I really would like to learn to read the language - speaking/writing/listening are less of a priority to me (though I suppose eventually, I'd like to learn them too, someday).

My plan was to go through Tae Kim (all of it, over and over) while doing kore (6k version). I think I'd finish (both) in under six months.

At that point, would I be able to read simple manga w/furigana? I think I'd like to do RTK Lite at the same time, as well, and spread the 1k-kanji out over that length. I have lots of spare time (mostly, cept for exam weeks and finals week), so I can study two, three hours a day or so, mostly using Anki.

Tips/way to make it better? Do I need more grammar than that? I assume that I need a much wider vocabulary, but it's hard to get a bigger one without delving into more "advanced" topics. I was thinking maybe KO2001 after that?

What about grammar? Is Tae Kim advanced enough to read, or should I look into Kanzen Master? I have the Dictionaries of xx Japanese Grammar, too.

Listening will actually help with reading skills. If you like anime, I recommend watching a lot with English subs (because it makes things comprehensible) along with your studies. Since manga is mostly dialogue and uses a lot of slang, it will be easier to read if you've heard the contractions and common phrases a lot already.

yukamina Wrote:Listening will actually help with reading skills. If you like anime, I recommend watching a lot with English subs (because it makes things comprehensible) along with your studies. Since manga is mostly dialogue and uses a lot of slang, it will be easier to read if you've heard the contractions and common phrases a lot already.

I'll definitely look into some anime that's close to what I like to read, then. Hopefully I can find some. Any suggestions for shoujou anime?

Kaichou wa maid-sama and kuragehime are both really good shoujo series with Japanese subtitles available here http://transportstreams.org/captions/

It's not technically a shoujo, but I'm sure you would enjoy Clannad as well if you haven't seen it yet. Subtitles for it are here http://kitsunekko.net/subtitles/japanese/

Making decks with subs2srs of these shows will help quite a bit, as the audio will make remembering new words easier. I believe there was a study posted on here about how the more senses we use when learning something, the easier it will be to remember.

The only thing I'd add to your original plan is this: read.

If you want to learn to read, then learn by reading. It'll be slow at first, but it will pick up. Especially with manga, where there are a lot of slang phrases and "cool" grammar that they use, the only way you'll be able to pick it up is by reading.

nohika Wrote:My plan was to go through Tae Kim (all of it, over and over) while doing kore (6k version). I think I'd finish (both) in under six months.

At that point, would I be able to read simple manga w/furigana? I think I'd like to do RTK Lite at the same time, as well, and spread the 1k-kanji out over that length. I have lots of spare time (mostly, cept for exam weeks and finals week), so I can study two, three hours a day or so, mostly using Anki.

I've done all those things and more, along with full RTK and still can't comfortably read a simple manga. I'd call it deciphering rather than reading. But it lets you quite comfortably read sentences from textbooks and dictionaries of Japanese grammar. Its a good start overall.

It still might work for you: miss some grammar here, ignore a few unknown words there, get a general gist of it and you're "reading" ....

nohika Wrote:At that point, would I be able to read simple manga w/furigana?

edit**** Maybe..... I know about 4k of the 6k and can read simple manga pretty easily. Though I do have a lot of vocab outside that set too. You probably will need more grammar outside Tae Kim, and a way to see more examples of each point.

I would start reading way before your done with the 6k vocab as you need to to see the vocab and grammar in real use to understand the actual meaning (as opposed to the translation). Also you can look up any grammar that comes up frequently in the grammar dictionaries.

If you add rtk to that you'll be spending a *lot* of time on anki, but it will help you with unknown words as you can guess the meaning of the word by the meaning of the kanji.

*edit* I have done loads of study besides vocab so I guess this helps me a lot with reading manga

Do RTK 1,and while doing it(or after),pick up anything with furigana and read,its that simple,it will take time but you will get better.

