One of the biggest challenges for those starting to learn Japanese is developing the reading habit. Many beginners get stuck because they don’t know where to start, fall into boring textbooks, and quickly become discouraged.
If you’ve tried reading textbooks in Japanese and found everything artificial, full of dialogues that no one uses in real life, don’t worry: the problem is not with you, but with the method.
The question “What to read in Japanese?” is very common among students. And the answer is simple: read about topics that interest you. This is what will really accelerate your learning and keep you motivated.
Table of Contents
Developing the Habit
Traditional textbooks, made only for tests like the JLPT, usually use a language that doesn’t appear in everyday life. Therefore, when you try to read a real website or book in Japanese, you get that feeling of “I don’t understand anything.” It’s normal.
How to choose what to read in Japanese
- Think about your hobbies and interests: do you like anime, manga, cooking, traveling? Look for texts and websites about these topics.
- Start with simple materials: children’s manga, blogs, texts with audio, or easy news websites.
- Use recommended reading lists: in this article, we have separated several options for websites and books in Japanese for beginners.
Tips for developing the reading habit in Japanese
- Vary the types of material: try blogs, comics, easy books, websites about your hobbies.
- Read a little every day, even if it’s just 5 minutes.
- Don’t worry about understanding everything; the important thing is to create frequent contact.
- Mark new words and phrases, but without overwhelming yourself.
Below we have a video that will help you delve deeper into this topic:
Learn by reading Manga
One of the most popular reading formats among those who end up developing an affection for Japanese culture and language. Manga are Japanese comic stories, and as expected, they are a very accessible resource for those who want to start reading in Japanese.
In addition to their ease of reading, as they have an image, scene, drawn for each action and dialogue of the characters, greatly facilitating the interpretation of the narrative. Consequently, improving your Japanese.
Reading in Japanese with Light Novels
Another reading format for those who are fond of fiction, romance, and adventure. Novels are books that tell the narrative of a character without the use of images, unlike manga. The advantage of starting to read novels is that you train a fairly advanced text interpretation skill in Japanese.
Novels narrate actions, movements, ideas, thoughts, in other words, they develop an exceptional capacity for interpretation and knowledge of vocabulary and structures.
Also read: Learning Japanese with light novels
Learn Japanese with Books
It may seem obvious, but there are fantastic books that are only available in Japanese, books for example on personal development written by Japanese authors that do not have translations in other languages.
In this context, we know that books in general deal with various issues, technology, health, finance, etc. And if you are someone who loves to acquire knowledge through books, reading in Japanese is hitting a rabbit with one blow. After all, in addition to absorbing knowledge, you will improve your Japanese.
Visual Novels
Visual novels are narrative games with an image that represents the scene and text below. They are games that usually tell romance narratives, with alternative endings that vary according to your dialogue choices.
It is a great reading resource, as visual novels usually do not have Furigana (the reading in Kana of the text), which trains your ability to read Japanese kanji.
Also read: Do you know what a Visual Novel is?
Blogs and News Sites
Blogs and news sites usually cover various social and everyday topics. This makes them an excellent way to improve your reading in the language, being practically the gateway for many to start reading Japanese due to their ease of access and the content available within a blog.
There is even a Japanese news site created specifically for beginners of the Japanese language, News Web Easy Japan; this site even includes readings in Furigana for the kanji, serving as a gateway for those who are starting to learn Japanese.
Conclusion
In summary, starting to read Japanese is not as difficult as it seems; initially, you will struggle to interpret some texts, however, as you start to read and learn words and structures from these easier texts, they will become easier.
One suggestion is also to read in Japanese what you have already read in Portuguese, as you will already know what the story is about and how it unfolds, focusing only on connecting the meaning of those texts with what you already know.
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