Satori reader

20 comments

1. I found it a really well thought out easy to use website with all the features you could ask for but the stories were so dull It was a chore to read them on top of the mental difficulty of actually reading Japanese. I really wanted to keep using it but the tab would just sit there unclicked so i canceled it.

2. To be fair i didn’t use it more than 5min but i already got bored. Personally i found it hard to navigate. I would always recommend FLRT, LWT or Lingq first. Imo Lingq is the best one but you need a subscription.

3. It’s not perfect, but I really enjoyed it once I was pretty solidly in the N5-N4 range. Before that, the stories were too hard. But there were two series, Human Japanese Extra Credit (beginner and intermediate), that helped when I was still less than N5 level. I really liked Kona’s Big Adventure and Kiki Mimi Rajio. Admittedly two of the easier stories on the site.

   The SRS still needs some work. But it has some really nice features. You can have up to three context sentences for a given word or phrase. Also, you can click a link at the end of each context sentence, and it’ll take you back to the chapter that the context sentence appeared in. Also, you can click on the words in the context sentence for extra help / grammar notes, etc. My biggest complaint about the SRS was the spacings. If you always mark a word as medium difficulty, the spacings in days are 2, 4, 9, 21, 51, 126, 314, etc. The spacings are exact, not fuzzy, so if you do a lot of words in one session, then all those words will come back for review on the same day. If you mark a word as “miss”, it starts over, as if it was the first time seeing the word (but it remembers how many times you marked the word hard or easy). I recently decided to always mark words as hard at least a few times, to bring the spacings down to something more in line with my Anki settings (I use a multiplier around 175%, not the default 250%).

4. I think it’s a fantastic resource. You will need to look around for a story that grabs you, but it’s like having a teacher guide you through with grammar and usage notes. The recordings are very good too. They’re actual human beings putting in a performance. It’s really helpful.

   It’s a little expensive for me, but I like it. The stories usually take too long to get going, but there’s a lot of good learning material in the exposition anyhow.

5. I loved it and it really bridged the transition from beginning to actual Japanese novels. I personally really enjoyed Akiko’s Foreign Exchange, which I started on the easier version and eventually switched to the harder one. The SRS is pretty bad IMO, but the content is native-like and I found the culture/grammar notes really interesting. I honestly actually enjoyed reading the stories.

6. Some of the highest quality content, with exceptionally helpful annotations.

   It sounds like the biggest complaint in the thread is “it was so good that I had no excuse but to put in the work, so I canceled the subscription.”

   Great for reading and listening skills. Less good for speaking.

7. I liked it when I was using it. But it’s kind of a waste when I let the subscription renew and I continue not using it! Unlike wanikani, where I could buy a lifetime subscription. So if I don’t do it for a few months, I’m just.. behind on studying, not actively wasting money.

8. Yes, it is very good

9. I’m a big fan of Satori Reader. It’s a great way to get practice reading, and it also explains a lot of grammar and culture points.

10. **Good:**

    * Audio is read slowly and clearly, and they always offer an option without any background noise.
    * You can play audio sentence by sentence, or play continuously, and pause at any point.
    * They have some detailed translation notes that are really insightful.
    * It automatically removes furigana for kanji that I’ve already learned on Wanikani! (this is like magic to me and also gives me confidence in my progress learning kanji)
    * You can add words to the SRS with one click, and the SRS lets you automatically review the original sentence in context including audio. I find it particularly useful for reviewing hiragana- or katakana-only words which Wanikani will never teach me.

    **Bad:**

    * So many problems with the SRS:
    * Cannot add your own notes or mnemonics
    * Sometimes I encounter a word written in hiragana or katakana and add it, just to find at review time that the front card shows the word in kanji (I’m trying to memorize it the way I actually encountered it!)
    * Timing of stages feels kinda weird compared to Anki/WK
    * For all these reasons, I sometimes duplicate certain Satori Reader cards into my Anki deck.
    * Occasionally, some of the word definitions (which they claim give the meanings of the words “in context”) in fact give general definitions that are not at all applicable in that particular context. This has confused the hell out of me from time to time.
    * The stories are fun but not as personally compelling for me as reading that I’m deeply invested in like my favorite songs, anime, video games, etc. With good Japanese subtitles from Kitsunekko and Voracious video player I can get a similar experience watching my favorite anime.

11. I love it, you can check out the first couple episodes of each story for free, so take a look and see if you like it.

12. I adore Satori reader. Well worth the price

13. Yeah I like Satori Reader for the intermediate level. If you’re a beginner I think you should wait and would probably get more enjoyment from just trying to read simpler manga which provide images for context.

