド ベツフレプチ one of the spin-offs of “Cells at Work!”.
- 金田一３７歳の事件簿 spin-off from the main Kindaichi Case Files series.
- シャーマンキング, aka “Shaman King”.
- 頭文字Ｄ aka, “Initial D” (three volumes).
- 沈黙の艦隊 aka, “the Silent Service” (submarine manga, three volumes).
Last but not least:
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