I'm being forced to do this because there are some incredible manga that have no existing fan translations that I know of or any localizations and I just can't go my entire life without reading them it would drive me insane.
Okay so I’ve been wanting to learn Japanese for a while now, and I did kinda start learning it but I didn’t really know where to start, and this is seriously the first actually helpful video I’ve watched so thank you
Except there was no mention of learning how to speak or Japanese culture and customs. Oh wait it actually says in the title, how to READ Japanese. His points are perfectly sound, I don't know what else you expected.
@@C-Jay7 Nono don’t get me wrong. He is totally correct but I don’t see the point of the video. I thought it’s common Notlage that you have to leaning a language to read it but I thought he might give us a different way to do it. Even if it’s just an easy way to know what a kanji means or something
5 and a half years of this being uploaded later... And this is probably still the most informative video on learning Japanese via self study I have come across...
Japanese, and indeed any language, is like Gurren Lagann: it starts of slow and hard, but once you get the grammar down, you'll start making associations and seeing patterns in the vocabulary you're learning and it'll become easier and easier to learn new words. Just because you don't know say, 10,000 words, doesn't mean you don't know Japanese: the first 500 of those words are so much more important and harder to learn than the 9500 that one would learn after. A person who knows 10,000 words would not be perceptibly less fluent than someone who only knew 8000 or even 5000 words, especially if that person is creative enough to use those words in ways that account for the gaps in their knowledge. Put simply: wordcount levels are bullshit and you can't count on the scouter to measure how good someone is at Japanese.
Couldn't agree more :) I should've clarified, I actually linked to a study of sorts, it compiled novels, newspapers and transcripts in Japanese to see which words were most common and made up what percentage of used Japanese; if my memory serves me it was 500 words make up about 50%? 1000 words about 70%, and 10,000 about 98%. That's why I included word counts, not because I'm some textbook nerd haha If I was I couldn't just crammed words back in America and never came here; there's significantly more to a language than word counts. That being said, this is a video for people who merely want to comprehend what they're reading. That, unforuntely, includes cramming word meaning and definitions and not necessarily practicing them spoken. I have several videos teaching my method's of actually learning the Japanese language, this is a "cheat code", per-say, that I used to help me read much more difficult reading materials than I previously was able to. ^_^ But if you have any tips for people reading this on the Japanese learning subject as a whole, the comments are open!
@@zulanova1209 maybe, but for me I couldnt wrap my head around it then I found this other source and I learned it in an hour or so (hiragana that is) then I learned katakana the next day from the same source. To be honest though I think it depends on how you learn things like this. Where I went (Learn Hiragana: Tofugu's Ultimate Guide) they have these clever little pictures that link each character (its hard to explain) but anyway yeah may seem sort of childish but that helped me a lot
@@gustavoo9592 hm I guess just keep practicing, try to join a discord or some sort of online group of others who know or are learning Japanese, im not in any anymore but I used to be and it was helpful. And yeah just keep practicing and try to use what you learned by talking to people, or reading and writing stuff, thats all I can think of. good luck with your learning
Hi! I just started to learn Japanese. And now I'm learning hiragana. But after I learned it I will be able to read out the sounds (from a book or manga) BUT I won't understand it.. I'm I right? After learning hiragana and katakana I should learn vocabulary? Please tell me if I'm wrong! Thank you!
+Foster Annie That sounds like a good plan Foster! I learned Hiragana first, and THEN started my journey into grammar and vocabulary. Only after I got comfortable with the hiragana and the basics, did I even start learning Katakana myself.
i swear chad i started this at the start of February and ive gotten to the hiragana, katakana, etc i have to go through the horror of memorizing the words but its worth it we’re almost there
A nice bit of encouragement honestly. Sometimes reading through basic things like Yotsuba and struggling to understand anything is disheartening, but it's good to hear everyone has been through that. I know Hira and Kata and some Kanji, now reading through Tae Kim's guide. At least 1h of study a day.
