this is great thank you for the update makes it seem less hopeless 
Have you got onto PIBO yet? It’s a Japanese picture book app that has about 300 free books, each read aloud by a native speaker. I wanted to start reading as soon as possible and even though I’m only a lowly level 5, I learn a lot each session! The stories are cute and the illustrations are very high quality, so it’s also a lot of fun and keeps me coming back. At this level, the grammar is simple so I start to pick up patterns pretty quickly. Maybe most important though is, because it’s so enjoyable, I’m forming a solid daily reading habit, which I can use to move onto more advanced material as I progress. PIBO - Japanese Picture Books on the App Store
1 Like
a very cool app I have it on my tablet and I have a go at it before bed, I saw it in Micheal’s how I learn Japanese article I have been using it for about a week now very cool for beginners (Corny high Five for being app buddies )
Wow, that is quite impressive! Thank you for sharing. When I pick up Manga one of my main problems is words that are not written in kanji.
And most of the time I can’t look them up online, because they are either some informal grammar ending or a slang word. And exspecially in Manga almost every speech bundle has one.
How did you deal with those?
Woop woop! 
1 Like
When I started? Mostly bugging my Japanese buddies all too much or just ignoring them. But that isn’t really very helpful.
After I got my head on a bit more straight with the reading thing, I broke terminology into three different parts. First was just standard vocabulary and grammar. For that, I used a English - Japanese Dictionary. I have a couple physical ones along with using jisho.org a lot. I had similar issues with limitations of what was in said dictionaries until I ultimately started using a Japanese - Japanese dictionary. That solved a lot of the issues I had with not being able to find words. For that, https://kotobank.jp/ and http://nlt.tsukuba.lagoinst.info/search/ were super helpful when I started. Apple’s native dictionary is also really good. Also, just googling 「言葉意味」 would sometimes work too. If that didn’t work, but if I knew a synonym of the word, I would just google something along the lines of 「A言葉とB言葉は何が違う」and that would often bring up what I was looking for. If none of that worked, then I would bug my Japanese friends, and they were always supper helpful.
The second thing that often came up was slang and accent stuff. For that, the first thing I would try to do is identify the speech level/ type of accent. If I could figure out that out, then I could just google something like. 「何弁、言葉、意味」and that would often find it. If that didn’t work, I would either bug my Japanese friends or other Japanese learners. To be perfectly honest, senior Japanese language learners where probably more helpful with things like that, especially if they studied in that area in the past.
Finally are names and made up words. I would try to look these up if I could, but if not I would just self define them in my head and try to brute force my way through them. I figured this one out after talking to an acquaintance who was trying to read Harry Potter in English and was having a hard time with all the made up words in that book.
That’s just a quick once over on everything, let me know if there is something you want me to expand on or go over. I’m not really that great at most of Japanese, but I do a lot of reading and am always happy to help.
1 Like
Thank you for that detailed answer. I’ll make sure to give those tips a try, and if I should have any more questions I’ll try to reach out to you again, if you don’t mind.
Started reading SRW J on the GBA, so mediocre graphics and squished kanji. This is my first real attempt to read something and it is actually going remarkably well! It’s slow but every sentence is a victory.
Gotta start somewhere, I figure the earlier I start reading things in the wild, the better. Even if I don’t achieve full understanding, just the experience of trying to translate stuff should pay off in the future.
So When is level 6, What is outdated japanese strategy rpgs about giant robots, and How is lots and lots of jisho.org.
2 Likes
What is this
Super Robot Wars J, on the Game Boy Advance
Sorry, in my first version of that post I actually wrote that out. Forgot to do that the second time around.
lol thanks That sounds like a fun way to read!!
Wen Watt and Howe sounds like a legal firm.
2 Likes
Don’t mind at all, always happy to help.
My high school had a Japanese program so I started reading manga long before I ever started using WaniKani. I started reading manga in Japanese around my senior year of high school. I think the key is to find something you enjoy reading, whether that is a favorite manga, novel, etc. The first manga I read was Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden by Watase Yu. That manga is one of my all time favorites so I was highly motivated to keep reading even when I didn’t understand everything 100%.
When I read it, I would take note of what parts I didn’t understand and ask my Japanese friends to explain to me what they meant. In addition, I also bought the English version of the manga and would compare my unofficial translations with the official English version.
Honestly for me kanji has never been much of a deterrent for reading anything. I can look up an unknown kanji or word easily enough. If I have trouble understanding what I’m reading, 90% of the time it’s because of the grammar used in the sentence. So, my advice would be to make sure you have a good grasp of Japanese grammar before you try to delve too deep into Japanese literature.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.