I’m beginning to think that I can read some things. I use easy Japan for the news, and I have learned that I can sometimes read the title. That’s pretty exciting! I recently also noticed, that with the help of the translation, I can kind of figure out the sentences that go with the new vocab. Exciting stuff!
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A little earlier this year. I got a paid WK sub in January and now I can lay down and read easy stuff like Cardcaptor Sakura before bed.
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Forward notice: I am not an advanced japanese student I just found a system that actually works for me and I want to ramble a bit.
Short Answer:
From day 1.
Long Answer:
What is real japanese anyways? is こんにちは！not real?.
What do you consider real japanese? are graded reader not real compared with a scientific dissertation?. You really need to think about it. What do you mean by
“Not necessarily looking to get there any time soon” Where is there?
This is a really complex question that’s hard to frame. What are your goals short term and long term? Some person might take 3+ years to be able to read their target novel/manga/preferred source of native material but then it could be that they can barely study less than 10h per week or that they used really inefficient methods without realizing(like trying to learn kanji just by stroke order) or it could be any number of circumstances but they could be perfectly fine with that. You need to define “there” so you can find personal stories of other learners more helpful to your circumstances.
In my case, from day one the moment I was reading basic words in hiragana I knew I was reading real japanese.(Learning hiragana must be a priority for every japanese language student from day 1). I was sure from day 1 that “romaji” is not real japanese because unlike hiragana/katakana there is no “romaji” syllabary in japanese.
Kanji is its own monster. With WaniKani 
levels as reference by level 16 you covered jlpt n4 and n5 recommended kanji. Which means the moment you begin your studies with a textbook like Genki I, kanji is no longer your weakness but your strength and you can focus on grammar and vocabulary. The moment you are able to read a whole dialogue from a chapter or maybe just a sentence, that’s real japanese.
Every time you forget a Kanji/ Grammar pattern/ vocabulary, you know you should have mastered for sure, go and review it, feedback and space repetition outside and inside wanikani is key to appropriate and internalize the language and whomever tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something or is just plainly a liar.
You’ll need to keep up this learning pattern for a while(again it depends on your circumstances). From what I’ve collected from empirical evidence of other successful language learners, around high intermediate (more than N3 but less than N2) something clicks and reading becomes somewhat easier and the amount of native material you can understand significantly increases.
I could go on and on with this rambling but I think the main take away is that it’s already real japanese the moment you can read hiragana/katakana and from there on you add additional kanji/grammar/vocab to your toolbox and try to reinforce it until you are able to hit your goals whatever that might be. And then you give yourself a new goal and keep improving per secula seculorum.
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When I breezed through the first couple of volumes of Yotsuba, which was a week ago! Now I’m reading Card Captor Sakura, and looking for other things to read.
I’ve known hiragana and katakana for a long time, but I’d never attempted to read native Japanese media until only very recently, because I’d always get overwhelmed by kanji and give up before I even started.Thanks to WaniKani, I’m feeling less illiterate haha
Being able to read Yotsuba has boosted my confidence, and now I’m reading Japanese at every presented opportunity. I find myself reading a lot of Japanese YouTube comments to practice and find new words nowadays. A lot still goes over my head, but progress is progress!
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After all life is all about the journey right? I like your points on focusing on the learning, even from day one. Framing is so important. Often all it takes for us to move forward or get past a road block is a change in perspective.
@IlaiA, what would you like to read?/ What are some of your goals?
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It’s a slow passage marked by indistinct points of progression. Two years ago, I could barely read a manga, and now I’m reading newspapers and novels.
I couldn’t tell you for the life of me exactly when and how that happened. But each time you notice you can read and understand something you couldn’t have a week ago–that’s when you feel the elation.
There is no “I can read now” moment, but there are lots of little “I can read this now” ones, and those never really stop, I’d imagine.
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I don’t really think there’s 1 “oh I can do it!” moment as what is considering actually reading evolves multiple times as you progress. So I’m sure I’ll have many more moments of “I can actually read” going forward, but I’ve already had I’d say 3 different moments where I appreciated my progress.
First was when I stopped thinking about kana, I could just take it in without evaluating every single kana. This was probably around 4ish months in.
Second is when I read a whole paragraph in Japanese (a comment on youtube) and understood the entire thing, even if I went through it quite slowly and had to google a couple of words. That felt like I understood that I wasn’t just looking at lines and lines of gibberish anymore.
Third was pretty recent when I realized I was able to finish reading sentences long before I finished saying them aloud (I try to read aloud to assist my complete lack of speech practice). My reading speed in English is more than double my speaking speed, so having my Japanese reading speed be able to eclipse speaking speed feel pretty good (even if both are relatively slow).
Things like forums and still pretty intimidating with how much text is on the screen at once, and I still have some difficulty for text that flashes on screen for a moment, so there’s still plenty progression left.
What did you read?
Just last week the Guardian newspaper was running articles on Tokyo and a couple were in Japanese. I realised that although it was difficult and I needed to refer to my dictionary a lot that I could in fact understand the article.
よつばと!
2019/06/21 15:16、Sulax via WaniKani Community wanikani_community@discoursemail.comのメール:
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Hello! I passed the JLPT N3 last year and yes N3 for me is when you can say you can actually read like a literate teenager going adult (without the technical vocabulary).
At middle to high N4, you will be able to read full sentences, provided the grammar isn’t too complex. At N3, you will have learned the additional grammar patterns to piece together more complex ideas and read most everyday things (e.g. signs, essays, social media posts). At N2 and N1, you will be able to understand more complex passages (e.g. tech manuals, newspapers, literary works, legal and medical documents, etc.).
With my current knowledge, I was able to read the Examination for Japanese University Admission for International Students (EJU) poster when I was at the Japanese embassy inquiring about studying in Japan.
Before WaniKani, I have listened to many Japanese pop music and read its corresponding lyrics. I have learned many words from that alone (I’ve been doing it for 5 years until now).
It was more like a ‘I don’t get that much but I can actually read it!’ moment when a Japanese documentary was going on TV and I could read the shop signs.
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