I would just give it a try if I were you! If my memory is correct, I think there’s some free sample articles to check out. I just like it for all the reasons I listed. Fun and interesting stories + articles, instant ability to look up meaning of any word and/or sentence and/or grammar, in-depth and easy to understand explanations of the grammar, and integration with WaniKani (so there’s only furigana for the kanji you haven’t learned yet).
Back in early 2015, I began my Japanese learning journey with Human Japanese parts 1 and 2 (same creators as Satori Reader), so from those alone I strongly vouch from their writing and explanations. Before using those programs, I just assumed I was bad at learning languages, but they made it actually fun and understandable.
It probably doesn’t get much better than Satori reader, especially if you are somewhat of a beginner and have some sort of ADHD. The episodes are short, you can listen to sentence by sentence, translations, explainations and sync with WK to only show furigana with words you don’t know. Reading usually bores me, especially when I have to check on words, but the app makes it much easier to deal with and it actually gets fun. I’ve read about 30 episodes in the first 24h alone. Highly recommend.
Reading is hard when you start and then even after you get better at it it’s STILL hard.
I started about a year ago(?) with graded readers (the free ones you can find online) up through level 2-3 or so, then switched to NHK Easy, now I’m doing the easiest material on Satori Reader. All of those moves represent improvement, since before I switched I found the newer material too challenging.
SR is great, since if you encounter a word you don’t know or forgot the reading for, you can just click on it to look it up, and if you get through a sentence and feel like you didn’t get the grammar, you can get a translation to compare it to (although some of the translations are more literal than others). It feels a bit like cheating sometimes because you can just give up and look up the answer immediately instead of puzzling through a sentence or struggling to remember a word, but it’s better than having no help at all.
But it still doesn’t feel anything like reading English. I’m still decoding symbols, I’m still having to figure out where some of the word breaks are, especially for unfamiliar words or grammar, and sometimes I get confused in the middle of a long sentence. It can take me a minute or two to work through a paragraph that I could scan in a few seconds if it were English, and I almost never get the sense that I looked at a word and instantly recognized it.
I can say that there are a handful of words that I’ve learned in SR that I would later encounter in WK and be like “lol, I know this one”. So the goal of learning through immersion is working - but at this point I still feel like I learn more from WK, because I’m not yet at a level where I can consume Japanese fast enough to make immersion a better teaching tool than focused study, and I probably won’t be for at least another year - I need more vocab and grammar for that.
Everything is hard in the beginning, until it isn’t. Most people rationalize it and say “I’ll do it later once I’m better at words and grammar” then fastforward a few years and every single one pretty much regrets not immersing earlier. The most important part is immersion, doesn’t really matter if you don’t understand much, the most important part is that you are using the language in some way every day.
No, I don’t agree. I mean you shouldn’t wait literally a few years into your studies to start reading - but immersion without understanding is useless, and immersion with poor understanding is poor.
It’s perfectly valid for beginners to say “no, I don’t feel I can do this yet” and set it aside for a while, and I would encourage them to prioritize formal study over consuming Japanese that’s too difficult for them.
You will understand parts of it, and your brain will get used to the language and how it’s used. Sure, you shouldn’t listen to niche subjects with high level of niche words and terms. But every day usage is good. How do I know this? Because people that know japanese far more than I do has gone to lengths about how important immersion is. And that is how I learned english. I played games and consumed other sorts of media. Did I understand anything from the get go? No, I was 6 when I picked up Ocarina of Time for the first time (in english).
The important thing is that you will understand parts of it and that is sufficient enough, rather than skip it for a later date.
totally agree. When i first started listening to Nihongo Con Teppei I had no idea what he was talking about…but I figured I was at least getting a feel for how the language is supposed to sound if nothing else.
Then little by little, and thanks to Wanikani, I started recognizing at least the theme of the episode “where do you live?” “What time is where you live” etc etc
I listened every single day on my way to work and then one day I got to work, parked my car and thought, oh my god, I actually understood that he was talking about “adult type words” without toooo much conscious listening…I was almost listening just like I do in English. Then the other day I watched my first anime and thought…ok i’m hardly fully understanding…but i’m getting the gist and definitely recognizing vocab and word patterns. So I feel that immersion is critical, regardless of your level. It’s frustrating, but not fruitless.
