Supposedly Doraemon is one of the easiest manga to read, yet I found Shin Chan, and even Slam Dunk easier than Doraemon. Why is it categorized as an easy manga to read? Did anybody else have a similar expierence?
Obviously, Yotsubato is the easiest and Sakura Taisen is the hardest from this bunch.
by GeorgeBG93
13 comments
I would like to learn Japanese via manga in addition to other things. May I ask where one can read in Japanese? Thank you
I did years ago when I started learning, I didn’t try reading those easy mangas that you mentioned. I skipped straight into comedy and fantasy mangas, I couldn’t read Yotsuba since I found it unbearably boring.
What you’re doing is probably the best way to get into learning japanese by reading mangas. I faced a lot of trouble since the mangas that I tried to read were beyond my level at the time.
If you want some advice, I would say to be careful with furigana. At that time, I became used to reading manga with furigana and thought I was progressing quickly until I tried reading my first visual novel without furigana and got my self-confidence crushed. It turns out I could barely read kanji without furigana.
For me, reading through something like Pluto is a significantly smoother experience than something as relaxed as ヨコハマ買い出し紀行 because I take longer to register dialect shenanigans, character-specific speech quirks, etc.
God I’m not the only one. Someone recommended Doraemon as an easy manga. The hell it is. I found it tough. I am finished with tobira and still find Doraemon tough. I found flying witch and yotsuba and shirokuma cafe easier
may I ask you which JLPT level are you ?
Doraemon sometimes uses very hard vocabulary/hard to understand words especially when they’re dealing with the invention/magic tool for the episode. At least that’s how it feels like for me.
I think one reason Doraemon is recommended is it has a lot of cultural relevance in Japan. You see it referenced a lot, movies are still made, etc. The other answer is that it’s a good place to start breaking your teeth learning weird words, a skill that’ll start to carry you through more fantasy and sci fi as your progress.
It’s hard to say why you’re having a hard time with Doraemon without examples of what contexts/passages you’re having a hard time with. Do you have any examples?
What specifically do you find difficult in Doraemon? Is it a vocabulary issue, or do characters have idiosyncratic styles of speech? I’ve never actually tried to read Doraemon myself so I’m not sure what part of it might trip someone up.
I didn’t read it so I can’t say for sure, but imo reading dialogues from very young characters can be hard for us because we’re more used to more “normal” dialogues.
Kids often mangle words in a way that makes them harder for someone who doesn’t have strong foundation in a language, so even if the vocabs they use are easier, for this reason it becomes harder to comprehend.
What did you find difficult about Doraemon?
I have the opposite lol.I find slam dunk a lot harder than doraemon
If Shin Chan is anyone’s “slice of life” story, that will be an interesting life they lead.