I’ve already watched the whole anime, and I just ordered the manga (in japanese), I also ordered a dictionary to help with any words I don’t know, should I also order a grammer book or a Genki or something, or is a dictionary enough? (I can already read hiragana and katakana mostly with ease, and the dictionary has them if I forget any, and One Piece obviously has furigana so kanji won’t be too difficult)
And also any tips for making this easier or faster would help a lot. (hopefully on the cheaper side)
Edit: To clarify I was not planning on only using the anime and manga to learn Japanese (The title was very misleading I realize) but rather whether I would be able to read the manga with only the dictionary. (I will study Japanese thoroughly in the future but I’m not currently in a position to do that, but I wanted to read and watch One Piece in the original)
And I do know that this is insanity to even try.
Looking at the replies I suppose I will probably purchase a grammar book.
Update:
The first volume and the dictionary just arrived.
Flipping through I can already understand about 60-70% of it and the grammar doesn’t seem too complicated, plus with the pictures I can understand another 10% or so just from the drawings. (facial expressions etc…) And just from saying the words aloud, I can understand the onomatopoeias, and a lot of the words/sentences are very similar to those of anime, so my brain just kinda clicks and understands.
I haven’t started really digging in so I don’t have much to say about it, but based on this, should I still order a grammar book and/or a lesson book?
Something that I realized I haven’t mentioned is that I thoroughly studied Latin in high school. (Almost entirely textbook study) I also learned Italian (to like B2-ish) in a summer. (Mostly textbook study, but I watched a couple dozen movies to ease myself along) I have also been watching a few anime without subtitles though I can only understand about half of what they say. Don’t know if this changes anything, but just a little bit of background information.
8 comments
you’re gonna need grammar for the words to make any sense. Please get some foundations in with Genki or the like
I passed N3 and tried reading Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun and didnt enjoy it cause I cant understand anything. I think it won’t be enjoyable for now at your level.
Genki is a good choice, it’s a decent enough textbook and because it’s so popular most questions you might have can be easily googled.
Trying to read One Piece as an absolute beginner is going to be rough, it includes a lot of slang, puns, made-up terms, and dialect (words written out phonetically as they would be spoken by someone with an accent or rough speech pattern, rather than how they appear in the dictionary).
Budget learning suggestions below.
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“How can I learn Japanese for free?”
Tae Kim is effectively a textbook replacement, at least as far as
providing grammar lessons. It lacks the extent of dialogues and exercises in
typical textbooks, so you will need to find additional practice elsewhere.
– http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/ (Tae Kim’s grammar)
Erin’s Challenge and NHK lessons teach lessons with audio.
They are not IMO enough to learn from by themselves, but you should have some exposure to the spoken language.
– https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/ (Erin’s challenge – online audio-visual course, many skits)
– https://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/ (NHK lessons – online audio-visual course)
Anki and Memrise both replace flashcards, and are general purpose.
Koohii is a special-purpose flashcard site learning Kanji the RTK way.
– https://apps.ankiweb.net/ (SRS ‘flashcard’ program; look for ‘core 10k’ as the most popular Japanese vocab deck).
– https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/japanese
– https://www.memrise.com/ (another SRS ‘flashcard’ app).
– https://www.memrise.com/courses/english/japanese-4/
– https://kanji.koohii.com/ (RTK style kanji only srs ‘flashcard’ web app)
Dictionaries
– https://jisho.org/ (Online Japanese-English Dictionary; romaji input)
– https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/ (Online Japanese/J-E/E-J Dictionary )
– https://www.weblio.jp/ (Online Japanese/J-E/E-J Dictionary ; many example sentences )
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If you don’t mind ending up speaking like an anime character go for it.
There are manga like books with proper grammar (cant remember the name, I think I have one, will let you know if I find it) that can be a better choice.
im so glad one piece exists so that it filters idiots with its 1000 episodes
Get a textbook or a teacher
Follow that
Then supplement with One Piece
Studying through only One Piece won’t get you far
As someone who is around N4 level and trying to watch one piece or even read manga (urusei yatsura for me which has furigana), it is incredibly hard. I have nearly finished genki 2 as well. I can only manage one piece fully understood through constant pausing and looking up words. It took me like 40 mins to read 10 pages of urusei yatsura the other day due to vocab too (grammar was mostly fine but sometimes its unclear still).
You need to study grammar, you need to read content aimed at children (my current fav is NHK easy news) and you need to listen to podcasts or watch youtube videos aimed at learners of japanese or at children. I keep trying to break into anime and manga and keep finding it hard, I make the most progress when i actually just sit there and study lol. It sucks but you have to study a lot before you can begin to do the fun things in japanese.
The only fun thing I can probably manage now (I struggled to 6 months ago so if I gave it a shot now itd probably be manageable) is playing pokemon games in japanese (particularly legends as that has furigana). But that was after 6 months of study too.
It isnt just the grammar either, you need to learn kanji as there are a lot of homophones (words that sound the same and written with the same hiragana obv but are writtrn with different kanji). I recommend wanikani for kanji, it has helped my kanji go from meh to like 300 known in a few months.
I recommend either genki or japanese from zero. I started with JFZ and transitioned to Genki after the first 2 JFZ books (covers about the first half of genki 1). JFZ is good for the basics as there is a complementary video series on youtube.
I did something similar in middle school. I did it so well, I got a japanese degree without studying.
No, don’t use genki. Essential Japanese grammar by E. F. Bleiler (Author) (6 dollar small yellow book)
The reason? You can finish it in a couple of days, and it goes over most of the main points… it is in romaji, which is an advantage, and let me tell you why.
It’s easier to understand some of japanese grammer in romaji at first, and as you’re reading a middle schooler book there will be hiragana over most, if not all the kanji.
So read Essentail Japanese grammar, learn hiragana, get a dictionary, and then read one piece. Also sign up for “wanikani” to get yourself used to kanji early.
After that I would suggest A Guide to Japanese Grammar: A Japanese approach to learning Japanese grammar by Tae Kim.
I’m honestly not a fan of Genki, even though I’ve done the entire book 2x. but that would be my next step if you finish the other two to make sure you hit everything.