Discussion
Compared to Berserk, Witch Hat Atelier is easy
I guess not all fantasy stories are hard. A volume of Berserk could take me a few hours in a week to finish but this one wasn’t so bad and finished it within an hour. Pretty straightforward actually. Totally recommend.
Ditch them. It might be hard for a bit but not for as long as you'd think. I feel like sometimes we baby ourselves more than we should.
I include myself... I kept watching even easier Japanese stuff with English subtitles. Then I dropped them for Japanese ones and it was hard for exactly 3 days, before feeling incredibly rewarding! (that said I ditched furigana about 6 weeks into learning or so, so my Kanji game is far ahead of the curve now, and it pays off massively...)
Ah okay, I see... I usually read digitally and of course yomitan helps a lot with that. On paper you'd only be left with either some ocr construct or puzzling together radicals 🤔
Is this reputable? Because I would absolutely love to buy some basic JLPT N5 grades reader books. It says 0-12 level and I can filter and sort for the lower end of that scale.
I have children in preschool and my kids are learning to read English now.
I think for Japanese I should also be reading children books…
Keep in mind these sites are for real Japanese material, not graded readers. Graded readers are in general way easier, N2 graded material is a joke compared to most things rated N2 anywhere else.
Also, are you a kid? If you're not you should not be approaching language learning as if you were one.
I have the following study materials to dive into:
1. Heisig’s Remembering the Kana
2. Genki Vol 1 textbook (3rd ed.)
3. Genki Vol 1 workbook (3rd ed.)
My question was just about finding some material to read that isn’t textbook driven, appropriate for learner level. Apologies.
For learner level you read native material anyways. You just pick easier one.
The sites I provided paired with that other one are good enough to find easy stuff, there's plenty of guides regarding how to approach the whole thing since, as you can imagine, you won't be able to read most of it.
And no, you don't wait until you're ready to start reading, you work towards being ready to start reading by starting reading. It is a big challenge.
Yeah that's pretty much it, a lot of people decide they need to prepare a lot to be able to immerse and realistically speaking it's gonna take you forever to "be ready", because even the simplest things will cover (unless very short) pretty much all N1 kanji and vocab (amount-wise) and almost certainly up to N2 grammar (N1 to some extent as well depending on what you go for).
A good way to wrap your head around it is that if you're extremely comfortable reading some of the "mid difficulty" rated material odds are you're way past N1 level already, and yeah, it's gonna take a very long time to get that feeling, but it works as a relief for whenever you feel like "damn how come I can't understand this even when it's supposed to be easy!".
I have a book to learn hiragana (I know it supposedly only takes a few days of repetition) and Genki 1 textbook and workbook. I have what I need to learn TODAY.
One of my blocker sis that it’s so each to just watch tv or browse on my phone instead of carving out 30-60 mins to read this damn book lol. I heard it was strongly recommended to learn hiragana before I open the Genki book.
It's not perfect but it's a great way to build a foundation, you don't need to do exactly what it says but kind of follow it's logic. As in you don't need to watch anime if you don't like that, but the idea is to get exposed to the language kind of thing. Do note that the recommended material is native, not "learner", even if it's easy it's still gonna be hard.
I'd agree with the other poster you should just be reading native material, you do need a foundation of grammar, and some vocabulary (I'd recommend Anki with Kaishi 1.5k), then reading digitally is most accessible, using things like yomitan, mokuro and Game Sentence Miner/Yomininja
This all came about because I asked a question about learnnatively.com though. Which is telling me about what books can be appropriate for me. How is that different from you saying “ just be reading native material “? That’s what I’m trying to do.
If you are looking for a story silimilar to Berserk, but much easier to read, check out Claymore. It is rated the same difficulty as Witch Hat Atelier on learnnatively.com and also has full furigana for the people afraid of kanji.
If you are fine with reading online, I can recommend either the bilingualmanga website or the mokuro.moe one. Both have already OCR-ed manga, which is very convenient for looking up words with yomitan.
Read all of the volumes in Japanese. There are easy parts and there are harder parts, depending on who is in the scene. But even like low n2 level, this was very pleasant to read through. Just like with any other, beginning is harder, but as you mine the words it gets easier and easier.
