Hey all.

Finished RTK, TaeKim, ~500 words into Core2k6k.
I want to get into reading stuff, but most of the stuff I am able to read is rather.. well, boring. I want to be able to read the more popular manga and play the more interesting games.


^that being my goal, would it make any sense whatsoever to try and actually -read- the things above my level? I can play the games just fine cause I remember parts of the English version I played 5 years ago, but is trying to read everything without actual comprehension going to do me any good?

Or am I better off sticking with graded readers and kids books and come back in half a year or so?

When I read manga I have trouble with, I read it in parallel with the English version. If I can read the Japanese page, fine, otherwise I first read the page in English, then carefully go over the Japanese version.

And I still need manga where at least the first occurrence of a lot of words has hiragana.

Quote:is trying to read everything without actual comprehension going to do me any good?

No, reading without comprehension won't do any good whatsoever. Also, this is a little known medical fact, but prolonged reading without comprehension will kill you.

Taelia Wrote:Or am I better off sticking with graded readers and kids books and come back in half a year or so?

I find reading manga with the help of the English version much more satisfying than graded readers (I never tried kids books).

But it does help to not have to use the translation all the time.

Either way, even if you're not quite ready for your favorite manga, don't come back to it in half a year. Try again in a month or two. My experience is with novels (not Japanese, other foreign languages), but I found that a book that's a rough read on the first pages will turn into a smooth, enjoyable ride by the middle. On the other hand, If I just leave the book alone for six months, it's still a tough read. Material gets easier by reading it, not by studying the language in general.

Whoa, I'm glad that I have consulted with a medical genius then!

Anyway, thanks :3 I will stick to dual-reading manga then instead of playing games I understand but can't.. well.. "understand".

Edit: Fair enough, that makes sense. Thanks

Also, I never shied away from doing a little vocab of the most common words I used to encounter in a foreign language book I'd start.

Nothing massive, I would just note down a few words+meaning at a time, as I encountered them, carry the notes around with me and go over them whenever I had a little spare time at school/work.

It always made the actual reading a lot easier, over time.

Gotta agree with the comprehension being important, not about the dying part, though =). Do you comprehend the sentences and not just the individual words or characters?

You're probably at a stage where you just need a lot of exposure to texts on your level just to get your reading flowing. If you're getting through the readers with 98% correct word recognition with good comprehension, then you should move on to something harder. But if you're not in that high 90s percentile, it'll be good to stay where you're at.

Stansfield123 made a comment about manga with English supplements. Instead of having to use two separate texts, there are mangas sold online that are written in English with the original Japanese texts on the sidelines (titles are Doraemon and Nodame Cantabile for example). Though the only issue with these are the Japanese usually don't have furigana readings.

I just found out that my girlfriend owns Volume 1 to 7 of Chi's Sweet Home in Japanese. I can easily read and comprehend it in the high 90%s, and that -does- make reading it a lot more fun! (besides, its about a kitten! ;-;<3)


I have to say the furigana is a livesafer though. I did RTK so I know most of what they want to say, but not being able to pronounce it (in my head) really breaks up my reading and slows it down a ton..


I think that once I'm finished with all seven volumes, my reading speed should have improved some so that I can try my hand at a little bit tougher stuff. By then I should've also SRS'd a word or 500 more, that might help too.

Is there any list of manga sorted by difficulty floating around somewhere?

Taelia Wrote:I just found out that my girlfriend owns Volume 1 to 7 of Chi's Sweet Home in Japanese. (...) I think that once I'm finished with all seven volumes, my reading speed should have improved some so that I can try my hand at a little bit tougher stuff. (...) Is there any list of manga sorted by difficulty floating around somewhere?

I started out with Chii too, like you said it's a gem for absolute beginners (though I remember the weird speech styles of the kitten and the boy to be confusing at first). After Chii I picked up Yotsubato!, which is often recommended for beginners. It turned out to be a perfect transition language level-wise, and I the stories are very enjoyable, so that's definitely a recommendation.

After that, my advice would be to look for manga that has your personal interest, then download scans of the first volume and judge whether it's doable at your current level based on that. You can also try children's novels if you're interested in them, but keep in mind they aren't necessarily easy to read. You really have to get used to it, the transition from (simple) manga was pretty tough for me. My favorites so far are the 角川つばさ文庫 edition of 時をかける少女 (interesting scifi story, relatively easy to follow and this particular edition has full furigana) and 魔女の宅急便 (cute and funny, also relatively easy, has furigana for all but the most basic words). Protip: use a reference list of common onomatopoeia, you'll encounter them every other sentence.

Furigana is indeed a lifesaver, though recently I started to read furigana-less manga using digital scans and KanjiTomo. Recommended if there's a particular manga you're dying to read but you're reluctant because of the lack of furigana. And here's another nice technology trick: playing visual novels can be made very doable even if it's above your level by using Interactive Text Hooker (extracts dialogue from VNs in real time) and Translation Aggregator (provides generated furigana and popup dictionary for ITH output). VNs are quite a few steps above most manga and children's novels though, you'll probably get most out of it with a vocabulary in the thousands and some more reading experience.

I think don't read very high above your level. It makes reading painful and something you don't want to do - reading too high above your level is study, not really reading.

Things at your level are not necessarily just manga for little kids though - if it focuses on normal life (without comedy or satire) it's probably do-able so long as there's furigana.

Ah, I've seen 時をかける少女 and 魔女の宅急便 referenced before, I'll be very sure to look into those now.
I think I like the order Chi's Sweet Home -> Yotsubato! -> The girl who leapt through time -> Kiki's Delivery Service. Its good advice.

I've never seen KanjiTomo before, thanks for that link as well. It's pretty really awesome!
It doesn't work well on the GBA game I was playing though, the resolution is just too low in the game.

Great advice, thanks a ton.

There's a 時をかける少女 manga? Jesus Christ, how many ways are there to milk something, before people get fed up with it?

Reading above your level is fine. You don't need to turn it into studying - just read it and only look up something if you want to. I read Naruto 1 immediatley after learning kana (I'd already been studying for a while though with Rossetta Stone and other random stuff (yeah, RS can't even teach you kana properly)) and enjoyed it by reading it aloud and I didn't look anything up. I have just continuously read it over and over again since then, and it makes for a very satisfactory benchmark for my progress - I definitely understand tons more every time.

The only things I would say are: go for books with furigana because not knowing how to pronounce something is more frustrating than not knowing what it means as far as I'm concerned; and go for books with pictures because walls of text that are above your level are just intimidating and pictures can also help with comprehension enormously when you don't understand the text. The best way to get both is Shonen Jump manga or other kid's manga.

Stansfield123 Wrote:There's a 時をかける少女 manga? Jesus Christ, how many ways are there to milk something, before people get fed up with it?

Heard of Persona 4? Apparently there are LOT.

Helena4 Wrote:The best way to get both is Shonen Jump manga or other kid's manga.

Also, VNs. You get voices, quicker dictionary lookups and the option to not look at the furigana, but the language tends to be more difficult.

Yeah, I'd like to try that out, but since I don't have a psp, manga is just way more convenient. And playing more interactive games with furigana on ds, if I can get hold of one cheap, seems more appealing than VNs, so I'm more likely to get a ds than a psp.