Tirasangue everyone, whether native or just fluent now, started learning the abcs. No one is born reading Yotsuba, and eventually we all struggle through them :) the people who get fluent however are the ones who stick to it and never give up. That’s the only difference!
when I started reading yotsubato I knew zero katakana ,zero kanji, zero grammar and just a few heragana,and it took me half an hour to read just one sentence,but I knew I will only get better, now after 10 months I have read 4 novels and 2 manga.So just do it and keep at it , and if its too dificult just stay with it and do simpler stuff like genki or whatever and you will only get better
Tip for those who are lazy to study japanese like me is to just translate the words with google translate the camera scan option and copy all those english translation and write it on the book with pencil not pen so you can erase it then boom you can read it in english I know it sounds hard and very time consuming but atleast its easier than studying japanese for a whole two years or more
Step one? Check ! Alright that's awesome, maybe it's gonna be easier than I thought :D Step two? It's ok, I can learn grammar, this will actually be fun, I love linguistics it's gonna be interesting... Step three? FUUUUUUUUCK... 300-400 words? Really? Why can't I learn those while reading the book? Shiiiiii.... Ok I'll do it ! Thanks for the great advices, they all are so reasonable and motivating. Almost as if I made that video in the future, telling me I can do it.
@@ThatsMyChad My project to go to Japan has waned, so my motivation has as well. I still tried to learn the grammar with Tae Kim's method 3 years ago and made great strides but if it's not maintained regularly it fades as well. I then tried reading 2 mangas, I decided for dragon ball (knowing it so well) and Yotsuba because someone recommended it as the vocabulary is simple. I failed at both, couldn't get past the first 5 pages for many reasons. I've learned German since instead, which in Europe is a lot easier to practice, and now can read German comics without too much frustration. I've decided that if I'm to retake Japanese, it will be when I go there. A friend of mine has learned that way in only a month, so all the more reason. Sorry to disappoint you, I have too few ties to Japan to even keep me thinking about learning it nowadays.
@@SurprisedSniper420 Italian too btw. But those are much easier to learn when you already know a few European languages. It's nothing like learning a language from another language group entirely. Btw stay away from learning Kanji before you can read in hiragana first, that didn't make it any easier and I forgot most of what I leaned already. I'm sure my motivation to pick up where I left off would rekindle if I were to start reading manga again. But life is so unpredictable and passions oscillate quickly :D
Me: Okay Japanese time! Him: You have to learn hiragana and katakana Me: hfff okay *A month later* Me: FINALLY DONE YASSS CELEBRATION TIME *Watches the video again* *Says I did it everytime he mentions hiragana and katakana he: grammar me : okay *goes and opens the sheet of grammar on Ibooks. *Reads the paragraphs filled with nothing.* WTH NOW I HAVE TO LEARN CHINESE!!!😂😂😂
I started learning kanji and vocabulary with wanikani 20 days ago. I already know 84 kanji and 152 vocabulary words. The 3 first levels are free and are very fun! I'll DEFINITELY check out the grammar guide! That's something wanikani doesn't teach, i think.
WK is super good! I'm actually friends with the duder's at Tofugu. I've been meaning to do a review but I just never got to it haha They use the same method that Heisig pioneered but with their own twist.
If I’m already called a weeb without knowing Japanese I can imagine what is next and I Am gonna ve called a weeb by everyone but it’s gonna be worth it
Hey Chad!! 初めまして I really just started learning Japanese. I know hiragana (I still mess some up on occasion), and I am learning katakana and some kanji. I am also working on learning greetings and some vocab. I have been watching some other RU-vid channels about learning Japanese, but I am SO glad I found your channel. I really like how you talk about your experiences learning the language. That is very refreshing and helpful. I like learning from native speakers, but they never really talk about the journey of learning a language. I ordered よつば and I look forward to using it as a learning tool for reading. I have watched several of your videos and look forward to watching more. I also appreciate that you put together a playlist of Japanese music... I plan on playing that as well. Keep up the great work!!
for people that don't wanna watch the video. First step get a foundation 300-500 words and some grammar don't care how. Then get a really easy book or manga read extensively then intensively and one more time extensively for fun. I am around somewhere around 1k words in reading anyway idk exactly because I learned through listening and never kept track in any sort of means. Anyways the hard part for me is finding material to read that is easy anything used for native content seems to need an extra 1000 words or something and are very hard to read but there isn't much free easy reading content that I want to read I know it exists I just have to find it
Listen i read a manga called gunka no baltzar its in japanese i dont know hardly any words ik like 20 thats it, i only know how to speak it i dont know a damn word in actuall japanese so i cant read it. And yes i read it i say its a pretty damn good anime but i just look at the pictures thats it it works for me. Im still waiting for it to be published in english they havent goten the licensing yet.
