For context, I am Japanese, but grew up in the US. I speak in Japanese with my family so I am extremely fluent and can hold conversations with complex vocab, but when it comes to reading its different. My parents when I was little made me go to a Japanese school to learn kanji, but due to severe bullying, I could no longer attend. Many years later now, I only know really basic easy kanji, but I want to learn more to the point where if I were in a public area in Japan (for example maybe a restaurant) I could read the menu with no issues. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to learn if you already speak the language well, but cant read much of the kanjis?
4 comments
You could go through the school grades. That order would make more sense for you than other people since the vocabulary database in your mind should already be there. Then maybe take up reading for fun as a hobby if you’re up for it. Shōnen and shōjo manga often have furigana, so if you get lost in the kanji, the furigana should give you a good idea of what they’re saying. Just try not to develop an over-reliance on furigana if you want to be independent of it (since a lot of things to read just won’t have it).
you could also go through a vocab frequency list, but that’s gonna be far less streamlined for someone who already knows Japanese but wants to work on their literacy.
There are lots of study materials for the Kanji Kentei tests, starting with lv. 10 (== 1st grade). The 出る順 series is good, and the testing agency itself publishes the ステップ series of books for each level; there are also apps and so on as well. Working up to ~3級 is really worth the effort in my experience, as that’s the level for having finished middle school and that’ll cover the vast majority of kanji you’ll see on a daily basis.
Reading. Look up the readings to kanji and words you don’t know. The more you read, the more kanji will stick and it becomes easier. Since you already speak Japanese, it probably won’t take long until your reading skills catch up.
Read a lot of manga and other material with furigana as your number 1 source of entertainment/immersion like kids do. Furigana means you should be able to understand almost everything just fine even if you don’t know the kanji. As you get used to reading more and more you will pick up more and more kanji naturally, and then you can try to go through stuff like a Japanese-focused kanji deck like [this one](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1833474130) or, alternatively, literally any other grade-appropriate resources for native speakers to bridge any gap in your knowledge.
That’s what I did at least (although I wasn’t in your exact same position) and it worked fine for me.