Hello fellow readers. Many of us are on a constant quest to find the best content for our current level.
With this topic, I’m looking less for suggestions and more for reflections on what you personally felt upped your Japanese level the most after reading it (Even if you struggled! Was the struggle worth it?). Additionally, you can also share what you read that didn’t help your Japanese level much (too hard, too easy, etc).
Here are some of my thoughts: Not so helpful
僕のヒーローアカデミア - I really struggled with the grammar on the first couple volumes of ‘My Hero’. Perhaps too much slang? Fun story but I’d not recommend it for beginners
魔女の宅急便 - The partial lack of Kanji made me struggle with Kiki’s. The majority of my vocab is learned in WK, so WK users may also have this problem.
Helpful
よつばと - I think there is a reason everyone recommends this one. Having the main character learn vocab herself is a fun side-effect for language learners. Also great natural context for reinforcing early-level grammar.
少女終末旅行 - Like よつばと, the dialogue is pretty minimal. That allowed me to focus on the dialog that was there and take the time to understand it fully. Learned some fun military vocab along the way.
鬼滅の刃 - I’ve only read the first volume, but I’ve found the Japanese level to be pretty approachable so far. The non-present setting has the characters speaking less exaggerated than other shonen manga.
My answer is そばっかす! by きくち 正太. Not because of the level of Japanese (a bit too high for me at the time) but because the subject, characters and art made me want to read it. I pushed through 7 volumes, sometimes skipping whole sections, sometimes not understanding anything, but I wanted to find out what happened next. So go and find your thing that you want to read.
Normally I’m a big proponent of extensive reading, but I also think that hacking your way through something hard, not because you have to, but because you enjoy the subject matter is very good for building engagement and motivation.
I don’t know if I would recommend it for super-low grammar level folks. I remember a lot of slangy stuff I had to look up and I couldn’t find it in the dictionary, or I couldn’t recognize it as a variation of a form I ostensibly knew. But hey, ya gotta start somewhere! And the book club here on WK helped a lot!!
I love the 10 Minute Reading (10分で読める) series so far. I have 3 年生伝記 and おばけやようかい話. It took me about two days to get through a biography of Alfred Nobel, but I did it!
よつばと - I think there is a reason everyone recommends this one. Having the main character learn vocab herself is a fun side-effect for language learners. Also great natural context for reinforcing early-level grammar.
This sounds intriguing! Is よつばと available in digital? I would prefer not taking up space in the house if possible and… instant gratification is helpful as well.
If not, looks like I can get it shipped complete from Amazon JP for not a totally terrible price…
(Edit: Pirates stole this link)
You can also find it here! To @Chellykins point, there is some grammar/styles of speaking that you won’t find in a textbook. Google has been my friend in those cases.
@Taniotoshi thats a great point about motivation! If content is above your level, but you’re able to work on it twice as long as you might something more at your level, I think you do get more out of it. I notice this with dialogue-dense games like Persona, where I definitely don’t understand everything, but I have no problem sitting down for over an hour to play at a time, because I’m interested in the content.
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