yudantaiteki Wrote:I think it's fine to use the furigana. You're still practicing reading and grammar, and you'll move into writings with less furigana eventually.

Quote:but since you say that furigana are too much of a crutch for you, adult novels might be the way to go. (Or light novels, which sometimes have furigana for the first appearance of a particular word and not later appearances.)

Mix things up between intensive reading where you look up almost every words you don't know and extensive reading where you try to refer to a dictionary only when necessary. Also, try not to read things at the edge of your ability, saying that you CAN read harder stuff so that you SHOULD be reading harder stuff. I found that I had to read a ton of relatively easy books (mostly light novels) to build up the kind of base where I could read fast and well and when I read harder books, I was reading fast and well even though I was more frequently interrupted by unknown words.

yogert909 Wrote:Or maybe I just need to progress to more advanced reading material which has less furigana? The trouble then is I run into words that I don't know the reading for, but I would recognize the word with furigana. I'm guessing this is what dictionaries are for, but maybe there's something else I'm missing.

Quote:Narrow Reading: Rather than skipping around and reading about a lot of different subjects, reading a variety of different texts about the same subject builds background knowledge and creates more comprehensible input. As an example you may read four different newspaper articles about the same current event. Each author writes from their own point of view, but each uses the same set of words and structures. Read More. This could also be expanded to other activities: watching movies, listening to podcasts and listening to other native speakers – all about the same topic

RawrPk Wrote:Narrow reading: reading different media on the same topic/genre.

Quote:Narrow Reading: Rather than skipping around and reading about a lot of different subjects, reading a variety of different texts about the same subject builds background knowledge and creates more comprehensible input. As an example you may read four different newspaper articles about the same current event. Each author writes from their own point of view, but each uses the same set of words and structures. Read More. This could also be expanded to other activities: watching movies, listening to podcasts and listening to other native speakers – all about the same topic

http://www.everydaylanguagelearner.com/2011/06/02/24-ways-to-find-or-create-comprehensible-input/

jcdietz Wrote:I was just wondering what kind of material you like.
There's lots of stuff out there without furigana, almost no matter what you are in to.

yogert909 Wrote:This is ok for practice, but I'll never learn to read without furigana this way.

yogert909 Wrote:

RawrPk Wrote:Narrow reading: reading different media on the same topic/genre.

Quote:Narrow Reading: Rather than skipping around and reading about a lot of different subjects, reading a variety of different texts about the same subject builds background knowledge and creates more comprehensible input. As an example you may read four different newspaper articles about the same current event. Each author writes from their own point of view, but each uses the same set of words and structures. Read More. This could also be expanded to other activities: watching movies, listening to podcasts and listening to other native speakers – all about the same topic

http://www.everydaylanguagelearner.com/2011/06/02/24-ways-to-find-or-create-comprehensible-input/

Narrow reading is a really good idea that I'd almost forgotten about. I'm still just beginning to read, so the material I'm starting out with is pretty basic and consequently has full furigana coverage. Maybe in another month or two i'll pick something for narrow reading. My main problem with that will probably be that:

jcdietz Wrote:I was just wondering what kind of material you like.
There's lots of stuff out there without furigana, almost no matter what you are in to.

I'm really not into video games, manga or anime. If I'm reading in english, I read non-fiction almost exclusively but that almost guarantees material above my level in Japanese. I just started reading, so I actually need the furigana, I just want to learn the kanji form of the words while I'm reading if possible. Ideally, I would be able to read adult books about Japanese history, but that's probably waaay too advanced for me at this point. That gives me a good idea though, maybe there's some kids books about Oda Nobunaga or Toyotomi Hideyoshi that I could start out with...hmm.

Some good ideas here. Thanks!

yogert909 Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:I think it's fine to use the furigana. You're still practicing reading and grammar, and you'll move into writings with less furigana eventually.

So you think it's just the natural process as I graduate to slightly more advanced levels I will just absorb the kanji readings without any special effort? I can see this might be the way it works, but I'm worried because I literally don't see the kanji if there's furigana on it.

Maybe it's just my temperament as I enjoy going fast and have to slow myself down for a lot of things. It's just so fun to read as fast as I can and since I learned vocabulary in the kana form before I learned kanji, I feel like I might have trained myself to completely ignore the kanji..

kameden Wrote:Your problem has less to do with you reading furigana and more to do with being obsessed with "reading things at your level" whatever that means. Most experienced language learners will tell you that readings things that interest you will help you learn much faster than reading things that are easy.

RawrPk Wrote:So far the only historical type of manga I could think of at the top of my head was Vagabond.

Based on the life of Miyamoto Musashi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi


You can check it out thr raw manga here. Furigana isn't everywhere but I did see some.
http://raw.senmanga.com/Vagabond/

Morellet Wrote:If you want to read about Japanese history, you could try checking out 「留学生のための日本史」/Japanese History: An Introductory Text. You can find it on rutracker. It's very simply written and just uses furigana for the first time a word is presented.

yogert909 Wrote:

RawrPk Wrote:So far the only historical type of manga I could think of at the top of my head was Vagabond.

Based on the life of Miyamoto Musashi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miyamoto_Musashi


You can check it out thr raw manga here. Furigana isn't everywhere but I did see some.
http://raw.senmanga.com/Vagabond/

This is good. I know who Musashi is, but I haven't read too much about him yet. Do you happen to know how historically accurate the manga is? Probably not very accurate, but one can hope.

yogert909 Wrote:I don't know about this. I've gotten the opposite advice from several experienced language learners that I respect, so it's not an obsession. It does seem to make sense for me at this point to read something that I don't have to look up 90% of the words and have major problems with grammar. I do think at some point I will just dive right in, because that's the kind of person I am, but I'm truly am such a beginner where even the easy stuff is hard. So I think it's better to crawl around a little before I try running.

kameden Wrote:Just stop reading stuff with furigana. If you want to read native content than the best way to practice is to read native content. It's like someone asking how to lose weight, everyone knows but they just want an easier way that doesn't exist. Sometimes the obvious things are hard to see.