I just want to ask a question how long did it take you to be bale to read manga because I want to know how long it took you yourself to do it to make myself do it and actually feel like I'm going to make progress
It would all be the same, however you won't have the added benefit of pictures for context, so you'd really need to take your time with the grammar to be absolutely sure who's talking about what (since in Japanese if a subject or topic was already mentioned, it's often dropped completely and it's presence is implied).
I just got a manga and took one look and it just looked so overwhelming, but man, this video got me hyped to just pick up my manga and read. I want to understand it so badly!
david shannon Thanks David! Happy to help whenever I can! Don't hesitate to ask any questions you might have, I'm not an expert but I'm walking the language learning path same as everyone! haha
I got a question. For listening to Japanese (that being anything to listing to anime or conversation). What is a good method? I can see learning the gammer being one, but what other would be good to do? Will you make another video just for listing to Japanese.
ilovepie990 I should do a video for just learning Japanese in general, as this one is just for one facet of the language :P But if you want to work on listening comprehension, here's what I do! 1. Japanese Podcasts: full 30-60 minute episodes of just Japanese people talking. You can listen to them by changing your country in the itunes podcast alley, and just download one you like :) 2. Japanesepod101.com: they are free, and have probably the largest collection of Japanese audio on the internet (That I've seen). Also, great lessons too. 3. Conversationexchange.com: this is how I got all of my Japanese pen-pals before I actually made friends in Japan. You just search which language you're learning, what country or even city you want them to live in, and then type in what language you speak. It'll connect you with native speakers in Japan that you can then add on LINE or Facebook, and you can talk via voice chat or video call or skype :) It was very useful for me! I don't recommend anime, since NO ONE talks like how 90% of anime characters speak haha Plus, you don't want subtitles, your brain will default to the english subs, and when you read one of the words in english your brain will wait until it hears it in the anime and make you think you're understanding. How do I know this? Watch an anime with those english subs on, then again with them off, you'll see you understand far less then you thought. It may be good if you want to work on your informal Japanese, but if you're not that advanced stick to drama's and podcasts. OH! and Japanese RU-vidrs, my favorite is PDRあん！
Thanks you for the tip. Every helpful. I don't know if I could do #3, I would feel nervous doing so. Maybe when I start to feel more comfortable I will but for now, I will stick with no. 1 and no. 2.
I've been studying Japanese for about 1 and a half years now and I just got the よつばと！Manga, I feel like the hardest part is that the grammar is so different from what we use in the classroom.
It can be tricky, certain grammars. Especially if you're only coming from classroom Japanese which tends to only be so helpful in the real world. I'd recommend supplementing your classroom studies with your own to speed up the learning process if you're interesting in getting to the point where you can read a Yotsuba easy!
First, you should learn the alphabet, which obviously is very important, secondly try to read a basic manga in English or a regular book in English, thirdly maybe you should try and speak some English and then repeat but keep and keep reading and speaking more advanced vocabulary
I've watched so many videos that focus on learning Japanese because I've spent about a year studying and have very minimal progress. This video definitely gave me advice that I can see myself applying and I see working for me. So thank you so much for this
All manga has all 3; hiragana, katakana, and kanji. I found a breakdown awhile back of the percent of usage of all three and I remember it going Hiragana, katakana, then kanji, but honestly you can't read any of these without knowing all the kana, and then probably 500 kanji. I know 1050 kanji right now and I still see kanjis I don't know often even in Yotsuba.