I say it depends on what you want to read. If you just want to read simple manga, studying up to the N3 level grammar should do the work. Of course, there's more advanced grammar sometimes but since it's mostly talking, learning the basics (in informal speech, which I believe Tae Kim explains well) should be enough for you to read without much trouble. Since Tae Kim doesn't offer many examples, I recommend reading other books about basic grammar and watching dramas and anime with japanese/english subtitles (watch english first, then watch it again in japanese).

If you do want to read books, newspapers and this stuff, you need to futher you study of grammar, so in this case I recommend getting the Kanzen Master books or something of the like. Doing KO2001 would definitely help you in terms of general vocabulary, but since the vocabulary used varies greatly depending on what you want to read, I'd rather do the sentence method (or just vocab-flashcards) if I want to read things mostly in one particular field (music, for example).

caivano Wrote:

nohika Wrote:At that point, would I be able to read simple manga w/furigana?

edit**** Maybe..... I know about 4k of the 6k and can read simple manga pretty easily. Though I do have a lot of vocab outside that set too. You probably will need more grammar outside Tae Kim, and a way to see more examples of each point.

I would start reading way before your done with the 6k vocab as you need to to see the vocab and grammar in real use to understand the actual meaning (as opposed to the translation). Also you can look up any grammar that comes up frequently in the grammar dictionaries.

I was planning on starting w/Tae Kim because it's a good "overview" and delving into the dictionaries for a reference/using the Anki deck afterwards.

A lot of what I like is shoujou (ie, all similar in plot-line type stuff) so I'm hoping that'll help. I'm powering through kore because I'm motivated (and procrastinating NaNoWriMo) and I'll start playing with some manga soon, and listening to some anime as well.

I think I'll start with stuff I have an English copy of, too, that way I can reference to double-check and have previous "background" knowledge of. Is that advisable at all, or should I start on my original material (ie, some stuff I have purely in Japanese)?

I'll look at the subs-to-SRS, or I'll pull out some anime from my shelves (though most of it doesn't match what I read now, lol).

@Yukimine - I'd primarily like to read manga (ie Skip Beat, Kimi no todoke, Kaicho, etc), but I think eventually I'd like to read pocket books/novels, too (my Japanese friend owns tons of these and I don't know exactly what they're called) - I don't know if I'd ever go as far as classics, but I do own lots of manga and figure it's a good start. I eventually would like to do Kanzen, etc, but I figured starting with manga would be "lower level" and allow me to get into native material faster instead of SRSing with Anki for three years before touching native stuff.

Thanks, guys. =) Does Kanzen offer books for JLPT 4/3? I might look into those in addition or instead of Tae Kim. Does anyone else have some grammar books that would be good, also?

If it was me, I would read the manga I had read in English before and only look up stuff that comes up often.

re: subs2srs I would see how long you need to spend on anki just doing the 6k vocab in 6 months first

re: grammar books, this is the kanzen master for the old JLPT3, now N4, which is really good: http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Language-...805&sr=8-2

I learned the basic grammar mostly from the Minna no Nihongo textbooks though.

For shoujou anime, there's Princess Tutu and Ouran High School Host Club. There's always Fruits Basket too. Now that I think about it, most of my favorite anime aren't actually shoujo.

Reading manga is difficult, at least for me. I've bought a lot of different manga, and I usually end up giving up on a lot of them because they are just too frustrating.
Some of the easiest I have found are よつばと　and
クレヨンしんちゃん.

The biggest obstacle, by far, is vocabulary. Looking up words is slow and painful.
I think one of the best ways to practice reading Japanese is to spend a lot of time reading websites. The rikaichan extension for firefox lets me understand the vocabulary, so its just a matter of understanding the grammar after that. Its much easier to read a website or blog or something with rikaichan than it is to read a manga with a normal dictionary.

nohika Wrote:At that point, would I be able to read simple manga w/furigana?

No. You will not be able to read even simple manga even with furigana and even with a year of preparation without some period of trying and failing. It might be a few days. It could be a few months. But there is nothing that prepares you for reading like reading. Or trying to. So, start early, enjoy the art--and for the love of all that is holy--do not worry about spoiling yourself.

