Hello, I’d like a few app recommendations for Android. I’ve been learning japanese for a few years, I’m probably around A2/B1 level.
I’ve always focused on reading and recently really got back into learning. Currently I use Anki for my daily dose of Kanji and Vocabulary learning, and I’ve dabbled into Satori Reader a bit. I have physical japanese books at home and a whole Kindle for my Amazon jp account, but I would really love an app to bridge the gap between my current level and fluency.
I’ve looked at Memrise and Human Japanese, but I don’t know whether later lessons give you good reading practice or “just” repeat vocabulary and Kanji. Would Human Japanese be a good idea if I already use Satori?
I also downloaded Pixiv for some fanfiction, but that’s still a bit too high of a level for me. Any ideas?
6 comments
One technique that I like (though it’s kinda hard for beginner through intermediate levels) is using NHK’s Web Easy; they write out news articles in super simple Japanese, with links to the original articles. You read the easy version so that you understand the topic, then read the original to learn the vocab that is relevant to that topic.
For apps that does a similar thing to the above, I also like the Todai Easy Japanese app
Set up yomichan on kiwi browser and read literary anything on that. You have the entire internet there, you can even use https://reader.ttsu.app/ for epubs
y’know…. I never did find that intermediate bridge. I spent some odd years looking for it. Learning materials were too easy, but native materials were too hard.
I found the bridge was just knuckling down with a dictionary, a grammar guide, and a translator as needed, and just taking it line-by-line.
Thankfully, each piece of media has its own core vocabulary that repeats A TON. So over a surprisingly short period of time my word look ups decreased, and my enjoyment and reading speed increased.
It’s a slog at first, but it’s 100% been worth it.
I’m not really sure what you mean when you say “get fluent with reading” but I’d say that such an app does not exist. If you want to be able to read fluently you’re just gonna have to read a lot. So start with some graded readers or manga or something and then light novels or easy novels and then more difficult novels, news articles, Wikipedia, whatever you can get your hands on pretty much. There is no straightforward way towards fluency, and it’s gonna take a while. One step at a time.
yomichan is all you need
Work on domain vocab. What that means is picking a topic and readily heavily in that specific area so you can learn the vocab used there.
Start with something you enjoy reading about and know about in English. e.g. if you’re into baseball this would include stuff like interviews with players and coaches, sites for kids explaining how you become a pro baseball player, and baseball centric fiction.
Stuff aimed at older kids, particularly of the “how stuff works” genre, is often a good entry point. Get used to googling どうやって a lot 😉