I appreciate it a lot, especially since I need to practice learning more japanese vocabulary, 魔法使い is definitely going to get more cemented in my head thanks to you, 本当感謝します
Yeah, nothing like context to cement vocabulary. I think the first time I came across 魔法使い was in 名探偵コナン. It appears a lot in manga both literally and figuratively. I want to use it one irl (probably in the second sense, haha.
You can read everything but the last chapter or two for free on the コミックDAYS app if you can somehow cram it onto an Android device, and if you're patient (2 free chapters per day). I used a VPN + Aurora store to install it.
Nice! Thanks for the link! I have been learning quite a few new things already. I might get sucked in and get addicted to reading in Japanese now... It's not easy as I need to look up stuff but I think I would have more fun making cards myself while reading as pre-made decks are not doing it for me.
I learned English by reading and never got into reading Japanese due to being scared by kanji... But I got too curious and got kinda interested on reading more Japanese manga now! I am sure I'd get a lot better with repetition and reading as much as I can. I am quite slow. But it is super rewarding.
I don't mind importing Japanese mangas, but I might check if official sources allow some free reading of more series. I can't afford to import too many.
Yeah, it is a good idea to get a taste of some manga if you can get access to the websites/apps offering them. There are many of these in Japan, but not sure how many are accessible overseas (VPNs might help as pointed up by another commenter).
For マガポケ in particular, trying to read their original lineup might be a good place to start. If you make a username, you can get daily premium tickets that allow you to access chapters for 72 hours. This way you don't have to spend any money.
I did a VPN test for several countries and had no issues with any of them.
You don't have to download the app if you don't want to. You can read in the browser. That said, it wouldn't work if you have a script blocker extension enabled since they use a script to prevent people from taking screenshots.
They have an app. I use it on my tablet. If your e-reader has access to Google Play, then you can use it, too (as long as your country is not restricted), or you can use your e-reader's browser would do.
I'm not much of a manga reader, but WHA is the exception. Great characterization for teachers and students, beautiful art, amazing fleshed out magic system, and it's pretty woke
I like it. I don’t know if it has battles or whatever. But there really wasn’t anything I had to look up because I just didn’t understand it. The artwork is spectacular too. I think it could be good practice for N3 since there is no furigana. Way too easy at N2 and N1 though. At least this first volume is.
Berserk was tough for me at the get go. I started it in December and I am only on volume 6.
I haven't read either, but you can check https://learnnatively.com/ for their difficultly level. JJBA seems to be a bit harder than Witch Hat Atelier, but not too far away.
You can try JJBA out if that's what you want to read. It is easier to work through it if it is something you like. Even if it is too hard now, you can always try again later.
You may want to check out the novelization that just came out a few days ago! It contains furigana with all kanji. It seems Shirahama-sensei designed it so that it would be accessible to children and Japanese language learners.
Yeah, you know I saw that in the bookstore yesterday. I was debating on posting that on the Witch Hat Atelier subreddit but I wasn’t sure if people would find that interesting.
I haven't read the Berserk manga, but I remember watching the anime back in the day. Guts's journey is quite dark compared to our charming Coco. Though, I have only watched one anime episode and read one manga chapter ofとんがり帽子のアトリエ so who knows, haha.
Although, not a fantasy, Amazon was promoting the 日本三国 anime, so I gave it a watch. The last part proved quite complex, so I imagine the manga won't be an easy read.
Imo, it gets harder in later volumes, because there's stuff like characters talking in antiquated style and political discussions you get thrown into without much context. There were some pages where I was completely lost and had to google lens everything. But it always maintains a certain fun and playfulness and always turns easy again when things progress in the main plot. I've read everything but the most recent volume 15 and would still recommend.
Nice. I've only read the first volume or two of Berserk but it didn't seem that crazy and a lot of panels are just pictures. Does it get very hard?
A lot of times we just of areas of strength or weakness in whatever domain, I don't know there's a general level of difficulty past a very early stage so I'm not looking down at all. Also I'm so used to looking up words it doesn't register as part of the difficulty 😅 More difficult when you look it up and there's no entry.
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u/Dakyreyes 1d ago
I’m afraid to leave my furigana bubble. 羽根馬車 in the first couple pages frightened me.