Im not very good at japanese yet, but i literally cannot learn in any other way than actually using the language, i can learn as many words as i want and as much grammar as i want from books but it just doesnt really do much, i need to read smth (watching anime works too just not as well because it goes a bit faster than i need to think sometimes, so even if ik words i might not catch them).
Ive been trying to read demon slayer, but ive been skipping many parts due to them being hard to understand with my level so instead of wasting my time i just skipped to easier dialogue. But i think it would make more sense to start with something easier.
Im currently probably somewhere on level n5? Im not really sure tbh, i definitely know all the kanji from n5 level and smth like 150 other i learnt randomly? I think i had a list of 200 smth kanji i knew but i might have forgotten some and learnt some new things.
from grammar ik mostly basic stuff and pretty much what ive learnt from just trying to understand manga/anime/songs, Idk how much it is honestly, its surprisingly quite a bit. same with vocabulary just some n5 words and lots of random shit ive seen or heard.
Ofc i dont expect manga or whatever to be exactly on my level it can be more advanced but smth i will be able to partially understand and not translate every single word.
6 comments
search for “crystal hunters”
the first issue is (legally!) free
a little farther than that will be よつばと
Doraemon, crayon shinchan
It’s not the most exciting plot line: https://www.amazon.com/Broad-Bean-Long-Beans-Japanese/dp/4097261924
Yotsuba and chi’s sweet home are pretty easy
Look up the beginner book club on wanikani forums.
You can find a complete vocabulary sheet and discussion for each chapter of yotsuba.
One of the best and most available first manga.
Ojisama to neko as well. Except there is some silly cat related wordplay since you are often reading from the cats perspective.
You can also read the bilingual comics in the back issues of Mangajin magazine. You can read them [online here](https://penpal.jp/go/mangajin/). Every issue included some manga.
What I did was to first learn 2k to 3k of the most common Japanese words, like doing the Tango N5, N4 and N3 Anki decks (available on Ankiweb), then started reading manga, like really easy stuff, like からかい上手の高木さん (Teasing Master Takagi-san) and Doraemon.
If you know that amount of words, you can try to read the [N4 manga as listed on Natively](https://learnnatively.com/resources/search/?min=13&max=19&jlpt=n4&type=manga), even try the lower-level N3 manga, like maybe the in the [early 20 level range](https://learnnatively.com/resources/search/?min=20&max=26&jlpt=n3&type=manga).
Even with that amount of words, reading manga still wasn’t easy as you still need to keep learning words and study grammar, but at least you aren’t looking up every single word as you read, so it feels slightly less overwhelming.