i puck up the genki series a few years ago, i got through the first 2 easy enough, but when i get to lesson 3 they drop the romanji, im dyslexic so its going to take me some time to learn to read kana. way longer than genki allows for is there a way to learn reading basic sentences before i start genki agian, this is attemp5 or 6 and this happens every time this time i want to prepare.
its not that im reading the romanji to get around learning kana you need to learn kana and kanji thats just a fact, but i read the romanji to know the sounds and the meaning and then read the kana to learn to read the kana witch takes me ages because when i get to 3 im still in the stage where you have to activly think of what the reading is to know what it says its just a lot that soon.
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Technically, eventually, kanji should be telling you the meaning of many, if not most words.
You should not get too attached to romaji which is why they force you to kana so “soon”, perhaps you have neglected this for too long.
If you find yourself having issues reading kana, I suggest you use something like this [http://japanese.lentil.com/](http://japanese.lentil.com/) to help you. Please don’t let your dyslexia perplex you too much – while I am not trying to downplay the problem, I have met dyslexic people who only had issues with certain languages but were fine in others, so giving it a fair chance with a hopeful attitude may help! Otherwise, feel free to have that explanation to not feel discouraged.
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It really is for the best to learn this as soon as possible, though!
You should take a look at Japanese from Zero (there are books as well as a corresponding online course, whichever you prefer). Throughout the 5 book series it teaches you practically the same grammar points as Genki 1+2, but with a much(!) slower introduction of kana and later kanji. This might be exactly for you. The explanations are also really well written and it comes with YouTube videos that add to every lesson.
And why don’t you learn the Kanas before picking the books?
just keep practicing, you’ll get used to it
I’m dyslexic too, Japanese reduces your dyslexia by the way.
Learn kana with the tofugu guide.
It’s normal for it to feel awkward at first. Just keep going.
[https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/feb/12/schools.research](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/feb/12/schools.research)
Apparently you have a superpower for Japanese. Keep at it 🙂
You can make a crib sheet of kana or spend sometime working out the romaji. It’s going to be extra work probably until you start picking it up better with practice and exposure.
If you’re doing Japanese for fun, maybe get a tutor who can help you or maybe a study partner.
I’m not a dyslexic, but what helped me was first studying kana with [Tofugu](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/) and their [quiz](https://kana-quiz.tofugu.com/).
Then after I was able to at least recognize the characters without knowing the sounds, I started writing proper sentences in my notebook (only with kana), and read them out loud while doing so. Good luck!
I’ve always heard that you shouldn’t use romaji as a crutch, though I’m not entirely sure what the big deal is. Especially if your goal is primarily to speak Japanese rather than reading and writing it. (On the flipside, once you start using kanji then you’ll be able to read and write some Japanese even if you are unable to speak it lol)
Assuming this isn’t for school, my solution would be to transcribe all the kana into romaji before you actually begin the lesson. Like, write the romaji in the margins or even on a separate piece of paper or something. (This, however, will be very time consuming in the long run. Might be better just to bite the bullet and get good at reading kana, though admittedly I’ve taken 3+ semesters of college Japanese and I still stumble on the kana. It’s not that I can’t read it; it’s that I can’t read it quickly and naturally. I’m literally trying to read the sentences by sounding them out one syllable at a time. I mean, I can spot the vocab in the senteces, and I can parse the grammar and everything, so that’s not a problem; but I honestly think my oral/speaking skills would be a lot better if we had used romaji, because when I have to sit there sounding things out one syllable at a time then I never really get a feel for the rhythm of each word or the sound of the sentence as a whole.
Have you considered learning kana through sound and sound alone?
As other people have commented, there is evidence which indicates that the severity of dyslexia changes depending on language. Japanese may be easier or harder on you. You should definitely throw away the rōmaji if you want to keep studying… go at your own pace and be assured that things will get easier the more you work at it. Some just have to work more than others. 頑張ってね💪
Start writing the hiragana, and transcribing romaji to hiragana, then back again, just for practice. Soon it will be second nature.
I’m also dyslexic and tbh you need to really just force yourself to memorise kana asap, leaning on romaji at all will just make things more confusing. At least for me, my brain tries to read romaji like english and that just makes everything much worse.
Learn hiragana, and then leaning kanji reading in hiragana.
For kanji genki is not great; it just throws kanji at you as the vocab comes up and you kind of have to memorise them as you go. TBH I’d recommend looking for other resources that will teach you kanji in a more organised way to use along side learning grammar from Genki (there are recommendations in this sub’s starter guide).
This is helpful as kanji actually have a lot of patterns and rules that can be hard to see when you learn them at random, for instance phonetic radicals (i.e. when kanji that share a same subcomponent will also share a reading).