I’m at around 1076 vocabulary rn I’m using the core 2k/6k so at the end of the year I’ll probably be at 5000+. I know a thousand words is still on n5 but is it enough to start reading and if so what kind of stuff would you recommend. I know basically zero Grammer xD I just don’t find the motivation to start reading a text book explaining Grammer lol I probably will start soon but I’ve picked up basic Grammer from the sentence that come with each word in the core 2k/6k so I’m able to understand super basic stuff.
I’d also appreciate any sort of advice for learning rn I just do 10 new words per day and review around 100+ words I’ve already learned.
So yeah any recommendations, any advice I’d love to hear it all. I’m just self teaching btw.
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No. Even N2 is barely enough to read books in real Japanese
If you use Yomichan or some other dictionary you will be looking up basically 1 out of 5 words at that point (probably more) and you may have issues with parsing sentences quite frequently. At about 6k words it becomes pretty easy to read a lot of manga, but you will still be using the dictionary quite often until you hit about 10-12k words. Light novels you really want to be 8k+ vocab I’d say (and that is still with a dictionary).
You’re getting there but I’d reckon it’s not enough, especially given the grammar factor you‘re describing. At least not fluently.
That said, it‘s never wrong to get your toes wet at some point.
I highly recommend using https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/911122782 to grind out grammar points. That deck helped me quantify everything I picked up passively after just doing vocab + listening for 3 months at the start.
I’d recommend Cure Dolly for grammar. And whether or not you can read a 📖 depends on your willingness to suffer. You probably need something around 10k words to read with minimal look ups. Right now, you’d be looking up the majority of words while also constantly coming across new grammar points. It’ll be extremely difficult, but if that’s what you want to do, do it.
Some books! Try it out.
I’d recommend graded readers now. I think Tadouku has a bunch of free graded readers. Also there’s some websites out there with free graded reading materials.
I personally think trying to read an actual novel with a click-dictionary/translation tool (like in Kindle or eReader apps) felt pretty draining until 2000+ words studied. You could get by trying to read/look up words with your 1000 without feeling super drained, if you maybe start with manga you’ve read before in English (looking up just unknown words that seem important that you can’t guess from context) or very beginner friendly manga, watching anime with japanese subs of shows you’ve seen before (again looking up key words that seem important now and then), and maybe let’s plays with japanese subs (there’s a lot) on youtube of games you’ve seen before. I say seen before because in those cases you may be able to guess more words and guess more from prior context in English of knowing the story already, so you may get drained less quickly from “so many unknowns” since you’ll at least know what’s going on even if you don’t understand sentences for several minutes at a time.
Absolutely not
Everyone here seems to be so against reading, it’s actually amazing. I’m going to give my opinion just so you have the other side.
Start reading asap, and look up words often. You don’t have to understand everything, and looking up words is free. You’ll start picking up words just by looking them up time after time. You’ll get a sense of how the language is actually used, which is a lot more important than grinding more Anki. Forgot about imaginary rules like 80/20 or 95/5 or whatever, they mean nothing in your case.
I read Kiki’s delivery after about 1300 words and I had to look up basically every word in that book
so yes you can if you accept you will be doing an insane amount of dictionary lookup
since I was using paperback, it took over 2 months to read this simple book
From what you wrote I assume you haven’t been exposed to any other form of media?
I’d recommend reading but avoid books at this stage, start with simple things like watching an anime with Japanese transcription, watching video in youtube with transcription, reading simple manga like Yotsobato, using graded reader (start with N5), listen to a podcast while reading its transcription.
The reason i suggest avoiding books is because it will be too high-level for you right now, at this stage you probably think that it will be easy after all the work you’ve done so it is likely you will be disappointed when you try, things like simple stories is where you’ll feel the benefit of learning these words
You should check out an app called satori reader, it has lots of stories and dialogs with line by line translations built in. If you can work through a story without too much aid, you’re probably ok, but with 1000 words I’d doubt it.
You could read Yotsuba, especially with the free WaniKani book club vocabulary list (I wouldn’t use that website otherwise)
You should start reading as soon as possible regardless of vocab. Probably not books, but at least something to give you practice.
Regarding the amount of vocab, you are going to greatly struggle until 10k, even with slice-of-life manga. For more difficult content you’d need 15-20k and even then you’ll encounter thousands of unknown words.
You are around 5% there. To read a book comfortably with little lookups you need around 20k words.
Debatable. For a native Japanese book for adults, probably not. For a young children’s book it might be sufficient.
0 vocab is enough to start reading. Just read.
A typical three year olds have a vocabulary of a thousand words. So maybe look for books for the age range?
There are lots of doable books out there even at your level. You will have to make lots of lookups still, but there are actually lots of books that aren’t just like baby picture books that you can take a crack at.
I think lots of people here say that you can’t read any books because the only books people try to read are manga and light novels of anime they know. There are lots of novels for elementary school age kids in Japan that are a good place to start. Try finding books for 3rd 4th and 5th grade reading level or books age 8-10.
Grammar is, for now, more important than words for you. Based on context, after 2000 words will surely be able to read a book just because you know some grammar.
Stop rushing stuff, bro. Just go for the grammar, a’ight? It’s better end the year know 2k of words but understanding the grammar than knowing many words and still can’t understand a thing about the language. Remember: Japanese is hugely based on context!
Its not so much how many words you know when it comes to books its how often are the words you know are used? if you want to learn Japanese for books then just try translate the stuff you dont know add it to a custom anki deck and over time you will know enough for books its the same with games or movies lets say you know 5000 words but there all day to day words but you read a fantasy book you would still struggle cuz you have yet to see that word before
Honestly, I recommend LingQ (Steve Kauffman’s app). I’m not a reader, even in my native language, but I know that I need to read a lot since I need to pass the JLPT for work opportunities. LingQ has a lot of short stories for every level, even for lower beginners, and you can either listen or read because podcasts there have transcripts as well, and you can just click on a word to look up a word. I’ve been using it for 2 months now, and I can tell there are very small improvements.