The best thing I can think of is, oddly enough, listening. The two input skills are strongly synergistic. Simple stupid アニメ kicks butt for this. Nix the subs, of course.

Also, get a 小学国語辞典 and keep picking at it. Once I reached a critical point of understanding it became the single best "study" tool I have.

I have this one: http://www.benesse.co.jp/s/dictionary/koku/

Oh, before I forget, I've been listening to this audio drama lately:

http://www.rbvermilion.com/sound/%E6%9C%AC%E7%B7%A8/

It's by the same folks (RBプロジェクト) who did Replica Blue and Replica Blue: Code Seven a couple of years back. That was, how do I put this, "quite a trip," perhaps? A mad dash to leave no apocalyptic anime cliche unturned; a whirlwind of marginally connected vignettes, Shakespeare, and a direct rip-off of the opening scene of Elfen Lied?

Well, whatever it was, the acting was good and I enjoyed it. But now 渡辺流久里 and the gang are back and better than ever. 神々のヴぁーミリオン has 60% less sobbing for your listening ease and--an RBプロジェクト first!--most episodes pick up where the previous one left off. Of course, betrayal of intimate relationships, supernatural plot devices, and effective (over)use of Arc Words are par for the course. Worth a listen or dozen.

wildweathel Wrote:

nohika Wrote:At that point, would I be able to read simple manga w/furigana?

No. You will not be able to read even simple manga even with furigana and even with a year of preparation without some period of trying and failing. It might be a few days. It could be a few months. But there is nothing that prepares you for reading like reading. Or trying to. So, start early, enjoy the art--and for the love of all that is holy--do not worry about spoiling yourself.

Sorry, I didn't mean to insinuate that I'd be able to read it perfectly. Just be to the point where I'd be able to fumble through it with 80%ish comprehension (AKA to the point I'd be able to enjoy it and instead of hating it).

I'll start finding stuff to listen to, soon. It's not as easy with little time to hog the TV, so I may focus on online anime, etc, due to lack of exposure otherwise.

Thanks for the suggestions. =) I'll start "reading" once I'm done with Core2k and the Essentials section of Tae Kim, though for me, grammar is more daunting than vocab (vocab I can look up, grammar not as much).

Edit: Turns out I have a kid's dictionary that has several thousand words with pictures. However, it's all in hiragana. Should I use it to study at all? It has simple definitions for each word, etc.

I didn't see it mentioned, but for understanding grammar, 'Japanese the Manga Way' is really stellar in my opinion. Once I started reading it, my ability to read Japanese exploded. I think this was because it drastically reduced the amount of time that it took me to break a sentence down into its components...I guess English spoils me with the space between words but honestly once I understood particles and such I realized that they are like a space with meaning attached.

Also, I think you just kind of get to the point where you can deduce the meaning of unknown kanji because you know everything else around it, or at least hazzard a decent guess. I do this in English all the time. The difference is, in English I could also attempt to prounce it because it isnt kanji, although this would only matter if reading aloud.

I'll try to describe my experience with advancing to the reading stage. Hope it will be of some use for you as well.

Before I started reading, I had done Heisig I, read through half of Tae Kim, did about 600-800 items on smart.fm and 200-300 on Kanji Odyssey 2001. Then I got tired of my SRS reviews and decided to try reading for a bit. I mean, that was the original reason I had started learning Japanese anyway. I also decided to check every unknown word and to put it into a word list and potentially into SRS (I haven't done any SRSing since that though), but skip the parts I couldn't fully comprehend and only research the things I come across often enough (I've already learnt はず, べき, しか and some other grammar points like that).

I've tried starting with two very difficult books: Haruhi Suzumiya and Shakugan no Shana and although I managed to understand the contents well enough, it was far too tiring even with Rikaichan. I put them aside for now and started reading Toradora and found it quite a bit easier compared to the first two. As I don't have it in the text format, I have to input the unknown words into the Firefox window (any text input field will do) to be able to use Rikaichan. It's actually not as bothersome as it sounds. Many of those words come equipped with furigana (especially those with non-standard kanji), for other I may know the readings of the kanji from some other words, and as the last resort I use handwriting input function (手書き) from Microsoft IME (that's where Heisig came in handy :). After that I can check the reading and the meaning and use the Rikaichan function to save the word to a file.
It usually takes me about 10 (lately more like 8) minutes for a page. I also skip all the places where they speak about food, the vocabulary is ridiculous there!