While I do think if you haven’t done a bare minimum of studying most common words and the absolute basics of grammar, immersion might not be absolutely worthless but your time will be better spent directed on studying that will pay off quicker.
…that said, while we’re having this conversation on these forums in particular? I’m pretty sure the absolute beginner bookclub is so patient they would explain just about every kana in a manga to someone, so it’s hard to not advocate for diving in really early, haha.
Yes, true, but I think that with Yotsuba the first chapter actually is way harder than those that follow. In my opinion Yotsuba is a great manga to read, but I still find that first chapter is a real hurdle to get over. Not least because I get the impression that the author was kind of finding his own way in it, for example, Yotsuba uses kanji - the only time she does in the entire series.
Ohh that’s very helpful to know. Ive been reading manga that is nominally harder than Yotsuba (teasing-master, wadanohara, demon-slayer, and now death note) while SRS-ing Yotsuba vocab, but whenever I’ve taken a peek at the first N pages of Yotsuba I’ve bounced off it - I’ve been meaning to try it again soon since I think I’ve finished all the SRS vocab I got from it - thanks for sharing the experience of the first chapter being much harder.
I know this because another thing, my reading ability far outweighs my listening ability. Why is that so? Because I recognize words when I see them, but have a harder time recalling them when spoken, so the words are there, I just need more spoken repetition in order to recall them that way aswell.
Another thing is that when I listen to spoken japanese there is a lag between recall of a word and my understanding of it, which means that I pick up words from sentences but the lag makes me totally miss the other part of the sentence. The lag however will get better with time, it gets lower each time I recall an item.
A bit of a tangent, but there is a quite a difference between reading and listening. Immersing is incredibly important, more than people think.
I don’t think anyone has ever doubted that immersion is incredibly important. The debate (also in academic SLA circles) is more around whether immersion alone is enough and what kind of immersion is best.
I’m a fan of reading stuff that’s roughly on or slightly above my level, hence Genki readings and Satori Reader.
It’s more a question of motivation, really. While I could struggle through some more advanced text and look up everything and spend an hour on a single sentence, I just don’t think that’s particularly fun. However, for other people that approach totally works, so it’s just as valid as some more traditional methods.
Totally agree with this. However, what I found is that I’m terrible at estimating if something is way beyond or at a good level for me. Some material is easier to rule out than others. Too easy material I’m able to identify but harder stuff has the problem of unknowns. So currently I’m trying a bit of a shotgun approach and think that doing it is really valuable.
Dip your toes into as much material as you can and eliminate it after some time if it does not fit (kinda like the anime 3 episode rule)
I think part of the problem is that for optimal learning you always have to be a little frustrated, a little at the “ugh, nothing makes sense” stage. Somewhere on this forum someone said that if you are understanding about 80 percent of something it is not enough of a challenge and you have to up your game to progress. So that means that just when you feel like you are getting somewhere you have to go back to being a bit uncomfortable.
I think i’m at that stage with my career. I’m getting a bit too comfortable and if I don’t up my game soon I risk either becoming bored or obsolete.
Definitely the same. I don’t think there are any satisfying answers really well demonstrated as far as what is most helpful, so at this point I kind of balance my time between some stuff that is easy enough to go through and stuff that is more of a challenge. Sometimes the arduous stuff feels like a waste while doing it but it has a way of making other things feel really easy by comparison, so it’s probably good to push yourself? But easier environments are nicer for just learning words and the like. I guess it all has its place but it’s hard to know.
Yes, I often have this problem as well. When a reading material becomes too “easy”, I get bored of it quickly and need to slap myself in the face with a book for Japanese adults or an article on politics/economy to be reminded of how much more interesting things can be .
If you keep studying you’re bound to understand 80% of everything at some point. The problem is the missing 20% takes ages to learn and a good 15% is very important for comprehension.
I don’t mean 80% of the goal, I mean 80% of whatever small part of the task you are doing. Like if you understand 80% of the particular level reader you are on it’s probably time to move on to a harder grade, rather than go on feeling comfortable at that level because you feel competent. Sort of like if you know 90% of a WK level it is time to move on…My point is that if you’re feeling comfortable, you probably aren’t growing.
I have used the series “Learn Japanese With Stories”. They have short Japanese stories with vocabulary and grammar notes on each page, so it’s easy to see what you need on each corresponding page. Then they have the story in English so you can check your Japanese comprehension. A great series for helping you to read a story.
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