10+ Easy Japanese Books to Skyrocket Your Japanese
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Loading... - Latif Tanjung
- 06 Mar 2023
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I studied Japanese with this one goal in mind:
To visit a 満喫 (まんきつ, manga cafe).
Although the task seemed overwhelming (those two-dimensional pretty boys, though!) I found that increasing reading proficiency is surprisingly easy.
And even if you’re not the biggest fan of manga, there’s a whole other world of awesome reading material that’ll get your Japanese where you want it to be!
The Pitfalls of Learning with Romaji
So Japanese isn’t the easiest language to crack…
Learning three alphabets may feel an enormous task, which makes ロマジ (romaji) all the more tempting. Romaji is when the Latin (or Roman) alphabet is used to represent the Japanese writing system. Romaji may seem like an easy way to kickstart learning Japanese now, but it will quickly become an enemy to any Japanese learner.
Romaji can prove to be more detrimental as your studies progress as it limits your potential study resources, causes mispronunciation and misspellings and most importantly, romaji will be completely useless within Japan.
Most Japanese textbooks and lesson material will use Japanese script, and expect their readers to know at least hiragana. Popular textbooks like Genki will have text in romaji and hiragana, then slowly integrate kanji as lessons progress.
In contrast, a textbook that just uses romaji will not teach you different kanji, which can lead to some serious confusion later. For example: 行った (went) and 言った (said) are written different in kanji, but are spelled the same in romaji. So did Thomas go or speak? Another example is ame ga suki desu. Do you like rain (ame, 雨) or candy (ame, 飴)? Although the context can be implied in conversation, it can be a bit more difficult when you’re reading the sentence by itself. You’ll run into this scenario a lot, so knowing kanji becomes essential.
Another reason why learning how to use the Japanese writing system is so important is because romaji often omits vowels and misspells words. What’s wrong with the name “Tokyo?” It’s misspelled. In Japanese, Tokyo would be spelled “Toukyou.” This is important, because when you search for the proper kanji for words and names, you’ll need to know the appropriate spelling. Likewise, the long “ou” and “uu” vowel sounds will make your pronunciation clearer and more natural.
Finally, if you’re in Japan, knowing real Japanese script will be the most helpful as romaji most likely won’t be used on maps, in books or in that text message your cute language partner just sent you.
Our Easy Japanese Book Recommendations
Now that you understand the Japanese written system and why you shouldn’t give in to romaji, it’s time to pick up a book and dive into Japanese literature! Reading children’s books and manga are a great way to start warming up to reading Japanese. As you look at children’s books, you should familiarize yourself with Japanese sentence structure. If you’ve never read manga before, then you might want to look into a manga guide like Japanese the Manga Way. It will teach you everything you need to know from the layout of panels to casual/spoken Japanese and useful grammar. Read More…