    Satori Reader is for slightly more advanced learners who are not quite ready for native materials. I think there would be more value for beginners if there was more guidance on how to use it as a learning tool.

    The content, however, is excellent.

14. I’ve been subscribed for about 2 years and overall I like it.

    Let’s get the negatives out of the way. The SRS just doesn’t really work as well as Wanikani or Anki for vocabulary. I use it for grammar points though, and it is quite useful from that perspective, especially as the grammar explanations are really clear.

    Another negative is that there’s no consistency in the difficulty, so you never know whether an episode will be easy or really tough. Even their own labels didn’t seem to be accurate.

    I’d say some of the stories were well written and interesting, but others really weren’t. Too many stories about cats and lots of supernatural stories for me. But the ones I liked I really got into.

    On the positive, it gets you reading. It’s so easy for me to do on the train so I have no excuses. From about N4 onwards I would recommend it to anyone. Below that, you could try it but there’s probably something better, and free, that you could use instead.

    The grammar expiations in each episode are really clearly written with good examples. If you still don’t get it, there’s a comment section that you can leave questions, and one of the team usually replies with a detailed answer within 48 hours. And it’s a really well thought out answer too. So it feels like you also have access to a private teacher to answer your questions.

    I’ve nearly finished all the material, so I might try rereading some of the ones I’ve already finished. After that I’ll probably cancel my subscription, but I won’t have regretted purchasing it at all. I credit it with a big jump in my reading comprehension.

15. I subbed when I first started learning japanese, and just found it too hard to read, so wouldn’t recommend it for absolute beginners.

    I’m well into N4 though now so may give it another shot, as I’m currently lacking written comprehensible input.

16. It’s probably one of the best resources out there, easily worth it. My reading has *really* improved in the year or so I’ve been doing it and I’m not even into the intermediate/hard stories yet.

17. Can you share the link pls?

18. I think Satori Reader is an amazing tool. The only issues I have had with it personally is that the gap between beginner stories and intermediate ones is pretty large (in my opinion) and there is no actually ranking of difficulty besides the category (like beginner or intermediate). I finished all the beginner episodes and found them extremely helpful for reading comprehension. I finished 2 of the intermediate stories, but have found the rest of the intermediate stories to be extremely difficult.

    That being said, my biggest complaint about Satori Reader is that there are not more stories because now I need to find another reading source until I improve enough to read the rest.

    I found Hole in The Wall and Akiko’s American Foreign Exchange to be the easiest stories if you are looking for a place to start.

19. Haven’t used it yet, but I’ve heard nothing but good things. However, I can recommend their other products, Human Japanese and Human Japanese Intermediate.

20. > what people think about it?

    I love Satori Reader. I wish they had hundreds of full series and on-demand articles (I’d ask for the whole Japanese Wikipedia)

    I’ve read all their completely released series and I’m currently waiting for the new series to be published fully for.. binge reading and listening.

    The monthly subscription is a bit higher than the yearly one, but it helps me use the app every day for the last <400 days. I look at the money difference as a support for the app.

    > What are your experiences with it?

    For me the app is tons of fun as I can enjoy any story genre.

    I never know what story to start next, so I usually pick them by level and length. When I didn’t like the story from the first few episodes because something about the language was too difficult for me, I skipped it and returned to it after finishing a few more series. On the second try I found the story great.

    I tried their SRS, but I’m unwilling to do the required mental work when using flashcards, be it Anki or whatnot, so in the end I didn’t use it.

    > Do you consider it good listening and reading practice?

    Stories are better than any single word or sentence without a real context, so the app is a good general practice.

    The texts are written by Japanese natives (or the natives are consulted about the language in the case of the grammar series).

    The audio comes from Japanese natives – some of them are professional voice actors.

    You can change the speed of the audio and as of yesterday’s update you can play a whole series in the app (a feature that was previously available only on the website)

    For reading, you can choose from multiple options ranging from *kana only* to *all kanji, no furigana*.

    > Do you have a similar website that you think is better?

    No, I don’t.

    I can only think of endlessly asking for help on Reddit, HiNative, Italki etc. in order to raise a resource to the same level as Satori Reader.

    But maybe that raise is not necessary. I use graded readers without English translation, videos with auto generated subtitles, texts with text-to-speech audio, and so on.

    > Also how reliable is it, in terms of pronunciation and lack of errors?

    I think of voice actors as speaking for natives, not for foreigners, but I don’t actually know what a voice actor studies. Maybe it’s enough to be a native and pronounce words clearly?

    Regarding errors, well, these days somehow it’s impossible to achieve 100% accuracy even though the SR team is aiming for that perfection. If users ask about things that don’t make sense in an article, the team will correct or clarify things.

    I think Satori Reader team is doing an outstanding job.