Could anyone point me in the direction of some easy to read manga with common vocabulary words and sentence structure? Maybe something for kids or something.

Thanks.

I remember Death Note was pretty easy to read when I was at about JLPT level 3 ability. It has furigana for added easiness, plus the English version is easy to find.

What's your exact level? The problem with manga for beginners is grammar; you can't look up the words if you don't know how to parse the sentences.

I'm a pretty hardcore noob, started studying about 3 months ago and got done with RTK1 a few weeks ago. I'm doing a lot of smart.fm anki decks and stuff, but am looking towards manga for some variety. And yes, you're exactly right, the grammar seems to be a big roadblock. I feel like if there was more kanji it'd be a lot easier... for example in one comic I read today I saw 一緒に written without kanji just like いっしょに... would've recognized it immediately if there was kanji and furigana there but without it took me a minute to see. There's other stuff like that too.

Yotsuba&. It was the first one I was able to read, and it's somewhat amusing. It's -far- easier than any other manga I've found.

There are some recommendations for manga in this thread. Yotsuba&! is the usual beginner recommendation around here because (a) it's funny (b) it appeals to a fairly wide range of people © it's not too hard. Beyond that you'll probably do better by giving us some idea of what genre you like.

I agree with Yudantaiteki about grammar; try the manga but if you find you're thrashing about too much be prepared to put it to one side for a bit while you press forward with the grammar. (Not everybody would agree with that; see the light novel vs manga thread for more on that argument.)

Shinchan is awesome IMO. Easy and lots of useful words on a day-to-day basis.

I'm loving "Yotsuba," and I'm pretty newbish. In fact, ems573, we may be around the same general level. I finished RTK1 a few weeks ago, and I've been doing smart.fm (through Step 4) and anki lists (JLPT3 and 4) since. I am pleasantly surprised that I can read Yotsuba pretty well. I still need the help of a dictionary, but there are times when I can read 2-3 pages in a row before I need to look up a word. Of course, there are also times when I stare at a page for 10 minutes, baffled. But there is furigana for everything, even the simplest kanji, and that's a big help.

Interestingly, I found the very first chapter was the hardest of all. Maybe it just took me a while to get used to the informal speech in the books. Or maybe my grammar was just weaker then. Or maybe there's more exposition and unfamiliar characters in that chapter because it's the start. Certainly my vocab has improved since then. Anyway, my advice is to stick with it; I've found it's gotten easier as I've gone on. I'm now on book 3 of the series.

I'd also recommend "Japanese the Manga Way," if you haven't tried it yet. It's a great grammar resource, and it uses actual manga for all its examples. Don't get discouraged by the sometimes hard-to-decipher kanji; the point of the book is to teach you grammar and some of the conventions of the manga genre, and at these things it excels. I still turn to that book when I have grammar questions. It's also just fun to read. As a bonus, that book will give you a look at Shinchan, which Tobberoth just mentioned -- it's one of the featured example manga.

Thanks for all of the response as I too am interested in this topic. Not to derail the topic from manga, but has anyone found any type of magazines to be written with simple japanese? It could be a fashion magazine or maybe even something like mountain climbing. I prefer "real" thing over comics, but the advise above is wonderful!

You could try this to get warmed up: http://www.anime-manga.jp/index.html

And you should also keep an onomatopoeia guide with you, so you know what all those random sounds are for...
http://mangatribe.blog131.fc2.com/blog-category-15.html
http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtop...f=4&t=2485

bizarrojosh Wrote:Thanks for all of the response as I too am interested in this topic. Not to derail the topic from manga, but has anyone found any type of magazines to be written with simple japanese? It could be a fashion magazine or maybe even something like mountain climbing. I prefer "real" thing over comics, but the advise above is wonderful!

What about Hiragana Times? http://www.hiraganatimes.com/hp/magazine...out-E.html - You can find copies around online...

