I had 3 years of german in middle school and now Im studying japanese language on the university. I know how important is reading for real understanding of a language and because of that I want to start reading as fast as possible. After 3 years of german, even tho I wasnt a good student (B and D grades mostly) I can comfortably read some webtoons, and even books if I search for some words I dont know. But I cant really do it with Japanese. Ive been studying for some time before starting Uni, my anki says I know a bit above 2k words right now. I’d like to start reading some books or maybe at least manga but I dont find it really possible. Im not sure where really lies the problem, because 2K words should be enough to understand some simple manga, but I cant really understand even a single sentence and read comfortably. Im quite sure that I know way less german words than japan after those 3 years of not really paying attention in school, but still reading in german is way more comfortable, so Im not really sure where lies the problem? Its not like I dont recognize the kanji of words I already know, but still it seems like in Japanese its just way harder for some reason? Or maybe this language just is built this way that it requiers way more words to start reading in it?. I’d like to ask you all here, how many words/characters have you known when you started reading in Japanese? I don’t really find it amusing or worth the time if I have to spend few minutes on every single sentence because of rewriting and looking up all the kanji.
2 comments
I have no clue where you’re from, but I would guess that your native language is a lot closer to German, than it is to Japanese. This gives you a lot for free. Similar words, similar grammar etc.
Do you only study words? Or also grammar? What words do you study, is it just random words? You could focus on words that you might find in simple Manga. Number of words known (according to Anki) doesn’t mean much if it’s words that you don’t encounter.
You can start with really easy manga, like yotsubato etc, and work up from there.
I started with graded readers first (Satori Reader) at somewhere between 1.5 – 2K words and then ~3 months later started my first easy light novel at around 3K words. It was far from comfortable, but it was manageable. One thing to note is that every new book feels a lot more difficult during the first 50 pages or so than afterwards. But you absolutely should expect having to look up a lot of words for a long time to come.
I can recommend using graded readers first, as an easy way to get into reading, but I wouldn’t use them for too long. Eventually you will just have to fight your way through your first real book. I also think it helps a lot to have a good reading setup. You can check the resources on [TheMoeWay](https://learnjapanese.moe/reading/) for that. Especially [Yomichan](https://learnjapanese.moe/yomichan/) has been invaluable. I also recommend using [Natively](https://learnnatively.com/) or [jpdb.io](https://jpdb.io) to find content that’s easier to read.