She’s started learned Japanese using DuoLingo this year and she’s truly sticking with it, so I want to deepen her interest/resources for it. I was thinking of getting her an early elementary or toddler level manga to read, but I have no idea what to get. I don’t know which version(?) of Japanese she’s learning in DuoLingo (kanji? Something else?) but I obviously want them to match/teach in alignment so she’s further encouraged and not frustrated because it’s different and she can’t figure it out… she’s still very early in her educational journey and I have absolutely zero foundational knowledge to discern a good option for her.
Anyone know what would work well for a kid starting off with DuoLingo? Thanks in advance, this is hard.
14 comments
1. Duolingo teaches vocabulary, not grammar and in a haphazard way. There’s no way to “align” with it.
2. Anything for toddlers and early elementary isn’t going to have any or very little kanji in it. As kids don’t start learning kanji until 1st and only so many at that.
3. Look for books about Anpanman and Doraemon or even Pokemon. It’s also very easy to look up the target age, as it’s the age and the 才. Like 5-6才 means ages 5 to 6.
Edit:
4. While not a manga, it might be good to get her a textbook about
Japanese for kids. While not incredibly common, they do exist and might be a good supplement for DuoLingo.
I have two.
1.Love is too early for you himeno-chan.
Is a pretty cute story about a girl in 6th grade falling in love with a boy of her class and how she trie many wais of call his atention (failing the mayority of times)
2. Chiisana morí ookami-san.
Another pretty cute story about a wolf girl who is the gurdian of the forest and her daily life with all her friends.
Props for supporting your daughter with her language studies!
I would recommend taking a look at Ciao, which is not a manga itself but a monthly “magazine” geared towards girls in elementary school that contains chapters of various manga. It might be hard to get your hands on a copy but going through the list of featured manga through Google with your daughter to see what she’s interested in could be a good idea. Here’s a list for reference:
https://www.anime-planet.com/manga/magazines/ciao
My guess is that she might struggle with understanding any manga at first as the conversations will be natural (meaning that they won’t be as neatly structured as a lesson in duolingo), but being able to look up words and figure out what everything means could be quite rewarding. I also might not recommend toddler-level manga as she might not be interested!
About looking up words when she’s reading manga: denshi jisho and handwritten kanji recognition are excellent websites to help her figure out the meaning of things. Kanji (the complex characters also used in Chinese) is often very challenging, and the handwritten kanji recognition site allows you to, well, handwrite using your mouse the kanji you’re trying to learn and give you a definition.
Good luck!
I know it’s not what you asked, but why not try anime as well?
It will give her a chance to hear native Japanese and the animated aspect makes it easy to follow along even without full comprehension.
Plus, there’s plenty of age-appropriate movies and shows out there. Can’t go wrong with ghibli.
I saw lots of people recomending Yotsuha as its easy to read. Its using mostly basic japanese.
My 8yo is doing the same as yours. We read Yotsuba& together and he tries to transliterate only Yotsuba’s speech bubbles, using hiragana and katakana charts I printed for him. Yotsuba uses simple words and only kana, as she doesn’t know kanji. Yotsuba& is slice-of-life, it doesn’t have much of a story, so it’s easy and simple for children.
Doraemon for sure. Easy, fun, popular among kids around that age. It’s also pretty good and teaches decent messages
Chi’s Sweet Home is pretty simple, about a kitten being taken in by a young family.
If you have access to a public library, many pay for access to a really amazing app called Mango Languages. It’s by the far the best language program I’ve used as it teaches through practical conversations that get broken down to the tiniest parts. Grammar gets pointed out as well as cultural tidbits about the language that are helpful in understanding WHY you are saying things
I would also re commend yotsubato…very easy and fun to read.
Ik online, you can find bilingual childrens books in both japanese and english. On the japanese side of the web, they have bilingual manga the same way. You can find all of that on the amazon sites for your region and japan. I once found a bilingual manga at a random book store too lol.
Idk anything about child ages and what is appropriate for education levels and all that, but as a learner, i got a lot from childrens manga like Yotsuba&! And Pokemon, and anime like Bottle Fairy, and generic fairy tale one shots or short movies like the Animal Crossing movie and things like that. I also watched japanese miffy on youtube, im sure theres plenty other kids shows in japanese on there too. Yotsuba and bottle fairy are great bc its basically children learning the world around them and so you hit all that relevant vocab pretty head on.
This isn’t a manga recommendation but I would recommend https://refold.la/ as a very good method for learning japanese or really any language you want. I think the guide may be too dense for an 8 year old but an adult could read it and explain the basics to a child fairly easily.
The number 1 most important thing is to make sure she doesn’t get burnt out and that she’s always having fun.
Edit: I also think she should watch children’s anime or some form of listening content as it is more important to get listening down first because the older you age the harder it becomes to hear and mimic sounds. Tho again she shouldn’t go too overboard but if she’s interested https://kotu.io/tests/pitchAccent/perception/minimalPairs is a very good test for pitch accent.
How about something more guided with a tutor on iTalki? There are a few who are experienced with teaching kids and could adjust material to your daughter’s level. Of course you should talk to the teacher first, or maybe join in
if she likes sailor moon, I can do nothing but recommend my favourite anime, pretty cure! it’s also a magical girl anime targeted towards young children! there are a lot of seasons but each is a standalone with different and unique concepts/characters so she could choose by herself which one seems most interesting 🙂