@@ThatsMyChad hey thanks for your reply. Lots of good advice on your video. The only thing I would disagree on but I can understand is about taking notes and learn the vocabulary and grammar from the book. As being 4 years. Ago I understand why you say that as getting manga wasn't easy. But now there is コミックシーモア which is by far the best place to get E-manga. It is so cheap and it has a point system that makes it cheaper and they offen discount 20 to 30 percent. This makes buying manga so much easier and with that you can buy a serious at a low cost and learn a lot of the vocabulary and grammar naturally. As a lot of words and sentences are repeated so much you would be able to understand with out noticing.
@@narsplace I actually didn't know that resource weirdly! But thanks for adding it to the comments so other passers by can find it! I'll heart that message so it stays near the top! Anytime I can share a new resource or opinion for newbies I'm happy to get it out there! Thanks for adding to our little community my dude! :D
@@ThatsMyChad That would be great. He is the link www.cmoa.jp/ to the website if you like to cheack it out and do review on it, depending on your schedule. Being a Japanese website it does have stuff that westerners may not be use to seeing but IMO definitely great for getting Japanese manga. Anyway thanks for the heart. Japanese people make great friends and such wonderful people.
I've been studying Japanese for 5 months, but I don't see a lot of progress, I know around 40 kanjis, all hiragana and katakana, around 210 words. And when I'm reading something or seeing a video (all these things in japanese) I just don't understand, maybe I understand around 3%. Please help me, what i have to do to improve? (English is not my first language, I'm still learning, but I hope you can read and get what im talking about). Thank you!
This is a surprisingly useful video for people who are into anime and want to start out. I definitely agree with starting with learning the kana. I would recommend learning them really well. If you go on google and search ひらがな練習プリント (lit: hiragana practice sheet) and カタカナ練習プリント (lit: katakana practice sheet), you will find a website for children to learn the kana. You can print the pdf and practice writing the kana. Genki also has a kana table, but it requires using flash, which means it probably won't work (flash has become obsolete for ages). Tae Kim is a good free resource for basic grammar. Actual books like Genki can be helpful. There is recently another one called Japanese from Zero, which seems do a good job at teaching the language. There is also Kodansha's a dictionary of basic japanese grammar. よつばと is incredibly easy to read, even for those who know very little Japanese. It's a great starting point for people new to the language.
Super useful brotha. Trying to read One Piece in Japanese because I don’t want to take my Japanese college classes on zoom. Gonna put these tips to work
I'm a month into learning Japanese and I just picked up the first 14 volumes of Yotsuba. Currently pretty solid in Hiragana, but my Katakana is still kinda shaky and I've barely touched Kanji. I'll try this method then get back at you and tell you how it went!
This video is great! Thank you!! Can I ask why you recommend reading through without translating first? Is it for reading speed and familiarity with hiragana/katakana?
Thanks for making this video, guy! I've been dying to read Dragon Ball in Japanese since every official release of the manga in English is plagued with censorship and weird alterations to the story.
I have a video about a keyboard on any phone that lets you draw the kanji you see. Use that to search for the word in a Japanese dictionary app :) Hope this helps!
@@ThatsMyChad the manga I read have furigana but still some of the sentence that I search on websites and Google translate isn't that accurate with the story like 箱に仕込めば
Jisho is a really good dictionary app too. You can search using hiragana, katakana, or romaji. You can also draw the kanji to search. It's free in ios, dunno about android.
I agree with the idea that you should jump into it after you're intermediate, or upper beginner. If you hesitate too much, you just never do anything at all.
I definitely got some useful tools to use out of this video. My motivation for learning Japanese has somewhat lessened because I want to wait until I get done with college and hopefully get the chance to move to Japan. To then really take it up to learn the language since I would be immersed around Japanese. Without that immersion part and this is only reflective of my own learning ability. I find it hard to remember words and the grammar if I am not using it like all those years I spent learning Spanish in highschool......yep, forgotten all of it. I still watch a ton of anime though and there are parts of phrases that I can understand before the subtitles pop-up and I think I will get to that point eventually when I can view something in Japanese without subtitles.
I going to drive right in once summer start and work hard (I don't have a job, so I can but I can't say the same for you). I hoping to move to Japan but I want o pay all of college load off first.