To add to Blahah's references for onomatopoeia (there's plenty of lists on Google), I'd add something I found recently: http://www.nihongoresources.com/dictiona...poeia.html

That dictionary is far better than any of the lists. Nice resource.

bizarrojosh Wrote:Thanks for all of the response as I too am interested in this topic. Not to derail the topic from manga, but has anyone found any type of magazines to be written with simple japanese? It could be a fashion magazine or maybe even something like mountain climbing. I prefer "real" thing over comics, but the advise above is wonderful!

I like Tokyo Graffiti

http://grfft.com/new.html

It's mostly pictures and short sentences. Like they ask hundreds of peoples opinions on a topic and have features on their rooms or what they cook for dinner. Also has quite a bit of handwriting, which is cool to see the different styles.

You can get it from village vanguard and pick old ones up cheap from book off.

bucko Wrote:I remember Death Note was pretty easy to read when I was at about JLPT level 3 ability. It has furigana for added easiness, plus the English version is easy to find.

This. Death Note was one of the first manga I read in Japanese and I enjoyed the hell out of it. The grammar isn't all too hard, there's not too many colloquial expressions and even though you'll probably need to look up vocabulary every few pages it's a fun read.
Also, Full Metal Alchemist.

Of the stuff I've read, this is what I consider particularly easy (in approximate order of easyness).

Doraemon
Yotsubato!
Chibi Maruko
Crayon Shinchan
Chobits (has lots of smudgy handwriting soliloquies that may be hard to read)
Ichigo Mashimaro
Toraburu (but it's boring)
K-ON!

Edit: DIdn't realize you meant in japanese.

Then I second doraemon and crayon shinchan

I find the easiest for beginners tend to be manga made for girls. E.g. kind of romantic comics where they are both in high school, or working.
These are good as they mostly contain everyday words as well as a minimum of slang. The one that I specifically read was called: takekosan no koibito


on the other hand, comics for boys tend to have more slang and lots of vocabulary that is not used commonly (e.g. swords, knights, magic, guns, etc.)

Well the words for sword, magic, knight, and gun are just four words easily memorized (I know all of 'em except for gun already). The problem lies in the 100 kinds of swords (actually much more than 100), each of which has its own word. The same for guns.

I liked Hikaru no Go, its about a kid named Hikaru who gets possessed by a spirit of an old court noble from the heian period and who then learns to play the board game called Go (or Igo if you want to get all technical). I picked it up the first time I went to japan and at the time I hadn't started (seriously) studying japanese but I still found it rather easy (and now that I have studied a bit [RTK, Genki 1 and 2, sentences, ect] I can read it smoothly). It has furigana on EVERYTHING too so it makes life really easy for beginners. And in case you are wondering the story is actually good despite the remarkable similarity to much worse off works such as Yugiou... Anyway, I think its a great series to start off on, good luck with what ever you choose!

のだめカンタービレ！
'Tis the only manga I'll actually read and not feel guilty about it (though since it's about classical music it has a lot of field-specific vocabulary like 連弾)

I haven't read much manga at all, but it's pretty true that manga written primarily for young girls is easier to read. Most of the situations (school life, relationships, etc.) are things covered in Japanese textbooks, so the vocab is much easier to relate to for learners. As opposed to something like mangas with epic pirate battles or whatever. Completely different vocab

There's a manga running right now in Afternoon that seems pretty good; I actually used a chapter of it in a class I'm teaching now and it went fine. It's called 雑草女; it's based on a humorous essay collection. Each story is only 6 pages long and it takes place in an office so the situations are pretty normal. There's no tankobon yet though, so you'll probably have to wait a year or so (maybe more) before there are enough chapters for one to come out...maybe the essay collection (雑草女に敵なし！！) is an easy read.

Tobberoth Wrote:Shinchan is awesome IMO. Easy and lots of useful words on a day-to-day basis.

For sure. Also a lot of Shin's misunderstandings help show regular etiquette.

I recommend Dragon ball

I recommend [write the name of your favorite manga here].

Read whatever interests use,

naruto/bleach used to be hard for me but now it's pretty much so easy.