One of the main problems with this method, is that quite often you can't figure out the correct or the most often used pronunciation of a word just with looking at Rikaichan. To name a few examples: 開く, 空く, 自ら, 許婚. I guess you have to listen, ask a Japanese person or a teacher, or find texts which have an audio version.

Also when reading texts with Rikaichan I have to pay special attention to pondering on new words' meanings and pronunciations for a bit. It's too easy to start skimming through the text and as a result not to remember anything at all.

By the way I didn't find watching anime with subtitles helpful at all (although it's fun to watch some anime from time to time and find out that you've started understanding even more of what's being said), and it's not really interesting to watch them without subtitles at my level.

Lionel Wrote:By the way I didn't find watching anime with subtitles helpful at all (although it's fun to watch some anime from time to time and find out that you've started understanding even more of what's being said), and it's not really interesting to watch them without subtitles at my level.

Do you mean even with Japanese subs?

All of the manga I have has furigana, so it's a lot easier that way - without it I'd be completely lost at this point.

I did take some advice and pulled out one of the manga I have the English copy of too and "read" (HAHAHAHAHAHA) a few sentences. I did have to look up several words, and I discovered for the first time that tsu can be used as a particle, but I was proud of myself for figuring out how to string the grammar together once I knew what the words were. (It did help to reference the English translation, but I hope to abandon having to do that by the end of the book).

I also found out that this series has an anime/live action set, toooo. So I plan to get ahold of those if I can.

I'm thinking of doing Kanzen Master 3 Kyuu after Tae Kim (I'm like two lessons away from finishing Basics) and proceeding up from there.

Also...should I put the vocab words + sentences in Anki, so I remember them better? I was thinking of doing something similar with my kiddo's dictionary but looking up the vocab to include it in kanji if needed.

I do understand I'll constantly be looking things up, and I'm fine with that. (Still not sure whether to put the words in the SRS, though). I figure at a page a day (or three or four sentences) that'll be good, combined with Kore and other stuff.

nohika Wrote:and I discovered for the first time that tsu can be used as a particle

It can't be a particle as far as I know, at least not in the modern language. What do you mean?

つ - (prt) (arch) (See 乃) indicates possessive (often found in place names and compound words)

(arch) means not in modern Japanese.

Ahhh. Hrm. I missed that part, then. xD But it makes some sense in what I was reading, so I'll go dig around in that later and figure it out.

My fault, apologies.

So I will subsequently ignore that part of the sentence and be content with realizing I have the jist of it. Yaaaaaay.

caivano Wrote:If it was me, I would read the manga I had read in English before and only look up stuff that comes up often.

Personally I tend to find that if it's something I've read in English, or where I've seen the anime version, reading the manga/book is a bit...well, not "harder", but more of a slog, because I don't have the "want to know what happens next" effect driving me forwards. One of the earlier manga I read was _Basara_; I'd read the first six or so volumes in English, and going through those again in Japanese just felt really tedious at times. Once I'd got into new story I had more incentive to keep reading...

By the way, for reading real physical book type objects I really recommend, if you can manage to, getting some sort of gadget (preferably portable) with handwriting recognition input so you can look words up in a dictionary by writing them. Making it easy and simple to look up new words really does make a difference, I've found.

Best option is iPhone or for those who don't want an iPhone (myself included), iPod Touch.
The going advice these days is don't get an electronic dictionary, get an iPod Touch.

Can anyone tell me the app I need to use for handwriting recognition on iPhone/ iPod Touch?
Are there handwriting recognition apps on Android phones?

EratiK Wrote:Do you mean even with Japanese subs?

Where can I get Japanese subs for anime??

(I'm pretty sure they mean subs in their own lang btw)