T. Ollie There's an old proverb that says "A year from now, you'll wish you started today." Let me tell you, as an english speaker you cannot be dropped into an Asian based language and pick it up like you can romantic languages. I was there for a month my first trip and picked up close to NOTHING outside my studying. I have a friend actually who has lived there for going on 3 years and he doesn't speak a lick of the language. Immersion only works if the language is similar to your mother tongue, or you're studying it there. I went to a language immersion school there called Genkijacs and I learned at about triple the rate I did back here, it's worth checking out if you ever get some free time during summer or winter vacations! And lots of school allow study abroad there, so you can still be getting your college education being paid for by loans, while you work on the language today!
I get it and you make a good point. College load is always a factor. How much that I feel that I can do is solely based on my perspective. I will say though if at some point that I change my mind then for sure I will be studying as much Japanese as I can, outside of the Japanese classes that I am already taking.
No worries man! Just trying to encourage as much as I can :) before I went to Japan I did a college load with 3 jobs so I understand! Study hard and bike harder!
I only do some hiragana but I gave up I don’t have motivation ( I only know some of the alphabet thingy the A, KA, SA, and TA that’s all............ ;-; oh my soul hurts)
It can be overwhelming for sure, but if you give up even those first 5 you learned are now time wasted right? Id rather you be able to say you didn't waste your time on this and follow through but I understand too ^_^
I came here to this video after getting discouraged over a manga called Kaze Hikaru. It's a REALLY good and under appreciated manga.....I've read many of the volumes in English, but now because it isn't so popular, the English volumes maybe only come to the U.S. Once a year...I've literally been waiting years to finish this manga (because it's so dang good!!!)
Can you try the reading manga thing if you have very little vocabulary ik phrases and some sentence structures but I only know hiragana and very little kanji I have a manga on the way cause I bought it originally to learn words so will it benefit me or should I learn more vocabulary first I bought dragon ball issue one because dbz got me to like anime and Japanese culture so I thought I’d be most interested in it plus it helps cause ik generally what should happen ig
You for sure can! You probably won't understand most of what you are reading, but reading skills are just as important as comprehension! When you read, you're also learning how to speed read, skim paragraph's for meaning, get acquainted with kanji and hiragana more, you'll learn how to decode, see how kanji reading's work in context, You'll learn sentence structure; all sorts of things! So yes definitely read even when you don't know enough words to understand :) I have a video on this if you'd like to watch! It's about reading even when you are not fluent!
I have started to learn this languege and i love doing that sort of thing I'm 13 and i am from Holland Netherlands Europe english is my second languege and japanese will be my third i have an adventage of being a growing kid so i can pick up things and remember them must faster than adults And i want to thank you for the tips and help I am planning on taking your advise taking japanese courses reading manga and trying to understand anime fluently I am not about to give up and i want to know how your japanese journey turned out, since i am 2 years late to this video Also if you are still learning i recommend Duolingo! But you're right i have started to learn japanese for about a month and have learned words that are being used frequently when i watch anime i hear some of those words and actually get it! Anyway i have been typing way too long and you're probably not reading thia anyway But thank you!
Do you read english translation of the manga to "check" if you understand the sentence correctly? The reading manga once and then go back to understand is really helpful. I'm gonna try it next time.
I don't check it with manga translations because often those are nativized (put more into English manners of speech so it won't line up with the Japanese). I use dictionaries mostly.
+Kenesu-kun Of course! Here's a good breakdown on the words by frequency, and some explanation of the method! www.offbeatband.com/2010/12/the-most-commonly-used-japanese-words-by-frequency/
You can find lots of them all over; wikipedia, lots of individual resources or Japanese learning sites and books. This one was just from a blogpost awhile back I read!
@@ThatsMyChad Check this out, has SOOO many manga and its legit and free I DO warn you however, there are graphic (S3x) manga in there too, but it does cover basic drama based ones.... I been using it for a few weeks and my reading has been speading up a lot and my vocab is moving on up :)
@@ThatsMyChad ayo coming back to this after I picked it up again a few weeks ago. Hiragana and katakana was a breeze with anki, now then onto the grammar 👌 Tis good, thanks
Hey Chad, Just wondering, in tae kims guide to Japanese grammar, did you finish just basic grammar lessons or did you also finish Essential grammar lessons, and thankyou for this video XD
